5teens,

I read your comment, and laughed out loud. Why, OF COURSE my husband has issues! There is so much unresolved baggage there, it's unreal. Unfortunately, my husband came out of his first marriage very traumatized; he spent a good 16 years living with a crazy person who was prone to physical violence, rages, infidelity; the list is long. He stayed for his sons, until he couldn't take it anymore. He left, tried to keep in as close contact as best he could with the kids, but worried himself down to 140-some pounds on a six-foot frame. He believed he failed his kids by leaving them with their mom. He tried for full custody and lost initially. When the older boy opted to move in w/his dad at 18, my husband breathed only 1/2 a sign of relief; the younger boy still lived w/mom. When the younger boy made overtures about living w/his father, things got messy. By this time, we were married and living within a 7 minute car ride of biomom. What an ugly time for all of us. In the end, my husband got full physical custody of younger boy, shared legal w/biomom. It's never been right, though. Co-parenting with biomom is/was/always has been impossible. The younger son, I think, never really bought into living here w/his dad and the rest of us. My husband never made one single demand of either of his sons to do so much as clean up after themselves. Frankly, I think DH always feared the boys would go back to their mom; add to that the guilt he feels, and what you have is a big emotional mess. Not to mention the disruption of the new one week here/one week there arrangement, an arrangement that was not DH's idea, or my idea, but younger son's idea alone. If my husband thinks it's a not-so-good arrangement, he'll never admit that, because he figures at least he'll see his son regularly and that fact will somehow "negate the negative" of the boy living 1/2 time w/mom. Personally, I think the new arrangement sucks.

Thanks everyone for the welcome.

RE: whole counseling issue. I've suggested we go to counseling, and we actually did, very briefly, when younger SS moved in. Younger SS said little in the sessions, seemed to the counselor at least to have his head on his shoulders. I had my reservations about her assessment regarding the kid, but who the hell am I? Anyway, DH came away very uncomfortable, I think. Let's not talk about the unpleasant stuff, because it's, well, unpleasant. So counseling was short-lived.

I thought I'd try being direct about my needs as a new wife and stepmom, so I tried to speak w/my husband about setting up house rules, for chores and the like; I was running ragged, doing more than I should have been doing, so I asked for house rules. nd I proposed that my husband present the idea to the boys. He became very PO'd about it, tried to say that I was asking HIM to do all this work, and after all, Mavis, you keep telling me to take some time for myself and the like. When I clarified that I asking that HIS SONS help with the usual household stuff, he ended the conversation right then and there. His silence told me he wasn't going to take any lead with rules, etc. All he said was, "Then YOU ask them." Maybe he doesn't think kids should help out in that way, maybe he thought I was asking too much...who knows? All I know was if I had brought up the chores to his sons, he wouldn't be there to back me up, so what would I really accomplish?

We started giving the younger son an allowance in exchange for garbage night, mowing the lawn, and cleaning his room, but that didn't last. The chores stopped, as did the allowance, which prompted the younger boy to want to get a job so he could have money, which prompted the whole discussion of "I need a car to work, otherwise I'll have no money". Husband signs the work permit, younger son gets a job (well, his older brother got him the job), younger son's grades plummet, younger son wants a car, husband says your grades need to improve significantly for us to help out in that regard, younger son decides he doesn't like that, which leads us to the "come to Jesus" meeting this past winter, when younger son tells his dad that he (his father) doesn't know anything about the real world, that we have no right to have any expectations of him as he's just a kid (he was 16), that it's not fair that the bad behavior at school should be sanctioned since he was already assigned detention, and that maybe he should go live with his mom.

My husband stood there, dumb as a stick. The mean, evil, had-it-up-to-here nasty stepmom in me simply said, "How fast can you pack?" So the boy left, husband cried, we didn't speak for days, biomom leaves nasty voicemails and is just appalled that the young man was required to do his own laundry at our house (I'd stopped doing both boys' laundry this past summer, when both boys reneged on cutting the grass). But, we got 6 months of peace. So when biomom throws the kid out last week and brings himself, a duffel-bag full of clothes, and ultimately his/his mom's car with him to our house, DH is over the moon, but uneasy at the same time, especially since the kid somehow managed to keep the car with him. This brings us to yesterday, when I walk in the house after work and find DH bawling his eyes out because his son called and said, "Nothing personal, but I'm going to spend one week with you, the other w/mom, etc." My husband is hurt, and worried about his son. I, on the other hand, am annoyed. Hate to tell my husband, but the kid wasn't planning on staying: he's got the car to think about, after all.

Cynical and jaded I am.