So thankful to have found this site! Hallelujah I’m not alone!!
Here is some history. I have 3 girls from a previous marriage and my husband has 2 girls. When we first met 7 years ago his girls were 5 and 10 and mine were 18, 20 and 21. I definitely had reservations about the ages of his girls when we met and was not shy about expressing my concern. I did not want to start raising kids all over again! I was all done as my youngest was 18. I tried on several occasions to end the relationship but he was not having it and assured me and that the raising of his children would be his responsibility and he would do anything to make our relationship work, that he loved me, I was his soul mate, blah, blah, blah. Well, I fell for it and him with all my heart and I stayed. Like so many of you I thought things would get better, after all I liked his girls! ha was I wrong!

So now fast forward 7 years we have always had his girls EVERY weekend and ALL holidays! Their mother doen't mind not spending time with the girls. She’s really not an awful Mom, she’s just really not that into her kids like I was with mine. She doesn’t care about holidays or Dance recitals or school plays. Super weird… but whatever! So as I said, I really liked my his girls at first, I just didn’t want to be involved with the parenting and wanted my freedom to come and go when I pleased, so no babysitting, if dad wasn’t there then neither were the girls. It wasn’t until a couple years into it that they started to really get on my nerves. I realized that it was too hard to have these two people that are not mine and not raised the way my kids were in my house, using my stuff and eating my food. I had no space that was my own and no say as to what they are allowed to do and not allowed to do. So I decided I was going to try to be a parent figure and set some rules and boundaries, well that did not go over well with the girls or my husband. He got very defensive and hurt and I was accused of “picking on his kids” (because to be fair they are good kids, just not like mine) so stopped trying and finally recently I have tried to completely disengage. Which does help…but not really?

I have a very close family of 4 sisters 13 nieces and nephews, all who are adults now and starting families of their own. We all spend all the holidays and family functions together and from the very beginning I have always had his girls come along. But because I have had no say in the raising/parenting of them they, to me are rude! Always the first ones to the buffet, taking way too much of everything and not even eating it all, like last year at Easter his daughter 12 at the time takes 4 deviled eggs when there are only 12 to begin with at a party of 25 people!! And at a Christmas party she takes 3 pieces of cheese cake (because they were all different flavors and she wanted one of each! WTH) they always, even after being told many times sit at the adults table and have to be asked to move to let my 80 year old mother sit! I could go on and on. They just completely make themselves at home and offer no help at all. They wear old clothes with holes that don’t match and if I say anything my husband is like “oh leave her alone she looks fine”. These are all things that my and my family’s children just know; they were raised to look presentable, be respectful and say please and thank you (which are not in his girl’s vocabulary). It is an embarrassment to me even though they are not my children or my responsibility; I feel it is still a reflection on me as their step mom. I should have some control, right? I mean even if I can‘t say anything you would think that being 18 and 13 years old they would, after all these years the behavior of the other children would have rubbed off by now!! Ok so to be fair they are by no means monsters, I just can’t help that they get on my nerves something fierce!! How can I be completely disengaged and have them come to my family functions and not be embarrassed by them??

I feel like if I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently. I would have gone to his family with his girls on Christmas Eve and demanded that they spend Chirstmas day with their mom while we went to my family with my girls. I also would not have invited them to everything from weddings to baby showers on my side of the family. But now I can’t go back and dis-invited them all of a sudden after they have come to everything before! (if anyone knows how I can pull this off without a blood bath please let me know, LOL) I hate that they have to be with us for every holiday and every function that MY family has. Sometimes I would like to spend a holiday with just my kids. My daughters never go to anything at my husband’s family’s houses, maybe because they were older when we met and they were never interested. We spend way more time with his girls than mine so when I do get to spend time with my girls I want them to myself and not share them with his clingy girls (the 18 year old is very touchy and huggy, even sitting on peoples laps and putting her head on peoples shoulders and arms wrapped around them while sitting next to them on the couch) I mean come on you are 18 …grow up!! I can’t even have a conversation with my girls without her right in our faces! I just had 2 grandchildren born this year and I cringe when she always wants to hold them and calls them “her” babies and says “I am going to be their favorite “auntie”, Oh and she does the same with my dog too! Calls him “her” dog and every time I call him to come to me she intercepts him and puts him on her lap and says “you want to come see me don’t you” Ugggh makes me want to scream! And I know that my daughters hate it too, to the point that they are starting to not want to come to my house when his girls are there. I think my daughters are also a bit jealous because his girls are treated differently than they were at that age. Mine all had jobs at the age of 16 and paid for their own things. His 18 year old just got her first job this year and WE still pay for her cell phone that she has had since she was 12 and occasionally give her gas money besides all the other expenses while she’s at our house, because according to Dad she doesn’t make enough money on the 2 days a week she works and he wants her to have a cell phone. Why it has to be an Iphone with an unlimited data plan is beyond me, anyway you get my point.

Lately the things I do make me feel like I’m being a child. I have taken up knitting again just so I can put the knitting down to save my spot on the couch when I get up! Yes, they steal it every time (we have a plenty of seating why does it have to be mine?) it kills me! I have even resorted to taking the remote control to the bathroom with me (accidentally of course) so they can’t change the channel on me while I’m gone for 2 minutes (no they won’t actually get off their butts to change it so I’m safe if I have the remote!!) Oh and don’t get me started on the food…nothing is off limits, and they don’t ask for anything. I mean just go and take the whole pint of my favorite Ben&Jerry’s and plant your butt on the couch I didn’t buy it for me or anything! I am really starting to hate them and the guilt is killing me! I know my husband can see how different I am when they are around. I think he also sees the sigh of relief when I hear him on the phone and he says my most favorite words ever “oh you can’t come over this weekend” and I do the most happiest of happy dances in my head!

Any help/advise/encouragement would be so appreciated. Even though just being able to put this all in words and finally get it off my chest has been a major relief in itself. I mean I can’t say any of this out loud…because step moms are supposed to love and adore their step kids…right??
Thanks again for this site.