Wonder how long this will last? Usually lazy parents give in after the first couple of weekends. (or weeks if you're CP)

I too faced a similar battle. Without your SO on board, it will **never** work. Since my DW made it clear that she will not enforce reasonable house rules, I made it clear to her that I am disengaging from SD17. DW now does everything for SD. It is not perfect, but it's better than it was.

That's cool Kay-hope he sticks to it! If you see my blog about my wknd I also hit my limit

You said this "For the first time since SD has lived here, he took me seriously! I told him I am DONE getting walked all over, I am DONE not being able to set limits with her, and I am DONE with his lazy parenting. (Btw, he was the one that used the word lazy.) I told him, I don't care why you don't enforce the rules and I can deal with it if you don't want to enforce the rules, but I wont be apart of it. If you don't want to hold her to reasonably standard of behavior then don't expect me to take resposibility for that,"

Same here-but bottom line is until her behavior has shown improvement and she's getting therapy and he is stepping WAY up she's not going to be coming over. I've got to protect my kids also. We have to take a stand otherwise we're doomed

Wow, Kay, it almost sounds as if you're living in my house - LOL!!! My SO has two children (boy 8 and girl 6) and I have one 9 year old boy. Our boys get along really well and when they do disagree it's never serious and they are able to work it out between each other. The girl, on the other hand, fights with the boys a lot. She instigates them and/or they tease her. My SO has his kids every other weekend and whenever he can in between. I have primary custody of my son so he lives with us and goes with his Dad every other weekend. It's kind of nice, in one way, that we get a weekend to ourselves, but the kids weekends are really rough. With 3 kids in a small house it gets hectic. The kids go wild and are out of control a lot of times. We've had a hard time discipling them. I don't like to discpline his kids because I worry he'll get upset and he has on occassion disciplined all of the kids but tends to be VERY lenient with his kids, especially his daughter, whom, I feel, he babies and favors.

All of this brought me to the decision that we needed some house rules and a plan of action for discipline. I talked it over with my SO and he was in agreement with it but I did sense some hesitation. I wrote out the house rules (just ten of them so that it wouldn't be overwhelming) and posted them on the fridge. I also made stop light discipline charts for each child. The plan was they start on green each day, they get one warning before being moved to yellow. If they break another house rule they move to yellow and we take them aside, talk with them about the behavior and consequences, they break another and go to red and they have to sit in the quiet chair and lose privledges (T.V., video games, toys, etc.). Also because I believe it's best to positively reinforce kids and recognize good behavoir, I set up a rewards system if they stayed off red all day or on green all day they would get special priviledges, a treat, or prize.
Well my SO showed very little interest in how it all worked so neither of us has done much to enforce it. I want to but I don't want to have to be the "evil step-mom" and only one policing while he sits back and let's them get away with murder. Actually my SO will discipline the boys but the girl? VERY rarely and if and when he does, I have to say I feel the same way you do and I get a tiny bit of satisfaction.

I've not come to the end of my rope or breaking point just yet so I guess I'm a few paces behind you. Well, actually I have but I haven't gone off on my SO just yet - LOL. I really do like his kids, don't get me wrong. They are sweet and they both like me very much too so there's none of that going on. The BM is decent too so there aren't any weird issues there. The main issue, for me, is the way my SO is with his "little princess", honestly. She's cute and a nice girl, but the way he babies and favors her is putrid. I've tried talking to him about it and I've told him he really isn't, although his intentions are good, doing her any favors by doing this. It's almost as if he can't help himself. She's six but he treats her and she often acts like she's three. On numerous occassions I've seen her intentionally mess with the boys and when they react she comes running to us crying hysterically and/or whining and tattling (oddly enough one of the house rules is no whining/tattling). If she goes to Dad you can see he immediately gets angry with the boys, takes her side and sometimes will discipline them and tell them to stop doing whatever it is they are doing to upset her. Then he will coddle her hold her and carry her around like a baby while she whines and cries and carries on. It makes me sick sometimes. I mean if she really gets hurt or the boys have been really mean to her I'm all for it but most times she just does it to get attention. In my opinion she needs to be taught more positive ways to get attention when she wants it and she also needs some boundaries and needs to understand that the entire world doesn't revolve around HER and people are not always going to JUMP the second she wants something.

When the daughter comes to me to whine/tattle, she's learning she doesn't get the response she normally gets. I will immediately tell her to talk in her normal voice because I can't understand her. She will do that. Then I let her tell me what happened and I get to eye level with her and tell her I understand how she feels. After all, she needs to be heard and is doing it for attention but I won't give her too much either. After she's expressed herself I divert her attention and suggest she find something else to do. Then I walk away, especially if she's still carrying on. As soon as I walk away and don't feed into it she stops - the tears dry up nearly immediately. I almost think my SO knows this yet he thinks it's cute. That worries me. On a few occassions my SO has actually jokingly and sometimes spitefully told his daughter to go annoy the boys (sing and dance in front of the TV while they are watching it) and then laughs as if it's the way 'girls' are. Maybe it is, I don't have a girl so maybe it's just that I'm not used to girls, but to me it seems he's doing her more harm than good.

Then there's his son. I feel bad for the kid. He gets the blame EVERY time and he's always the one that gets in trouble when the daughter tattles. As a result he HATES his sister. He always yells at her, never speaks to her nicely or tries to connect with her much. My SO has said that he wants his son to protect his little sister and include her and he wants them to get along. I've tried to tell him that by playing into their drama and always blaming his son he sets them up to reject the girl. Like I said though I don't think he can help himself - it really seems that ingrained in him to be this way with her. I'm hoping that some of what I tell him will start to sink in without me having to lose my temper and us fight when I'm totally at the end of my rope with it. For me when the kids fight and there is an issue, I don't blame anyone (unless something serious has happend and someone has intentionally done something mean). Most times the 'fights' are silly...the girl saying one of the boys hurt her feelings for example or I hear them starting up and I just tell them all to stop. They immediately try to blame each other and I just say, I don't care who did it, just stop it, all of you! My SO though will play into the drama, wants to know who did what to whom and then reacts siding with the girl, always, and chastizing the boys. He goes so far as to get really angry I can tell. Not that he takes it out on the kids but when the boys pick on the girl or something I can see that he is angry with them and feels super protective of his little girl. He has even said to me when we've discussed all of this, "you have to understand though she's still my baby girl, she's my little girl..."

I digress...on the house rules thing, stand your ground girl! I'm glad to hear that someone has made it work and I hope I can too. It's not easy, that's for sure. And know you are not alone or in anyway wrong to feel that satisfaction that the child is finally being held accountable by her dad. I was just wondering, though, with your SD if you've tried the stop light thing and thought that maybe if you haven't and you add in tiny rewards for good behavior it might make the SD more into it and it might really help your SO to continue to enforce the house rules because he won't always be reprimanging and will, at times when warranted be able to reward his daughter too!