Hello all, this is my first post and I really need to vent! I know some people have struggled with this issue but wondered if any of you have any input that might help me?
I have three young biological children and am step mother to three of my husbands children. Mine are 4, 8 and 11. His are 17, 19 and 21. They all live with us all the time. The issues are that the house is cramped with all of us in it, we can't move out until the ex-wife signs a deed which she refuses to do because it might benefit me! not that she has even laid eyes on me. And trying to keep a cramped house with three young children and three teenagers tidy is impossible.
My husband refuses, point blank to discipline his boys. The boys come and go as they please, we pay for their cars, their gas their food their bills everything plus pretty much anything they ask for. They sleep late stay up playing video games with their friends downstairs til half way thru the night, they do no chores whatsoever except, finally after me complaining and being overwhelmed for months my husband asked them to do their own laundry.
The trouble is that i can't ask my children to do chores without raising the issue of different treatment, then i don't want my kids to feel inferior to the boys. They are treated like royalty. If we want to go out and the little ones are home, if the boys are not awake, at 11.30 in the morning! we just can't go because we couldn't possibly wake the boys up to babysit for us.
I feel like a servant in my own home. The boys lived downstairs before I came and it has stayed like that. We have no sitting room upstairs and nowhere to receive guests etc. The sitting room downstairs is the boys and they are left to eat in it, leave rotting food in it, tidy up if they want to etc. When I try to discuss it my husband feels that they have had enough change already with the three little ones and me coming to live there he doesn't want to risk alienating them by changing the culture of the house and requiring anything of them that they dont want to do. The boys now have a hot meal cooked for them on the table every night, which they attend if they want to , someone to shop and clean and help them when they need it. They are distant and courteous with me but have not shown any signs that they want to make a family with us.
This is so important to me, it feels so horrible living like this I feel like I'm sharing a house with a fraternity house. I need to make a loving secure family home for my little ones and I just can't do it with this disunity.
I have told my husband how I feel many times and he has seen me very upset but refuses to budge.
This makes me feel like I am second place to him really. His fear of losing the boys approval is greater than his love and concern for me. Which is not only lack of love but also lack of commitment. I know that we will not survive without commitment. I have stopped talking about it now because it's futile. He has assumed the 'deal with it' position, but he's watching me to see what I will do.
You see, I know that if I really push he'll go storming angrily downstairs and lay the law down with the boys through gritted teeth which will only inflame the situation and won't solve anything. The problem is his lack of commitment to me. I believe that the marriage has to be first and the kids come second, by doing it that way the kids get to stay secure and looked after. I ahve fundamentally compromised on the discipline of my children when he raised his unhappiness with it, for the sake of the marriage. He however will not do the same.
If you have any insight or experience with any of this i'd be grateful to hear it, thank you.