Your dh is helping to cause the problem. I feel really badly for you. I would try and convince dh to get into counseling PRONTO! He has to wake up and see what is going on or it will just continue to get worse.

"Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember, the only taste of success some people ever have is when they take a bite out of you."

If you DH does not have these same concerns you do, then there's not much you can make him do to change the situation. Even standoffish people can see when someone is taking advantage of them.

So the question is, how does DH feel about all this. Does he see the problem and just not know how to change it? Or is he in a state of denial?

Because Choco is right that unless he's willing to make changes, i.e., stop enabling grown daughter to call the shots and use your finances, then this won't stop.

Wish I could offer some advise, but need to know where DH stands on all this first.

I am new to this forum, but I am sooo glad I found it as I am going crazy.

While my stepchildren problem are not as severe as those I have read about here, I still see problems. I have four SS's. Three are married and live out of town, one is married and is our neighbor, the other is a senior in college with a girlfriend. I also have a daughter who is a senior in college.

My problems are that the step kids want to make the calls about when they visit and since they are out town. My husband believes they can come and stay any time regardless of our plans.
- He does not care when they come and stay for a weekend or a few days that they do not help with the cooking, or dishes while they stay
- that they help themselves to whatever they want without asking,
- or that they choose where they will sleep even though I will have a place cleaned and ready for them
- or when they buy items to leave at our house, such as a foam mattress for a sofa bed that they now will not sleep on,

For example, this weekend, two of the stepsons and their families(each has a wife and a baby) called and told him that they were coming in. I have had plans for this weekend for a couple of months and he knew about them, but he would not tell them that I was busy and this weekend would not be a good weekend for us. Then on top of that, the SS who lives locally plans to do things at our house, such as this weekend while I was away, SS's and his wife had their daughter's (our granddaughter) birthday party at our house because all of the sons were in and hanging out there. They bought pizza and cupcakes and their 2 kids to our home even though they only live about a half a mile from our house. But they do not clean their home and thus do not have guests there, so since my house is clean it is fair game for whatever they want to do.

I am really hurt because all I want is for my husband to set some rules with the step kids about our home. He does not want to because the one time we did this resulted in the stepdaughter-in-law getting mad and telling everyone how evil I am since my husband allowed this activity before I was around. Just to let you know she was hanging out at our house for hours a day using the computer, watching TV, eating lunch, caring for her children at our house while I was gone to work and when I came home the house would be messed up so my husband talked to stepson about it and told him we did not want her in the house when we were not there. This is something adult children who have their own homes should not have to be told, but she got really upset. Her getting upset did not bother me like it did my husband, because I feel like we did was right. My husband also does not want his ex-in-laws to hear these types of things because then I will be run in the ground.

Are my issues with the step kids petty as my husband thinks they are or do they warrant some rules and boundaries? How can I get him to understand that since he thinks what I want is silly and unnecessary that he is unwilling to set boundaries, that I feel as if he thinks my feelings are not important. Am I making him choose between me and his kids here?

I have been waiting for my DH to set ANY rules and boundaries. I came to the realization that he never will and it sucks. We don't have a real family, we have a visiting IMPORTANT person that makes everyone's life meseriable...I hate it. I find that I don't like my Husband when she is around. He just isn't the same man.
I noticed the other day that when they talk they just take jabs at each other...they are just mean.
All she does is run him down. HAHA...its always a joke. My dad is stupid, my step brothers are stupid...she doesn't go there with me...humm wonder why?
That is the way it is in her BM's house and that was the way they stoke to each other when they were married? This is how she was raised?
All I know is that I hate the negative, poisen in my house but its there, every second weekend like a fungus, growning, taking over the happy, supportive, environment that I work so hard to empose...AUGHHHH Sorry ladies...that is my frustration...
JUST 5 more years????!!!!!

Every weekend its the tension.Not enough fabreeze in the world takes the funk out of the air when they leave.(they invade every weekend like locosts)I love him dearly but the man he turns into during the week is a different person!