Background:

I have an 8 year old biological daughter (bd) that I have pretty much full custody of. She visits with her father once in a while but no schedule and no overnights or anything.

My husband has 2 kids, 6 year old girl & 7 year old boy from previous marriage. Their bio mom cheated on my husband (which is what caused the divorce) and then ran off across country. She technically has visitation once a month, but has never used it.

We have a 5 month old boy together.

At first it was easy. I read the horror stories and I was soooo glad it didn't apply to me. I was so naive...

My daughter has pretty intense ADHD - the primary symptom for her is that without medication, she entirely lacks impulse control, which then makes her feel guilty and depressed as hell. So, she's on meds, and does excellently. She's advanced in school, and for the most part, handles herself with the poise of an older child.

I've never let her use her condition as an excuse, though. I expect her to take responsibility for it, and take her medication on time, every day, use various techniques that we've learned over the years to manage symptoms, and when she breaks rules, she's swiftly and appropriately disciplined. Every time. No excuses. I do give her opportunities to reduce grounding sentences if she displays exceptionally good behaviour, but it always must be earned.

I'm a big fan of kids earning rewards. I think it teaches motivation, goals, cause and effect, and appreciation.

However, the step-kids bio mom had no such philosophy. She basically let them run rampant. Not an exaggeration. She would literally lock herself in her room and let them do whatever they wanted. She refused to discipline them in any way.

My husband, bless him, followed her lead because he believed she knew more about raising kids (she had a 9 yo daughter when they got together). He feels a lot of guilt and shame over that decision.

Well, fast forward to now, and I'm stuck raising a 6 year old girl who can't do a flipping thing for herself. I'm serious. I had to tell this child to wipe her own butt when she used the toilet. That's how bad this is. And the 7 year old boy...well, there's a whole mess of things going on there. He's an emotional rollercoaster. If he doesn't get his way on something with my BD and SD, he'll scream at them and throw things and hit them. If he doesn't get his way with an adult, he'll start sobbing as loud as he can so you'll feel sorry for him.

And yeah, it really is only for pity. I fell for it at first. I felt so bad for the kid, he had a crappy mom, and a crappy older sister that both left him. And once he honed in on the fact that I felt bad for him, he started using them as an excuse for EVERYTHING. If he didn't do his homework, immediately, it was waterworks and a sob story about he "missed" his older sister. If I told him to do chores, he was "too sad".

I've learned to see through it and differentiate between when he's ACTUALLY upset about something, and when he's just being manipulative, but DH refuses. He just says, "I hate seeing him cry". Well, DUH. No (decent) parent feels good when their kid's upset, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and discipline them anyway!

So then I'm in between a rock and a hard place - do I continue to discipline my BD as I always have (with fantastic results) and then just tell her to deal with the fact that she gets punished for things that her step-siblings don't, or do I just say, "to heck with it" and subscribe to DH's "I don't like punishing them" philosophy and let all my hard work go out the window?

I think the worst part of this is that I can't talk to DH at all about this topic. He gets so defensive (we all do when it comes to our kids, but this is extreme) and gets mad and says that I must think he's a horrible parent and that he'll just leave it all to me then, since I "know so much". Of course, when I do discipline them myself, he then says really baiting things like, "are we going to keep them locked up in their rooms all the time" and "I really hope they don't resent you for this" and "they're just kids". Well, of course they're just kids. They're kids that DESTROYED the walls in our old apartment. They're kids that LIE to my face every chance they get. They're kids that REFUSE to do their homework. They're kids that PEE on things. They're kids BREAK everything they touch. I can't have anything nice anymore. I never had this problem before...

And with a "partner" that isn't being my partner at all on this, I'm just crying and crying and crying every night.

I love my husband, I love my kids, and yes, I even love my stepkids. But I'm getting to a point where I'm pretty certain they're going to become horrible, entitled adults if this doesn't stop, and I don't want that burden on me. I can help them. I know I can. But every time I get them a step in the right direction, DH forces me to take them two steps back, and I'm starting to resent them, and him for doing this.

I guess I just needed to vent. Sorry it's so long!