No, you are NOT crazy. Quite a common thing with SMs is that they are allowed to believe they are. Most times they are outnumbered by DH and Skids - so there MUST be something to the implication that you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Problem is, if you keep adding enough crap to that mole hill it DOES become a mountain. If booting your Skids out creates a more peaceful environment in your home it is worth it. And yes, you may have to leave but given the choice, do you really want to put up with the assaults to your dignity and self respect? Don't allow DH to use his dismissive tactic to get Skids back in the house. Good luck to you.

You cannot do anything about this situation between your DH and his children. I tried....it doesn't work. If they hate their father the way my SK's do they will spend every second of their lives making him suffer up until the day their father puts a stop to it, their father and only their father has the ability to stop what is going on here. Unfortunately for him, the only way he can stop it, is to take a step back from his kids and before he does that he needs to let them know he has taken their punishmment for as long as he is going to, and he has no intentions of spending the rest of his life being punished by them. If he owes them an apology for the way he left their mother or anything else, by all means he should give it, then leave it alone. As long as he takes it though, they will dish it out, so it is all up to him, you have no conttrol here, as I said I tried and I failed. My SK sound exaclty like yours, the best thing I ever did was stop them from ever coming to my home again. I have told my husband what I am telling you, apologise and step away. Sadly for him he has not seen his kids since August last year, but for us, and for me that is a good thing because I no longer have to take their abuse and neither does he, however as I said for him it is a sad thing as they are his kids. However, he failed to teach his children to respect others and now he is paying the ultimate price for that. If your DH continues along the path he is on he too will lose his kids or he will lose you, you cannot continue livig this life and when you pull the plug your DH will be forced to choose, more than likely he will choose you and lose the kids, or, you may not give hima ny choice, you may stay so long that you cannot take anymore and just walk away, in which case he will lose you, but he will ultimately lose someone, these situations always turn out that way. Your DH really needs to see that by allowing his children to disrespect him, you and your relationship he is digging a very large hole for himself and one day he will not be able to climb out of it. But, sorry their is nothing YOU can to change how HE parent's HIS kids. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.

You are dead right in everything you say. I have known all this right from the very beginning, and have tried everything in my power to get DH to realise it. But he is so blind to his kids behaviour he just refuses to see it even though its staring him right in the face. I know when it comes down to the wire he will choose me, but am wondering now whether all this grief is worth it. And I am dreading losing so much respect for him in the mean time that I fall out of love with him, thats the last thing I want but what choice do I have? I swear, men were never meant to be parents. They think theyre the stronger sex but they cant even say no to their children. Go figure.........

Copied and pasted your entire post because I wanted you to read it again. Have a look at what you say. You know he will never ever see his children for what they are - that you cannot change. You say you are dreading falling out of love with him and losing respect for him. Let me say this to you. Do you really respect him NOW, of course you don't. The way he behaves towards his children causes you pain, and you know he knows that, but he just wants his kids to have things the way his kids want them, so he allows you to suffer while he gives his kids what they want. You say SS can come over but just as far as the garage, not inside your home, and DH let's SS inside the home. By doing this your DH supported his son, was ungrateful to you for the fact that you had made some sort of compromise in this situation, and pretty much said stuff you, this is my home and my son and I will let him in if that is what my son wants, and I do not care how you my wife, feels about that, my son's wishes are far more important to me. You compromised, he kicked you in the face. That sweetheart was a total lack of respect for you and your wishes. I am sure this has happened a million times, and yes, when you bring it up he goes silent, that is guilt, he knows you are right, but he doesn't want to discuss it, even if you do....once again, what you want doesn't really matter. He is not showing you any respect as his wife, or even as boarder in what he deems to be his home, he does not care what you want he is only trying to make his kids happy. So if you are worried about falling out of love with him, losing respect for him, just sit back and keep letting him do this to you.

Look, the way I see it is this, and I think I know exactly the situation you are in, it is like this, the people who have caused all this grief are our husbands, they brought their children up to be this way, they have accepted all this disrespect from their children not only for themselves but for their wives as well, and they as long as we let them will continue to do so.

So: Problem NO:1 is the husband/father who allows his children to behave like this and does/says nothing about it, not only does he accept it, but by his silence he encourages it. His children think it is okay to disrespect him and you because dad says nothing, so therefore dad is encouraging and participating in it. You get the brunt of it. Dad sees what is going on, and if only you would shut up and say nothing, there really would not be a problem in this house would there, so it is all your fault. As long as you compromise, say nothing and try to find all the answers to this problem by yourself then we will always have Problem NO:2 - The wife/SO who in loving her husband more than she loves herself, will try for years to fix the problem, to put up with stuff, to try and ignore what is blatantly smacking her in the head, the wife who wants nothing more than for the husband she loves to have a good relationship with his kids, and for his kids to be civil and polite to her in her own home.

I think we all know that until DH sees the situation for what it is, recognises how rude, disrespectful and ungrateful his children are, and demands that they show some basic manners and are polite and respectful to him and his wife then nothing will change.

But do we all know that while we sit back and try to "FIX" this for our DH's, while we put up with this for ourselves, while for example you say to your husband SS can not come past the garage, but when SS does, you say nothing until SS leaves, while you do what I and probably most if not all of us on this site have done at some stage WAIT TILL NEXT TIME to see what happens, then nothing will change. You had every right to say to your DH in front of SS I was willing to compromise and allow your son to come to my home but not past the garage, you agreed to that, and now you have allowed him into my home, do you want to tell him to go or would you like me to do it, because he is not welcome in my home. But because you did not do that, there will be a next time, and a next time, and a next time.

You say you dread falling out of love and losing respect for your husband and I really do understand that, but then you say if he allows his son into the house again you are leaving.............pretty much giving up without the fight don't you think.

You will lose respect for your husband if you continue to allow him to have no respect for YOU and YOUR feelings, and that I think is where most of us have fallen down, we loved them blindly, unconditonally, we had a special kind of love, and we did not want to lose it, but in hanging onto that kind of love, in loving them unconditionally, we lost ourselves, our self respect and our pride, we sat back while some man's kids treated us and our husbands like crap, we sat back while our husband's put the wants of their spoilt brats ahead of our needs and we did it because we loved them.

I think until we start to show some respect for ourselves until we start refusing to be insulted, humilated and disrespected by our husbands and their children, until we love ourselves, we can never truly have the relationship we want and deserve We acted like doormats and our husbands and their kids wiped their feet on us.....whose fault is that, OURS.

If you want to leave then I would understand why, but leave with no regrets, you have nothing to lose now, instead of waiting to see what happens next time...tell your DH that you compromised, he took advantage of your support and understanding, therefore, his son cannot even come into the garage, he cannot come to your home again and if he does, you will tell him to leave. Demand respect from your husband just as he should demand respect from his children. While you (and I) sit back and take this from our husbands we are a big part of the problem. If you as I said want to leave then do so, but please do not leave with regrets, such as if only I had tried this or that, if only I had said. Put your cards on the table and see where they fall. From your posting it doesn't sound as if you have much to lose now you have had a gutful so for your sake, please give it one last chance, demand the respect you deserve. We have more blame, and more power in these cirumstances than we realised. Good Luck.

I did not ban my SK's from my home because of their fathers failure to teach the to respect him and his wife. I banned them from my home for one reason and one reason only, because they treated me like runny dog poo on the soles of their feet, they could not or woud not hide their contempt. They would come into my home and completely ignore me, they would not speak to me to the point if I offered coffee the daughter would not even say yes or no, then when daddy would ask her she would answer him. I banned the because they were rude and insulting to ME and one day I woke up to it. I told my husband for years this day was coming and I told him to sort it out or I would. He refused to do anything, however, they were not banned because of anything he said or did or didn't say or do, they were banned as a consequence of THEIR OWN actions. Now if their father had pulled them into line this would not have happened, so he needs to take responsibilty there, and it is HIS fault it came to this, but they were all grown up, they made a conscious decision to treat me the way they did, my husband made a conscious decision to allow them to put themselves into a position were they were going to be banned from my home, it was his responsibility as my husband and as their father to sort this out, but as I said, they were not punished for his failure, they were banned for their own rude, bad mannered disgusting behaviour towards me. By the way, his daughter has made it know for years that she wants to seperate us so he can suffer as her poor mother did by being left alone, thenn once she has seperated us, she wants to see us both dead. To this end she campaigned in my home.

You say his son beat your husband black and blue, and he did nothing, his call. But when your 15 year old was threatened with violence you should have called the police. Your SS has been allowed to get away with committing a crime how does this help him fit into society. What is your daughter suppossed to think when you allowed him to threaten her and there was no consequences on him for that. Interestingly enough, and as per usual, YOU had to be more patient with him was your husband's response, nothing to say about the appalling behaviour of his son, he did not call the police, he did nothing, except find some fault in YOU. You need to be more patient. Like my husband he sticks his head in the sand and every now and again will pop it up in the hopes that things have changed, they do not want confrontation not because of their parents, but because they are weak. Your DH may have had violent parents, so did I, but that did not stop me from teaching my children right from wrong. Your husband is using his parents as an excuse not to parent that is not fair on his kids, not fair on you not fair on your kids. He needs to man up and take responsiility for his off spring, of course he wont' but that is what he needs to do.

Your husband will not change anything here he is too scared of losing his son, and has allowed his son to threaten your daughter and still done nothing, how much loyalty do you owe him. I believe the marriage comes first, HOWEVER in cases of violence then children need to be protected. At some point you are going to have to change what goes on and who comes into your home, or leave, there really is no other option, because as I said, your husband will never change this, he will live like this until the day he dies, he will live with a false hope that if he just puts up with this, if he just puts up with that, his son will love him, however, the opposite is true, the more your husbands acts like a 10 tonne weakling in front of his son the more his son will stick the knife in.

Your husband is failing as a father to teach his son how to live in society, he is doing his son more harm than good here and the son would actually be better off having no father at all, than having one who is a poor example of how a man is supposed to act, how a man is supposed to treat his wife, and that a man should not threaten women it is unacceptable.

I wish I could say this will all blow over or change one day just hang in there, but in all honesty I cannot, until you do something to change the status quo then it will remain the way it is and all of the children in this home will suffer yours and his.

So just to be clear I am not advocating punishing the children because their father has done wrong by them, but I belive that every action has a consequence and if his chidren are rude and disrespectful towards you and your family, then YOU have every right to ban them from your home given that their father is quite happy for SS to threaten a 15 year old girl with violence and to allow his son to be disrespectful towards you and has failed to do what he should have done, then you have to do it. But the punishment is for what THEY have done, for THEIR behaviour, not for what their father has done or more aptly failed to do - be a proper parent.

At some point we all have to take responsibility for our own actions, your husband cannot keep using his violent upbringing as an excuse to opt of of parenting his own children, just as his children cannot keep expecting special consideration because mum and dad are divorced.

" -- they were all grown up, they made a conscious decision to treat me the way they did." Good point. Sometimes I forget this. They ARE adults. If any other adult entered your home and treated you like they did, would you allow them back in your home again? When your DH allowed SS to enter the house from the garage, it was an act of betrayal, and it placed both you and your daughter at risk. I am not one for ultimatums but in this case, there is no choice. Inform your DH that if SS enters your home again you have grounds to call the police. And don't back down. So far, DH has completely ignored your wishes, and you have let it slide. Show him you mean business.

Sandye21 I think those of us who put up with this abuse for years and years are all guilty of forgetting these men and women are adults. We treat them as kids, we understand the loss they went through, the trauma of divorce, the biggering between mum and dad and we allow them to abuse and isolate us for years because we feel sorry for the poor kids.............However, our own children have gone through divorce, biggering, trauma and loss yet we would not take that from them and in my case and I am very sure many others,we did not allow them to speak to or treat our partners like this. We fell in love, for joy, for joy, and yes I have learnt one thing, LOVE REALLY IS BLIND, we did this, we accepted this for LOVE. Well, I have grown from this experience, and LOVE is supposed to be kind suppportive and loyal. What is being dished out here, what was dished out to me, and to you and to so many others on this site is far from LOVE.

I did not issue any ultimatums, not my style either, I only spoke up when I had had enough of this from a 29 year old female (pack leader), and two male off spring of his one 32 and the other 35 ALL ADULTS who were deliberately treating me as a leper. Not because of anything I had done, but because daddy had married someone else, and daddy was letting them, because while they were doing this to me, they were leaving him alone....somewhere along the line I think he actually believed they had the right to be mad at me, he actually started to believe their shit, he was so sucked into their vortex he could not tell fact from fantasy all he wanted was to be absolved for his sins by his kids and if that meant hanging me out to dry, oh well, so what..So what I did was not an ultimatum it was just a decision I took and I was more than happy to accept the consequences of that decision.

WE DO NOT deserve this, and our DH's should have supported us from the very first word that was rudely spoken to us, or from the very first dismissive action shown to us, instead they supported their KIDS, and worse still blamed us for it all, we don't like their kids, we made it up, the kids didn't mean it like that, we take things to seriously blah blah blah. So, no ultimatums from me here Sandye just got to the point where I wanted them out of my home and life and if the man who allowed encouraged and participated in this wanted to go too, well I was more than happy with that.

Still not too sure how I feel about things here, they have a very very long way to go. Maybe we will make it, maybe we wont'. But one thing is for sure, neither he, his children or his family will ever wipe their feet on me again. I have been nothing but respectful to his family and I deserve to be treated by them the way I treat them, respectfully. Sure self esteem won't keep me warm at night, but I would rather keep my self esteem and have an electric blanket to keep me warm than a man who felt it was okay to allow his family to abuse me. So, it is one day at a time, but definately NO ultimatums, and no going back to being meek and mild and please come in walk all over me SM

This is not good. My DH was also not upfront about the length of time between drinks (marriages). Prior to our marriage he was also the sweetest man on earth, I had 14 glorious months with him, then the ugly step daughter waltzed back into his (well our) lives, and it was all over. The time, energy, love and compassion he had for me suddenly was re-directed to his baby. You know the rest of the story.

From what I have heard and pieced together from in laws, DH gave his ex precious little support and was never happy being married to her, he and they claim he only stayed for the kids. I am also told the kids were just as bad with mum and dad when they were together as they were when they came here to punish dad with one hand and milk him with the other. Both parents never taught the kids any manners or respect, not one parent ever asked them to say please or thank you, so basically yep, they were as rude to their mother as they were to me, the only difference is they did not hate her. They were just ill mannered pigs and the way they treated their parents was not due to anything other than being spoilt and never being taught to appreciate anything. These kids were clearly brought up in a loveless marriage were both parents were giving the kids all the love and attention they should have been giving each other, so to be fair, the brats didn't have a chance of being normal.

I do not think DH bears any anger towards his ex I think he feels a lot of guilt about the way he treated her and the kids, I think he knows he was a failure as a husband and father, he never loved her, he married her on the rebound and the Italian guilt with catholic guilt thrown in for good measure certainly has been ingrained in to his very physche. She died just over two years ago and to be honest I think he was a bit relieved because he didn't have to worry about feeling guilty over her anymore, one less person to feel guilty about. The white trailer trash ferral kids became even worse (naturally) after that, and the daughter is on a campaign to avenge her mother from the grave hence the wanting to seperate us so daddy can see what it is like to be left, and wanting to see us dead. Interestingly it is me she worked on because she knew I guess I woud not put up with the shit and she thought I would leave daddy just as he had left her mummy. Never crossed her over entitled mind that he might just leave her and stay with me.

Interestingly we were also married a couple of years after the divorce, so maybe there is something there. Everyone needs a good couple of years to get over it, then another year or so I think before entering into another marriage. I suspect it was also too soon for us, as he was dealing with the guilt of walking out on his kids and even though they were pretty much adults, he still saw them as babies, and in fact they were. Both mum and dad had crippled these kids emotionally and never taught them to stand on their own to feet, mum and dad did all the decision making and thinking for them. Guess they both could not stand the thought of having an empty nest and tried to make sure the kids were helpless without them, then finally dad could not take it any more and walked out so he had a lot to answer for and a lot to feel guilty about.

While I get that and understand why he would feel bad, his way of dealing with it, of allowing the kids to attack me, not on. I believe he thought I should put up with the crap because he created it, I believe he knows his kids have every right to be angry with him, so I should just put up with it. But as much as I think he did the wrong thing by his kids, continuing doing the wrong thing by never making them accountable, by trying to take control of their lives and trying once again to make them completely dependent on him was not the right way to go about things. In his case I do not think it is anger towards the BM that caused this problem I think it is all GUILT. If I were to be completely objective here I would say the best thing that could happen for his kids is for him to stay well and truly out of their lives and out of the lives of his grandchildren because he has not a clue on how to raise kids into well mannered productive members of society. He is too selfish and wants everyone to like him and he thinks you do that by making people dependent on you, that way they can't leave you. He actually tried this tactic on me just after we were married, but I had been on my own too long to go down that road thank God. I see it in the way he handles my grandchidren, he wants to carry the when they can walk, feed them when they can feed theseves, last night I caught him feeding the 4 year old he would let them walk all over everyone and never use the words please or thanks if he was allowed to just to make them like him. He just wants everyone to like him and saying NO he thinks will prevent that, so he never says it, well unless it's to me.

I noticed you said your DH lied about the timing too. So, if he is as big a liar as my DH then a lot of his problems could be from guilt too, and they have to be living with a lot of anxiety, they would be worrying every single day about their lies being exposed.

Unfortunately it is a harsh fact of reality that if you cannot come together on a parenting style, then it is going to make your relationship very difficult. Our children were all in their 20's when we together and my DH was more than happy with the way my chidren behaved and more than happy to have a certain standard upheld by then in our home. However his chidren had been brought up very, VERY differently and he had no intentions of apply any standards for his own. Whenever I complained about this, he would with a straight face say "Yours Should Know Better"

You said you and DH were heading off for 4 days holiday. You really have nothing to lose by talking to him about this, but whatever you say you have to mean it because you have said you have told him before you will leave but you are still there, so he probably just takes it as an idle threat.

Make up your mind what you want, how you want to live in your own home, and if you will or will not tolerate the SS in it. Be clear on what you REALLY are prepared to put up with for the sake of this relationship and follow through. Perhaps you and dh can come to some sort of middle ground and a set of boundaries that all children whether they live or visit the home will have to adhere to. This SS threatening your 15 year old with violence bothers me, it would have sent me into a frenzy and I myself would have thrown that kid out there and then. Your husband did not act as a parent either to his son or your daughter on that occassion and that really needs to be sorted out. Good Luck.

Good glad to hear it. It is horrible I know and I am sorry you are going through it, but ultimately only dh can change how he handles things, and only you can decide when enough is enough. You cannot change him but you can change how much and how long you take it, but I suspect you know that already. Hope it helps to know you are not alone, you are not insane, you are not selfish, and you are definately not to blame. I hope things work out well for you and your DH takes a long hard look at himself. SS I agree should not be allowed in your home until a) you are completely comfortable with it, and if that time ever comes b) he needs to apologise to your daughter. Probably never happen.

It makes it all worse now that you have said after the police were called DH talked them out of arresting SS. That was a great example he set for his son wasn't it. No matter what you do daddy will make sure you don't have to suffer the consequences of your actions............SM and SD can just put up with it. Good luck hon. It really is tough.

Well you are right on a couple of points 600 kilometres is nowhere near far enough But it is lovely news anyway, and of course this did not fix the problem. These spineless men are like cats with 9 lives I think, something always seems to happen to fix the problem so they don't have to fix it themselves ie: we throw the kids out, or the kids move away, or go back to the other parent, but daddy never seems to have to face his lack of courage, grow up and deal with his kids. Lucky for him he still gets to be the good guy now :sick:

I think you are right also when you say "the problem will never go away" Still this will at least give you a break and you can make sure DH knows now that when SS says he is coming for a vist - he won't be staying under your roof. No consequences, no remorse, no apology, no admission from dad there is ever was or ever will be a problem = NO STAYING AT YOUR HOUSE.

Good Luck I wish you all the best.