So the exclusion never gets better? sigh, what did I do to myself???

I hate (like last night) when my MIL walks in and IMMEDIATELY goes on and on about how tall SS15 is! Look how tall! You're so tall! You keep getting taller! Are you taller than your dad?? (And my favourite) I thought you were standing on a CHAIR!!!

He's 5'10". He has been for the last 6 months or so. He grew last summer and stopped. She's probably seen him about 7 times since then. Now, since Christmas, BS14 has grown 3 inches and is now 5'9". There's a full year and a bit between them, but BS is tall and always catches up within an inch of his older step brother. She hasn't seen him since this sudden spurt. Not a peep is said to him about how tall he is, and they're nearly the same damn height lol!

Sometimes you end up with in laws who wear blinders. It sucks, but (shrugs shoulders) are they REALLY worth your head space? Nah.
Big hug!

I know how you feel. I have been a step Parent for 27 years and it hurts just as much today as years ago. Always an outsider and never a real part of the family even though I have provided the home. I always thought things would get better someday but it don't and never will. A little support from a spouse would go a long way toward coping but mine does not. I would never ever let my kids treat my wife as she has let hers treat me. When they grow up it gets no better.
Since I am not a young man anymore I have come to realize I have wasted the best part of my life trying to have a family that seems uninterested in including me. I learned the hard way that you cannot be a Parent to skids. I love my wife but wonder if the only reason she is with me is for financial security? I am under constant stress knowing I have been used severely as I have helped put her 4 kids through college with no help from Bio Dad. No thanks for anything. All I am is moms husband and I mean nothing to them.
I am seriously thinking of moving on while I am still young enough to find Love again. Finding someone with no kids will be difficult but I think I would rather live alone than the way I have been.

Catmom2, The only way I will ever get involved with someone with kids again is if they are not living at home and controlling their moms life. I am a little older than you and you are right, who could we find with no kids at our age.
I already told my wife I was moving to another state and if she wanted me she can go with me and if not to prepare for the end of our marriage.
I will move on to a happier life.

Catmom2, that reproduction is what is happening right now. Step grandbaby due in 7 months and SD already says she don't want me to have anything to do with it. I don't cuss much but this is a manipulating little b---H. How could I ever have been so stupid as to marry someone with 4 kids? Sounds like you are raising yours to have respect. Does he get along with your husband?
Anotherstep, thanks for the clue on childless dating sites. Since I don't go to bars to meet people I may need to check that out when I am free. I want to share my life with someone who will give me love in return for the love I give them and not for the assets they expect to get when I die. Assets they want to give to their kids.

This is when I am thankful that DH has no relationship with his family since a little over 3 years ago. Sometimes I am sad for him but that quickly fades when I see pics posted all over FB of all my in laws with BM and the Skids. They made their choice, they chose her over him and therefore we are better off. 27yearstepdad and Catmom - you sound like you've made a connection. GO FOR IT!

I have adult sons and they have never been disrespectful to my DH. My oldest used to TRY that shit when he was in his teens and I shut him down VERY quickly. Now he gets along great with him. It is up to the parents to set boundaries. If we/they don't, the marriages are doomed to fail.

Next time ask to be in a picture. If you want a picture of you and the baby. Ask your husband 'hey don't you want a picture of you me and this baby". The love of his life and a cute grand-baby....what kind of man doesn't want that picture?

I am so happy to have found this website. For 32 years I have put up with being 2nd to my husbands ex wife and 2 kids. I have been such a fool to have put up with all of that BS. I disengaged after the last get together during Thanksgiving. When I said, bye, I really did mean forever. I will not bow down to them ever again and I told my husband that I was DONE!
He has, a few times since then, said to me that I haven't called his daughter. My response is that she knows what she did and she will NEVER admit that she was disrespectful and she will NEVER apologize. I feel so much happier since deciding to put them behind me and move forward.

Yes he did. When his daughter moved in with us after graduating college for a year and a half, she never ever lifted a finger to help with anything. My husband would clean her bathroom for her because she would not! I could go on and on and on!

My wife always tell me I will be a grandfather when her older three start having children. I remind her you don't feel like a grandfather when little kids call you by your first name and get reminded in front of you that you are really not related. I actually don't mind but it irritates me when the wife keeps saying it.

The exclusion is just how it is and always will be I see now. At the end of the day my wife just loves them like a mother and I barely like them period. They don't want pictures with me in them and I really don't care.

I know you might care and for that I am sorry.

I agree with unfreakingreal. It is up to the parents to set the boundaries and that is something my husband would never do. His spoiled rotten daughter has always been disrespectful to me AND her BM and gotten by with it. I am just so much more at peace without having to hear from her lying, negative, selfish ass anymore.