Morning everyone.

I don't blog alot but I so value everyone's insight and opinions, and I am in need of all that I can get today. This may be long, but bear with me.

We have SD8 and SD11 50% of the time. The other 50% they are with their crazy BM, who like many out there-

* over indulges constantly and then gets to be the martyr when things go badly
* engages in power struggles over everything and often creates them
* has no appropraite parent/child boundaries- SD8 is the infant, SD11 is the confidant
* isn't responsible for anything

So on and son on. Preaching to the choir. You guys know the deal. Our house is about rules, concequences, boundaries and a more structured place for kids to be kids. Needless to say, Sd's have a horrible time going back and forth and it's only gotten worse in the last 4 years we've been married.

SD's have a variety of acedemic and social problems. They've both been in therapy for the last 6 months and DH is starting to peek out of the veil of denial on the acedemic stuff. (Btw, BM hasn't called or been involved with any of the therapy even though the therapists have reached out to her a number of times- she won't even call them back) Most of the issues come from poor parenting from BM. However, DH won't confront any of the issues with her because:

1- it won't change anything- she'll still be a freak, lie, deny responsibility, create accusations towards us, etc.
2- it'll create more drama and stress on him
3- she'll poision the kids so they won't want to be around him any more

So this week we only have my BD's- calm, easy, peaceful week. DH helped BM and took the SDs's for an afternoon on Monday. By the time I came home, he was sobbing from frustration, said he wanted to give the SD's to BM and leave me and my BK's. This is the first time this has happened or he's made these statements.

He spent the entire afternoon power struggling to get SD11 to practice her cello and to "help" SD8 to do her homework (which she cannot do becuase she's contstantly distracted, wandering and given toys/clothes/shoes by BM to continue to distract her at school) So DH is trying to parent his kids during her time, again. Emailing teachers about what else we can do to help this kid succeeed. What does BM say? "It's not my job to teach her 3rd grade math. I'm not a 3rd grader." While at the same time telling SD 8 "You need to know math to be a massage therapist, but I can't do math at all." (?!) SDs both happily left on Monday afternoon and went back to the land of no accoutability with BM for more days of bad parenting, to be returned on Friday. DH gets to spend his much missed parenting time disciplinng, struggling and really working hard making his kids be good people because BM can't be bothered. Typical SD weeks are non stop struggles Friday-Wednesday. By Thursday, they get the program. Then, they go back to BM's house on Friday. Cycle continues. I'm exhausted.

I've tried to disengage as much as I can but these kids are in my home for 1/2 my life AND I have kids at home all the time. I'm completely frustrated that we get to do 100% of the parenting 50% of the time. I'm at a loss that my DH won't at least attempt to confront her on the ways she's making her children fail. We talked last night about tacit approval- that by saying nothing you approve of what she's doing. For the above mentioned reasons, he still won't confront her. Told him to talk to SD's therapists and disucss ways to appraoch the sitation- nothing.

So here I am, looking down the barrel of 10 more years of this. AND fearing how much worse this is going to get in teen years and how its going to affect my BD's, who are younger and go to the same school. What can I do? What other disengagement practices can I use? Any suggestions for DH? I feel completely powerless to do anything and it's affecting me a great deal. Help!