Well, it looks like things are falling apart between me and my wife more quickly than I had anticipated. She came home a while ago from working a 24 hour shift (I telework from home on Wednesdays) and went off on me, how she is so angry at me for being selfish and not being willing to sacrifice my time and quality of life in order to do what is best for the grandchildren.

I consider myself an objective person, and I am willing to admit she is right about me living a self-absorbed life, and I guess that me not being willing to make this sacrifice, that she has decided is the only solution for these grandkids, makes me a selfish person. A better person would do what is best for the greater good, not just for themselves. My problem is I just don't think I have it in me to raise these kids indefinitely. I am looking at this as once we take on being the primary caregivers, it is most likely going to continue this way until the kids are 18. I really don't want teenagers in my house when I'm at retirement age. So yes, I am selfish by nature. But if I don't think I can live a life under these circumstances and maintain my sanity, if I'm just going to be miserable inside all the time, if the quality of our marriage is going to go down the drain, do I have a moral responsibility to stick it out anyway? Furthermore, if I run away from it, will I feel so guilty about it that I'll end up being unhappy anyway?

I feel like when I got married, I made a commitment "for better or worse", and I should stay and help my wife raise these kids. But I also feel like I just can't do it. I'll ruin my own life in the process. I'm feeling very conflicted.

Things aren't looking quite as bleak as when I last posted here that I felt like I already had one foot out the door. I'm still not happy about this, but I'm staying, at least for now, and most likely for the duration. I'm sure we've all had many times where we had that impulse to just get away at all costs. I know I have several times before, though never as seriously as this week. But deep inside I knew that running away, while providing me with immediate relief, would not have been the righr thing to do. For one thing, as much as I said earlier that I'm not a kid person amd can't take them being in my house all the time, I do care about these kids. And of course it's not their fault. They're innocent victims of their mother's irresponsibility, and they deserve better. And given their unstable life up to this point, they're really pretty good kids. The 6-year-old really loves me, and I would feel awful to abandon him. Both of these kids could really use a good male role model in their life. While their father seems to be a good loving father to them, he's not the most stable person either, and frankly, he's an idiot, to be blunt. I know I'm not perfect, but I'm surely a better male role model for these kids.

And I would feel awful to abandon DW at a time that is way more difficult for her than it is for me. So for now, I'm trying to wrap my brain around what Life has decided to hit me with, and I'm just going to try to get by, a day at a time, a week at a time, and hope I can adjust and find a way to cope and hopefully still be reasonably happy.

I have lots more I want to say about this, but it's been a long busy day, and the kids will be up early, so I need to get some sleep. More later this weekend when I have time. Thanks again to everyone who has offered support and advice this week.

I'm glad I found this place to "talk" to people who understand what I'm going through. It looks like I'm going to be here for a long while. Maybe I should move this into a personal blog? I don't know what the general preference is here. It looks like some people prefer the blog, others the forum.

My focus now has to be how to live with the situation and maintain some kind of quality of married life, as well as my sanity. I am slowly, reluctantly, coming to accept that this major change has happened in my life. Like it or not, this is what is in front of me.

I appreciate everyone's input, and I certainly agreed that us taking in these stepgrandkids and leaving SD free to go out and party and neglect her kids was the wrong thing for everyone involved, except maybe the grandkids. However, everything in life is not black and white, every family has its unique history and the family members their own personalities and issues. And I could only spell out so much in my initial explanation of what was taking place at this time. Needless to say there's been a lot more stuff that happened in our family before this, it's not like everything has been fine and suddenly this crisis popped up out of nowhere. Had I been a member of this forum over the years, you would have known a lot more about my SD, who I'll start calling SD25, and her younger sister, SD22, who has actually been much more of a problem in my marriage over the years, though SD25 has added her share of misery too.

Due to my wife's family history, I have come to agree with her that, as much as this sucks for me, letting the kids live here, even if it is permanent, was what my wife had to do or else she would not have been able to live with herself. DW's mother was an alcoholic who was not able to be much of a mother to DW and her 4 siblings. Her mother died when DW was 11, and though she was not the youngest, she sort of became the one to take care of everyone. To this day, she is one of those people who feel they have to take care of everyone, have to come to the rescue, especially for her children, and now grandchildren. DW's first husband, the father of her children, was also an alcoholic, and a junkie, who was and continues to be in and out of jail and never staying in one place too long. He abandoned his children when they were young, I'm not sure of the exact age, approx. when they were 9 and 6. Perhaps even worse yet, he has continued to pop in and out of their lives over the years, suddenly reestablishing contact or coming to visit out of the blue, then disappearing for months or years again. It would be better if he just disappeared altogether once and for all, because he is always a bad influence and disrupts their lives and plays with their emotions.

So now DW sees a 3rd generation of this pattern, her grandchildren victims of an alcoholic mother who is abandoning them. DW has always been the one to take care of the kids most often when it wasn't their mommy or daddy. They look to her as more than just a normal grandmother-type presence in their lives, more like she's on an even level with mommy.

As DW says, she is determined that this pattern of her family stops here. She can't bear to watch it happen yet again. And me, I don't want this to be my life!! ... but, I get it, and I don't feel I could walk away from it or argue against it anymore in good conscience.

But now begins the work for me of living this day-to-day. I'm sure I'll be posting here quite a bit.

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts and opinions are always appreciated.

I'm continuing to feel better about everything. I realize I had really disengaged from my stepgrandchildren and unfairly started to resent them being in my home, when in truth my anger was with SD25 for not looking for a place for her and her children to live, for taking advantage of our hospitality, and for not taking care of her kids and letting us do everything. I'm finding that now that SD25 is out and it's just us and the kids, the tension and anger are gone, and I'm spending more quality time with the kids. We're just doing what has to be done to give the kids some stability in their lives for now.

Now that initial reactions and emotions have had a week to settle down, DW and I had a good talk last night after the kids went to bed, and I feel we're on the same page now. She doesn't really want this to be her life for the next 6 months either, much less possibly the next 15 years. But she also knows now that as much as I don't want it, and understands why I feel that way, that I'm willing to do what's best for the kids for as long as necessary. I also told her that if/when SD25 decides she wants to take care of her kids again, it could not under any circumstances be in our house, and DW agrees with that 100%. That is huge for me. DW also wants to make sure we still find time for just us. She said a friend of SD22 is looking for some extra money and would like to babysit for us a couple times a week. All in all, what looked overwhelming a week ago has started to look manageable. The biggest thing is DW and I understanding and respecting each other's feelings, and the knowledge that we're united in this and we're not going to let it ruin our marriage.

I started a blog today, because I felt the need to vent over anger at SD25. Probably not the last time I'll need to do so. But I figured it belonged in a blog rather than added to this thread. This thread topic is no longer valid anymore anyway - "stepchildren moving in" has become "stepchildren moved in and now living with us indefinitely".