What do you think?
OK so I will start off by saying we have been married for almost 8 months but together for 2 years almost 3. He has 5 kids and a grandson and I have 3 kids of my own. SD20, SD17, SS15, SS8 & SD8 (twins), BD17, BS15 & BS8. Grandson is 1. ONE of our problems I have is with the oldest SD20, with the son who is 1. The father is a complete loser and not involved at all. Long story short, she moved back to her dad's house with the baby (he does not live there anymore he lives with me but goes back every other weekend when he has his kids) this is a family farm house so it's bought and paid for so she has no rent to pay. We also pay for her car insurance and her cell phone bill, I undertsand having her on our cell phone plan as many families do that but all I am requesting is that she pay us SOMETHING back each month to help pay for it. She graduated from LPN school so has a good full time job, the ONLY bill she has is electricity WHICH my DH was paying before I was the one that said SHE should be paying that! My major major problem that gives me an anxiety attack whenever I think about it is that we literally have NO money ourselves, we BARELY have enough to get by, DH started his own construction company last year so it has not even been a year and it has been a bad winter so alot of his jobs have not been able to be finsihed in time to pay the bills! I work FT but it is not near enough to pay all the bills. Is it too much of me to ask for her to ACT like an adult?! She is the one that had the baby and wants to be an adult so damn bad, she should be expected to act like one! I will say, for the most part, she does good on her own and has take most of the responsibility, but she still has this arrogance about her that she EXPECTS for her daddy to bail her out all the damn time! And he would too if it wasn't me saying heck no! Some background on her is that she and her mother DO NOT and never did get along. When DH and his ex divorced, she got custody of the younger 4 and DH got custody of the oldest by his exes choice. He gets the younger ones every other weekend but the oldest never saw her mother by her mothers choice. Now they are older of course the oldest doesn't see her mother only when she wants to, they work at the same place and SD17 lives full time with her dad, again her mother gave DH custody of her, he now sees the youngest 3 every other weekend. I won't even go into the problems with the youngest 3, that's for another forum! My main question is am I wrong for thinking SD20 should pay for some of the cell phone? I do think she should pay her own car insurance but that isn't the major thorn in my side right now....and yes, I have mentioned this to DH before, he just kind of skips around the subject. I tend to think he has the 'divorce guilt' thing with his oldest 2 and the guilt of their mother not wanting much to do with them at all so I feel like he tends to overcompensate when it comes to them. I have my kids every other week, my ex and I share 50/50 so yes, we pay for 50% for those 3 and 100% for everything SD17 needs/wants whom just got a job herself due to sports. I do NOT think we need to be paying for the adult SD20, there have been times she has whined because we have paid for things for her sister, SD17 and did not for her, HELLO - YOU ARE AN ADULT NOW!
Of course she should pay her
Of course she should pay her own bills. Even if you weren't financially struggling but for sure since you are. You say "she does good on her own". She isn't on her own. She is banking cash like it's about to be the winter and she's a damn squirrel looking for nuts. She should be paying rent (ok so perhaps less than one normally would to help but I don't even see why if she has a good job), cell phone, utilities, car, insurance, food, EVERYTHING because she is a damn adult with a child.
If she's old enough to
If she's old enough to procreate, she's old enough to pay the bills.
I had the same problem (without the grandchild). SD wanted expensive, last-minute flights to see her mom's family at the holidays. She wanted $400 Christmas gifts. She wanted to borrow our car all the time. She was living in an $2000/mth apartment, had a maid, sent out all her laundry for someone else to wash and then deliver back to her and she was asking US for plane ticket money!!! She wanted it all.
Talk to your husband, BUT...don't make any of it about you and your finances. Make it all about SD:
I told my husband if he dies, SD will have no safety net and she will have no way of paying her own bills. I made it all about what's good for SD, not about how ridiculous it is for a 25-year-old with a great (free) education and job to be asking her daddy to pay her bills. I kept emphasizing that he was creating an artificial lifestyle for her and if he dropped dead, she would be like a child because she never learned how to manage money. She had no idea how much anything costs.
That, combined with my fears about how we could fund our own retirement when we're funding her jet-setting lifestyle, worked. Make it all about what's best for SD, not about you, and you might have a chance of turning his thinking around.
This.
This.
I always make things about SD when I want to see change. For example, when I'm annoyed that she's 7 and still waits for someone to open the car door and buckle her seatbelt for her and DH still does it, I sit him down and explain that she's going to look pretty silly if she gets in one of her friend's parents cars and waits until they buckle her up. Little things like that. When parents infantize children, it makes them seem weird when they're out in the real world. Other people think it's strange when they can't do things for themselves and this seriously impacts their social life.
I mean, honestly, I don't care about the impact on her social life as much as I'm over having to take 10 minutes longer to go anywhere because SD can't brush her own hair, go to the bathroom alone, buckle her seatbelt, etc. but I phrase my concerns as concerns for her social well-being and that seems to do the trick lol
I have been trying this.
I have been trying this. Hoping it has some impact. I turned my thought of "that kid better fing graduate and go to college because that is my mental limit timeline in handling him" to "college is going to be a lot harder so he needs to get this high school thing down so he is prepared". Husband seems to hear it better. He went into conversation about how he handled college and that he agrees.
Old enough to breed, old
Old enough to breed, old enough to pay her own bills. Time for her to pay rent, her own insurance and her own cell bill. It is admirable that she has her LVN and is starting a good career. She needs to take on a reasonable lease for the house she lives in and pay the rest of her bills. If not, she needs to be given a move out and fully support herself date.