Feeling I’m done with adult stepchildren

[DramaDivaDi]

I have been with my husband for 22 years. I have four adult stepchildren in their 30s and 40s and we have a son together who recently had a big birthday.
We’ve basically all got along together but recently I’ve started to feel that the relationship is too one-way for comfort and that they’re old enough for me to step back honourably. They hold some very offensive views and I just have to sit there and bite my tongue; I put in all the wifework of arranging to meet and remembering birthdays; none of them sent a text or card on our son’s birthday; my husband continues to loan and gift them money, with me only finding out after the event, if at all.
I’m happy to go along to family occasions but I don’t want to put in the legwork any more. My husband thinks I am being judgemental and transactional and this is just how the parent-child relationship works.
I am really starting to think about leaving, or at least detaching myself.
has anyone experienced anything like this? Any observations or advice?

If there are positive things you enjoy with your husband, don't leave. As others have said just take a massive but silent step back. Centre yourself and decentre them. Do what you want to do. Let them get on with it. You are a grown up. You don't have to see them, buy them stuff, do Christmas day, or anything really. You actually don't have to be in their company. You can have your own friends and do something else/be somewhere else when the get togethers happen. Societal norms aren't so bad now. Just you do the parts you do. If your husband wants to give them his money that's fine. As long as it's not your money. He will highly likely notice that you have stopped carrying the load of his family. Too little too late. Sorry. Damage is done. Just my thoughts.

You admit you haven’t been the best step parent and only came into their lives when they were teenagers. It doesn’t sound like their dad prioritised them and you begrudged their maintenance, so why should they think of you now?

Your husband sounds rubbish. Just leave. I don’t know why women enter into such relationships and then moan that they’re unhappy. What did you expect? 🙄

I would let your dh start arranging everything. I did this with a 16 year old sd, no thanks, rudeness and dreadful behaviour. It made the relationship so much easier as there was no expectation on me to be anything other than dad’s wife and he did all the work to maintain HIS relationship, he didn’t rely on me. My marriage also improved!

He may well be passing some of his wealth onto his children now, when it's useful to them, rather than waiting for them to inherit after he dies. This would also make sense from an IHT point.

I think all you need to do is make sure each of you is contributing a fair amount to the joint account, to cover all bills and living costs and then whatever is left over is your own. Then just stop doing his family admin and leave him to sort it out.

Get legal advice and gather as much financial information as possible. What a waste of your life spending it with him and his awful children. Time to split the finances of which you are entitled to half, before he gives all the money away. Wake up.