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bls02141's picture

My husband has two daughters he raised, the mother was not in the picture until we go engaged when the two girls were in high school. My three sons were raised by me and were in college when we got engaged,and we have good relationships with their stepmother and father.

The problem is when we go married the two princess daughters were living with their mother and not speaking to their father. Completely estranged for ten years. The youngest only contacted their father for college money and he enabled her to not work during college. She was on medication during college for manic depression and partied excessively. The oldest daughter has had multiple abortions and lived with many different men. The main cause of the stepdaughters not speaking to their dad changed when he got married. Of course when he was the single parent he allowed the girls demand money for shopping and realy treated them as trophy girlfriends? He would allow them to dress provocative and think it was okay. There was nothing incestuous about the relationship, it was just the way he parented.

We have been through blended family sessions at our church. The problem is now the youngest daughter is trying to establish a relationship with her father again. My husband is secretive and didn't even tell me he had contacted his daughter for three weeks.
I am worried we are not going to get through this rough patch in our marriage.

Comments

oldone's picture

Big question - is she taking her meds?

Bipolar (manic/depression) can be controlled by meds, but all too often the person will stop them over and over again. It always ends up being a disaster.

An untreated bipolar person is like a loose cannon.

I'll repeat what I always say toxic people do not belong in your life - ever.

bls02141's picture

She is taking her meds at this time. She works two jobs one is a bartender. The problem is my husband has a hole in his heart and needs a relationship with his girls. He keeps everything secretive from me. Where I have my boys and their families always be with my husband as part of a family.

The girls mother is nice (but....) of course she didn't want the girls when they were little. Now she enables everything they say and do. My husband does the same. No one wants to parent, they don't want their daughter to be mad!

Lalena75's picture

I'm lost so how if he raised them till mom showed (up after you got engaged) that they were estranged for 10 years or was your engagement that long? How were these girls before mom showed up? Does the kid take her meds and if they are now grown adults let him have a relationship, separate your money from his and ignore the drama. we can't control others just our own choices to what they choose to do. How will you respond to what he wants to do?

bls02141's picture

Sorry, he was a single parent and we met when his girls were in high school and mine were in college. The girls mother started becoming active in their lives when the dad and I started dating. Then when we got married, they would not have anything to do with him.

bls02141's picture

I don't know what this will do to my H and our relationship. Right now I am extremely disppointed in him for being secretive. It is almost like he is lying to me. I am tired and tired of making my family be nice and blend with these on and off unsocial sd's.

Jsmom's picture

He can see his daughter, you don't have to be involved. Just if you have combined finances, he needs to clear spending on her with you. If not, stay out of it. Do not discuss it with him. My DH sees his daughter once a month for lunch and I choose not to be involved in any discussions. I do not want to have a fight with him over her inability to accept consequences for some things she has done, so I do not want her name mentioned in my prescence. He is okay with that and accepts that this is how it has to be since she refuses to apologize.

For us it is working for now. Try staying out of it. The drama in my life is less, since we have gone this route.

Bojangles's picture

His daughters are obviously hostile towards you. It is hard not to feel like your husband is being disloyal when he secretively pursues a relationship with someone who has rejected you and your marriage. I know this because my stepson refuses to have a relationship with me, and DH now sees him separately away from the house.

It was hard to come to terms with because I had been step parenting SS for 9 years. I railed at DH wanting him to do something to sort things out, to make SS reconsider his behaviour. I felt he was endorsing SS's behaviour by enabling SS to separate him out from his family (me and our 3 children together) and maintain his relationship away from our home. But I have had to accept that SS is a stubborn, self-involved hormonal teen, and DH cannot force him to be part of our family. DH does not know how to resolve it and will not force things for fear of losing his own relationship with his son. He cannot abandon his own relationship with his son because of me, and to do so would be to behave with the same lack of maturity as SS.

You may need to just accept it if your DH establishes a separate relationship with his daughter. He is probably avoiding telling you because he feels torn, doesn't want to upset you, and like a lot of men likes to bury his head in the sand and avoid confronting the issues.

I think you need to decide how you actually want him to handle it. Do you want him to be open and talk about her, in which case you should tell him you'd feel better about it if you knew what was going on. Or would you rather he avoided adding insult to injury and talked about her as little as possible. Like Jsmom I have chosen to ask DH to avoid talking about SS with me, and maintain his relationship with him discretely. If money issues came up I would absolutely expect him to discuss it with me, but aside from that I really don't want to know. You have to decide what it best for you.

bls02141's picture

Thank you for all of your comments. I love my H but this SD issue is very upsetting. For one we almost lost our house when we first go married. My H secretly paid cash for his daughters college so she would be loan free.( My sons have college loans). I didnt know this until we went to refinance our home after ten years of marriage and found out that my H. had paid intrest only. We still owed the same mortgage amount ten (10) years later. My H stated we had gone down in our salary's so that is also why he couldn't pay, but also paying cash for SD college. I was hurt and furious. I have been financially stupid. I now have a 401k in my sons names for beneficiary. But what happens if I die first?? I would want my portion of the new house(we had to down size) and any interest to go to my sons not the difficult SD'S? So I am having difficulty dealing with them only wanting money. I work two jobs and have credit card debt. I used a credit card to finance my graduate degree. I already work two jobs.

Bojangles's picture

Your husband has been dreadfully dishonest and that is his responsibility not SDs. So many men make poor financial decisions in the wake of divorce and then sheepishly conceal it from their new partner, often making the problem worse, and completely undermining trust.

You need to understand exactly what your marital assets and debts are. You also need a will to specify what you want to happen to your share of those assets in the event of your death. It need not automatically go to your husband, unless your name is not on the mortgage, in which case you need to add it, remortgaging if necessary. In the UK you can also draw up a Deed of Trust to specify an agreement about division of assets if you feel a 50/50 split does not reflect your respective input. I have one with my husband because I provided most of the capital for our home. If your husband won't behave as an equal and honest partner in financial decisions I can only suggest that you try to separate your finances as far as possible, so you are not funding his spending on his children.

bls02141's picture

My greatest fear is I will die first and my husband will give any and all assets to the step d's and my family who has had to put up with them gets everything!! Sounds silly but I do worry about it.

Step parenting trenches for 12 years.

bls02141's picture

My husband had his daughter who has not spoke to him in ten years meet him for counseling. I have already stated this is a frequent thing. So I asked him what he wanted to set out to get done this time with counseling. He stated to create boundaries so they wouldn't be mean to each other? So far we paid for college, car, cell phone and now she works and I am wondering what she wants this time? I think that sounds mean, but it is the truth. I asked my husband if one session would solve the problems and make things with him and his daughters better? By the way ....Imust say their mother is the girls best friend.