Disengaging....please explain to a lazy guy

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Sorry, I know that if I look around long enough I'll find the answer, but kinda away from my desk more often than not. But I've seen the term "disengagement" dropped a lot in the last day I've been here.

Could somebody please explain the general concept of this?

thanks in advance

Stop doing things for the

Stop doing things for the skids.
Do your own thing.
Worry about your own life, your spouse, job, interests.
Stop doing anything that benefits the BM
Sometimes people completely need to stop talking to their skids for a while (not meaning ignoring them just not bothering to start conversations that end up being abusive towards the step-parent)
Do not discipline your skids unless it affects you directly or your biochildren if you have them.
Do not drive the skids places
Do not do their laundry, make their lunches, buy anything for them.
Put dinner on the table (or another meal) for everyone including the skids but do not cater to their needs (ie. 'I don't like it' whines).

The focus becomes more on you as a person, and disengaging is necessary when you feel yourself becoming resentful about the way you've been treated.

Most often, IMO, step-parents disengaging is not good for the skids (meaning they don't like it in the long run), the bioparents don't like it because you are no longer their runner or person who does everything for everyone else but themselves. Biomoms hate it because they don't have a scapegoat (and at times the poor men who marry the biomoms and are sucked into their abuse of the step-parent and become abusers themselves).

It is hard, but stick with it.

Sometimes you need to stop doing things for people that don't do anything for you.
And instead.....LOVE YOURSELF.

Check this out:

Check this out: http://www.steptogether.org/disengaging.html

^^^ THIS! YOUR SIGNATURE.

^^^ THIS! YOUR SIGNATURE. this is so dead-on it's ridiculous. this is the exact situation my brother is in right now. he's 27 still living at home, a drug addict with a mountain of debt, no life/ career aspirations or friends (he lost them all due to his douche behaviour) all because my mom let him get away with EVERYTHING-- and still does. the thing that pisses me right off about this, is as much as my SO hates my brother & the way he is...he lets his son do whatever the eff he wants. the kid is 3 1/2 and completely runs the show, IMHO. SS chooses his own bedtimes with SO (often midnight)...never has to eat what's put in front of him (poptarts for dinner? sure!) how stupid is my SO?

Oh how I wish disengagement

Oh how I wish disengagement was possible.....i'm seriously going from being a stay at home mom for the past year, to back to work full time because I simply CANNOT STAND being around my stepson all the time.....let dad deal with him, i've had my share, and i'm done!

It seems like everytime that

It seems like everytime that I get involved in any type of "disciplining" of the children, things escalate. Recently, we drove to the city for a weekend of shopping for the kids for "back to school", took them out to eat at their choice of places (their favorite place is up there) and got a hotel room for the night, as the city is about 75 miles from home.

The girl started throwing a fit around 8:30 that night and kept going and going and going. I told them all that this wouldn't keep up all night if they wanted to stay and go shopping. Finally, at 1:30 AM I told them to pack their stuff up and we were heading home, which we did. For the rest of that weekend, the kids got worse and worse. My girlfriend and I had a talk, and I told her that I just couldn't come up with an answer for how to deal with it, and everytime I try to do any discipline, they refuse (they've been coached by their dad to not listen to me in any way, and that he is their boss, not me).

If they come to me for help with homework now, or want to sit next to me to watch a show or something, I let them, but when they start acting up, I kind of disappear into the woodwork. The problem I see with this is that I feel like a real piece of spit for not having my girlfriend's back on this, but other than scold or yell, there is absolutely nothing I can do.

I make them come to me now, I don't go to them. We'll see how long I can keep it up, as this is something that I just started this past week.