My husband is frustrating me to no end. I think part of it is a lack of trust on my end, but how many times can you deal with the same issues with result always being the same. A little over a week ago in the middle of a two week span of summer time the family had together the bottom fell out.
Let me start at the begining. Right around November of last year my husband decided he wanted a separation. He wanted to date me (does this sound familiar? Of course it does it was the proposition his mother had come up with in August of the same year) Anyway we were going back and forth and to the best of my knowledge nothing had been decided then on December 22nd, I received a text from my husbands 19 year old nephew, telling me he was sorry things had not worked out and would he still be able to pal around with my son after his uncle moved out. Obviously my nephew had a lot more info than I had. He goes on to tell me that he over heard his grandmother and my husband talking about getting an apartment. I flipped my lid. It was bad enough that this was a Christmas that I did not have my kids, which always sucks, but to have this bomb dropped on me. The whole time my husband is telling me he wants to work things out. So anyway he comes home and confirms what I have been told. Let me tell you I was one hot tamale. The freaking gonads of the man. After everything his mother had done to me and my kids, he is going to collude with her to walk out of my life with not even a fair thee well! So we go round and round. He says he is not going to move out till the end of January, says he doesn't even have the apartment yet (but he had gone looking behind my back). He is only going to move out till the end of June. He and I are supposed to work on our marriage during this time. When I ask him why he felt it was so important that we work on our marriage while he lived somewhere else, it comes out that it is his mother's idea, and if he changes his mind again she will turn her back on him forever (yeah right, like I would ever get that lucky) So we schedule therapy sessions. He admits that the major problems in our marriage are the result of the crazy amount of influence his Mother and ex-wife have on our family life. That he needs to figure out a way to manage his relationships with these women so I am not always holding the short end. My one and only issue is how do I get over the fact that my husband would leave me because he is more concerned with pissing his mother off than he is about breaking my heart. At the end of the session, my husband has a change of heart and tells his mom to take a flying leap. She did not talk to him for the month of February and half of March. Then as Easter approached she decided she wanted to make nice so she could spend the holiday with the boy with the family jewels. I knew it wouldn't last and it didn't.
Anyway, his older son, the one I have the most difficulty with all of a sudden during the break up drama decided I was the best thing since sliced bread. He went around telling everyone I was the best Step-Mom in the world and so on and so on. He probably had a lot to do with my husband reconsidering, because his other women were in his ear telling him that I hated his oldest son and that I was so mean to the kid. Yeah going to his school every Thursday and having lunch with him, making him follow the same rules as the rest of the kids in the house is soooo mean. Anyway, things were great, till my husband changed his mind and decided to stay, then the older step son went back to being the disrespectful kid I had dealt with the first four years. .... more later....
Last weekend, I sustained an
Last weekend, I sustained an pretty bad injury that sent me to the Urgent Care. They prescribed pretty wicked Vicodin, which helped the pain and allowed me to rest till the swelling went down some, but it basically left me comatose. While I was in my less than functioning state, I took off my platinum wedding ring because it was bothering me and laid it on my bedside table. I mustered up the strength to join my family for dinner on Saturday evening. While at the table my 10 year old step son asked me about my missing ring. He being not the most observant of children, it made me immediately suspicious. My husband and I asked him why he would bring the ring up, he said "no reason". Well by Sunday night my husband and I had concluded the ring was definitely missing, I had not misplaced it in my drug induced stupor. I went in and told my step son who was watching a movie with my daughter. I told him if he knew where my ring was he needed to make sure it made it back into my possession. My daughter came in my bedroom later and told me he had it, she knew he did but she could not get to it, and why wasn't I bashing him over the head (figuratively speaking) to find out where the ring was. I told her I just wanted it back and I would deal with him taking and keeping it for days after I got it back.
Later on that night I got out of bed for some water and the kids were downstairs having ice cream. My stepson pulled me to the stairs and asked me to close my eyes, then he ran off and came back, he told me to keep my eyes closed and took me to the top of the stairs, away from his father, and there he gave me my ring back. I asked him where he found it. He said "I found it down stairs". I told him he was lying because I had not left my room since going to the urgent care. I brought him to the room and showed him a place that I knew was wrong, and said I left it here. He said " No I found it over there on your bedside table." I said, I knew that, and I knew you had lied to me about it being downstairs or over the last few days when you told me you didn't know where it was.
Here is the thing, I blame his father. My own son went through a phase of stealing, around the age of 9 - 10. This was in the midst of my divorce from his father. He stole only from his father, and I punished him for it, even though I knew it stemmed from his father wanting out of the marriage, or as my son saw it, out of our family. He stole from me shortly after we moved into my first house of my own, after the divorce, he wanted ice cream I told him no, but he left the house anyway, the second the front door closed I knew he had taken money from my purse. When he came back I confronted him, he fessed up, he was punished, and I made my two brothers light into him over the phone, shaming him for doing something like that. I have never had another issue. My husband and his son have a long history of enabling behaviors. He lets his son go through the garage and take things, in his dresser drawers, and the boy never has anything said to him, he stole video games from a neighbor and the neighbor banned him from the house, other than a talking to that was the only punishment the child received. About 6 months ago my husband found out his son had gone in the garage and taken a brief case of mine and brief case of his. He could not open mine, but he went through his fathers things and took them to school. He hid them in his room. When my husband found them, he did nothing again other than talk to him. Two months ago the child was at his grand mother's and she like my husband let the child go wherever he wants. He went into the attic and took a couple medals that belonged to my husband's step-father' father and put them into his school bag and smuggled them out of the house back to our house. One of the medals was a purple heart earned during the first world war. My husband found the medals when he got home, but again, he did nothing, didn't even tell his mother or step-father that he had them until after the ring incident. The child was not punished. I just hope now, after all has been said and done, and the child is banned from my bedroom and the garage, that this is a wake up call not only to my husband but his son.
Have any of you ladies any advice for me? I want to pull my hair out, because while my husband is towing the party line, I know it won't last long enough to have the impact it needs on both my husband and his son.
Stick to your guns about
Stick to your guns about where SS can go. I keep telling my SO that his kids can not go into our bathroom or bedroom...unless invited or allowed. the oldest SD was caught stealing also...and the youngest SD is starting to follow in her footsteps. UGH! My SS pissed around the toilet in my bathroom when he was mad at me because I told him to get a shower and use ours since his sisters were in the other bathroom. So---he can take a shower AFTER his sisters or outside for all I care...the piss was cleaned up by me because the lil shit was at his BMs before I found it. I also had to throw my toothbrush away---something was on the bristles..so I have to HIDE that now from little hands. I lock the bedroom door at night or they bust in and try to get in bed with us...MIND you they are not babies...the youngest is 7. I also do not wear enough clothes to cover my top when I sleep but on the nights we have them I wear a nightgown and robe until about 3am when I am sure they are asleep in their beds.
Both of their bedroom doors have been taken off the hinges by me this past weekend. (girls share a room) They had been slamming doors and swinging like monkeys, etc. So--whats next? For the SS....Black trashbags full of their crap/toys to be thrown or given away. The girls have been good lately but..always a calm before another storm! Goodluck!
-JustPerfectlyFlawed
Stick to your guns about
Stick to your guns about where SS can go. I keep telling my SO that his kids can not go into our bathroom or bedroom...unless invited or allowed. the oldest SD was caught stealing also...and the youngest SD is starting to follow in her footsteps. UGH! My SS pissed around the toilet in my bathroom when he was mad at me because I told him to get a shower and use ours since his sisters were in the other bathroom. So---he can take a shower AFTER his sisters or outside for all I care...the piss was cleaned up by me because the lil shit was at his BMs before I found it. I also had to throw my toothbrush away---something was on the bristles..so I have to HIDE that now from little hands. I lock the bedroom door at night or they bust in and try to get in bed with us...MIND you they are not babies...the youngest is 7. I also do not wear enough clothes to cover my top when I sleep but on the nights we have them I wear a nightgown and robe until about 3am when I am sure they are asleep in their beds.
Both of their bedroom doors have been taken off the hinges by me this past weekend. (girls share a room) They had been slamming doors and swinging like monkeys, etc. So--whats next? For the SS....Black trashbags full of their crap/toys to be thrown or given away. The girls have been good lately but..always a calm before another storm! Goodluck!
-JustPerfectlyFlawed