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Advice Wanted and Needed

mjwadler's picture

I just found this site today and read some posts....I am struggling...really struggling!
I have 6 children of my own - ages 26, 24, 22, 21 and then 12 and 10.  My husband has 3 children ages - 26, 20, 16 - we do not have any children together.  We have been married 8 years, and have had custody of all the kids during this time.  Of course we now only have 4 in the house, but here's the thing.  When we got married, his x moved to california and we have had all the children.  It's a long and complicated story, but his children were very different than mine, the expectations were different, the involvement in activities, literally polar opposites.  I wish I would have researched alot more prior to getting married about how to develop family relationships, but I didn't.  With that said, I became the one who does EVERYTHING - make sure the kids do their homework, go to school, have clothes, clean, yard....alll of it.  This has been especially difficult as his gets were not going to school/doing homework/getting good grades when we married and all of that fell on me.  For the past 6 years, I have pretty much taken care of everything, he's retired from military - I work full time and pretty much do everything else.  Seeing him sit around drived me nuts, hide in the bedroom and play video games for hours or his phone or computer - I'm over it.  REcently this came to a head and I was ready to split up over it.  I brought all these things from the past 6 years to him, and he appears to be trying to change.  My problem is me, I can't seem to move past  the past....there is so much hurt.  For years I told him what I needed and I just feel that it all fell of deaf ears, and it wasn't til I was trully ready to quit that he decided to do something.....I have no idea how to feel at this point, I'd love to hear thought etc...just support would be great!

Comments

JRI's picture

If you have raised all these 9 kids, I really take my hat off to you!  Wow!  

I don't know the answer to your question, how to move past the hurt.  I'm older than you, I'm 76yo and I still feel the hurt.  The passage of time has helped some.  

I guess a lot depends on how sincere he is in making a change.  It sounds like he abdicated a lot of the responsibility he should have taken for his kids.  When I was married to my ex, I didn't effectively voice my concerns, I just left.  That seemed to propel him to try to.make changes but it was too late for me.  Why do these guys wait until things are dire to start to change?

I wonder if it would help you to seek some counseling?  That was something that turned around my life.  You sound like you have a lot of resentment to work through.  

Good luck, MJ.

TheAccidentalSM's picture

Welcome.

This going to be short and direct as I'm supposed to be on a conference call.

He's only now "trying" to change when you threaten to leave.  I'd bet any money that he'll "try" for the minimal amount of time possible to get you to cool off and then he'll be straight back to his old ways.  

Winterglow's picture

"he'll be straight back to his old ways"

If this happens, I sugggest you buy a cattle prod to remind him every time he lapses and should be busy doing something useful.

I'm not sure I'm only joking ...

mjwadler's picture

This is exactly how I feel, he things because for 3 weeks now hes not being sarcastic or rude that he has "changed".  He has decided he will make the bed every day, do our laundry and pick up our bedroom, oh and vacuum the stairs.  Just be aware he is only doing laundry because he says that I suck at it and lose the socks, but anyway.  I feel like he wants a gold star for doing these things - and he is constantly seeking approval.

I have been sick the past 2 days, and I couldn't even be sick alone.  He stayed in the same room with me, took a nap with me both days, basically was up in my face the entire time.  He even seems to take on some of my sick symptoms, its nuts to me!  

tog redux's picture

I really can't understand what kind of selfish person can sit on his ass and watch his wife raise 9 kids, 3 of them his, as well as take care of everything in the house (I hope you made the kids help at least). Is he depressed?

At the same time I can't wrap my head around why you let this go on for SIX years before taking a stand (except that you were probably too busy to address that issue).  
 

I don't know if he's going to change. I do know I'd have lost any love or respect I had for him. 

justmakingthebest's picture

How long did he serve? Is this a 20-25yr retirement and he isn't working anymore at the age of 45? That would INFURIATE me. 

I am going to throw this out there because my husband and I have pretty direct communication. It is what works for us. 

Men are not mind readers. If you said things like: "Hey I need help"- but didn't specifically say "Husband, I need you to handle dinner for the kids tonight and make sure that Susie and Billy get to their sports practices"- He may have thought he helped because he did something like switch the laundry around. Seriously men can be so stupid when it comes to seeing our needs.

I have found that hinting, suggesting, dancing around things just don't work with my husband. He told me early on to be direct, and once I was- he has yet to let me down. We had my brothers gender reveal party at our house this last weekend. When he woke up, I wrote a list of what I needed him to do. If I would have just said "I need help" and left it general, nothing would have happened.  It isn't that he doesn't care, he just needs me to spell out my needs. Maybe it is a military thing- they are used to orders and protocols. LOL