Do it! Life's too short to play happy families with people who make you unhappy.

I know that feeling all too well. I wish I could go away for the Summer with my kids because my SD is here every single school vacation and every Summer. I have two little kids that I never have time alone with when they are off of school. My SD is 17 now. Whenever she is around the whole dynamic of the household changes. I have no privacy. My husband's work takes him out of town a lot so I end up stuck with her. The things your SD does, my SD is still doing them. My husband acts totally different when she is around and all we ever do is fight when she is here. I hate it. I dread it so much that I get physically sick and very depressed when she is coming. SHE can't do anything wrong in my husband's eyes. What it really is he is afraid to act like her dad because she might withdraw her pretend love for him. So he gets mean and authoritarian with my kids while she is here. She says and does disrespectful things to him and he does nothing. When my little one copies her, he goes off on my child. Nobody else in the house is happy when she is here, and I don't want to keep doing this. I could go on and on. But, I have tried to talk to my husband about it several times, but it doesn't help. I wanted him to use his vacation and spend it with her but he won't. So I'm stuck with her once again. I didn't come between their relationship (his divorce did) so I don't feel like I should carry the burden of fixing their relationship. I have bent over backwards for a long time now. All I want is freedom from their relationship.

Take your son to a movie!!!! That will get the message through to your DH that you are NOT wanting to do anything together with sd. I take my boys all the time and not my ss. SO takes ss out with him sometimes. We very rarely take all the kids out together b/c they just don't all fight well in the car, they do but it's a tight squeeze! SO and I go out for dinner about once a month and we often go to our bedroom alone to watch tv and the boys pretty much know not to bug us unless someone's bleeding!!

You are going to have to get your dh on board with you as far as putting your marriage on the front burner and his daughter on the back. That doesn't mean she's not there and important but in a few years she will be an adult and move out and where is your marriage going to be when she leaves? A marriage takes nurturing. If your sd keeps getting in the middle she is becoming a weed in the garden. She needs to be put into her place.

Like I mentioned above, just take your son to the movies is really a temporary solution. You are going to have to figure out how to put your sd on to the back burner. She is not #1, YOU ARE! If she takes dh's hand away from you gently pull her hand away and say "no" and take his hand.

Think of kids and training them as tho you are training a puppy. You have to say "no", "sit", "outside", a whole lot before it sinks into their little growing brains or they would poop and pee in the house and sleep on the couch forever. Say "no" when she takes his hand or sits next to him in your spot. Say "go play elsewhere" when she is in the livingroom and you want to snuggle with dh on the couch and watch some tv together. Only YOU can put down your foot and put sd into her place - which is #4 or so! You have to do that for yourself or your marriage will not survive. If DH doesn't like it say sorry honey, if I don't discipline her then you do it, but it's gotta get done or we are going to have an entitled teen on our hands soon.

I had to put my foot down with ss18 here a couple months ago and say "out of my house now". He'd live here until he's 20 or 25 if I let him.

You have to set your own bounderies FIRMLY!! It's like training a german shepherd, you HAVE to be consistant and strict and FIRM!

Hope that wasn't too preachy

Also he still acts like she's a 5 year old girl, and he refers to himself as daddy even though she is 17. Now she's even started calling him "daddy" again. It makes me sick.

I seem to want to also not be around my step kids. When they come, it seems like their dad has rose colored glasses on. He makes a lot ogf excuses like a 5 year old does not know how to listen and such. I try to disengage and then he accuses me of being manipulative or trying to break the family apart.
I find my outbursts are getting more and more. I found myself muttering "fuckin retards| under my breath today.
Their dad blames me for ALL the fighting., He only sees surface and cannot see their is so many underlysing things and complications to this situation.
We have 5 kids between us, with one being the one we made. Things seem the best with that one. My boys are here more often so they get in shit more oftern. I also never get to spemnd time with them alone too because of my slave duties in a household that is so large.
I find myself fantasizing alot of things |I would rather be doing then being around the brats. I sometimes feel bad but not so much anymore because I can see that I am struggling much more than I used to so I really want to disengage more and more in order to save some sort of dignity.
I hate this type of family. I hate the feelings I have. I hate his kids. I hate him at times. How can any of this be good?

I would like to disengage but I find it impossible. Dh would not notice atall, in fact I think he would live to have all that time with sd. She is with us full-time;there is not an active bm and so I've been playing the mom role since sd was 18 months old.

wtf is up with these dad's these days treating their 11yr old daughters like their 5? my dh does the exact same thing, but i thought it was cuz he only sees her every other weekend....? your sd is with you guys most of the home and he still treats her like this?!! they're only hurting these girls more by doing this, these girls are going to grow up entitled spoiled brats that can't socially function. I'm so scared for this generation to grow up! i can totally relate as so many of us on here can! i f-ing dread when SD here cuz our house doesn't function like normal at all! dh is always all over our 2DD, but SD does the same thing and dh does nothing about it! makes me sick. honestly it's a turn off to me, cuz he's not the "man" i know and love when ever she's around. I've totally started to disengage when sd here, and that too isn't good enough for dh... he wants me to be all warm and fuzzy around sd, but I'm sorry i can't! unless things change with your dh i see disengaging to be the only option. if dh doesn't like it then explain to him why your ate that way, and he needs to step up and make changes if he wants it any other way!

I think it is time that you tell your husband that his ideas of togetherness is simply not involving you unless he puts his daughter in her place instead of allowing her to play mini-wife to him.No wonder you feel like that!!You have no emotional space when she is there.She takes your space of being his wife.If he cares about the marriage he will need to do some changes.That includes telling her off if she gets in the middle between you and him.Its neither healthy not right.