It’s a total deflection move. They don’t want to own the fact that they are allowing such horrible behavior so they throw the blame back on you. I was told I had vendetta against ex skid for pointing out, rather calmly, skids behavior. I had never reprimanded this kid, spoke rudely to her, slighted her in any way but I suddenly had a vendetta. Okay victim dad...

Effing stupid, isn't it? Unfortunately, seems to be common.

Because society has come up with a set of invisible rules for step-parents. You must be submissive to your partner and their children. You must always be the one to bite the bullet. You must treat a child that is not yours as your own. You must drag your own biological children down to the level of stepchildren. You must be the family punching bag, bank, and sex doll for the foreseeable eternity,

OR

You're a bad parent - and there are people here, and in real life, that will shame you.

I say to hell with those people. Do as you please, we're adults who understand the consequences of our actions. We, and our children, are allowed to be happy, and we're allowed to parent as we please.

I've cut so many people out of my life that thought they were allowed to have an opinion on it that I can't even keep count anymore, but guess what? I'm happy, pretty much every single day.

I strongly believe that it comes about because of Disney Dad guilt. In other words, kids will be kids and so many times the guys feel so guilty about divorce that they don’t set boundaries, they don’t discipline because they want to be seen as the good parent, the generous parent, the “friendly” parent. And, there’s no winning when you express any disgust or disagreement because not only are we expressing feelings about the kids, but the dad feels like we’re  criticizing him, too.  So, naturally, we’re not great. 

I emotionally disengage and keep my mouth shut.  And I’m lucky in some ways too because I don’t physically live with him and his adult daughter who lives 100 yards from him. 

But, I know if I said anything about his daughter he would be calling me “judgmental” and I would be getting major grief. 

I think it's because their dysfunction is comfortable for them, and we make them uncomfortable when we call them out on their sh*t.  To them we are the bad guy because we're the ones rocking the boat & not going along with all their crap.

I had a rough day the other day & my SS's were little terrors on top of it, I got royally p*ssed off about it.  I was talking to DH about it & he got all quiet, which is his MO when he's being faced with hard truths.  So I called him on that as well & told him he doesn't get to shut me out just because I'm saying something that makes him feel uncomfortable.  Me calling out his kids awful behaviour doesn't mean I hate his kids, it means in those moments they were behaving terribly & it made me angry. Deal with it...

I think they really do take any criticism of their kids as an attack on themselves.  All I can think of in that case is, if you're feeling attacked personally because I'm not happy with your kids behaviour, then maybe you should step up and do something about it, instead of ignoring the bad stuff & only focussing on the good.  There wouldn't be a trigger there if they didn't feel some kind of truth in what you're saying.

The way to get people to stop pulling shit is to rub their noses in the stench they cause.  So, rub their noses in their shit and make sure everyone around the situation has clarity of who is the one responsible for the stench.

IMHO it is because failed bioparents know they are failures and are, at least subconsciously, embarrassed by their own failures.  This is akin to the Emperor's New Clothes fable.  If no one mentions that the Emperor is naked the Emperor can remain delusional as to their abject waste of skin status as a parent and the proof of their failure as evidenced by their toxic spawn.