Stay or leave house
My dh71 divorced me in May over his ds. His ds always played the victim and an angry one at that. Chip on his shoulder type of person. He was always resentful of me and very rude, even in front of DH. DH saw his behavior as normal as he sees his son as being at a disadvantaged from birth. He once commented to me "poor ds, he has a very educated mother and father he has to deal with, imagine how it must feel to have parents like us." Quite a few times when he talks about his ds he gives me the "list" of what is wrong with him physically, for instance he has varicose veins, roseacea, needs glasses, etc among the things that are wrong. Mind you the man looks healthy.
So, I am deciding what to do and for some reason it is very difficult for me to make any decision. I am still in the house. It is a large house, the upstairs has a 3 bedroom apt where my ds and 2 grand kids live. My ex did not want me in the house and was filing legal papers prohibiting me from being here.
A week before the divorce I came anyway. The plan was to stay here a week or two until I found another place. It has been a month since the divorce.
Reasons for staying:
1. Easy access to GKs especially since school is out.
2. I do not have to pay anything towards rent. Save money
3. Place is comfy and safe, as I do not know what I will encounter renting a room, in terms of other renters, owners elswhere, etc
4. Stay here out of spite. SS wants me gone! Ex was filing papers prior to divorce to prevent me from coming home, but I came anyway. He is now fine with me being here. He makes and gets my coffee in morning, buys special foods for me. Has asked me out to lunch. The most important is that I no longer need to socialize with ss. Ex has made it a point not to have him over when I am home. I am sure ss is cranky about that one. If he had only done this before, it would have made my life so much easier. But he kept on insisting that I socialize with this ds.
________________
Leaving house
1. Emotional, some days are hard when I think that he pushed me away because of his ds.
2. Awkward feeling in know that we are not a couple, but still having coffee together.
3. To show ex that I will be fine without him and that I am able to start my new life.
4. To just move on.
Or: I plan to stay on the East Coast until October. Just stay in house until gkids are back in school in August then rent elsewhere.
I have really examined the options, but I am still so confused about what to do. What to do? This is an important crossroads type of decision.
It is my ds and my gkids that
It is my ds and my gkids that live upstairs.
No, he is really attached to
No, he is really attached to gkids, they are not his biological gkids, he wants them to remain in the apartment as along as they want to. My ds pays rent, but not very much. Ex takes gkids 11 &12 years to school and picks them up even though there is a school bus as he says the bus ride is too long. He does their homework with them. He buys all groceries. Everything the boys may need he gets. He is also paying for their braces. Pays for their vacations. He is totally committed to them. I am the odd duck as I finally complained about his ds. He got so angry and rode the wave on his anger, not letting go of it. He sees his ds as a victim of life and I was supposed to tolerate ss rudeness. I was supposed to rise above it. Life is so complicated!
@ anotherstep2 - Excellent
@ anotherstep2 - Excellent and valid points...well said! It is really messed up that your son takes all of these handouts from a man that kicked his own mother to the curb like trash over some ADULT asshole! Pretty sad.
Are you wanting a
Are you wanting a reconcilation? Do you think he is softening and seeing the error of his ways? Is it going to stick to SS if you stay? Did you make out well in the divorce settlement or no?
This is all kinds of messed
This is all kinds of messed up but it is your life and you can do as you choose and justify it any way you want.
He divorced you, which means you have no spousal status (legally) and yet, he still gets all of the benefits of being married to you, companionship and a family. And perhaps someone to take care of him? Perfect!
I realize that you and your family benefit, also, but at what cost? Because there is a cost, maybe not financially, but...
This guy has been a total ass to you for years and DIVORCED you over his grown son but by all means, stay with him.
Actually everyone but you are
Actually everyone but you are having their cake while eating it tp.
With your post-nap you got, what? Something like $25,000. Now everything else is freed up to be SS's and the old man still has the rest of his lifestyle and people in it. Including you who is hanging around for his companionship and social life like his lap puppy.
If the old man really had a stroke recently an is blind in one eye, be careful of allowing him to chauffeur the gkids around. Other than that, choice of living arrangements are going to be whatever and wherever you're comfortable with. The one thing to keep in mind is the old guy croaks, SS will have you and likely your son/gkids out of there so fast your head will spin. Just remember that and have a stash of cash and a exit place to go . Don't be unprepared for when that day comes.
I think he knows that if my
I think he knows that if my ds and gkids move he will be a lonely old man. Everything changed so quickly in all our lives. I wonder if my ex had everything already played out in his mind. Very scary.
My ds, is a single parent, and the bio mother is not in my gkids lives. He is also barely getting on his own emotional and financial feet as his ex cheated on him. I have advised him to stay put until he can figure out the best move. MY ex wanted the divorce quickly and it was done in 3 months total. I don't understand why, but I agreed. Get it done and over with type of mentality. Financially I did not do well, and I will have to probably work the rest of my life. But so do many other individuals. Ex feels like a rooster who won. His ego can only be so inflated, especially when he constantly needs to deal with his ds negativism. It is only feeling inflated because I am still in the picture. The trophy of his success regarding the divorce is visible.
The other side is that he has not brought his ds in the house when I am here. In the past he would try to shove him down my throat and expect me to smile at the act of him doing so. So really what is going on here? I am here and ss is not. Everything else is exactly the same. I go and come as I please, I do not need to worry about household expenses, I have my own bedroom and personal space. I watch tv and do what I want in the house with no expectations, as it is not my house. Now if I do any chore in the house I am thanked for doing it, as dh knows that I have no obligation. I do not have to listen for hours to my ex rambling ons as he espouses his views of the world and others. I was the adoring wife and audience. He went from lecturing multitudes to just me. I no longer feel that I have a moral obligation to try to make him happy as a wife would have done.
Since he is no longer my husband, I do not have any obligations towards him. I no longer need to socialize with his friends whom also learned that it was okay to be rude to me as my ex said and did nothing. I am free of any obligation to socialize with Ss and Ex's stupid friends. During the winter I can leave the east coast and spend it in the west coast. Ex did not like going away even a couple of days because his ds needed him and did not do well if his ds was not constantly around to cater to him.
Except the financial part, my life is already vastly better than it was.
Stepaside I agree. I am just
Stepaside I agree. I am just taking a deep breath and I am preparing for my head to dunked underwater again, just in case. Yes, I agree that it may appear that I do not have a shred of pride. It feels though, that I no longer care if he is married to me or not. "Runaway" was my first inclination. However, it seems that I have lived my life with this man on a survival mentality and all my actions were based on that mentality especially the actions where ss was concerned. I let ss be rude, unkind and cruel to me to please him and my ex. I was reacting to my ex and wanting to smooth out the ruffles in the situation. In the meantime ex was prioritizing his ds and developing a coerced fan base for his ds.
The stepmom dilemma, you want your spouse to be happy and the skids know this, as does your spouse. Guess what! We end up with the short end of the stick and the sad part is your spouse knows it and is fine with it. So we react and react to spouses requests instead of presenting our "truths", we dislike, cannot stand the skids and want nothing to do with them. Our truth "the bombshell" finally drops and spouse has a heart attack on the fact that you do not love the skids. In my case, dh divorced. It is like I knew this would happen, but I did not want to face the truth. I now know, it is a relief not to have to play that game again of pretending that ss is a demigod. I can finally breath again.
I have just stopped reacting and I am taking a huge breath. In the meantime, I am looking for a place. I just feel very tired.
Thank you Stepaside. It felt
Thank you Stepaside. It felt good to get affirmation. I am going through a process of introspection. I am tired of having been in survival mode. My life has transition so much since January, not only did I go through a divorce because of SS, but I also lost a friendship of 40+ years. I do not know what is going on in my life for both of these things to happen in such a short while and so close in time to each other.
Nevertheless, there are positives, all my "truths" are out. I do not have to live a lie pretending I like certain people when I don't. Nothing to hide and I do not have to scramble emotionally to deal with situations cropping up with ss or other individuals I do not like. I can now actually say "NO", "NO MORE". It was very liberating to get divorced. Now I have to actually move out
Actually, I had been out since last September until I came back April 28th for the divorce. My life had been so unsettled during that time, not knowing about the divorce. Still unsettled, but not as bad as I feel a lot more freedom than I used too.
I imagine you are an older
I imagine you are an older woman? Moving on at this stage in your life is hard. Really hard. But not moving on will be much harder and much worse for you in the long run. Talk to your son, make a plan with him to move out together someplace else.
If your DH regrets his life decision once you are all out, then DO NOT even consider anything with him unless he gives you a very large chunk of money up front (like half his assets). You should have received much more in your divorce than 25k. You could have contested the divorce and the prenup. At the very least, if your DH was even a half way decent man, he would have made sure you had enough money to start over. He doesn't love you, he is using you and even more so- he is using your son and grandchildren.
DH needs to live his life by his own choices and that choice was SS. You and your family need to leave them to it.
I think back to all the
I think back to all the anger, sadness, tears, heartache and years of therapy that has been experienced because of SS. How can one person, one who I do not even care for, manage to have such an important impact on my life is beyond me and clearly the lesson I need to learn is not to ever let anyone do that to me again. My head is still reeling. I could see if we cared for our skids, but we don't, and yet they impact our lives greatly and can actually determine the direction our lives will take.
I think that all us stepparents realize the enormous affect these skids have on our lives and that is why we are treading lightly. But to have to tread lightly is a true shame. I am still wondering how it is that a middle-aged man managed to manipulate the situation between ex and me to where it ended up just the way he wanted. Daddy and daddies money all to himself. Quite scary as to how these individuals work and also very sad that it is all very selfish.
Speak your truth and let the chips fall where they may and/or use their own tactics against them. For instance:
1. When ss was calling all the time, I should have been calling dh when he was spending time with his ds.
2. When ss was shunning me. I should have confronted him about it in front of dh as to why it was going on, illuminating the behavior, instead of pretending it was not happening or that it did not hurt my feelings.
3. I should have found other things to do instead of being present when ss was around. I was always trying to be civil and accommodating and to what end?
4. If dh got angry with me regarding ss, just let him be instead of trying to make things better. To remember, that he is entitled to his feelings, just as I am also entitled to mind. I did not have to fix it.
5. Pretend the worms do not exist.
6. The most important thing I should have done is to treat him like the person he is, a nobody and a non-factor in my life. I did all the opposite because I was trying to be kind to him and my ex.
Be strong and let these parasites just fall off, do absolutely nothing to assist their need to suck the blood out.
If you stay there, save every
If you stay there, save every penny!
As soon as SS finds out you are living there he will make it his mission to get you out.
Why do you think that exDH is suddenly not allowing SS around? He doesn't want his son to know that you are there.
It sounds to me like exDH thinks he's pulling a fast one on everybody.
That son will always control
That son will always control his father. I wish I had some insight into the mess that my DH adult kids and now grandchildren are bringing down on us. My DH admitted that he is an enabler and had I known how bad my situation would have become I would have run for the hills! If I were divorced I would be renewing my long ago plans for moving to a warm state. This man is 61 years old and has not learned one thing in the years that I have known him. My DH is the ATM for his kids and grandkids and DH is using OUR retirement funds to support them. I meet with a lawyer on friday for answers regarding divorce. My kids are grown and on their own have decent incomes because I taught them the value of a college education. We all have college degrees with one earning a master's degree. Just leave and take your family with you.