What happens to your marriage when you disengage?
Hi, I am wondering what happens to your marriage after you disengage from your step children? My husband and I are not even speaking to each other right now due to his children. Everyone told me to wait it out until they were out of high school. Stepson is now entering his 3rd year of college and stepdaughter is entering her 2nd year of college and it is no better. The problems are still there and now I feel as though my husband is betraying me. I know, sounds dramatic but I am so sick of it all.
If I totally disengage, which I have been doing more and more of, my husband complains that I hate his kids. NO, I hate how he parents (or doesn't parent) them. I am sick of our relationship being in trouble because of them.
If anyone has any comments and/or advice I would appreciate it. Thank you,
You don't discuss it with
You don't discuss it with him...You just do it. My marriage got a lot better. It does work, but you have to be consistent with it.
I am completely from one and partially with the other. It is hard to not give an opinion, but if I do the fall out is not worth it. Hard to do, but I value my marriage more than being right.
Read every article you can and that helps....
I went to your bio to look
I went to your bio to look for backstory, as I'm not familiar with it - but none. Could you tell us a little bit more about the situation - are the SS and SD living with you and attending college; living with you but away termtime, or what?
What are the main issues that you are your husband disagree about regarding his (non)parenting of them?
Backstory: I have twins in
Backstory: I have twins in high school husband has boy and a girl. Ex wife has been living off of child support for years, finally got a job (part time) two years ago. She has never paid for anything, we have always had the kids one weeknight and every weekend and school vacation. Not the whole summer just for the week for December break, February break and April break. The kids do nothing while they are here except hang out and watch tv. They are now in 2nd and 3rd year of college.
They are good students, don't drink or do drugs but they are very immature and not really aware of anything/anyone around them. Things that my kids know and are aware of these kids are not. There is always a problem with them. They are unable to do anything without supervision or guidance. I think my husband carries a huge amount of guilt about his divorce and has said that he feels his kids emotional growth was stalled because of it. There are never consequences for his kids actions whereas there are for my kids actions. This is not a situation where I feel like he is mean or treats my kids unfairly. I think he is an excellent father to my kids but totally drops the ball with his.
The latest incident happened this past weekend. His ex and his daughter did not send out the required forms for school so now we have to pay an extra $13,000. My husband went to his lawyer, already scheduled appointment, to see what can be done because we pay child support, all of the college payments and a percentage of every work bonus my husband gets goes to the ex. My husband and I were very angry with his daughter, who admitted it was as much her fault as her mother's because she did not give her mother the information her mother needed. I made a comment to the daughter that her father did not need all of this stress it was unhealthy and it was making us all mental and then said something like, "stress can give your dad a heart attack."
The daughter told her mother what I said, the ex sent my husband an email saying I was a bully. Totally disregarding the fact that she didn't send in the paperwork, that we have no access to. My husband said he was furious with his daughter sent her an email telling her so and then last night sent me a text from work. His daughter moved back into her dorm, sent my husband a text saying, "All moved in safely and wicked happy a friend of mine is on the same floor." My husband replied, "Excellent, happy you are there and settling in." I replied, to my husband only, "That's awesome, so glad and wicked happy that you are so wicked happy." Then I went on to say, "Sorry, but I am still too upset to be nice right now." No consequences, once again.
After that text he told me his son was coming to our house Friday night, he doesn't go back to college for another two weeks, instead of Wed night like we had planned because his son had picked up an extra shift at work on Wed. That's great, after all summer he picked up an extra shift. I told my husband I would have preferred that him and I spend the evening together seeing as I have to work the whole weekend and had just spent the last week in the house with one of my daughters because she had her tonsils out and has been miserable. That was the wrong thing to say! He blew up. Interesting because when I tried to change the days around this summer when the "kids" come over I was told NO. But, when the "kids" change the day it is ok.
I really don't know what to do. I just see this a problem that will never end. He is an excellent father to my kids and my kids and I love him so much but I am at my wits end with his kids and his lack of parenting.
Your story has some
Your story has some similarities with mine (I have SDs 16 and 18) - in that I feel my DH has infantilised his daughters out of guilt over his and NPD BM's separation when they were young children.
It does indeed sound as though your SKIDs are likely to suffer from major failure to launch.
Personally, what I would do in your situation is have a deadline - probably the most sensible would be when the SKIDs leave college - and lay out to your DH what living arrangements will be acceptable to you at that point. For example - they stop coming to you routinely for holidays etc. Need to be self-supporting to a large degree - although some room for negotiation on this if he is determined to carry on subsidising them. IMO, when the kids have finished their education it should be YOURS and YOUR DH's time primarily - you have spent years supporting them and the emphasis should now switch to the two of you, and focus on you and getting your kids education completed. This is similar to what I have told my DH I want to see in our situation. (My own kids are already grown up and independent).
The kids shouldn't be having
The kids shouldn't be having "visits" anymore with dad-they are adults. I guess if your dh wants to make plans with one of his kids instead of you I guess that it on him, but personally, I would make my own plans and I certainly wouldn't schedule any of my time around their "visits".
As far as the money-I am not sure I understand. Is he court ordered to pay the extra 13,000? If so I simply wouldn't pay it. Would that mean she has to sit out a semester or something? I think that too would be fine-my guess is that she would not "forget" this paperwork the next go around. She nor the ex are bothered by deadlines or fees and such because they apparently don't pay for anything.
If your husband isn't talking
If your husband isn't talking to you because his spawn are a-holes, then don't waste your precious time being in a situation enforcing his behavior. Just get the heck out and do what you want to do.
Thank you everyone for
Thank you everyone for letting me vent. I just received a text from my husband and he said he was sorry. I replied that we needed to talk not text. I think tonight I will just tell him that our parenting styles are completely different and I am sick of fighting with him over his parenting of his kids and from now on I am not getting involved. I don't want to hear what they are or have done wrong. He can continue to coparent my children with me but I am going to disengage with his. I think that is the only way our marriage will survive.
Just because his kids never make plans and just sit in our house EVERY weekend and one night a week I am not going to do it with them. I am sure this will not go over very well but I don't know what else to say.
If I have to disengage from
If I have to disengage from my marriage, I'll walk out the door, but that is me. I will NOT put up with any Skid that is disrespectful of me, of my husband or anything that is mine. I guarantee if the biological parent can't step up to the plate and deal with his children accordingly, then he/she isn't fit to be married again.
Period.
Why would your husband have
Why would your husband have to pay for adult children...Sounds like one messed up divorce. Thankfully, here there is nothing after 18. As for them messing up, let BM cough it up or let the daughter take out a loan, maybe next time she will be better about it. I would kill my kid. 13K is a lot to have to come up with unless you are very wealthy...I have to pay in 5 days for BS and trust me if he did this, he would be moving back home and attending community college.
>Hi, I am wondering what
>Hi, I am wondering what happens to your marriage after you disengage from your step children?<
It depends on how you approach it. I myself am "partially" disengaged (for reasons I won't get into) so I can only explain how I approached it and what my wife's reactions were to it.
Initially, my wife's reaction was to immediately accuse me of manipulating her to see things my way. While I would love it for my wife to see things my way, the whole goal of disengaging is (by my understanding) to save your own skin from the stress, the anguish and the disappointment from issues revolving around the stepkids. So really, disengaging is about SAVING YOU, not saving your husband, yor marriage or his kids. If by consequence of disengaging, the relationship can be saved, then great but that is not the primary goal. How the stepkids turn out as adults will not be a reflection of how you raised them because you have chosen to place any kind emotional investment in these kids.
A lot of us stepparents have the spotlight turned on us whenever we dare express our concerns over these kids. Whenever we speak up, typically our spouse's reactions is to defend the kids or turn things around on us. That's what was happening to me; "You expect too much from him" Or "you are not sensitive to my kid's feelings because they are not your biological children". By disengaging, I removed myself from the spotlight. I didn't address the problems my SS was causing and I ddid't acknowldge any problems. In fact, to use your comment above as an example; when your husband texted you saying that his daughter has settled in her dorm, a typical "disengaged" response would be: "That's nice. What would you like to do for supper?".
Your husband may get mad. He may ask you what your problem is. Just stay emotionally detached and say "nothing dear". Now if you are like me and have an annoying tendency to wear your emotions on your sleeve, you might want to think about excusing yourself to seek some alone time to compose yourself whenever situations with your steps arise.
In time, should your husband actually seem open to actually having a dialog with you, you might want to give your husband a head's up on what you are doing and give him an article on Disengaging. I think you might find a link here on this site. Tell him to read it and then come to talk to you. It might open his eyes.
Like Kes wrote above, I too gave my DW a deadline on SS's living arrangements should things not improve (he is not doing well in school). Now please heed my warning. Your husband WILL get upset and think this is a "you VS him" situation. Assure him that is not the case at all. In my case, I was open to compromise and got a very good discussion out of it and we both got to be on the same page (well for now at least).
Mind you, my SS is still in high school and I wanted to correct things now rather than later because at the rate my SS is going college won't be an option.
Thank you for the good
Thank you for the good advice. I usually do change the subject when his kids come up but I am still so angry about having to pay all that extra money because of his lazy ex and even lazier daughter. His divorce says he has to pay until the kids are 23 as long as they are full time students. They still have visitation because they have no friends!!! They either sit at the ex's house and watch tv or sit here and watch tv. It is truly pathetic. I blame my husband and his ex for allowing them to be slugs. They are so dependent upon each other that they don't feel the need to have other friends I guess. I think it is very unhealthy.
Well it took two years of him
Well it took two years of him being distant and it got worse between us before it got better, but to be honest I had to decide what was best for me. A life without him, or a life with him and his toxic daughter who was never going to change. Once I banned het from my home, told him to go with her, well as I said, it took two years. But she is no longer in our lives manipulating, guilting and bullying daddy, running our home and our lives, insulting, humiliating and isolating me.
Once you've reached the end of your rope, you will make the right decision. You know this is never going to end with his kids. Do you want to continue like this or not. You know as long as your husband allows it, it's not going to stop. If he can't change, you have to do what it takes to save your sanity.