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I Just Cant Do IT Anymore

dmm21395's picture

I need help.

I provide for the family and have for the past 2 years. My husband quit his good paying job when our daughter was 3 weeks old. Since then he has quit virtually every job. Now hes unemployed and trying to get disability. Until recently I was going to school and was receiving loan refunds. I gave him about 1,000.00 and he wasnt thankful..he acted like it was expected. His ex called last week asking for him to Western Union her child support money because she was broke after shelling out 600 dollars for their yougest son smashing a neighbors back windshield. Owe her child support, yes....spending money to Western Union it...HELL NO! He got upset with me because he didnt have the money and I wasnt trying to help him find a way to get it. I said to him, " I pay for food, clothes, personal items for everyone in the house, diapers, wipes, your son's entertainment money, his camp money, my car note, HIS SR-22 insurance, moeny for him to go fishing, and recently I gave him the money to send his ex... He said he wouldnt send it Western Union, but I just found out that he did...,today. Im really hurt and upset because it feels like she still has some influence over him or maybe he still cares for her. Maybe hes just a punk and wants to keep everyone happy...but no, that cant be it,. He will tell me to f-off in a minute, and he isnt worried about making me happy and worrying about what upsets me or how anything makes me feel. I made 12 dollars per hour and with this job comes an apartment. If it wernt for this job we'd be homeless thanks to him. After all this, he still calls me selfish and asks me for more money now that hes shelled out his child support. He feels the 350.00 I just gave him should have been spending money...and since he had to pay his ex, I should give him more $ from my paycheck.

Can someone please talk to me? Im hurting and Im really frustruated because I know Im not selfish. Im just having a hard time not tossing his ass out! Im really starting to resent him.

dodgegal05's picture

This boyfriend sounds like just that, A "boy" friend. He needs to get off his arse and make his own money. If he is truly disabled then he can still work some. I know of people with mental disabilities that work at fast foot restaurants so unless he is physically unable to work he needs to get a job. He is just enjoying the gravy train and you need to cut off the supply immediatly. You can provide for your children and his (as necessary), but ne needs to pay his own CS and not take you for granted. You are worth more than this man is making you out to be. The boyfriends needs to man up and get a job.
P.S. If the SS broke something he needs to do chores (if he is old enough) to pay the parent back. Teach him consequences and responsibility.

dmm21395's picture

I agree that his youngest son needs consequences, however both he and the childs mother are anti consequence. They dont even like consequences for their own actions...therefore they dont enforce any for the kids. I'm very much the opposite. I have no problem grounding a kid or spanking if necessary. Im also upset at the fact he took the extra step and MONEY to Western Union her money because she asked

my.kids.mom's picture

You need to stop putting up with this behavior. I got angrier and angrier as I read. I don't even know you and I can tell you are worth more than that. ANYONE is worth more than that! I understand you have a child together, and he's your husband, but you are not responsible for his child support. If he is unable to work, he needs to file for modification. Take care of your child and cut off his gravy train. But be careful. I'm guessing he's mentally unstable.

emotionaly beat up's picture

Your boyfriend can and will continue to do this for as long as you enable him to do it.

Do you honestly think it is your job to go out to work each day to earn the money to pay his ex wife child support for their son. I am sure you do not feel it is your responsibily at all, and it isn't, but you did it anyway.

I put up with my SD humilating and isolating me in my home and in hers for 8 years, then one day I realized she was not my real problem, my husband was because he was not only allowing it, but by his failure to do anything about it, was condoning and participating in it. It took me 8 years to ban her from my home and I thank God every day that I found the insight and strength to do it.

More importantly as I move through this trauma on the road to recovery I learnt something else about myself. My husband and my stepdaughter could never have done this to me if I had said 8 years earlier, NO. If I had not sat back and meekly accepted my lot in life, if I had said to my husband the first time it happend, I don't like what she said/did, if I had said to my husband the second time if she says/does that again I will not allow her back here, and when she did it the third time, I should have thrown her out there and then. But NO I loved him, I wanted to make him happy. Funny that all the time I wanted to make him happy, he was making me completely miserable.

You do not need to be focusing on what your DH or his ex is doing, right now you need to take a long hard look at what YOU are doing. Without you enabling all of this it could not continue. Do you really want him this badly, do you really want a man who treats you this way. If your mother, sister, daughter, best friend was involved in a relationship like this, would you be happy for them, what would you tell them to do, think about that and then ask yourself, what SHOULD you be doing. Should you be providing for this man and his son and his former wife because by paying his child support you are actually providing for is former wife and making things easier for her, should you be accepting this man's abuse verbal or otherwise. There is nothing wrong with you but he certainly has lots of issues. If you really are stil in that "but I love him" stage, there is nothing any of us can say or do to change your mind about the relationship, but I would ask you this, okay, you love him, but can you please take a moment or two to find some time to love yourself, to treat yourself with kindness, because right now no one else is loving you or treating you with kindness and we all deserve a little of that.

witsend71's picture

Money problems really take a toll on a marriage.

I think if you're married, you are responsible for the child support. I can see your anger about Western Union...it's like throwing money away. Work out a budget with him (you figure it out first and then sit down with him). If he is the stay at home dad, he does need some spending money. If you were the stay at home mom...wouldn't you?

You are allowed to make a certain amt. of money while on disability...maybe he can work part time?

My advice, for what it's worth...
If he quits his jobs, I am going to assume he has ADHD or trouble taking criticism at work. If you have health insurance, it would probably be helpful for him to get some cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It would help him set goals and take steps to reach them.

hlonipha's picture

It might be late to drop a comment, but I couldn’t resist. My husband and I both bring money to the house, but I pay for 75% of the family expenses, including rent and good, car and petrol. The whole family also benefits from my Health insurance from my job. I am a BM of a peaceful 3year old boy, who met my husband (I was separated from his father) when he was barely a year old. Because my boy is so peaceful (plays along with most things, after 2 minutes negotiation you get him to obey to rules), my husband (when we were dating) had never had a problem in accepting him. After we got married my husband plead that we get his 2 ½ year old daughter from her BM, who is financially unstable and has some ADD issues.
In the beginning the child was very shy and reserved. After two weeks she started showing her true personality: stubborn, impulsive, through on tantrums when she doesn’t get things her way, pees and poos in her diaper to date. When things started getting out of hand, we consulted a psychologist who told us that it could be result of the dramatic change in her life. So we kept our patience and tried our best to move at her pace. But things just got even more chaotic, the more love and attention she was getting from us, the more she felt at easy to through major fits. She can through fits of not wanting to sleep in the same room her brother (my son) and scream to wake the whole building. She cries, screams, throws herself on the floor, bangs doors to the point of almost destruction. It’s started getting scary and I lost my cool. I loose my sleep almost every night, my productivity started dropping at work. I screamed “ENOUGH” at my husband and his first reaction was that I was attacking him. I sat him down and told him with all gentleness that his daughter behavior was not normal. She was extreme. Extreme stubbornness, extreme disobedience, extreme tantrums…! So, we went to see a psychologist and she picked from the symptoms, signs of a Oppositional Disorder. Her BM concurs with this, as she says that the time they lived together the girl was already like that. She recommended psychiatric treatment. The psychiatrist suspects all this may evolve into Attention Deficiency.
Because we spend a lot of time trying to correct her behavior, my peaceful son is getting upset. He sometimes tries to throw on the same tantrums. Or, like yesterday, because she didn’t want to put on the seatbelt, I was shouting her, he, my BS, started screaming at me “Mom….Mom…stop it”. I got such a fright with that, I suspect that I am disturbing his Zen-personality. I feel super guilty about that.
I am exhausted; I feel that too much is demanded from me. I buy my SD everything: her clothes, toys, I pay for her health, and I feel that I am being drained of everything. I take of her, I bath her, I feed her. She can’t get herself to pee and poo on the potty, no matter how much we try to teach her at home and her kindergarten. It’s too much for me. My husband says he understands, but he does little to resolve issues. I am the one who has to chase after the psychologists and psychiatrists, literature, etc. if I don’t mention “let’s talk about this”, he just won’t do anything. He just bottles things up.