I'm copying and pasting my PM to you because I want to see what others think.... am I nuts here?? Maybe?? Because I too, flip flop between wanting to make it work and wanting to throw up my hands.

Ok here goes.

So my DH feels the same way about SD and SS (that I am not warranted in not liking them) and that the stupid shit they have done over the years is fairly normal teenage shit. Is he right? Yeah, for the most part. If I look at the glass half full, I can say that both skids are always very respectful... never raise their voices or cuss or talk back. They say please and thank you and try to act decent. Neither has gotten knocked up, or knocked someone else up (yet) In todays day and age with the mouthy/ nasty heathens that I see at work, I count that as a HUGE plus for them. Sure SD stole from me.. most teenage girls do this crap. Sure SD lies constantly....this is how she was raised by GBM/BM. Sure SS smokes dope and skips school.. but that's what BM2 has allowed. I do have to agree with DH to an extent that a lot of their problems are really NOT 100% their fault. But ALL of the nonsense that has occurred over the past 10 years that I have known DH, has really made me not like them. I don't HATE them (I really don't) I just don't care to be around them. But unfortunately because they are my husbands kids I really don't get the luxury of completely cutting them off. They will ALWAYS be around in the wings.. sometimes quiet, sometimes loud and annoying. I guess you have to take the good with the bad.. for better or worse right?

I tried to explain it to DH like this. Skids are like a hot stove. The first time you put your hand on the damn burner, you're like owwww, man that hurt! So after that, you are much more careful when you are around that stove. Until one day, you get busy or distracted and let your guard down and bam.. you get burned again. Holy shit that hurt, and I'm an idiot for letting that happen AGAIN! Well after the 10th fucking time that you get burned, you don't ever want to use that damn stove again! Only an idiot would go near it at this point!

I DO have to agree with your DH, that it is unfair that he pays 1/2 the bills and you are married. It is his home too and not fair that you are the doorkeeper so to speak. This is why I have never explicitly told DH that skids can not be at our house. That would have to be HIS decision, not mine, because it's his house too. I would be pissed if he told me that my mother was annoying and not allowed to come to our house. Kind of like DH smoking. I don't smoke. People will say OMG you "let him" smoke in your house. My answer is always, well it's his house too. With that being said, I really don't have to say "don't smoke in the house" because I think my DH respects that I DON'T tell him and he just smokes outside or in the garage 99% of the time.

I swear with men that if you tell them to do something (or not do something) there is some switch that gets flipped in their head. They hear the voices of all their little friends over the years telling them they are pussy whipped, and asking them who wears the pants in the family etc. and they just dig their heels in and say.. nope not gonna do it (or I'm doing it anyway). I'm pretty sure this is where your DH is at. You have told him that you don't want skids at your house, his family and friends are telling him that's bullshit and wrong and asking him why he is "letting" you tell him what he can and can not do. I also get that it really must be a tit bite for him that your son lives there and he plays nice with him (for the most part) while his own kids are not allowed there at all. Now with that being said, he's comparing koala bears to porcupines. But still I get his point.

I guess the BIG question is.... do the SKIDS even WANT this "reunification?"?? Or is this something DH is pining for? In your particular case, I feel that your DH is pining for this because he is lazy. It would be easier to have a relationship with his skids if you had an open door policy and they could pop in whenever they felt like it. Right now, having a relationship with skids is work for him. He has to make arrangements to meet them somewhere, pay for lunch, etc. I also feel like your DH is pining for a fairy tale relationship with them. Kind of like my DH. Oh the talk of SD coming for this 3 months. I had to hear about how she's matured so much, how she's doing soooo much better, blah blah blah. Easy to say when she's living 3 states away. But the reality is, not much has changed and DH is seeing that after ONE month of her being back. Which leads me to my suggestion (which I doubt you will like lol)

Talk with DH about letting them back in your home. But BABY steps. Make it clear to him this is not going to be some freaking free for all, where people are dropping in whenever and wherever. That he needs to respect you by letting you know when they are coming. Maybe you can plan to be there at first, give the civil hellos and small talk and then leave, or go busy yourself somewhere else in the house. You will hate every second of it, I promise... I hate every second of it when SD is at my house, but I love my DH more than I'm annoyed by SD... so I try to make it work. I think you feel the same about your DH. My guess is, your DH will tire of this or skids will act the fool and DH will be quickly reminded like a damn cannon ball to the face, why less is better. And SKIDS will be the "bad guys" not you.

Remember this is kind of what I did with SD. I went from trying to tell DH that she was at parties, with boys etc and DH thinking I was just the asshole tattle tale. To radio silence when it came to SD. And sure as shit within 6 months SHE was getting arrested, getting caught in lies etc and SHE was the asshole.

Ugh sorry this is so long and I hope it makes sense. HUGS!!!

Zero - I will never allow Aergia back in my life, I don't care how much she changes and how remorseful she is.
I am sorry that shipped sail... and she's only 17....

but I also know this is SO's daughter, she will always be part of his life, no matter what until he cuts her off out o his own free will, yes he forgets what she did to me, I don't care....I remember....

Thus when the day comes where I live with SO again (currently highly undoubted) Aergia will be welcome, I am mature enough to tolerate her for a couple off hours, through dinner, but belief me bitch will not over night and camp out for days, she will get the hint and see it in my eyes and eff off after dinner

When I met my stepdad I was 15 and quite the little biatch lol I made life HELL for him - coming and going at all hours of the night, bringing random people over to the house all the time, disobeying his rules about smoking in the house (which he paid half the rent with my mom for) and so on... Typical teenage shit but I didn't even think about it or care. He ended up kicking me out a year later, and when I turned 18, I apologized to him because I realized how awful it must have been. He actually told my mom he expected an apology letter from me BEFORE letting me back into his life... and I did it. We've had an awesome relationship ever since.

Skids can grow up and be better people, but they have to prove it... They have to understand that they've done wrong and demonstrate that they've grown, IMO. If I could do it at 18, anyone can do it well into their late teen years... It takes maturity that a lot of skids we hear about on here simply don't have. I wouldn't let them back into my life until they've made it clear that they've changed and they're ready to accept you!

At this point, all those "kids" are adults. It may be entirely possible that some of their youthful self-centered moody teen angst is in the past (though it has been shown on this site that it often persists..lol).

My stance would be this.

DH, these are your kids and if you want to maintain a relationship with them, that's fine. You need to understand that a lot of the behavior you allowed them to exhibit in the past was very hurtful to me. It hurt me to be treated badly but it also hurt that you were not willing to insist on them doing anything differently. As such, I hope you can see how I don't feel it's my place or obligation to apologize to your children and facilitate your relationship with them. If you want to have them in your life, you are welcome to call them, buy them birthday presents, meet them for lunch etc... Right now, I would like you to limit my need to be involved with them. If you want to have them over for a visit, you can do all the planning and work. I will be happy to stay by your side at such an event, but if they aren't able to behave kindly towards me and if you can't stand up for me with them, I will reserve the right to either ask them to leave or leave myself. Again, I want you to have whatever relationship with your own children that you feel you want to have, but I can't just sweep away years of horrible comments from them. I am willing to be civil and see where things go, but you are going to have to do the work on your own end.

Well, I don't think it's up to you to reach out and make amends, however, if your DH wants to do the work to have them over, that would be on him. My guess is, he is not willing to do the work, not the physical hosting and not the emotional work it takes, either, or he would already be doing it.

He wavers back and forth because, although he thinks it would be great to have that family time with his kids and grand kids, he doesn't want to actually make the effort. And he can keep blaming you for it as long as you say they can't come over.

A couple of weekends ago, DH mentioned inviting SD25 over, we haven't seen her for over a year. I said sure, knowing that he would grill out or whatever and none of the hosting would be left to me. SD hemmed and hawed, said she didn't think she had enough gas, blah, blah, whatever, she didn't come (but she did have enough gas to go see her BF in jail that Monday). Anyway, DH thinks SD was hinting about coming over this past weekend but said that he was not interested in invited her.

Sometimes, these things have a way of working out themselves if you step back. So, if you decide to give it a chance, just make sure it is ALL on your DH. Maybe then, he will see how ungrateful his kids are, when it's HIS efforts that get ignored.

Your DH needs to make an effort to parent his kids if he wants to have a relationship with them, not you. If he isn't willing to work at it or if he doesn't make any progress to get them to learn to respect you or your home then it's all on him. I would not re-engage unless you can see change!

I feel for you zero

Of course we only hear the bad stuff... That's what this site is for. In reality, it's gotta be hard to have your kids and your wife not getting along, and it's not easy for our husbands, either.

Could you approach a compromise? ie. I'll try to get along with the stepkids if you try to focus on parenting them to be easier to get along with? Or we do it together - we set some boundaries together and we all try to make things work.

I have, many times, admitted to my own "wrong doings" that I didn't feel were my fault, for the sake of keeping the peace in my marriage. I have also been more giving and done more for my stepdaughter than I feel I need to do, in exchange for my husband stepping up more as a parent who sets rules and diciplines.

It's give and take, and sometimes as a stepparent, you give more than you'd like for the sake of staying happy with your husband. But he has to meet you half-way for this to work.

His response: I'm done talking about it.

See? That is how interested he really is in having them over, which is not all that much.

Most teens do obnoxious things that they grow out of. But all of us have come across obnoxious adults of all ages - so there is no universal truth that everyone eventually grows up to be a decent human being. Most do. Some don't.

I gave my SS31 a second chance after he started having a stable life with a GF that had a home, car, and job (he rarely had any of those), and they had a baby together. That did not have a good ending, but I don't really regret trying ONCE.

What would be INSANE would be to give them another chance. SS and his GF are grown, adult, parents who do not get any more "do overs". They are who they are - and that is people that I do not want in my life.

My DH is free to go see them when he wants. No one who has stolen from me will be allowed in my home EVER again.

There truly is no reason to keep trying to have a relationship with people that you know are toxic aholes.

This is a complicated issue in step life.

Whenever my DH gets all nostalgic mopey about wanting the adult over 30 skids to be allowed to even so much as pull into our driveway for a gift grab or "drop off a photo of grandkids that they forgot to give him" aka piss on my turf....and yes it is a traumatic event to me any time to even think of one of the b$&@hs near my house. Because if I do not exist then surely my home and everything I have worked for to make a place for me and DH here then that all does not exist.

I have told him in the past that if all is to be reconciled then it needs to be in a public neutral place. Not at my home allowing any of them to walk back in pretending nothing ever happened and taking up where they left off. No thank you. I can be adored or ignored from a distance. I don't need it in my face.

From what I see of the relationship he has with them there is nothing that makes me want to participate. Almost anytime he does see them the BM is there. Nope....do not want to hang out at kiddie bounce place with your ex. Nope...do not want to hang out with the abusive DH of YSD. Nope...do not want to go out of my way to see OSD and the GKid I have never met. His relationship with them is what he allows and what he makes it. He is too afraid they will ice him if he puts any boundaries in place. Or heck, maybe he just really doesn't like them enough to bother. Who knows.

I do not care to have any relationship with them five years into the timeline. I just want my holiday joy back. I want my home to be my safe place. So stop allowing driveway gift grabs, etc.

So maybe if you put it to DH that any reconciliation will be at neutral place and go from there, then maybe you will feel better about it all. It will be on him and them where it belongs. They have homes...do they extend warm invites to you and DH as a couple? No.

Oh yeah...and it would need to be a neutral place, at a non holiday time, and not at a grandkids birthday event or such. So in my case it is not going to happen. They are who they are and it has nothing to do with me. They do not know me, never tried to get to know me. They do not even know their own dad, never ask how are you dad?

We were both in a car accident on Sunday evening. Deer jumped in front of us. All airbags deployed, car messed up and maybe totaled. Thankfully we are ok, but really it could have been so much worse. Did any one of them reach out to me to see how I was? No. To DH? Don't know...unlikely.

So do not let DH make you feel bad about banning the skids. If he gives you grief. Say hey DH...invite the kids to the local park for a picnic, everyone bring their own picnic basket and some frisbees to toss. Tell him a date you are avail. He can make it happen or not. No skin off your back.

Let it go and live your life. Easier said than done or we would all not be here on Steptalk.