Dear everyone. I am new here and also new when it comes to having a partner with children.
My boyfriend has three daughters (2yo, 4yo and 11yo) from two previous marriages. They are lovely and sweet and each of them very keen on claiming me for themselves which I suppose is a good thing. However, I never wanted children. Not for one single moment of my life. And now, it seems, that I’m getting them anyway. Part time at least.

The thing is; I love my boyfriend, he’s a good guy all round, and he respects that I don’t want kids – well in fact he doesn’t want any more himself – but he doesn’t really seem to grasp the concept of not wanting ANY children. He keeps saying things like ”yes, I realize that you don’t want your own kids, but MY kids could over time become very special people in your life”… But that’s the thing, it’s not just that I don’t want kids of my own – I don’t want kids period. Not anybody’s kids. I realize his girls will always be there. I realize they will be there a large portion of the time when are living together, but I will not have them as my responsibility. At all. And not in any way. Not financially, not emotionally, not practically. I allow for them to be in our life of course and I will be – as I have been all along – kind and good to them, but they are not mine and should not and cannot be my responsibility. – And he doesn’t seem to get that. When I say these things to him, he will say something along the lines of ”but you’ll be an important part of their lives” or ”But it’ll be natural (he loooves using that word) that you become an extra caregiver to them” BUZZ! Sorry, the answer is WRONG!!! – I will NOT be an extra what-have-you. I’ll be me. I believe that the two adults in the relationship should be the centre of - and the most important people in - the relationship. The whole ”the kids always come first”-bullcrap may be the holy grale for some people, but not for me, and I fear that if I don’t make that absolutely crystal clear I’ll end up having drawn a very short straw. There has already been a quite a few examples where I went an extra mile for his kids without experiencing any real gratitude from him. So all of this finally leads me to my question:

Since my boyfriend seems to think (although he’d never say it straight out) that I will end up being an extra set of hands, an extra heart, head, bank account, driver of children, birthday party thrower, night time water-getter, diaper changer, breakfast maker-type person when we are living together, should I disengage or semi-disengage now rather than later and to what extent? And does anyone have a plan/recipe/strategy for such a pre-emptive disegagement? – or, if not, then what should do instead?

I normally believe in giving everything, giving all of onself – but in a way this is myself. Kids don’t interest me. And yes, I know that I knew from the word go that he had kids, and maybe I shouldn’t have started anything with him because of that. - But then he also knew that I didn’t want any kids in my life, so maybe he’s the one who shouldn’t have started a relationship with me! Anyway, here we are and we are good together I just don’t want to slowly slide into the background and sacrifice my own life and wishes not to mention my personality for these kids that I never wanted so advice is very welcome.