Our marriage counselor got it right

I got to thinking yesterday and decided to broach the subject with our marriage counselor and I sent her an email. She brought it up and dh was wishy washy saying that when his kids are 18 and grown we can live together. She asked him why and then proceeded to ask him why he would abandon his grown kids when they are at the fun age and need him the most for life advice as they start out on their own. She told him that makes him a horrible father. She said waiting till they are grown to push them away with me is worse than doing it when they are underage. She told him that they won't accept me anymore at 18 then they do now. Then she told him that she can't help us and have a good night. Dh just sat there stupefied. Once he found his voice again they talked about ways to make this work now. I never said a single word! He was apologizing to me and squeezing my hand promising to make this work. His plan that she asked him, what an ideal plan would be, is that they will move back in, in July when his lease is up. He is going to let bm know now so she can pull all her crap and get it out of her system and let the kids know now and he will enforce visitation. They won't have a choice to come and of course counseling with him and the kids. He also wants to make sure I am there every weekend he has his kids so that we can bond and the kids can see I am healthy again. When he finished his ideal plan she asked him if he was going to do that and he said yes. I've already gotten a copy of the email he sent bm this morning letting her know!!!

Ram's blog
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oh dear - you are making a

oh dear - you are making a mistake and your therapist clearly has no experience in step hell...

regardless of how old skid are, they will never accept you and it will always be step hell.....

Your Dh is right - let's wait till kids are grown and on their own... this man is not stupid...
he's not abandoning his kids, they are effing adults and should be in their own lives....

Good luck.

I want to live with my

I want to live with my husband and be a family with our dd.

Dh isn't abusive. Why do you

Dh isn't abusive. Why do you live with your boyfriend?

The fall out will be on dhs

The fall out will be on dhs kids not me. If they decide not to come over anymore than that is on them. They are making the decision to not see their dad. I will be there to support dh.

Kids don't get to decide dhs

Kids don't get to decide dhs life. You preach that all the time. Your words were what encouraged me to speak up to my therapist. The adult decides not the child. Dh is deciding. If oldest ss bucks that than that is his decision but dh will not be ruled by his children.

My therapist said to let the

My therapist said to let the issue with ss go because him and I will never agree on it and she didn't feel ss had any mental health issues. So no one is saying ss has mental health or behavioral issues.

My personal therapist for my

My personal therapist for my ppd. I never had a problem with ss before the kitten incident. It has changed my views on him so I can't say how I feel about him now except weary. I was in the midst of ppd when I threw him out.

I believe his oldest son will

I believe his oldest son will decide he isn't coming over and dh will adapt his relationship with him to seeing him out of the house and that is a okay with me.

Oldest ss will have to make

Oldest ss will have to make his decision and that is his choice. He is welcome to live with dh 50/50.

In my other posts you say

In my other posts you say kids should not be allowed to decide where they live. Make up your mind.

Yes. I have heard from

Yes. I have heard from different people that what ss did with the kittens doesn't make him a budding serial killer. My therapist helped me see that other people have different values and morals than I do and just because ss saw nothing wrong with what he did doesn't mean he is a budding serial killer. I won't let him around dd till I feel safe with him there.

If your DH tells your kids

If your DH tells your kids that they have no choice, then they will ultimately blame you for this. They will know that it is because of you that there dad is changing things. If anything, this plan has the potential to make them dislike you even more.

I agree that you need a new therapist.

Did I read this correctly?

Did I read this correctly? You WANT your steps to live with you after the age of 18?

I didn't need to say anything

I didn't need to say anything since she was addressing my issue and it came out in my favor.

I think that is the worst

I think that is the worst therapist on the face of the planet. Those kids should be able to get a job and move out. Unless, they are going to college and proving they are taking steps to help themselves. Otherwise, if they are living in the home you are only furthering their dependence on you.

She meant be there for them

She meant be there for them advice wise.

I see. I read it wrong. But

I see. I read it wrong. But why are they going to move in? I think you're in for a world of hurt if you think they will really accept you. I am sorry to say that but it's true.

Why can't he be there for the

Why can't he be there for the kids when they are adults? Makes no sense. I am always there for my DD yet she moved out after high school. Does this therapist think letting adults live their lives in abandoning them?

She told dh she can't help

She told dh she can't help him if he wants to wait to live together till his kids are 18. I believe dh will parent his kids and make them come for his time. He has 50/50. I don't really care if the kids decide not to come. Dh can still see them and they are always welcome.

Do you remember what happened

Do you remember what happened the last time it came to choosing between you and them? That's right-he got his own place. I think you are making a huge mistake by trying to force feed these kids a relationship with you. Here we talk all about how a DH should be understanding to why a stepmom wants to disengage after the misery their skids put them through, but in your case the situation is flipped and you think that because you are the wife and mother of his other children they should just get over how you treated them. I thought you giving them space but regularly seeing them when they are with their dad was a good place to start a new relationship. What your plans are now though are going to backfire and his kids will bolt, blame you, me he will resent you all over again because the best indicator for future actions is past actions.

I'm not forcing anything. Dh

I'm not forcing anything. Dh came to this plan on his own. This is his decision.

Yes with the encouragement of

Yes with the encouragement of the therapist that he will magically do better parenting this time than he did last time when everything went to crap. I think you are putting a lot of faith in what he's promising you instead of looking at his track record for dealing with his kids.

You guys are all over the

You guys are all over the place. I feel sorry for the kids.

I guess I'm not understanding

I guess I'm not understanding why everyone is upset that she is working on reunification with her husband. They separated. They are going through counseling. They are dating.

I agree with Ram. She is allowing the boy to come back into her home, even after he did what he did. She is leaving the choice to him. She is leaving the parenting part to his dad to either enforce visitation or not. I don't think she is trying to separate her DH from his son. She is trying to fix her marriage. Her daughter also deserves the chance to live with her parents. Maybe we should stop looking at her as the second wife and look at her as the last wife.

The boy did what he did. She reacted. I know she says she had PPD, but any caring human would have had a problem with what that boy did. Every mother would have had a concern for their infant child. I do believe her husband gave up on her too fast, and she's right, he should have been there for her when she needed him. He should have tried to work through this before leaving. But that's neither here nor there now. The point is he is working on the marriage as well.

I know I wouldn't wait for a man I was married to for six years. She is making concessions as well. She is working on herself, although, I don't think she was the problem.

I guess I'm not seeing what you all are seeing. I may have missed something.

I don't see it either.

The problem is that she is

The problem is that she is repeating what got her separated in the first place. She made him choose between her and them and he moved out. Now after they've separated and things are getting better she wants to move back in. She's going to move back in, things will become unbareable again and then her and her husband Willa fight and separate all over again. That's why we don't agree.

But she said she will

But she said she will facilitate the 50/50 and leave the logistics to her husband and his son. How is that doing the same thing?

Nothing makes sense. DH says

Nothing makes sense. DH says he wants to live together after kids are grown which seems logical. Crazy therapist says it means abandoning kids (ugh?), and now you want to move in together. None makes sense to me

Meh, judge won't make this

Meh, judge won't make this fifteen/sixteen year old teen visit his father 50% of the time if kid refuses. You went total meltdown on the kid accusing him of going to feed his sister a snake and booted him , banning him.

Kid is old enough judge will not force and even if custody remains 50/50 for this kid, no one will actually enforce the order.

Curious. Has anyone sent SS to counseling to understand about PPD? It took you numerous steps to understand and recover from your experience, yourself. DH and you are doing marriage counseling to get through the events. What about SS?

Dh is going to take stepkids

Dh is going to take stepkids and himself to therapy. I will mention to him to have the therapist explain ppd. I didn't think of having someone explain it to him. I hope that makes a difference.

People don't change after one

People don't change after one therapy session. People don't change by being shocked. In general, people don't change. Unless they want to. Your DH was kicked in the head from one therapy session and now you guys are living in the honeymoon phase of your reuniting plan.

If the SS hurt kittens, he would have no problem hurting anything or anyone else. It IS a bad BAD BAD horribly bad indicator if a person can hurt animals. You're rewriting facts to make this disastrous plan work. You have a young child who will be put in harm's way (SS) all because you're both wearing rose-coloured glasses.

The issues still have NOT been addressed. DH's don't start parenting overnight. They don't. And now you're going to put your small child in danger because you're just ignoring all the facts about the past and setting your heart on hypothetical candyland where everyone starts magically getting along because you want it to.

I really really hope that in the future, you are NOT blogging about how SS did something pretty awful to you or your young bio. Or that things have gone back to Square One as they were before the Great Divide.

Take 1,000 steps back and take this sllloooooowwwwww. Let your DH take SS to therapy. Witness tangible progress. Have brief visits to your DH's when he has SS. Watch SS body language and attitude towards you and your little bio. Have tangible, visible evidence that things are improving. One step forward at a time.

Don't dream the idyllic world will happen overnight. This mess wasn't created overnight so it won't be fixed overnight and from one therapy session. If that were the case, none of us would need StepTalk for help and to maintain our sanity.

You have huge issues to fix and they haven't been fixed yet. Wait for evidence of improvement. Wait. Watch. Go slow. Don't jump in just because you want this. Do what is best for your baby. You're the only that can protect him/her yet you're willingly going to throw your baby in the lion's den and pretend the lion is all better now.

He's not. It's not. You're not...and you have a baby to protect, Mama. That comes first. Always.

That's still all kinds of

That's still all kinds of effed up, especially since they were meant to be pets...not snake food.

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Our marriage counselor got it right

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