One needs to accommodate minor children on some level - because they are still children.

Adults - well one should never tolerate toxic ahole adults in one's life - no matter the DNA connection. When an adult skid is worthless, obnoxious, toxic, etc then one should just remove them from your life. No texts, email, visits etc. Just pretend like they do not exist.

Now if you have a spouse who objects to that then you have a spousal problem not a skid problem. One should never ever ever have to deal with aholes. Tell your spouse not to even talk about them if necessary.

Simply disengage from the parenting stuff, not your kids and not your problem, but remain engaged in your relationship.

If Dh should ask you for help with skids, smile and say Hon, I think you have to ask BM or do it yourself... this is in the cases of checking home work in the evenings... when DH is there... then you simply tell him, it's your children I'm not their parent..

If DH is not there, and something urgent came up - then you help with a skid... when the school calls DH and he can't get away and snowflake is sick,,, and you can pick them up... if you can't simply tell DH, sorry in a meeting can't get away either, call BM...

When you prepare dinner, you do what you like, if the snowflakes does not like it, easy DH can prepare something else which he paid for or they can go to bed hungry

I like that phrase, "He loves me the only way he knows how." I live it. I have a fabulous husband who fails me miserably as a wife because he has allowed his adult kids to control him and become a doormat to them in order to fulfill their wishes, at anybody else's expense, even his own. He has paid a price with others in his life, long before me because he has been brainwashed to believing he is a daddy to kids he is not even a father. It's both sickening and pathetic to watch especially when you cannot create the change, no matter how hard you try. And, even if he wanted to play out this fantasy, if these people were reasonably nice people to me, it would be workable. I never expected to be their mother, just respected as his wife. For me, that never happened.

As long as I do not say a word about them or be around these self-absorbed people, I have total freedom and happiness. I even have to keep the thoughts out of my head to keep the ball and chain away emotionally, so it still requires a lot of self talk. And, posters here will become your confidants and close friends, because they are the ones who truly understand. Just know, none of this is YOUR fault, it is HIS fault. After that, realize it will not change unless he does and if your husband is like mine, that change is very doubtful. If he wants to be their dumping ground and daddy dollar, that is fine with me; but I no longer take part of his one way worship service. And, it is a relief to take control back over of my own life and not dread the next SM torture session for weeks and months ahead of time.

It is not easy to do and I have messed up occasionally, but I have slowly made a lot of progress letting go. Like I said, this site has been a tremendous help to me, just to know I am not alone and abnormal. Most of us like to believe in fairy tales, but life is not that, at all. There are happy endings and sad endings; sometimes the happy ending is the sad ending when you are in our position with husbands, like ours.

Best of luck, come here often and read what others write. You will quickly learn you only had a 20% chance of success, even if you were SM of the Year....80% of us are in the same position you are kind lady.

Hang in there...with us...

The way I dealt with my SDs when they were young was to just be like a fun aunt. I didn't change my lifestyle or plans to accommodate them. I continued to do exactly what I would do if they weren't there. I had house rules that they had to obey, but other than that, it was their parents' job to raise them. I never directly engaged with his x-wife. He would discuss situations with me. We would decide our course together, and he would deal with her.

The girls are adults now. I include them on family plans, traditions, etc., but it is my husband's job to make the arrangements with them. I do not alter our plans based on their schedules. They either make it or they don't. He travels to see them in their college towns. Sometimes I go. Sometimes I don't. It really has taken all of the stress out of our marriage.