Carriem...parents are meant to be loving guides not best friends. Not an easy role when you feel rejected and misunderstood by your own children and they know all of the buttons to push. If you an your husband are a united front, they may not like the boundaries but they will respect them and like the others have said, they will thank you someday. BTW...keep praying. My day came when my DS and DIL took their kids out of public school and home schooled them for several years. Before that they had been very vocal about my DS not graduating from HS even though he had been acceptd into college where they met.
And Dubib, I also agree that grandparents have it really the best. They just have to love all of the generations but let the youngest ones know that their DM and DD are the ones that call the shots. I think that does a lot for the middle generation so far as their confidence in their parenting.