Hi, I have posted some issues here and part of my story and have gotten some great support and advice. The best advice has come from other step moms talking about disengaging in the drama between my husband (who was a disney dad until he had full custody and still displays those characteristics) and his SD15 who is living with us full time.

DH and I have been fighting again because he now says he does not want to know anything negative about his kid and that all I do is speak negatively about her. When in fact I only am pointing out when something is missing from my car or room and turns up in her belongings and also about her not cleaning up after herself and leaving dishes in the sink for 6 days straight. I rarely do this and I really do pick my battles but I guess I do not want to be a doormat either and after 6 days of having no clean dishes in the house I did not think I was unreasonable in asking him to ask his kid to clean up the mess. This girl has no chores and her only chore is to clean up after herself. I have given up on getting her to help with anything else and parenting her in any way. He also told me long ago he did not want me involved in these discussions and that is why I am bringing it up to him and not her directly. Of course, now, that he does in fact have to deal with it himself he is getting angry because he does not want to and is at a loss on how to parent this kid. He has finally admitted that he does not know what to do. Before when I was helping him, he "had it all under control and did not need my help" (his words in the middle of a big fight long ago). He denies ever saying this by the way and has refused to be consistent in discipline and will not take anyone else's suggestions.

I am well aware after reading a lot of these forums and getting some sound advice to my post in the Adult Stepchildren Issue section that that it is common to have a dysfunctional family blame the stepparent ( me ) for everything that goes wrong in the family. (Even though I am not making anything up and I tread lightly around the issues at hand). When I was practicing disengaging before it worked well, but I have had a couple of relapses this weekend and opened my mouth have told my DH about some missing items that I needed (that his daughter took from me) and that I could not afford to replace. He confronted her with this and she of course denied it, he did in fact replace the items for me and all seemed well except that she gave him such a ration of BS over the whole thing that now he is angry at me as well. He is claiming that the dynamic between me and her is driving him crazy, he is moving out, he is not getting in the middle of it anymore, and is disengaging himself. To me, this means that he is refusing to parent his kid. He does not want me bringing this stuff up with her because it will further make me the enemy but now he is saying he is not going to deal with it anymore either and does not want me to bring any more missing items to his attention. Although he is aware that she is doing this there is still this underlying tone from him that I am a) either making it up or b) somehow part of the problem if she is taking things from me.

He used to be in a lot of denial about this stuff when it came up and in the past her dishonesty caused a lot of headaches and fights between me and him because he would not believe that his daughter would ever lie. Now he does know better because she is getting older and caught red handed more often, but underneath it all he is still very defensive and I think there is still part of him that is in denial.

Even though I have removed myself from parenting her and he was the one who took it upon himself to bring up the missing items with her this time around it came back to haunt me. I guess she gave him some sort of a guilt trip and told him that he is always picking my side and all this nonsense and it got him very angry with her and as well he is angry with "the situation" as he says which I am assuming is his way of being angry with me also. Although he is more angry with her, he is also angry with me for bringing it up to him.

Because of the feedback I have gotten from other members of this group I am now going to seek out my own therapy and just try to take better care of myself and practice disengaging again. I was really angry this weekend and wanted to throw it all away and when he said he wanted to move out I was thinking that would be the best situation but honestly now the thought of that is more disturbing than what is going on. I really do love this guy and it would be a financial and emotional hardship to go through breaking up the family as I have many other very difficult things going on with health, work, everything, really at this moment.

I would love to hear some more stories and information about practicing disengaging. Is this a common practice that has worked for everyone here? Is this something that people just figured out as they went along? How do you not fall into the trap when something seems so obvious and reasonable to bring up? Or maybe my man is just more messed up than most? Although I am seeing a lot of commonalties between my DH and others on this site.

I hope I can get better with therapy and support from this site so I can then in turn give back and be supportive to new members also.

Thanks again to everyone here.