A little background.....DH and I have been married a year (this week) together two. When we met we were both very unhappily married and it was one of those, it just happened, kind of things, we were friends first and it progressed into more, though we never cheated. While we know everything moved fast for the kids (separated from ex's in January, introduced as dating partners in March, engaged in April, bought a home in August, married in October) we have tried to provide stability to the kids with regular schedules and rules as much as possible. I have 3 bio kids; bd15,bs13,bs9 and 2 sk; ss8, sd5, I have sole custody of my three bks with the youngest doing the eow thing with his dad (older bks from my first marriage)and the teenagers visiting their father maybe once to twice a month (though my bd hasn't seen her father for more than an hour in a year, long back story there). We share 50/50 custody with DH's ex of sks. For the last year we have been tweaking the custody arrangement. When DH left it was a straight EOW as well as two evenings a week. We continued that when we bought our home and were married. It worked well, there were little complaints, and things seemed to settle into a routine. I really love his children and they me, they cuddle up to me and make cards for me and tell me they love me all the time. I pick them up from school, clothes shop and are involved in all aspects of their life and education (DH's ex and I actually get along well because we both have the same goal, the health and well being of the children in mind). My ss however has serious control issues, food, chores, television, ect. that were present long before I entered the picture. When we began trying to harmonize our families I realized that ss would be a challenge. There were different meals made for him (he was 7 at the time), restaurants were selected based on if there was something he would eat, if the wait was too long at a restaurant my DH would leave looking for another place to eat. I had to put my foot down with theses behaviors as my bson has ADHD and had also exhibited many of these behaviors which I found unacceptable and did not cater to. Because of this it has been a difficult melding process. Also,I as an RN, I noticed some behaviors in ss that I believed were problematic and was instrumental in getting him evaluated and subsequently diagnosed with ADD. Beginning last summer DH, myself and his ex agreed that there was no reason for the sks not to spend the nights since they were already home with us in the evenings (she would pick them up at 8 or nine at night on the two evenings). That worked well through the summer. My bio son 13 decided at around the same time that he wanted to try living with his father for the summer, which was a struggle for me as he had never been away for more than 3 days at a time, but I agreed, as it was his decision. The summer progressed as any would with five kids, a multitude of parents and summer vacations abound. When the school year started we all discussed the custody arrangement and agreed to again tweak it slightly. The sks were going to continue to spend the night twice weekly, the only change was that instead of Mon, Thurs, it would be Mon Tues, continuing with EOW. As I mentioned before there are rules in our house, dinner table expectations, chores (unloading the dishwasher, bringing dirty clothes down, picking up their toys), sharing of resources (tv, wii, ect.), no temper tantrums, any parent knows what I am talking about, we run our house not our kids (hard when you are out numbered I assure you). When school began this year and the days of the week changed now having sks home with us 5 nights in a row I began to notice little comments here and there from the skids about mommy’s house. We had always known that our house ran differently, how could it not, 3 extra kids and two parents, but the kids started to provide comparisons to us. At mommy's house they eat what they want, frequently hotdogs and applesauce, chicken nuggets, you know what I mean; at mommy's house there are two tv's one for each of them; at mommy's house they don't have chores, she does everything; at mommy's house blah blah blah blah. I got it. Now everyday they are asking when they're going to mommy's house, even though they know the schedule and can recite it on command. Last Wednesday I was taking them to school and ss said, "oh thank god it's wednesday, we go home tonight" and today sd said "oh ss, tomorrow is wednesday, we go back to mommy's house". I said "Do you not like being home with us sd?" and ss says "it's not that, it's just easier at mommy's house". So here we are, knowing we are trying to parent them and not just getting by, but for five days in a row every other week they have NO responsibility and no accountability and there is NOTHING we can do about it. I am losing hope, faith and energy rapidly....any suggestions?