Feeling backed into a corner and worried about my marriage
I haven’t been on the site for awhile now, which was a good thing as it’s been 2 years and I haven’t had to see my step daughter. If you read my last post it will give some context as to how we ended up on these terms (it’s a lot to write again ). After that night of her calling me a b**** I completely had it with her spoiled, entitled and unchecked behavior. I told her to get out of my house. My husband was sitting at the table with us when she called me that and he just sat there and said nothing absolutely nothing. She has never apologized and since that night we have had nothing to do with each other. Fast forward 2 years later and my husband still makes his excuse of “I can’t parent them because they don’t live with me”
His family and I now have nothing to do with each other as well, they enable and excuse SD’s behavior as well as they were already toxic to start with. So I disengaged entirely from them as well. They don’t talk to or have anything to do with DH and my DD. I am at peace not allowing SD to my home anymore. My DH’s and my relationship has suffered greatly in the last 2 years as I lost respect and trust in him that night for not standing up for me and continuing to cater to SD. I resent him for it and I’ve been dealing with the guilty dad and unruly step kids for 14 years. My husband resents me for not allowing SD into my home (yes it is my house not his). He visits with them almost every weekend and goes to lunch and takes them to movies, they are now 17 and 20 (SD and SS). He asked me the other day what was going to happen when they have children and he won’t be able to bring his grandchildren to our home and I internally freaked. What am I going to do.. . I have so much resentment and I feel like being in that position again would put our marriage on the bottom of the rocks (as we still have a rocky relationship as it is). I can’t trust him to support me, protect me or back me up. He still defends his position and has not wavered. I feel I have painted myself in a corner, not having anything to do with his family or his children has been good for me but I’m sure can’t stay that way forever. Staying away from all of them was self preservation, to protect my marriage and my sanity. We have talked about counseling but we can not afford it right now. So we try and talk it out ourselves and keep coming back to our same positions, he wants his kids to visit and still defends not being able to parent them or change their behavior and I don’t want them near me or my kids. Any advice? Anyone in this position?
Isn't it amazing, the damage
Isn't it amazing, the damage one spineless parent can cause? How different things might have been if your H had done his job as a parent, a husband, and the leader of his home. Instead, his weakness and conflict avoidance has resulted in damaged/severed relations all around. And of course it's easier for his people to blame you rather than one of their own.
I think marriage counseling would offer a safe place for you and your H to air out and examine these issues and feelings, and there are providers who charge based on ability to pay. He would also really benefit from individual therapy. Fixing this is above your pay grade, so I don't see what is to be gained by re and re rehashing things, and it might actually be making things worse.
You should also be putting together an exit strategy, just in case. Every sensible woman does, so have your ducks in a row and $$ squirreled away.
You nailed it! I feel as a
You nailed it! I feel as a step mother he set me up to fail. We have three children that live in our house and they have the same set of rules, rules that my husband enforced and layed down himself. However when it came to his kids he didn’t want to be the bad guy so he never enforced the rules with them. Which created a backlash from my kids on how unfair it was that they had no rules or consequences when they came over. My DH never has and probably never will understand that he was the key to this all along to defuse resentments all around just by parenting them. My DH’s family fall all over themselves for SD and SS. They tell SD and SS that they are smarter than everyone else (and it reflects in the way SD and SS behave). DH and I have a young daughter together and his family has not seen, or mentioned her in 2 years. Not for birthdays or anything. DH’s brother has been in our driveway a dozen times to pick up DH and never sees her or says hello. A family literally divided on one parents inability to parent.
Spineless DH
Has no place to go to. It may cost him Money, then he could not by his kids love, if he was poor. If he could not by there live, they will have nothing to do with the poor him.
The ball is in your court, you are in control. Who cares if GK come over. That would mean SK would be over too.
NO WAY.
Your right ball is in my
Your right ball is in my court and I could go the rest of my life and never see them again. I don’t wish that on my DH but he has done nothing to fix this mess himself at all. All he would have to do is try, but he seems happy just letting the resentment grow on both sides and let us all figure it out while he sits there not being the bad guy. That doesn’t work
Just tell him that until he
Just tell him that until he has control over his children’s behavior they are not welcome in your home or around your kids, Period. That is called a boundary, make it into a brick wall, refuse to be taken on his guilt trips, refuse to argue with him, if he wants to argue, turn it into his problem to solve... He complains that grandkids cant come over, you agree and just say yup too bad, you can’t tell your kids no.
not having anything to do
No reason it can't. I have banned my SS and his now wife from my home and life permanently. They just had their second child. The oldest is now almost 4. He was a year and a half when I banned those two. They will NEVER be allowed in my home again (and yes it is my home). They moved into our home without permission while we were on vacation, tried to hide it - which was futile as they had ransacked our home helping themselves to what ever they wanted.
My DH is free to go see them when he wants, and he does. His family sees them some also, but they have busy lives. Most of DH's siblings live 90 miles away so it's not like we are together than much anyway. I know that 3 of the 4 know why I have banned them. The 4th has had major medical issues and I have seen no reason to dump all of that on her. The others found out when it was happening.
I never got so much as a weak apology - just a message that I needed to get over it. They were shocked that I would not let them use my vacation home a couple of weeks later. They truly believed that anything of mine was fair game and it was like it belonged to them too. I'd only known SS for 6-7 years at that point (he was in his 20s when I met DH) and had only known the GF for a year or two max. Why they felt so entitled to ownership of things I'd worked my entire life for just was beyond the pale.
But now I do not discuss SS or his family with anyone. They just do not exist in my world. And this is permanent. There is NOTHING that SS or his wife could ever do that would ever lead me to to even consider allowing them in my life again.
All great advice
Thanks for the advice y’all! Makes me feel like I don’t have to at all and I certainly don’t if he does not start parenting or standing up for me.
My DH’s family fall all over
My DH’s family fall all over themselves for SD and SS. They tell SD and SS that they are smarter than everyone else (and it reflects in the way SD and SS behave). DH and I have a young daughter together and his family has not seen, or mentioned her in 2 years. Not for birthdays or anything. DH’s brother has been in our driveway a dozen times to pick up DH and never sees her or says hello. A family literally divided on one parents inability to parent.
Oh yes, this sounds all too familiar. 2 of my OH's brothers have never acknowledged our DD and DS for birthdays or Christmas, ony the skids. So your comment of a divided family due to one parent's inabiloity to parent really strikes a chord.
So, he wants a compromise now he's considering the possiblity of grandkids. Ok so all he needs to do is tell SD in your presence that her bevaviour towards you has been unnacceptable and once she has acknowledged that and apologised, she'll be very welcome. And while he's at it, he can stand up for your DD as well. There's your part in the compromise so he just has to do his bit. I think you can probably count on his lack of balls to ensure that SD will never set foot through your door ever again (I know I am, in my case!!).
He failed to protect you
He failed to protect you emotionally from their behaviour, so you took the reasonable steps to protect yourself.
Dont let anyone back you into into a corner, stand your ground.
Ideally, you both need to see a counsellor before letting these people back into your home.
if he tries to push onto you another decision, are you going to stand firm or give in? Does he think if he pesters enough you will give in - learn to look for little patterns of behaviour as a sign of what people think.
If his kids have gone unchecked and undisciplined, the sad,
sorry cycle of entitlement will keep on going. He will be spineless ("Helen Keller" blind, and deaf) with the GK's too.
At 3 DH's was saying, "What happened to your husband? Did he die? Did he divorce you? Did he leave you?" AT THREEEEEEEE!!! Nobody saw ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS. Clearly this is what was being talked about at the dinner table! I finally told her, "SGD, if your mom and dad want to know the answers to those questions, then THEY CAN ASK ME, but this is not a conversation for children. Please tell your mother and father to ASK ME. OK?" Then at 5 she proceeded to tell me this isn't my house, it belongs to her family etc. Again, I went to DH to try to get some help here. What kid tells an adult anything like this?? DH DID ACTUALLY talk to adult SK about it and how upset he was. There are so many "grandkid" stories I can tell you, but I will spare you the gory details.
My point is, their "team" gets bigger with each procreation. They will be trained up in the same disparaging ways as their parents. The "circle of life" and you will be the outsider, the bad guy, and continue to be gaslighted etc. It will make a the apocolypse look like a cake walk.