If the children treat you with respect you should be happy with that. You cannot expect to be treated as their mother, you are not. No matter how good you are or how bad she is, she is still and always will be their mother. You have to understand that and more importantly accept that. As a child would you have loved another woman above your own mother. Our biological parents are people we always have a tie to, even if they were not the best of parents.

Disengaging from children who are respectful towards you because you feel your doing all the work they shouldn't want to go and live with their BM is silly on your part. It will absolutely affect your relationship with your dh as well in a negative way.

You say you have respectful step kids and a supportive DH. The rest of us are on this site because WE DON'T have those things. We disengage because we have step children and worse step adults from hell and husbands who support their kids against us. No matter how much we gave we were never accepted as part of the family. Nothing we did was good enough. Our husbands saw the disrespect, saw the way their children humiliated, ignored and isolated us and they did nothing. So we disengaged. Do you think our husbands were happy with that. NO. In my case I put up with 8 years of it from an adult, I became physically ill and an anxious, nervous wreck over it before I disengaged. It's been two years since I did that and my husband has only just admitted to his psychologist that he saw all along what his daughter was doing but he was afraid to tell her to stop in case she would stop talking to him. You know what, as much as he tries not to show it. I know he still thinks if I had just put up with it a bit longer it would've sorted itself out. He still thinks I am at fault. Even though he knows exactly the hell his daughter put us both through. How will you justify disengaging from respectful kids.

You just need to accept you are a stepmother, you will never be and will never replace their mother. You cannot expect that. If you push these kids or continue to feel jealous of the love they have for their mother, you will cause all sorts of problems for yourself and your marriage.

From what you've written. I envy you. A supportive DH and kids that are respectful. You've won the jackpot there. Appreciate what you have. You said yourself you did not want to have your own children. Your own are the only ones that will love you unconditionally as these kids love their mum. You will have to accept you can't have it all. If you want to be loved as these kids love their mother. Have your own. If you don't want that. Accept these kids have a mother in their lives and be grateful that they at least respect you, more importantly, be grateful your husband supports you.

So if you feel like you are being taking advantage of stop doing all these things for these kids/ I'm not sure how old they are-but it is really up to you what role you play. If you want to be superinvolved then you are going to get your feelings hurt sometimes. My kids hurt my feelings too-so I jump their ass. I feel like that's an option for you. If that doesn't work for you-if you feel you cant discipline them then I would disengage from doing so much. Instead just do whatever you feel like doing or enjoy. Depending on their ages, I'd be real with these kids. For example, they remind you that you are not their mom-10 minutes later they want a ride to the mom, "oh, sorry I'm not your mom so I cant do that" and walk off-obviously if they are toddlers this doesn't apply.

IF you are doing all the work-you shouldn't be. Period. You didn't create these kiddos and sounds like they have two ablebodied parents. Let them do some work for a change and perhaps you wont feel so taken advantage of.

Im in the same boat as u, we have my bf kids about 80% of the time, and like you i always try to do my absolute best for them, unlike your hubby, discipline is not on my bf list of duties, really pisses me off, i won't, nor don't take sh*t from his kids, ss6, sd5, u need to sit down with your hubby and kids, explain in a calm way what you expect from them and how u wish to be treated, the rewards and the punishment but u need to stick to it, i know its hard, i really do, but u deserve to be respected in ur on home, oh i do think the kids will know who is there for them. Children can be hurtful, they know by saying they can't wait to live with their mum hurts you, it's hard to ignore,

chin up, ur doing a great job

KidlessSM, Oh how I wish sometimes SS16 would say how he can't wait to live with his mom. Lol. But it wouldn't be good for him or SO, so I don't really wish that upon him, but you know what I mean.

I'm probably one of the least involved stepparents on this site. And it has little to do with the fact that SO and I are not married. If we were married, I would be the same. It has more to do with the fact that SS was so much older by the time I came on the scene. And SS and I have absolutely nothing in common, there's just not a lot to bond over with this kid. As time goes on, I may become a little more involved, but I will never be like so many SMs on here that do all kinds of things for their skids.

Although it's true that your skids don't have to treat you like their real mom, they do have to respect you. Part of that respect is showing a minimal amount of appreciation for what you do for them. They don't have to kiss your butt, but they shouldn't take you for granted either. If they are not respecting you and are taking you for granted, only you can change this, and it would be by disengaging.

And by disengaging, I mean not putting yourself in a position to be taken for granted or feeling used or disrespected. And that most likely means stop doing so much for these kids who will never show the appreciation you are looking for. You don't have to be mean about it, but you are not and never will be their mom. And they will probably never appreciate all the work you've done for them. So stop doing it.

Yes, you'll probably catch some flack, but it's either that, or you can just keep on doing what you're doing and let your resentment build and grow. That resentment will hurt your relationship with your DH and your skids more than disengaging will, in my opinion. The less you do for these kids, the less resentful you will feel towards them and your DH and that's a good thing for them, right?

I got a negative reaction from my SO when I first started disengaging. But over time, I think he's learned to accept the way I am, even though he doesn't like me disengaging. So I don't ever say that disengaging means things will be easier right away, and that there won't be conflict as a result, there most likely will be if your DH has unrealistic expectations of you. But I still think disengaging at least to some degree is necessary to avoid resentment.

My SD10 is largely respectful towards me but is an attention hog and babied by my spouse to the point that I want to throw up. When we first got together, I paid a lot of attention to the kid but eventually her habits and my spouse's babying got the best of me. She had no responsibility. Didn't have to pick up after herself. Nothing. Anyway, at the beginning I would clean her room to help my spouse so that we could spend quality time together. Then it dawned on me! She is damn old enough to do it herself. When my spouse asked me again to clean her room I declined. I said that she is old enough to do it herself. My spouse answered " well I will do it then". That was his choice. I drew my line in the sand and I continue to do so. She complained one too many times about my cooking....I make my spouse make her meals. I will only mix up mac cheese. THATS IT. I wont pick up after her. I step over it or ask her to do it when my spouse is out of ear shot. She listens to me but continues to repeat the pattern ( no wonder since my spouse has no follow through). It is frustrating. Like some others on this site, I don't have a supportive spouse who continues to undermine my efforts if I even try to suggest a course of discipline. I have disengaged. I still like my SD but I want to stay out of their disfunctional relationship. The only relationship I care about is with my spouse even if I have to just smile and suck it up. Let him deal with her when she gets to be a teenager and all hell breaks loose. I won't lose any sleep over it!