Hello,

Thankful for this forum, I need to vent!!  I have been with my husband for almost 5 years - married 3. He has 5 kids & 1 grandchild, I have 3 kids.  Needless to say his Ex is worthless!!   We have been through a lot in the last 5 years, mainly because of him and his Ex and kids....mine are not perfect but compared to him and his kids, we are very calm, they just seem to thrive in chaos and that is NOT me at all.  Or my kids...which I feel like is becoming a problem.  I try to be 'go with the flow' more but after this last weekend I was DONE.    They literally can.not.plan.anything or make a decision to save their life!   Then they look at me like I'm supposed to all of a sudden take on all their stress and chaos and figure everything out for them, including my husband!   I blew up at him this weekend and it just seems to not do much good....he always loves to joke around and be what he thinks is 'funny', well it's getting very very old! I dont know what to do....I'd say in the last at least 3-4 years my anxiety level has reached it's peak, mostly because of him and his kids, etc....always feeling like I have to 'fix' things, which is my fault, maybe I create some of the anxiety because I can't say 'no', I'm learning to change that.   However, the problem lies with him and his parenting and him judging my parenting - or so it feels.  It just seems like he is one of those 'Disney Dads' and as much as I talk to him about it, he just does not get it.  Yet it seems like my kids do everything wrong, the smallest things, from leaving the door open when the AC is on to leaving the seat up in the bathroom to having the tv up too loud.  His kids though, especially the 19 year old and 17 year old, can.do.no.wrong!  And he acts a fool around them more and more, like he's a kid himself, he's their 'friend' not their 'dad' and I have spoken to him about this on end several times.  I just don't know what to do anymore.  He only sees his kids every other weekend, I have mine 50/50, 1 week on 1 week off. So when the kids are here I just am on 'high alert' constantly, so much anixety to make sure they don't do anything 'wrong' to make my life easier, I HATE it, If i had known it was going to be like this, I would not have married him - yet.  Not saying we would break up but definitely not be married already!! And I feel like I mainly did that for HIM, his 19 year old has not much of relationship w/her mom so it seems as though he has put me in that position to be her 'mom' which is not fair and we have talked about that several times too - and he does not get why I get frustrated with him about that either.   Like I said his Ex is a piece of work, basically 'gave up' her 2 oldest daughters, but had to keep the other 3 so she can get money every month.  He has 11 year old twins that basically are the ones that babysit for his 3 year old grandson....which I have expressed my opinion on, but falls on deaf ears.  Basically I feel like he is such a hipocrit about stuff, his kids do it and it's not a problem, but mine and 'omg' the world is gonna end.  And when he drinks - oh boy, don't get me started on that....he is a completely different person, a complete A-hole, which I have also expressed several times....it's like Dr Jekyl & Mr Hyde when that happens.   His daughters call him constantly for everything - stupid crap too!!  The eldest is 21 w/a 3 year old, single mom, the other is 19 in college, she is the one that I basically helped him raise. And before he met me, it happened w/the 21 year old, his Ex basically kicked her out of the house when she filed for divorce and he left, then when the 19 year old turned about 13, when I met him pretty much - she did the same to her....I sometimes feel like he owes me so much for putting up w/his crap and all his 'baggage', AGAIN, not saying my kids/life are perfect by any stretch of the imagination however, I feel like I have my crap together way more than he does, which  is probably why he doesn't want to lose me, because of everything I do and have done for him, including helping him start his own business, getting him in contact w/my banker that has helped him out on numerous things - which again is another problem, his love of spending money we don't have!! I look at my life sometimes and think "how the heck did I get here?!?!" Its depressing and I dont know how to change it or what to do - any help is appreciated!    Sorry this is so long, I don't know how to shorten it up - as I started writing more things started coming out and I didn't know where to stop!