Of course you can disengage from your steps if you have a supportive husband who is willing to parent his own children.

But disengaging does not have to mean that you ignore their very presence. In some extreme cases especially with older skids that may be necessary, but it doesn't have to be that drastic.

What is really means is that these children ARE NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. You are free to do as much or as little for them as you want. You don't need to worry and fret about whether their homework gets done. But it would be pretty extreme to put dinner on the table and not feed them.

It is more of a detachment than just not doing things. You don't get hung up on guilt because the parenting you are trying to do is not working.

Now if you have a husband who see your primary function in his life to take care of his children so he doesn't have to do anything - well then yes you are going to have marital issues if you disengage. But if you have a selfish husband who expects you to do everything you probably already have marital problems.

I am pretty disengaged from my adult SS. I had a stocking made for him and saw that he had presents at Christmas and his birthday. That was easy - I do that for my friends. But his real issue is that he is an alcoholic. I feel no obligation to fix him. I hate that he is a drunk but I don't worry about it. My DH of course is severely upset about his son's addiction. But having sent him to multiple rehabs even he realizes that only SS can fix himself.

I can honestly say that disengaging from my SDs has not hurt my marriage. However, we are not custodial, and my bios started college by the time I met my DH. I agree with oldone, you can disengage a lot or a little, whatever suits you and your lifestyle.

My DH is pretty understanding about the fact that his daughters are very high-maintenance, hard work girls and although he is a Disney Dad, he doesn't expect me to join in, and does not expect me to love them. The drawback is that I do feel quite lonely on SKIDs weekends as he does a lot with them.
We even agreed a couple of years ago that we would not discuss matters related to his daughters education, as we disagreed about it so much and it was causing problems between us.
Not all partners are able to be so understanding about feelings towards their offspring - but one has to be realistic about it. Here is some helful info on step family dynamics -
http://www.stepfamily.org/dynamics.html

This is a great post thats very helpful to the ones like myself who are just now ready to disengage as well!! I did kinda tell my DH that I was needing to step back & that he needed to take the reins back so to speak. Hes very aware of the pain my skids have caused me & that Ive tried just about everything I can read and tried a array of things to improve things with them.

I was kinda shocked when we talked and he completely understood my reasons. I guess i need to give him some credit, as he didnt scold me or anything for it. He wants me to keep on chuggging thru the crap they & BM throw my way but he understands that its become too much!!

Not all DHs will understand it tho. I think it depends on the situation.

OP- I hope things get alot better for you!!! I guess we are all in this crazy stepfamily thing & we are all just searching for ways to make it thru!! Hang in there!!!