Dear EYES WIDE OPEN , Seems we have a few things in common. I also was a widow for many years. Raised the children alone and then thought getting married with no at home children would just be one big loving extended family. Took a while to figure out how different the 2 families were and how the lessons taught to our children when young carry into adult hood. Rewarding lies, bad behavior, and manipulation tactics with excuses does not make for pleasant adults. People do the things they do because it works. For some guilty feelings are eased by handing out money or helping when it is really enabling a bad situationand preventing a possitive change. In my case I just found myself over whelmed with the burden of getting stuck with the responsibility of covering and picking up the slack for the one making the promises to help when they were not in a position to be helping. Took a while to develope the skills I needed since I was not used to dealing with people who had this mind-set. But now if someone else needs money it is not my problem they did not budget for their needs. If someone loses custody of their children, I do not step in to take the children in. When I started placing DH responsibility back onto him, allowing him to figure out what he would have to do without in order to fulfill his promises then he quit. Our bills come first and what little is left over he is free to spend. When I refuse to contribute it is strange how fast he could figure out it came down to [1] Does he want to part with something he already owns or [2] postpone getting some item to help them out.