For you guys and ladies with step children:

When your step children act up, cop an attitude, pitch fits, smart mouth you and act like little turdlings in general does your spouse (their Mom/Dad) usually find a way to blame their behavior on your bungling or mishandling of the situation in the beginning?

In other words, you are told that the kiddies would not have been so bad had you handled it right to begin with.  

My wife, God love her, has this annoying, infuriating way of blaming all of her son's shortcomings and general pissy attitude on me.

Oh yeah, he acts fine with her (not really) because she waits on him hand and foot.  I, I am the bad guy who tries to make him buck it up pretty often and since he is "sensitive" and easily offended (bawls at the drop of a hat) I am bad.  Can't ask anything of the kid cause if it remotely requires him to try, e squalls

This has nearly cost us our marriage.

As, David Lee Roth once said [b]"I been to the edge, you know I stood and looked down.....You know I lost a lot of friends their baby....ain't got no time to fool around"[/b], thats us.

I am trying my dead level damdest best to not be sucked into their disfunctional relationship and have been doing better than ever before.  Still, once in a while I up-set junior and mama bear eats my arse and I steer clear for a few days till the dust settles.

My question is where is the median?  How do you find a way to either work with your difficult step child or not give a shit?

And, how do you find a way to deal with your irrational, blind spouse.

I know divorce destroys the natural order of things and personally I think male children suffer the most.  Just as the games male animals play in the wild determine their social structure and their overall hierarchy we human males are very similar.

My wife is dominated by a sub-adolescent male and he has always been her surrogate husband.

Where is the middle road?

Counseling is already on the agenda and it is with a Christian organization with a nice reputation.

I know integrating into a family is hard for a divorced parent and probably hardest for a woman with a son but some things are jsut a given by natural order.  Those things must not be ignored.

Like I said, as long as I don;t upset precious my wife is fine.

X-Kill-  Have you defined what you are willing to put up with?  I know this has been troubling you for a long time and you have been doing your best to stay out of it.  My wife gives my grief, most of it deserved [;)] , but there is a line.  My wife knows that if she crosses that line I will walk.  When she approaches that line, I define it for her, and then she knows and doesn't cross it.  She is actually the "head of household" and will do fine w/o me, but she doesn't want that.  

Of course she has lines such as fidelity, but I know I won't be crossing those.  I actually approached her line of me doing my chores in a timely manner and not being such a slob, but she told me so I knew not to cross it.

Figure out what your line is and break it down in a simple way.  If this, then this will happen.  Has really helped in my marriage.

Hope this makes sense?  Good luck. [:)]

Edited to actually answer your question:  Do what you think is right.  There is no middle road.  Wait for the emotions to settle and then decide on a rational course of action.  In other words, tell your wife how this is affecting you.  Don't lay it on her though, use the words "It makes me feel" and not "you make me feel".  Ex: I feel being a step dad has put me in an akward position.  I feel that there are ways that we can help our son to be better, but we aren't seeing things the same way and this is very frustrating for me.  I saw him doing ________ and I think the result of that will be ___________.  What do you think?  How can we make this situation better?

The middle road is to simply state your case and walk away.  That is about all you can do.

Oh yeah, make sure to repeat the serenity prayer every hour on the hour.  [:)]

Read Harry Browne's book "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World."

It's not directly applicable to your current dilemma, but maybe the whole situation in general.  Also, have a talk with FrankTheSpank about his recent endeavors (okay, that's supposed to be funny :-)

Read up on psychology, especially papers dealing with step children, step-parents and so forth.  Don't go for the bookstore crap, it's all garbage.  Counseling is expensive and doesn't usually help.  Laying down the law doesn't often work either, since respect is what has broken down in the first place.    

Your wife feels guilt over breaking up the family and dotes on her son to try and make up for it--typical enabler behavior.  She also appears to be in denial about the root cause of the problem--projecting blame onto you instead of dealing out some tough love in the right direction.  If the child won't respect your authority as a parent, you don't have anywhere left to go with them.  A sign of the times--undisciplined, overly sensitive children who think they own you because they can call social services and accuse you of child abuse.  You can thank the government and the media for that.

I know you're trying to do the right thing, but



makes me wonder if your own peace of mind might not be better served by escaping from the box you have put yourself in (refer to Browne's book).  You can't change other people, you can only change how you deal (or not deal) with them.

There must be only one alpha dog in the den.  
 
Figure out who it is.  If it is you then act to end this behaviour by your wife and step-son.   If it is not ended now it will never end.

Take the little prick to a homeless shelter and show him what a tough life is all about.  Take him to a childrens ward with cripples and cancer victims and let him see and understand how lucky he is.  

Hell, take them both to Mexico or any 3rd world country and let them see how really fortunate they both are.  Make sure they understand YOU are seperating them from that sad life.

If she doesn't see the need to change her ways, are you ready to spend the next 10-15 years putting up with this?

Good luck.

God that was a great book, must have read it about fifteen years ago.  One of those damn books you give away to someone who really needs it then spend forever to track down another copy only to just give that one away. The Tao of Pooh is another one of those books.  If you can find it read it x-kill. Great "perspective" book.