Here are my thoughts in a nutshell (well, as much as a nutshell as I can make it).  A big problem for SPs is that American society accepts divorce but doesn’t really accept remarriage (or new SOs) or SPs.  I guess I would ask your SO why he got divorced from his wife?  If people are going to divorce and then hang out like they are still married, then why did they get divorced to begin with, and pls., none of that “it’s for the children’s sake” BS.  No, it isn’t.  If the children were that important, #1, mom and dad would have stayed married and sucked it up themselves for their children vs. divorcing, getting remarried or involved with others, and then expecting their new partners to suck it up and take it for someone else’s children.

Some also try to claim that when parents hang out together all the time and go to family events and so on, they are just being “good parents.”  No, they are trying to have their cake and eat it too.  I guess what I get so !@#$!@ about, is that why can divorced parents get away with just about anything they want, play whatever card they want, and yet SPs, who have done no wrong or harm to DH’s family are expected to suck it up and take it while mom and dad play fake/ nice for everyone!?  What the H-?  Who wants to be someone else’s sloppy seconds.  Not me.  Not anyone, I would imagine.

Unfortunately, some people appear to have difficulty distinguishing parents from a couple.  Parents are just that to a child.  They are mom and dad.  A couple, on the other hand, is SO and SO, spouse and spouse.  Might seem almost too obvious to state, but apparently a lot of people out there think that divorced parents have every right to act like SO and SO and spouse and spouse whenever THEY feel like it, or pretty much whenever anyone else in the family feels like it.  No.  Your BF needs to make up his mind who his #1 SO is.  If it is you, then you and he are joined at the hip and not him and BM.  When he and BM divorced, they gave up the right to be considered a couple.  Still parents, yes; still a couple, no.  Again, I just get so !@#$! pissed that people seem to think that when I signed on to marry someone with children, I was also signing on to have my marriage to my husband revoked any time anyone in DH’s family felt like it!!  No, I did not.

Don’t let anyone, anyone tell you otherwise.  DH is wanting to have his cake and eat it too, and you are supposed to just settle for sloppy seconds!?  And, to make matters worse, if you don’t, you run the risk of becoming the dreaded Evil SM.  No one acts like it’d be nice if you give in once and a while here and there out of the kindness of your heart.  No, instead, most have the thought that you’re a be.atch if you don’t vacate your seat anytime BM snaps.  I’ve had enough of that BS.  Your DH needs a kick in the caboose.  Pretty much every woman in the US wants to be wife or SO #1 when she is involved with someone, and every woman in the US has every right to expect such.  Again, ask him why he got divorced, and then ask him who is his #1.  Watch his actions more than his words.  Decide if this is what you want for your future 10 years down the road or make an exit plan.   Actions speak louder than words.

It seems your BF uncoupled, but hasnt divorced his wife's family.

While it's a plus to be on good terms with the FORMER inlaws, a man that involved with the past isnt really emotionally available to move forward. We often see stories on this site that are variations on this theme - men who are still engaged with their exes, or enmeshed with their kids - but one thing is clear: they havent done the work necessary to be done with what was so they can embrace what's next. They arent even dating material, but that doesnt stop them from seeking out female companionship.

Listen to your gut, and stop accommodating his neurotic behavior. You are not wrong at all, nor are you a B, or insecure. You're recognizing that this man is indeed a cake eater, and you deserve better. Moving in was a mistake; it meets his needs, while yours are rejected. He is not fully invested in a relationship with you; he just likes having a SO to warm his bed on his terms. Please draw a boundary, move out, and give him space to straighten his warped self out. You deserve to be in a relationship with a man who wants to fully integrate your two lives.

He is NOT available for a relationship with you.  You are right, he is enmeshed with them.  No American woman in her right mind would put up with it and this site exists because of men like this.  I'd pack my stuff and leave this all behind.  You deserve better and he needs to remarry BM.  Those poor kids are going to be really screwed up when they get older and don't realize that when you commit to one person, that means all the time, not when its convienent.  

Hun it sounds like you're going from one divorced daddy to the next raising kids and being a live in nanny with benefits.  Why are you choosing this life for yourself? You say you're upset that he started this journey with you with so much baggage but where is your responsibility here? How many red flags do you need?  

The poster who said he needs to remarry BM is right and that's probably what the family is aiming for hence the exclusion of the new SO and you most of the time.  You can't win this one.  

I had a similar situation with SO.  He has a friendly relationship with his ex.  He lives on the same damn street as his former in-laws and works for his former father-in-law.  He's good friends with the former BIL and SIL.   After we'd been dating a few months and it became apparent that he was going to (and expected to go to) the ex's family's functions, I told him he needed to put up some boundaries or I was gone.  He can't help that he lives near the out-laws, nor did I expect him to quit his job or give up his good friendships with the ex's siblings, but I drew the line at attending every pumpkin carving, Thanksgiving, birthday party, shower, Christmas party, etc., etc., etc. with the ex's family.  And I was invited - I think it would have been worse if I was not.  Faced with the choice of boundaries or me leaving, he chose to put up the boundaries I requested.  I didn't ask him to sever relations with the ex's family (the circumstances made that extremely difficult), but I did need him to cut back a lot, and he did.  

You're obviously not happy with the status quo, so something has to give.  Maybe it's time to tell him he can't have a separate life with the ex and her family while having a relationship wtih you.  If he chooses them, your relationship is just not meant to be, and better to find out sooner rather than later.

Everyone.  If they were that interested in the kids they would stay together.  I would not want to attend family events with BM and her family.  If you don’t end this, you will be doing this for the rest of your life or marriage.  Kids events, sports, I can see. But Holidays,  have to have your own, showers, who cares. This has to be settled now, before you wast more of your life .

"Right now he's defaulting to what was normal and easy."  Yeah, and some men continue to do this throughout their entire marriage or union w/SM, as in 5, 10, 20, 25 years.  Same with this line, "Be kind. Patient. Gracious."  This isn't something SPs are told just the first year.  This is something they are told 5, 10, 20, 25 years, and all the while they are bidding their time and waiting to 'finally' be accepted.

You have to decide yourself if he is worth fighting fire with fire, and also, why should you have to coax or over-extend yourself or 'trick' him into seeing you as his #1 SO?  You are living with him now.  I would hope to God that any man would have figured who his #1 SO is by the time he asks a woman to move in with him?

Nonetheless, again, it is your deicsion to make.  And, remember, actions speak louder than words.

And, BTW, you are NOT on equal footing with BM's boyfriend.  Her boyfriend was in the cahoots with BM disrupting bio-dad's and their children's lives.  You are not the family antagonist that he was.  Just because he can't come, it shouldn't mean that you cannot.  This is apparently something the bios came up with, again, to make THEIR own lives "easier."  Looks like they get to do what they want, while you have to settle for whatever they are willing to toss your way.  And, you get to pay the price for BM's affair too, and be put on the same level as her boy-toy.  Nice.  Assine.  The audacity of some people.

If he's worth fighting for, back up, move out and let him rise to the occasion to be worthy of you. That resentment will kill your relationship anyway if nothing gives now.

Of course, you don't want to be a demanding GF laying down the law that he deny his kids of an intact family (even though it's not really intact). So back off and let him come to you and when he does, you negotiate new terms of what you need to go forward. And who knows? Maybe when you back off, you'll find someone who ready for a relationship or you'll just like life without being second fiddle and all that resentment. You don't know what you'll find when you back out a little, but it's worth trying because this isn't working. Good luck!

No one should ever be okay going somewhere their spouse is not welcome. Neither should they ever play couple with their ex. Going to the events is for her and her family, not the kids. It's not his fmaily, she's involved. He's not treating you like the SO.

Not an easy situation. Trust what your gut tells you. Do you want to live being the excluded one as long as you are with him? Do you think he will tone it down?

If you are a serious couple enough living together and are both truly in love, then you should be viewed as his significant other and simply not be excluded from these events. 

If you are that unhappy, maybe move back out to where you lived before?  Who knows? Have an escape plan. Sit down and talk to him about how he would feel if you excluded him from vacations, etc., and how this all makes you feel. Maybe he Will turn it down a notch.

When DH and I were dating and DH lived at the family home, it was always the adult skids that invited DH to ex-inlaw events. I was invited only once and it wasn't enjoyable.

After DH and I were together for quite a while, the adult skids amped up the disrespect by continually not inviting me on vacations with the ex-in laws and DH. DH did attend a vacation across country with all of them, even after saying he asked repeatedly to bring me along and was told by the skids the in-laws said it would not be a good idea and the skids did not want me to go. During this vacation, the skids again tried to break us up.

After that, I pulled back from DH and thought you cannot tell me you love me, blah, blah and keep excluding me because the skids do not like it. I looked into what I thought the future may be like and said this is not for me. My family welcomed him with open arms, why could not his family and extended family done the same? DH invited me to everything else, except events when the skids were around. 

Time went by and DH, who was my BF at the time, began to tell more about how they kept inviting him to dinner, movies, bowling, birthdays, vacations and the list goes on, always making it clear to him I was not to go. DH started to decline these invitations, he even declined an "all expense vacation to a very nice destination" with all the skids and the ex-MIL, as YSS put it.

Advice for you: I knew if I moved into DH's home, and he did ask me, I would be living a life of constant skid, gskid and ex-inlaw crashing all the time. Adult skids treated DH's home as their hotel, party hall rental, outdoor lawn party and crash pad. Even though none of them lived there. It got to the point I hated being there. They went through his things, left messes everywhere, woke us up in the middle of the night, the list goes on. The best thing I could of done is to not move in there, and I did not. Get your own place with DH if you stay with him. 

good luck to you. 

Im in a similar situaiton. My wife doesn't have enough boundaries with her ex nor his family. He comes into our house when picking up and dropping of their kids and she is very friendly/fake with him. He calls her phone to "talk to the kids" daily but its more like to talk to her because half of the time they are already in bed and when they are up they have little interest in talking to him.  They talk about things that have nothing to do with their kids whatsoever, even personal things. She claims to hate the guy and everything he has done to her but I see things otherwise. His parents are divorce as well and are a constant presence in our lives too. His father (Her ex father in law) is overbearing and needs a life and is literally at every event the kids have early and wants to sit besides my wife and talk constantly. All I can say is get used ot it if you don't leave. These people don't change. I have come to the conclusion my wife was not ready for a relationship when we met and still isn't.

Along with what Exjuliemccoy said, I also see this, "You divorce spouses, not families," as yet another convenient excuse for divorced parents to justify whatever action they so choose.  Like I said above, "Why can divorced parents get away with just about anything they want, play whatever card they want, and yet SPs, who have done no wrong or harm to DH’s family are expected to suck it up and take it while mom and dad play fake/ nice for everyone!?"

Is it because ""You divorce spouses, not families"?  Is it because kids are #1?  No, it is because some people want to have their cake and eat it too.  Some people think that they are so important that only their end needs to be catered to.  If the children or other relatives were that important, #1, mom and dad would have stayed married and sucked it up themselves for the family's sake vs. divorcing, getting remarried or involved with others, and then expecting their new partners to suck it up and take it for someone else's family.  A spouse or SO of a divorced parent can only do so much sucking up before they run out of air, you know!

You act like it's not a big deal but I feel like your downplaying your situation. I would feel extremely disrespected if I had been with my boyfriend's for a year, had moved in, was helping with the kids and still wasnt automatically invited to any events he was going to. I've told my boyfriend in the past that if I'm not welcome your not going. I'm not the type of person who feels like we need to do everything together but I don't feel like it's ok to exclude someone in a serious relationship.