So I am reallyyyyy struggling and I feel like I am falling deeper and deeper into a hole. DH's ex wife is a lunatic and puts a ton of stress on DH, SS9 and SS11, and even myself and my children. That alone is enough to drive me off the deep end. But the parenting and discipline in our house has gone completely off the rails. When I met DH's boys I knew pretty much right away that we have two very different parenting styles. I am pretty strict on my kids, they have always had chores and screen time limits and I expect them to be responsible for themselves and their actions. DH's kids were pretty much allowed to behave however they wanted. The were 7 and 9 when I met them, the exact same ages my bios were at that time. They had no chores and no responsibilities what so ever. They watched TV and played video games until all hours of the night, even on school nights. They would leave wet towels and dirty clothes all over the bathroom and their rooms and DH even picked out their clothes and pajames for them daily and laid them out. They never washed their hands after using the restroom and usually somehow ended up with poop on the toilet seat and floor every time they went. They were disgusting!! And I pretty much told DH from the get go that before we moved in together he had to get those kids under control. 

DH is a lazy parent and always afraid to be the bad guy so I pretty much took it upon myself (stupidly) and retrained the kids. I got them on a schedule pretty quickly and were at least picking up after themselves and no longer leaving pee and poop all over the bathroom. Fast forward almost three years later and the stepkids are supposed to be responsible for almost as much as my bios. But the problem is, I have to stay on them constantly. We have a chore chart hanging in the kitchen that they are supposed to check off daily. I expect very litte of any of them to be honest. It's mostly keep your room clean, make your bed, clear the table after dinner, take care of your guinea pigs, walk the dog, etc. Not like I'm asking them to dig ditches or cut down trees!!! But the steps do not do anything without being told and reminded over and over again and then I get a huge attitude and backtalk.  SS11 keeps losing shit and breaking his stuff along with other peoples in the house. They are disrespectful to adults including servers, cashiers, people in public in general. None of which I would ever put up with from my bios. 

But now we are stuck in this place where I'm tired of being the only one to follow up and make sure chores are down and the only one to actually dish out any consequence for not doing chores, talking back, bad grades, etc. DH either does nothing or will discipline one of his kids then feel bad and go back on it. My bios are starting to question why their step brothers don't have to actually do any of their chores and still get to be a part of all the fun family stuff. BD9 and BS11 have straight A's in school and are, for the most part, very good kids. And when they do something they aren't supposed to I have no problem keeping them in check and handing out an appropriate consequence. And then they see step brothers act like little a-holes but get to do whatever they want. 

How is this ever going to work?? I am seriously at a loss right now. I think the only thing that makes sense is for them to all have the same rules and expectations but clearly that's not going to work. My kids do exactly what they are supposed to but I come home after a 10 hour work day every night and have to be a drill sergeant or the steps will  do nothing but leave messes everywhere and keep the whole house up all night.