I think before you two "combine" house holds. It would be a good idea to sit down together and go over some rules as to what would be expected from the the kids in the way of their behaviour. Set out a plan, and maybe have your gf start on this plan with her own kids to get them to be respectful. This could really turn into a very difficult situation for everyone if the kids continue to behave this way especially once all the kids are together and you could just end up beyond frustrated! Take the time now to have those difficult talks so that when you do combine houses things will hopefully go a little smoother.

Hold off. The con of living out of a suitcase for awhile longer vs living in constant unparented chaos where you have no say is the lesser of two evils.

She isn't parenting her kids. You will not be allowed to parent them either.

Nothing makes me more frustrated than SS6 and SD12 raising their voices, yelling and outright defying their father, my DH, who does and says absolutely nothing about it.

I love my DH, I love my marriage, our relationship - I should have kept my own place and dealt with the living out of a suitcase in his when I stayed and him when he stayed with me. At least then you have a place to get the space you need and remove yourself from the chaos that you have no control over.

Boisterous horseplay is what a lot of kids do. It really does depend on if it's attention seeking behaviors though, if so then dignifying it is exactly what they want you to do.
Mom needs to wake up a little bit. I'd suggest discussing with her what the general standard of accceptable behaviors from the kids would be if the two of you lived together, what is acceptable to her and to you and meet somewhere in the middle and how to get there together as a family.
Be sure and say that you do anticipate them to have some boisterous, letting off steam, time daily and suggest activities they might want to do to use up the excess energy? Activities are a bonding thing, kids and adults alike. It can be ten minutes, or ten seconds of lifting them up and twirling them round, the acknowlegement of their presence and their need for venting energy is all they really need to have.
One thing I found very helpful, and I was a lone parent of three at the time so no step parent involved, was to have the kids in bed by a certain time so I had 'me' time. I got them into age appropriate bed times that were non negotiable. I was mom all day long, did stuff with them and they were the center of my world but come bed time...I became ME! I am advocating that so you and your girlfriend can have alone time in the evenings, it stood me in good stead when I had a date and made a sitter's life easier!

You'll be fine. They need a strong male role model and you are IT! Does she have joint custody or how does that work? We just merged 3+2 and we had some bumps, but we stayed like a unified fort against them and they are starting to conform. 5 kids in the same house is a lot, I tell ya, but the good times are also great and the bad times will in time be better.

Your life will change forever, though! No more quiet times, you will NOT always be in control, you CANNOT just bark at the kids as you please (not that you do that, just being dramatic), and most of all- you and her need to be a TEAM at all times!

You already have children and from my experiences with people men do better in step parenting situations than women. However;my skids act his way they are 9 and 6 and DH does nothing to stop it. He says too that he is trying but not seeing them everyday makes him not want to be "all about discipline" The children don't respect me and they don't respect him. It is always going to be this was with skids because DH wont change it. I would not move in with GF unless you actually see some changes in her and her childrens behaviors.

Well there is an old saying, if you have no control over them when they're two, you're not going to have control over them when they're 22.

That life experience has told me is pretty spot on. Kids need discipline and if it is not part of their everyday life when they are little then their behaviour only gets more and more out of control the older the get. Also, it is far easier (not easy) but far easier to discipline a young child than it is an older child. If she hasn't been able to manage her young kids, God help all of you, including your kids, when her lot are teenagers.

Someone suggested all they need is a strong role model..............RUBBISH, what they need is a strong parent. Children can be parented with a single mother or father quite well, but the parent needs to be a parent, with consistent love and discipline. In any case as a step parent, it is not your job to discipline her children, and don't even try it. Your role is to support her in her parenting, and you and she need to sit down as someone else suggested and set out what you both expect in your home should you decide to live together, you need to both set down some rules and boundaries and decide what standards you both expect from both sets of kids, then you need to sit back in your own home and watch how she puts those rules and boundaries into place BEFORE you decide to move in.

If she cannot manage to parent according to what you have both agreed on by herself, it is not going to make any difference if you move in, no matter what she may tell you. If she is clear that her relationship with you is in the balance and that it is important for you to not have this chaos in the home yet she still does not pull it together in order to move your relationship forward, well, you've been married before, you know as well as any of us, things just slacken off once you are married and become comfortable with each other. So, after you move in it will only get worse.

Lazy parenting doesn't go away no matter who moves in. If she is 'lazy' parenting then she could be living with her mum, dad, ex husband and you, and she'd still not parent the kids, so it is not a matter of just having a strong male role model. As I said, talk over your expectations and put the rules and boundaries you both agree on in place before you move in and see how well she "trys" to maintain order in the home. If she doesn't, wel as I said you moving in will only make things worse.

My advise to anyone thinking of step-parenting is don't. Studies consistently show that children do better in school and later in life if they're from a single parent home as opposed to a step-parent home. Of course there are exceptions but the majority are better. Having two seperated parents leaves the children with the perception that they, the children, are still the most important people in their parents lives.

So it works both for your children and hers. Date her all you like, just don't combine households.

I personally do not think it will be successful to merge households because you are both different kinds of parents. She has been doing this for 10 years...I don't see her changing. While most sparents prefer skids not be seen or heard, and want them to be disciplined as such, let me share what I've lived.

My kids do talk back, they verbalize every thought that passes through their brains and sometimes at a loud level. They fight, they complain, they don't do what they're told sometimes. They do what kids do. But when they are out of line, they come back and apologize to me, usually within 5 mins. We handle things, but they will NEVER be stepford children.

My ex-SO's children hardly ever spoke up about anything. It took me a while, but I noticed the "I would kill you if I had the chance" looks that his daughters passed back and forth. In the 18 months that I have known them, all three children have required psychological help, one of the girls is wetting her pants and beating the crap out of her older sister, and they have gotten into some serious trouble. Yes, the quiet, well disciplined children are the ones getting into real trouble. So sometimes things are not as they seem, and while you think no parenting is happening, it just might be. Worry about yours and let her worry about hers, and date when you can, or move on. Parents who share children often split over the same things, I'm not sure why anyone thinks they can make it work with someone else's children.

Wow that is a big pill to swallow. I personally would not move in for two reasons. #1 You have only been dating a year. You can date without cohabitating. #2 the kids ages can make things very difficult. Why would you want to move in to a home with 3 young kids that have bad behavior?

Don't do it....my SS has been living with us for the past month. Your life will probably turn into a nightmare. Living in seperate homes is soooo much easier.

If she hasn't changed or expressed a will to change in a year, I don't think she is going to.. If you give her an outright ultimatum and tell her she has 6 months to change, well, she may just end it now, and that may be a good thing is disguise for all of you, or she may pull it together for 6 months, then you move in and she could revert back to the same old ways. Personally I would not be giving her a heads up that in 6 months if there is no change you're out. If you really want to give this another 6 months then quietly do it, after all you want to know the real her, not the one that is on her best behaviour for 6 months. However, you say you have had about 7 SERIOUS conversations with her all about this same issue, and nothing has changed, I doubt that it will. You will either have to take her as she is, or leave. You know you are not coping with this now, and you don' live there, it would be far to unsettling not just on you two but on all the kids for you to move in, then 6 months or a year later move out again because nothing changed. Please remember, as the kids get older the issues parents have to face with them get worse. Climbing all over the furniture, whining, talking back to ther mother, will all look like the good old days when they start the teenage years, little kids, little problems, big kids mean big problems. You need to look at this long term, see the bigger picture. I hope for everyone involved you think this over very carefully. I wish you all the best.

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