edit: I re-read your comment. Are adult kids allowed to move back in? One of the issues here is that my kids are young and dependent and hers are adult and moved out. My fiancee had already established this with hers as they were adults and they moved back in with her at times when they needed to get back on their feet, they had a plan though and it was stuck to. I would expect the same of my children when they are adult age, if they can respect the rules and have a plan to be out on their own and stick to it then that is something that can be discussed amongst other alternatives. I feel like I am asking for the same things from her that I would expect her to have from me, it's just that our kids aren't similar ages where they have the same situations at the moment.

Thank you. What you've written seems fairly accurate, I have expected these problems to work out over time yet they reoccur. How do you mean that she is playing a game, using me as justification to continue to be a doormat for her kids? They do look at her as a possesion, an item, a source of their instant gratification, and she flat out stated that she loves that her daughter wants to spend all her time with her over her own friends and other family, it is a source of validation for my fiancee. Sadly she had spoken to me in the past how she had become more friends with her daughter than her mother and it became an issue at the start of the relationship that she recognized then, or at least told me so of her own identification. We are right back there again it feels like. I am concerned that ending the engagement would be enough of a sore point for her to end the relationship, I guess if it is so be it. I am also not sure what it means for me if I end it, I struggle with the thought that if I don't want to marry her then why waste my time in a half and half relationship with her? I'd rather be single than not a priority.

Thank you. I have found that when I "make a point" in the past she sees it as malicious and some sort of revenge. I am not allowed to be held to the same standards as her, she is allowed to do the things she does yet I am not, and the reasons that are given don't always seem to fit the level of anger she displays towards me and the actions she takes.

We have had the phone issue with her son who would call at all hours of the night (when we were asleep at 11pm on weeknights) to talk about minor issues, and she would take his calls. He had\has substance issues and she was worried if she didn't take his calls he would do something drastic. He sort of worked himself out of that equation by destructive behaviour that has her I believe setting some boundaries there.

I'm not sure what drastic measures to take. I've tried talking about it but get denial and resistance. I put her first and consider her before making decisions. I certainly don't and wouldn't take off if anyone in my family requested alone time on a whim when I was spending time with her, regardless if we had concrete plans together or not. Perhaps I am the odd one out for that.

It's a recurring theme, and I am not sure the boundaries I thought she had set are really there, it all appears to be lip service at this point and not the direction at all she told me how she expected her life to be with her adult children moved out.

I am not into drama, but somewhat direct and I believe honest in what I say in terms of the issues. I expect that to be taken seriously. Perhaps that's not how effective communication works in relationships lol. The dramatic measure I would take would be not filled with drama but a simple explanation of how I feel and how I don't see it working and ending our engagement. At that point, I've not been in that boat before, if I no longer wish to pursue marriage why would I stay in a relationship that wouldn't grow?

I really needed to hear different thoughts from what I was thinking, not necessarily reinforcement.

Throughout my children's lives I have been pretty much their main caregiver, when I lived with their mother she worked shifts where she saw them very little and I did most of the heavy lifting. SInce the divorce I have been the parent pushing their nutrition, activities, development and focused on that. I am not looking for a replacement mother, I am the replacement mother. My fiancee loves kids, and she has taken to mine, she has stated early on and never wavered from wanting to be heavily involved in their upbringing and development, a parental figure to them, not a replacement but an additional figure that they can call upon and rely upon as a reliable and dependant figure in their lives. I actually have struggled with giving her some of the reigns at times, and have worked with her on it at her request. She asked to play that role, and I thought that both would benefit. She asks that we refer to both sets of kids as ours.

We spend a lot of time with her children, they are grown though, adult and living out of home and from the start of our relationship she stated that she desired and was aiming to, and seemed to be working towards not being "needed" every day, in fact hoped that they would have way less contact as they forged their own lives. They were both in relationships when I met, however they both disintegrated over the last 6 months and became self destructive and divisive in our relationship, especially since the engagement. I like her children well enough and am happy for them to spend time with us and to my face they are pleasant and I felt we were slowly building a relationship. I certainly agree with you that age does not equal maturity and that has to be taken into account.

We have had many conversations that she has begun about when we are married and living together that she would be around the kids all the time, be involved with their schooling, all of it. There was never any talk of entertaining and separation. In fact she would get put out if I did something with my kids and she was not involved at times. The issues I talk of also exist when I don't have kids. When we are on dates they are interupted regularly, she has cut short our trips to run back to her daughter for non emergencies.

What she says and what she really wants may be two separate things though, perhaps she says the things she has to please me or in hopes that I would favor her, or perhaps she does believe she wants those things until the sacrifices are presented and then it's not so easy. You know, I might be ok with more of a separation of our children but it was not what I thought we were both on the same page about. It appears we are not and I'm learning through action rather than words, which is the difficult part because of our comminication. I do believe there is a lot of truth in what you say, it just goes against the words we had, and maybe I was too eager to believe it quickly and not understand it may not be that way. This is really my first jaunt into step\blended families. I have not had adult kids yet, I grew up in a stable home, her parents married multiple times and she had multiple step families, some brief, some long, and I believe she does her best.