Perspective matters.
Step Life is not normal. The normal element of humanity is not overwhelmingly populated by ill behaved spawn, toxic failed adults, manipulative Xs, coward spouses, failed parents, and generally nasty people.
The normal components of it all are generally none of the above.
On the way home from our weekly clinic weigh in we stopped at our favorite breakfast place for our one meal of the day.
The normalcy of it, and the normality of the people was refreshing. Several families. Some with young kids, some with not as young kids, all well behaved. A large table of HS Cheerleaders on a girls Brunch. Couples together, family groups, groups of adults, etc....
It struck me as counter to so much that many STalkers experience.
I hope that none of us have to suffer full time the drama we tend to discuss here. People are not generally as bad as so many in blended families suffer through.
Maybe today made such an impression on me because for the past two weeks my DW has been a COVID+ hermit and I have just been back and forth to work then cooking, cleaning and caring for her.
It was refreshing to see happy, normal, well behaved people of all ages.
Now for the .... However. This just reaffirmed my revulsion and zero tolerance for ill behaved manipulative shit people. There is no reason for them and no excuse to tolerate them. At all.
Fortunately, there are not that many of them as a percentage of the general and decent population.
Have a great holiday week STalkers. I hope your celebrations with family are what you wish them to be.
- Rags's blog
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Comments
So true there are no excuses and the poor cod and
Thry come from dysfunctional familied is a pathetic excuse. They know right or wrong, they know about basic expectations and manners in the world, basic respect and civility but they reckon that doesn't apply to them then cry victim and blame others when called out on crap behaviour.
sadly many stepparents feel defeated and think i'll keep my mouth shut to keep the peace. Its only when they start thinking properly they realise this isn't healthy or normal. It takes alot for you to confront your spouse/partner about their toxic degenerates and even more for them to grow a pair and address those issues and protect you from them.
It took my husband 1 yr to finally tell his eldest daughter as she was bio mums mini me. She thought she was the alpha female and was pretending to be the mother with authority over me and our 2 kids even the 1st time she met our kids.
my husband made it clear he wasn't gonna play 2 families separately. His time was precious and limited and if skids refused to be respectful, civil and inclusive with us, then hubby wasn't gonna force us to spend time with skids as it wasn't fair on us to have to tolerate their crap and have our outings and holidays ruined. They haven't realised their own mum and her family have disowned them so all this crap at us is for nothing. They'll be alone.
my husband tried after a year or so to secretly arrange a holiday with me with skids secretly attending when he knew I didn't want anything to do with them after all their crap and eldest sd shaming and guilting her dad for marrying me and having 2 kids with me.
i remind hubby of that and why i or our 2 young kids will not be around his daughters whenever he attempts the lets try a blank slate. How many blank slates need to happen for you to realise nothing about their behaviour has changed and how selfish are you to expect we turn a blind eye to it
the moment sd(then 23) was handing daddy the ultimatum choose her or us by guilting him for marrying me despite bio mum having an affair with stepdad whilst she was still married to my husband and got married in secret while skids were in school right after the divorce, that was it for me. I removed sd's out of our inner circle and made it clear i would never let them in.
my husband assured me he would never leave me or our kids, that i had nothing to worry about. But he sugarcoated things for sd instead of calling her out on her crap. He allowed me and our 2 kids aged 2 & 3.5 to be the pathetic excuse used for why sd has a bad relationship with her dad
That has to be infuriating
So, what are YOU going to do about it?
I suggest you grab DH by his short and curlies (figuratively of course) and let him know that his ball-less tolerance of the crap of his toxic failed family semi-adult spawn is a huge risk to his young family. His adult spawn are past being a massive CS obligation. Your children... will cost DH dearly if he F's up this marriage.
smh
Apart from the odd visit bringing his kids from ex to meet
His family alone (which happens when i am overseas) we have no contact.
eldest sd after 5.5 yrs no contact first thing lectured hubby on his financial responsibility to care for her (they live in a muslim country and technically hubby is responsible for my sd's upkeep till they marry) but reality is if hubby retires and sd's chuck a hissy fot and take him to court for cs payments, courts wouldn't enforce it as hubby is retired and they're perfectly capable of getting a job. She also claimed hubby owed her mum a home in divorce settlement and needed to transfer a property in skids name only. Reality was divorce settlement required hubby provide a home for kids and exwife to live in (not buy but live in rent free), hubby bought a home after divorce with loan almost finished paying off. Exwife remarried week after divorce was finalised with her affair guy, that was back in 2009 (13.5 yrs ago) but it never ends and won't stick up in court.
i made it clear to my husband if he started transferring assets to my skids solely when he hd financial responsibilities towards me and our kids, that i wouldn't remain in this marriage. He told me he would never do that and because he didn't trust skids, he actually bought a home in my country and put it solely in my name so skids and exwife cannot touch it. Thats to protect us if hubby dies and skids/exwife start trying to threaten us, do dodgy illegal things and try to disinherit us etc. my husband wants us to have a home to live in.
now my husband does earn a good salary from his job in upper management so the allowance he gives monthly to eldest sd is because she cares for youngest sd who is 17 now and you're considered an adult at 21 in their country.
Hubby still pays his cs court ordered to exwife (how much goes from exwife to sd hubby doesn't know but eldest sd is convinced bio mum gives her own money for youngest sd upkeep when she hasn't worked in 30 yrs and thats hubby's cs money. But eldest sd has been brainwashed
my husband has made clear he is very close to early retirement and skids will be on their own and would be cut off. Eldest sd has been in fulltime employment since 2019, but demanded hubby continue allowance to her until she could gain permanent employment because she was on a contract 3 yr term.
Ss is 24.5 and started fulltime employment early this yr after graduating during pandemic and graduate jobs were limited and my husband didn't want him working takeaway delivery jobs which were high risk and after changing jobs (prior job realised his dad was in snr management at a company they deal with and thought they would get brownie points sending ss to his workplace) but my husband told ss to resign due to conflict of interest.
i have told my husband previously that his way of cutting them off cold turkey when he retires gives them ammo to blame and target me and i will not accept that. Exwife comes from a family of freeloaders and spongers who wanna live off wealthy family members.
eldest sd's cousin sucked so bad at a job interview in hubbys workplace that she demanded hubby pull strings to get her the job. A cousin who has had no contact with my husband in several decades. We were overseas on holiday at the time and sd made it like an emergency he had to deal with immediately. Lol hubby told her if her cousin hadn't been called after 3 weeks after the interview, then she sucked so bad and didn't meet minimum standards and hubbys hands were tied
eldest sd loves playing the victim card and blaming others. By me disengaging and removing me and our 2 kids from any contact with sd's since 4 plus yrs ago, we can't be blamed for anything. Anybody with half a brain will see through that
2 yrs of covid and the sd's never made any attempts to see my husband when there were no lockdowns. My husband knows its a fake relationship and their pathetic excuses they are too busy doesn't cut it but he doesn't want to acknowledge that out aloud even though he knows its the truth.
a few days ago i cane across a video and it basically said, no matter how busy someone is, if you matter they will make time whether in person or video call etc they will make time because you matter. If they make repeated excuses, stop wasting your time and efforts on them, they aren't worth it. Don't waste your time on people who do not value or respect you. It made me think about sd's lol so i sent the video to hubby with no caption.
funnily enough recently i flew back to my husbands country where he works as finalising my late mothers estate as administrator. Went to visit fil, my husbands older brother had a whinge to his sister why we didn't go to bil house. Its out of the way, we were busy settling my mothers estate and me and our 2 kids flew from o/seas over a 7hour plus flight. Least he could do was drive 40 mins to fil place.
my husband told his sister off he's made no contact with us during pandemic, never contacted my husband to ask about us and frankly hubby doesn't feel compelled to go above and beyond for them.
i am also finalising my late mother's estate which is a decent chunk of money as we'll shortly be proceeding with my husbands spousal/partner permanent visa in my country which means once approved, there will be around 6-12 months till it gets approved and my husband have permission to work and we will be living off 1 income. Its quicker to process if my husband is here. We can't do it now because my husband is still on contract till march 2024.
I have made it clear that when hubby is out of work whilst his visa gets approved, i will not entertain subsidising skids 1cent. Youngest sd is capable of getting a job and the elder 2 skids are adults in fulltime employment, they need to sort their shit out.
its been 8 yrs to get to this point and my husband made big changes back in 2019-2020. The pandemic lockdowns and us being kept apart over 2 yrs because my country closed its borders, no one in or out has made hubby reflect alot on things. He's missed out on alot of things with our kids vs all the sd crap, he knows to prioritise us
I'm glad he is minimizing the impact of his failed family
history on your marriage and your children. 4 more years and your team is off of the hook on CS and you can put DH's past firmly behind your family.
In actuality cs can technically end for the youngest end
Of 2023 when she will be 18 because although in some situations they deem adults to be 21, she is legally deemed an adult at 18.
there have been attempts by some lazy females in hubbys country aged 20plus to take their dads to court for money so that they don't have to take out loans. Courts basically check age of parent, are they at age of retirement and is their kidult of working age but just lazy, in that case kidult needs to get a job and financial loans to cover university.
my husband only covered the shortfall ss had in uni fees because ss was under his custody and living in our household. Eldest sd got a govt loan and scholarship.
knowing my husband, he will end the gravy train jan-march 2024 when he finishes his job.
i expect the victim blaming and shaming to happen from sd's but we'll see what happens. Everything seems to be someone elses fault for sd's, disengaging means i have no involvement or blame with them.
It is perspective though.
It is perspective though.
You don't see the families at home.. where a child may be abused.. someone has a drinking issue etc..
You don't see the cheer girls bullying someone ala mean girls.
Life is not perfect.. people are not perfect. Step life is HARD.. and even the people we view as the bad actors in the drama.. it's hard for them too.. and the way they deal with the hard is not great.. and can have lots of fall out.
We have to accept that it's tough for a child to accept new adult authority figures.. to see their home life changed.. to be made to go from house to house.. to have parents put them in emotional binds over loyalty.
It can be tough to give up control over your child's life and affection to someone you dislike (an ex or the new spouse).
It's tough moving into a family space that is still impacted by a former partner..
It's just tough.. all the way around.. and while I do agree we all need to set appropriate boundaries.. having some empathy for why some people act the way they do? can often go a long way to not letting things get to us as personally... to not take it all to heart..
We all have to take the good and the bad that comes with it sometimes.. that's life.