Well he might not want to fully move forward yet with blending families. If it's been this long then might as well just stick with the status quo bc changing a 20+ year habit is gonna be hard and slow
 

If a dude was hiding his own children, I probably wouldn't want to meet them either. Probably for your own good because what if they're violent, petty, etc

You are "the other woman" and their parents split up because of his cheating. I think you need to reconcile yourself with them never wanting a relationship with you. Why do you have an issue with him having lunch with his daughter on Father's Day? When I took my Dad out for FD breakfast, my stepmom declined saying it his time to spend with his children. Her children took her out for Mother's Day and Dad stayed home. Same reason.

His children are adults and they are allowed to choose those with whom they have a relationship. They choose to not have one with you. You pushing for more could end your marriage.

While it has been going on for the better part of 30 years and you have been cohabitating for 14, you will always be their father's mistress and their father will always be a liar.  You and their father did break up their parent's marriage.  Those are the facts. Of course there are any number of other facts in play.

Not only did he lie  to his kids and his wife for nearly his entire marriage to their mother, he lied about being married to you and having a wedding on your Italy trip.

Your entire relationship is pretty much a lie.  If I were his kids, I would have nothing to do with either of you and I would not just not shake your hand, I would not shake my own father's hand.

That all said, I agree with your not hiding. That means you have a choice to make. Either hide and let him keep you in the shadows, or, live your lives together regardless of the history and the disdain you will always be held in by his kids.   I would go to the FD event with his DD. Whether he wants you there or not. Don't tell him, just go on your own, sit down, say hello to the SKidult SD and wish your DH happy fathers day.

While there will in all liklihood never be any respect for you, or for their father, you and their father have a life to live together so .... live it, together.  Do not hide, do not live your life together separately.  There is no need to be in open conflict with his failed family progeny, though IMHO you and DH needs to be present together and be confident together.

I get the disdain that you and your DH are held in by his adult children.  I hold my XW and her geriatric Fortune 500 executive sugar/baby daddy cheat partner in much the same disdain.  She was knocked up by him when she moved out of our recently purchased marital home.  At last count, as of 12 years ago, she is on DH #3, has three all out of wedlock children. Her eldest and youngest are cheat babies conceived while cheating on a husband. Her eldest was conceived while she was married to me, her youngest conceived while she was married to grandpa sugar/baby daddy who she left me for.  Fortunately, from wedding to divorce was only 30 months for me and not the decades of your DH cheating on his family.

I do feel for everyone in your blended family dynamic. It is tragic in every facet.

That said, you have a life to live and a marriage to live together. Figure out how that looks and how to live that.  The rest, is unfixable.  But, do not hide. Do not do that disservice to yourself and do not let DH do that to you.

IMHO of course.

I don't think there's much chance that you can change the status quo and have a decent relationship with your adult step children.  However, I would say that I think it's completely unfair that you are the one blamed for the affair and they are still speaking to their father.  He was the one that broke his marriage vows to their mother, not you. But hey, the step parent always gets blamed for everything!  Yes, I am bitter. 

Why does he need your blessing to meet with his children on Father's Day?. You don't have relationship with his kids so where he supposed to spend Father's Day? With you instead of kids?  

i understand that common courtesy would be for them to say hello but in your situation common courtesy just doesn't apply here. Common decency suggests to not get involved with married people for the entire duration of their marriage. So I don't think common courtesy and decency are relevant here

yea the father is the one who was cheating his whole marriage, not you. They should be mad at him more. But he's their dad and they didn't want to severe ties with him so perhaps they forgave. They  aren't obligated  to engage with affair partner. I could maybe understand brief affair as it happens. But having the entire relationship most of their marriage is such ultimate betrayal and slap in everyone's faces. That's not something people just move on from.

How do you know they can't stand their mother? If you have no relationship with the kids how would you know? Your husband told you? He proved that he cannot be trusted. One needs to be a very skilled liar to hide an affair from the entire family for years. He can't be trusted to tell the truth about anything. So I'd not worry about their relationship with their mother, regardless if it's true or not.

I understand you are hurt. But we lie in beds we made. So that's the aftermath of a bad choice. It can't be changed. You can't undo the past. I'd focus on something else in life.

If you want relationship with children you can maybe volunteer in pediatric hospital or school. Or maybe you have relative with kids, nieces or nephews etc Relationship with his children will likely never happen. 

Before I had DD, I didn't think too badly about people who cheated, probably because it was such a norm from where I grew up. My own parents didn't make it because my dad was a cheater (he still is and he's 70). I love him, but I don't have much respect for him, because all my life I've seen him operate for his wants vs what's best for family. I do not plan to inconvenience myself much if he ever needs me, because he didn't inconvenience himself for me. I do realize he was very young when he started having his kids, and I'm working on forgiving him and being at peace with everything, for my sake. 

Having a family of my own creation now, I see things a little different. Firstly, I see that a lot of people do not approach starting a family with intentional procreation, a lot of these kids are just byproducts of sex. It seems there are a lot of "oopsy babies" and this gives an excuse for many men to say they were ensnared by a woman with their child.
 
However, once a child is created, I do believe in the sanctity of family. Not a lot of men or women will look at that child and love them the way the bio parents would. That child then needs their parents, and if they can all live together it is the ideal situation for said family. 

For varying dynamics, many times the first family has to break up. In your case, you admit that the children were 11-20 years old when their parents split, and you were part of that cause. 11 is still pretty young to have your family broken because your dad was emotionally immature, decided to cheat for years and eventually leave. To then end up married to the person he cheated with must have cemented their dislike of you. You mentioned that you can't allow your blessing for him to have a Father's Day lunch with his daughter because it would be "too humiliating" for you, but I'm sure the stepkids were humiliated by what their father did, yet there he is with you x amount of years later. 
 

You entered into a relationship with someone who vowed to honor his family above all, but didn't. What the kids needed and would have probably been in their best interest (at least until they were all 18), was pushed to the side by their father and you to do what you both wanted to do. You didn't care about what the kids needed, and you moved forward with what you wanted (rightfully so, those aren't your kids and you didn't hold their best interest at heart). Those decisions fractured their first family. I can understand why they wouldn't want to have much to do with you (even though you're not the one breaking vows), and why they would have lost trust/respect for their father. It makes sense to me that now that they are adults, they don't care to have a relationship with the woman who they see as taking their father away from them. Had he taken custody of the kids when he left ex wife, it could have maybe been a different story (and you likely wouldn't have stuck around), but he didn't. So there you are.  

Your decision to participate in the destruction of said first family home cannot earn you a seat of love and respect in their eyes, and probably never will at this stage of the game. He decided to cheat for his entire marriage with you, and many of us don't stop to think that kids are only kids for a few years, then they are adults for the rest of their lives. They know that he abandoned them, and they are going to have to work through the disappointment/hurt/misdirected anger, if they choose to.   

You had to have seen that it couldn't have turned out any other way. You can't expect it to be much more than what it is now, not unless you took it upon yourself to apologize for your role in the breakup of their family. Even if you did, I fear it would be too little, too late and they would still want nothing to do with you, so I would say to just move forward. 
The same likely goes for their father. Whatever relationship they have now won't be one based on trust or respect, your DH has to do that work with them if he wants either one. I would advise you to just step back and disengage. You got what you wanted anway (the DH), it's unlikely that you're going to be able to have a positive relationship with his kids by nature of the origins of your relationship with their dad. 
I would just focus on being supportive to DH and allowing him the space to try to make it right with his kids. 

but it's a precautionary tale for others on why not to have an affair.  I'm not saying you and your husband shouldn't be together but I'm saying he made critical mistakes in the beginning of your relationship that are decades later still causing you pain.

He should have left his wife and moved out and waited an acceptable amount of time (say six months) and then divorced her and then started a relationship with you slowing introducing you to his children and letting a relationship develop naturally.  

My first ex husband cheated on me with an affair partner and I would have gone scorched earth on him and caused endless drama if he had made his affair partner my kids' stepmother.  His wife now I very much like and have a great coparenting relationship with and my kids love and adore her.  They have a great relationship with her.  She even takes my DD9 and does stuff with her.  My stepkids love her.  That's why it's so important to do it right and your husband should have conducted himself with patience and could have set you up in a completely different life with different relationships if he had only been honest with himself and his ex from the get go that he didn't love her anymore and should have gotten divorced the proper way.  I don't know how it can be fixed now.  I'm sorry.   

I agree that there's no fixing this situation.  My father's mother cheated on her husband (my grandfather) and divorced him to move in with (and eventually marry) her affair partner/2nd husband when my dad was 28.  My father had zero respect or regard for the 2nd husband, but always was polite and civil to him.  He also lost all respect for his mother, but continued to visit her and carry on a superficial relationship until she died many years later.  We kids had no idea of any of this until we were adults ourselves.  My point is that some kids will "accept" an affair partner,  whether or not they like or respect them, and others won't.  In retrospect, I doubt my grandma's 2nd husband was ever comfortable around her kids, even though they were polite.  There was a lot of dislike and resentment there, albeit cloaked in politeness.  In some respects being ignored and left out (which is what HIS kids did to him and my grandma) might be preferable.  After 14 years I think the die is cast - your skids are never going to accept you or your relationship with your husband,  and it's best to resign yourself to that.

Why would try and horn in on a daughter taking her dad to lunch for FATHER'S Day?? How selfish!! He's not YOUR dad. Crappy of you expecting to horn in on their time and crappy of him to refuse because you aren't invited. Why should you be. If he wants to spend time with his ADULT children he should. If he doesn't he might lose what little relationship he's got with them. You need to come to grips with the fact they don't want anything to do with you. Theyre adults. They don't have to socialize if they don't want to. *fool*

At the end of the day, this entire mess is on the "D"H. Yes, OP was wrong, but look at all she has sacrificed for this guy who wouldn't even admit to having married her. How many of us have fallen for BS lines? "Oh, the kids are really well-adjusted and low maintenance. SD is going to be a doctor one day!" "Oh, my ex and i coparent well but aren't overly close." How about "We split up because my ex is selfish/psycho." How far are those from "Yes, we are still married on paper but we have been basically separated for years. We haven't had sex in years and only live together for the kids/financial reasons." "If i got a divorce now, my ex would go crazy and all of our lives would be hell!"

This "D"H is a liar, a coward, and i'm guessing a real smooth talker. If the kids have a good relationship with him and not OP, what has he said to them to justify his actions? OP has paid and paid to be with this guy. Not saying what she did was right, but it looks like this guy has his cake and eats it too. Relationship with his kids, separate from relationship with OP. I wonder if he is paying alimony and if that plus any CS he paid (if any) is subsidized by OP. I wonder what their age difference is.

I don't have any advice for OP but i'm not going to pile on, either. I doubt she won a "prize" and if this guy was going to cheat, he would have found someone else if OP hadn't been willing to wait YEARS for this a-hole. We have all been duped to some degree in stephell. 

I think a red flag was him trying for 4 years to save his marriage after his wife found out about you. And, yes, you are still being treated as "the other woman." Would he still be married if his wife hadn't called it quits? You chose to be second, and it's a role you are still filling. I think your choice is whether you can learn to accept this or not.
This is a risk people take when they choose to have affairs. My father had an affair with a woman from the time I was 10. My mother left him when I was 19. Yes, I felt resentment, but within a few years I accepted his GF as someone who made him happy. My parents' marriage was not a happy one. It all probably helped that my mother remarried a man who gave her everything she wanted. Perhaps if she had been "all suffering," we would not have been so forgiving or accepting of our father's GF. I don't know. Still, I can't imagine ever having wanted either one of my parents to be alone. . . or ever feeling like I had any say over who they would be involved with. 
You are not going to change the skids' feelings. Not sure you can change his long-standing habit of living two separate lives. Sorry. 
 

I'll point out that your husband is a known liar. He lied to his wife and children for YEARS. So you can't really take anything he says as 100% truthful regarding how miserable his marriage was, how disturbed his ex wife is, blah blah blah. If it was truly that bad, he would have left instead of waiting to be caught and forced to leave. Men typically don't stay "for the children"; that's just an excuse they give their mistresses.

I'm sure my XH's affair partner thought I was the worst wife ever because he also was a liar. But what she didn't know is that we were truly happy together and all the "sweet nothings" he told her, he was also telling to me on a daily basis. I was showered with affection and gifts regularly, and generally believed that I was adored by him. He never would have left if I hadn't caught them and sent him packing. She also thought she won some wonderful prize, but 5 years later they're not together and she wasted her childbearing years on a liar, who stopped lying to me and started lying to her, and a cheater who stopped cheating on me and started cheating on her. This is a tale as old as time and it's extremely unlikely that you're the exception to the rule and that your husband has not lied or exaggerated the truth about his marriage to you.

And for those saying the kids should be more mad at their dad than OP, well yeah. But that's not how human nature works. They LOVE their dad, it's natural to find it easier to forgive the person you love. The affair partner means nothing to them, why should they forgive her? She's a much easier target for their anger. That doesn't make them bad people, they are simply humans. 

If your marriage is really that happy and fulfilling, then you need to let this go. In my opinion, the step kids are really being as gracious as they can be expected by just avoiding you instead of being outright hostile. Let them enjoy the relationship they have with their dad, separate from you, and leave it at that.

Someone above said you don't deserve that, and I disagree because obviously my experience informs my opinion. But I do agree that this is nothing more than a natural consequence of the decisions you and your husband made years ago. You can't go back and change what you did, so you have to just accept the results of it.

If you're lonely, the step kids are never realistically going to be the family that you want to have. The best thing for you to do is to use the time your husband spends on them to build a community of your own. Join clubs, go to church, volunteer, whatever. You can make your own family with some effort and it will be much less complicated than trying to forge a bond with people who clearly have no desire to. 

Aka what's done is done.   The fact of the matter is that we all know whether or not cheating is involved, the BM and skids often behave this way toward SM and biodad.

You should accept the situation for what it is and actually consider the skid's shunning as a blessing in disguise.