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He lets his sons be like their mothers

ArtMessBetty's picture

I don't understand the NPC father experience. I am a mom of two girls 8 and 10 with full custody; they see their father three weekends a month. I am raising and shaping my girls. My DH hasn't had this experience. He has always been an every other weekend father. So maybe this is why I can't understand.

I am almost 40, my husband almost 50, and he made a lot of dumb choices in his early life. The first woman he married in his early 20's was a lazy, selfish woman who came from a trashy family who packed the house full of relatives, had the whole yard full of trash, worked menial jobs but mostly got by on government handouts , which is why they all lived together, to get more from the government. His sons with her are 18 and 20 and have grown up to be the same kind of losers, mooching, no ambition, working crap jobs with no ambition for anything better. 
 

The woman he married in his early 30's is mentally ill with BPD and schizophrenia but is untreated. Her whole family is full of tin foil hat conspiracy theorists and weirdos who are also mentally ill. The woman thinks God talks to her inside her head and tells her what to do. Her mother changed her name to something hippie and started her own religion. She went and got braces electively so she could send out vibrations into the universe to make other people with braces have less pain. Naturally, my husband's 14 year old with her is just as weird. He stinks from BO to the point I have to spray where he sits all weekend with Lysol when he leaves, is obsessed with video games, doesn't know how to take turns in conversation and interrupts and talks over you like a five year old, still snuggles with his dad like a five year old, still sleeps in the bed with his mother...he has been moved schools twice because of bullying, he has no friends...and he doesn't know how to say hello or goodbye or make conversation. He ignores me completely when he is around, talking only to his dad. And he has to have 100% of his dad's attention for and many days as he is here. All you hear when he isnhetnis, "Dad! Dad!" like a five year old. 
 

The teacher in me and the mother in me has caused me to bring up to DH that he should stop enabling the older two and put positive pressure to on them to do something with their lives. Or that he try to intervene for the younger one and have him tested for aspergers so he can get some help with his social skills. At every turn, DH is in denial. He exists not to parent I feel but to entertain and be liked. With my girls, we are a family and he is a great parent to them. But with his...they are like guests of honor that he feeds and Plays with and just sends home for the mothers to keep ruining them.injust don't get it.!

Exjuliemccoy's picture

We have much in common. My DH also bred with two low class women. Both are disordered. Both come from multigenerational dysfunction. Their kids are grown now - no education, no careers, not self sufficient.  They too have personality disorders. And of course, they reproduced. The beat goes on.

My DH was more of a visiting uncle than a dad. He never developed good parenting muscles, and seemed to see being a dad as a state of being rather than a job with specific goals. 

At this point, your H's kids are a lost cause and he's unlikely to change, so your focus should be on creating boundaries to protect you and your bios from his dysfunction. Let's be honest - if your H isn't up in arms about his fourteen year old son sleeping with his mother, he's a big part of the problem. Why hasn't anyone reported this to CPS????

Hold your DH accountable for cleaning up after his kid, every time. Tell him either he makes his kid shower, or you will and he won't like the way you go about it. Don't do the parenting for him.

Screwed up skids never really launch or go away. Further, it's common for bad BMs to boot their stunted progeny once c.s. ends, so you need to play the long game to keep the crazy away. Start planting seeds now that skids must launch at eighteen, and will never live with you full time. Keep your finances separate - you're looking at a lifetime of skids hitting you and your DH up for handouts. 

 

tog redux's picture

A lot of weekend fathers don't feel they can be real parents - either because they have 4 days a month and don't want to spend it all disciplining, or they feel guilty for the divorce, or the mother doesn't allow them a true parental role (ie, she criticizes any efforts at parenting that he makes).  It's a lot different to be the NCP than the CP, who is generally given all the power and control in our messed-up family court system.  Also, sometimes genetics win out no matter what you do, as in the case of my SS21.

Rags's picture

Household standards of behavior and perforamnce that each kid is held accountable  for compliance to in an age appropriate manner.

That will force DH to actually parent the SKids and not just your daughters.  Since your daughters in all liklihood already perform to standard, that will put the focus on his prior relationship progeny to deliver to standard.  It also gives you structure for managing your DH's parenting performance with the SKids.  He needs clarity that the standards will be enforced and if won't do it, you will and you will rub his nose in his parental failures until he stops failing.

Good luck.