Help!
I have been with my husband for 2 years. He has a BD and a BS. His 14yr old son lives with us. The 12 year old daughter lives with her mother. My SS does not respect me and makes me feel hated. He steals from me, goes thru my things in my room, barely ever talks to me, and anytime I say anything to him he has an excuse and back talks. He doesn't have much respect for his father either. When he first moved in with us we set rules and chores. He started failing school and was grounded then left behind our backs and moved in with his mom. A few months ago he moved back with us and we gave him a choice to follow the rules and do better in school in order to move back. He agreed but things have only gotten worse. He is failing school, and his attitude has worsened. I have caught him taking things out of my room and he consently lies about everything. I have no trust for him anymore and I'm at the point I don't even want to be in the same room as him. His father(my husband) seems to just be blind of the whole situation and lets things go all the time. The SS never wants to do anything around the house and consently needs to be told to clean up after himself. My 12yr old SD who lives with her mother never wants to come over unless she gets something for herself. Its always a "If I come over can I get?" When she does come over she says not a word to me and its like pulling teeth to get her to talk. There is so much tention in the house and I'm getting to the point I hate to even be around either step kid. I don't know what to do. I know getting married they came as a packaged deal but they were not like this in the beginning. And ever since we got married and they hit teenage years its just getting worse and worse. I don't know what to do anymore...I just dont want anything to do with his kids anymore.
This is exactly what
This is exactly what happened to us. I have been with my husband for 7 years. His children were 4 and 7 when we got together. They were good kids and I enjoyed them. My girls were 13 and 15.
Within the last 7 or 8 months they have become extremely withdrawn, ignore me and I actually caught one of them rolling her eyes at me one morning while she was sitting at the breakfast bar and I was entering the kitchen. They would both run to their father and greet him and go out of their way to avoid even eye contact with me. It really hurt my feelings as I have always been the one that did all of the gift shopping for them for birthdays and holidays, invited them into our family traditions which they loved to participate in and planned all of their birthday parties.
I tried to talk with them. My husband noticed this too and tried to talk to them. Finally, I decided that I couldn't stand being treated that way and feeling uncomfortable in my own house when they visited EOW and decided that I would leave the house on the weekends that they visited and go stay at my parent's house.
Well, that really wasn't a very good idea because that is my old stomping grounds and needless to say I was drifting further and further away from my husband. I was almost tempted to stray. It was at that moment I realized I didn't want to be that person ever again and I decided that I couldn't deal with all of this baggage he had. He wasn't able to handle the situation, so I was going to end our marriage.
We have had a really rough summer and have been on a serious rollercoaster since February. He realized I was drifting away and worked very hard to keep us together. I mentioned on another thread how I had a conversation with his kids about how they were going to treat me in my home and he backed me 100%.
We also realized that we were just not going to move forward with our lives living in the same town as his x because she dominated every aspect of his visitation and actually entered my home once when we weren't there. We decided that for our sake and for the sake of his relationship with is children we were going to move away.
He has since gotten employment 400 miles away and when he does have his visitation, he will be able to have quality visits with them and focus on them totally rather than having to be the taxi driver to all of their events that their mother signs them up for during his parenting time. She will no longer have control over his calendar.
I also think that it will do the kids a world of good because right now they don't appreciate seeing him EOW. They feel this is a chore for them to keep going back and forth. Now when they see him they will actually miss him and maybe things will go back the way they used to be when they were younger.
Right now, and probably forever now, I no longer shop for them. I don't plan vacations anymore for them and I don't plan parties either. I leave that all to my husband. They have found out that he is really not good at that and what they "get" has been significantly reduced if he even remembers to get it.
I guess what I'm trying to tell you, albeit long winded" is disengage from them. Don't be their whipping boy. Let their dad take care of them. Be like the kind lady down the street who says hey and occasionally bakes cookies when the mood strikes YOU, but leave actually dealing with them to their dad.
Thanks. I was trying my best
Thanks. I was trying my best to be involved with my SS. Going to his school for meet the teacher night. Involved with advice and helping talking to his teachers about his horrible grades. Buying him things he needed. I stopped and pulled back. I even told my husband I'm not doing it anymore. I feel my SS just takes advantage of me and is only nice when he wants something from me. He would pull things like tell me he needs gym shorts. I would buy them and then he would never bring them to school and just wear them at home then failed gym. I was so concered at first for my step kids exceptence trying to be the coolest and buying them gifts, cooking for them. They just don't appreciate anything I do and in return lie and steal. And trys to play my husband and I against each other. They have been cold and distant towards me. I have pulled back and haven't been asking any questions, or showing much concern anymore. I just don't know what will happen or how much more I can take. And I'm afriad its only the beginning! Its hard to talk to my husband because he just think I'm complaining. He doesn't see how its starting to really effect our relationship now because he doesnt stand up for me.
Believe me, I feel your
Believe me, I feel your pain. As I said, my skids treat me like I'm invisible but if they want something or they want a buffer with their father, oh they are texting me right away. Funny that I wrote this today because I just got a text from his oldest asking me if my firm would buy space in their yearbook. I simply wrote back "no, sorry."
It horrible to go thru this
It horrible to go thru this crap and drama. Its refreshing thou that I found this website letting me know I'm not alone dealing with this stuff. And its somewhere I can vent. Between dealing with my husband not standing up for me and dealing with his brat son sometimes I feel like I'm so alone.
No, you are definitely not
No, you are definitely not alone
Ahh the drama. I totally
Ahh the drama. I totally hear you. And this website does rock. I am like Totalybogus, there I times I disengage. It is hard to do it everytime I would like, as my daughter lives with us the majority of the time, but there are times both she and I disengage from all the skid drama, usually surrounding my ever-challenging SD. I have tried several times to address an ongoing issue with my SD, and my DH has tried to get the BM to agree she needs counseling, but she is in denial and my DH doesn't want to deal with the big picture. So, I disengage. I have told my daughter, who has zero desire to be around my SD anymore even though they are the same age, to be polite, no snotty comments, but she too can disengage if need be. When my daughter goes to her dad's and my skids are at our house, those are the weekends I get A LOT of my errands done and get my "me" time in. I've told my DH he can't have me be "totally engrossed" emotionally with the skids but not be able to haul the SD to the counseling she desperately needs. If he doesn't like it then he needs to change his attitude about the fact that she has SERIOUS issues and needs some help. I can only hold out the olive branch so many times and have it smacked down or scoffed at. I feel you sister.