DW’s birthday was on Tuesday, her parents had come the prior evening with a cake and some presents since they couldn’t make it on the actual day.  Skids called or texted her with well wishes, no visits so that was a present for me lol

The Gskids got her a t-shirt with their nickname for her on it and a nice saying on the back about how she didn’t know love until she was called this name or something like that , MIL actually bought it online but you get the idea.

Being the in tune and caring husband that I am I got her a 1 hour massage at a local Day Spa and she seems very happy by it, she has been telling everyone how much she needs it, plus took her out to a local place to eat for dinner, with Gskids of course.

Both of my sisters and my father called and sang happy birthday to her ( a family tradition ) and sent her cards with gift cards in the mail.

DW has never liked her B-day since it falls one week before X-mas but it seemed at least to me that this year went a little better than previous years, maybe just maybe this broke the spell of the horrible B-day curse.

A new found friend here on the site recently called me out on disparaging remarks I have made about my own physical appearance, generally I make these remarks in jest but apparently I did it once to many times and if I offended anyone here I truly apologize. I taught myself a long time ago to make fun of myself, at least to me it seemed to put others at ease around me, sometimes I take it too far and with my recent general sense of lowliness I took one to many hard jabs at myself in a public manner.  It is true, I don’t have the greatest of self esteem when it comes to my physical appearance but to air it in public, even jokingly was not cool, so I am going to do my best to not do that in the future and if I do I thoroughly expect to get called out again, good friends are the ones that do that sort of thing and I find more and more good friends the longer I am here.

Life has been very difficult lately emotionally for the majority of us here on StepTalk, the holidays make things even harder than usual , I did not help with keeping others afloat and allowed my emotions and troubles to overflow and take me towards despair. We all have lower than usual times and I hit mine but thanks to good friends here I have at least shaken the worst off and am ready to slay more dragons.

I also have been recently asked about my situation at home, DW’s conscious or unconscious taking me for granted, not respecting my wishes of no Skids in my home, and having mixed finances means I still support Skids when DW spends anything on them.

I believe we all at some point and with varying degrees take our spouses for granted consciously or unconsciously, yes DW continues to want her girls to be in our home for visits and she truly doesn’t think that DSS will find out and she believes that at least SD21 isn’t that bad lol  I can take a hardline and battle her over the skids coming to our home or as I have done in the past with her and others that don’t want to heed me, I give them enough rope to hang themselves.  I would hate to have the Gskids lives ripped up again and taken to foster care due to DW wanting SD26 to visit at our house but if that is what happens then it happens, not my doing and I warned her against it.

As for mixed finances, many of you have separate finances and it is something I wish I had done early on in our relationship, however I did not and unless DW started spending ungodly amounts of money on a regular basis on the skids I don’t see this being a good move on my part, it would cause more problems between us than it would do good.  Am I shouldering more and sacrificing more? Yes, and I am aware of it.  I believe that one day this will come back and she will see the light, but right now is not the time for maneuvers of that magnitude, I may still resent every dime and every minute that are spent on skids but it’s not a hill to die for me.

Marriage is about compromise and give and take, it’s rarely 50/50, that ratio varies from day to day sometimes hour to hour. Right now I can still shoulder the troubles in our house, you’ll know when I reached my limit and I start to ask about moving in with you till I get on my feet again ( just kidding ).