Gotta vent
My wife is the love of my life, but now i am having "buyers remorse". I have 2 kids of my own that are athletic, intelligent go getters, and hers are mediocre slugs at best. Not to mention her psycho ex. I have tried everything, being fill in dad, friend, or crazy cool uncle to them but nothing works. I catch shit from ex and wife if i try to discipline or perform basic parenting on her kids. Stuff like cleaning their rooms, appropriate behavior, normal social graces that save embarrassment. But she expects me to be a positive role model, wtf? It's like they have been raised by wolves. She will not parent so i have started hibernating. They are on the opposite spectrum of me and it drives me nuts. I try to meet them halfway yet they always stab me in the back and try to pull me into the drama with their father. I have asked my wife to talk to them but she is afraid they will decide to live with him. This has been going on for three years and i am at the point of losing my shit and tossing them out. I feel like a prisoner in my own house. I pay for everything because psycho ex is a deadbeat, with a beach house and boat. I can't stand to be around them anymore and i am really starting to resent her for having to parent her kids. I mean the 13 yr old ss had to get a rotten tooth pulled because the nasty little shit won't brush his teeth! The thought of having to deal with this for the rest of my life makes me want to throw my face on an icepick.
Any words of encouragement, or possibly a bullet in my head would be most appreciated.
I'm curious, you say you pay
I'm curious, you say you pay for everything. Does that mean your wife doesn't work? Why isn't she paying for her own kids?
Otherwise, I would like to challenge your statement that your wife is the love of your life because how can someone who treats you with such disrespect be the love of your life? Personally, I think you're selling yourself short.
Lots of step-parents don't like their skids. I can't stand one of mine but the difference is my DH and I are a team and I've never been made to feel like the skids come first. DH respects my input and never makes a decision about the skids without talking to me and he certainly would never undermine my parenting or allow the skids to disrespect me. That's respect and you can't have real love I reckon that doesn't have respect as it's foundation.
All the other responses will probably tell you to disengage but I think that if the reason you're doing that is because of poor parenting by the bio and a lack of respect from your partner then why bother staying in the relationship at all?
My advice - go to counselling with your wife and see if you two can navigate through the situation and come out with a compromise that works for both. If not, then I would suggest you walk.
simply end the marriage and
simply end the marriage and move on, it's all I've got...
I will not spend 2 cents on them
It's OK to end the deal if
It's OK to end the deal if it's ruining your life. I think this scenario would pretty much be a passion killer for me. I don' t get the "love of my life" crap...at all in this situation. And you are being taken to the cleaners financially.
Our relationship is great.
Our relationship is great. She is a full time student to be a nurse practitioner. She is a great wife. Her flaw is her soft heart towards ss. Hell with it though. I am done being nice. I am gonna go snatch his ass up now and give him a taste of Marine Corps discipline. Beyond worrying about her leaving.
I will follow up on the
I will follow up on the therapy thing. She is an awesome wife. She and her ex suck as parents though. Yes, both of my kids live with me. Our only conflict is when it comes to the 13 yr old ss. Even her daughter (19 yr old going to college) says she babies him and shows favoritism. She is terrified that he will choose to live with the father. She doesn't want him to grow up like him. This is understandable because he is a 3rd class loser. I mean, her ex's father says he loves his son (ex) but does not like him. I hope that paints the picture for you. That is the Only thing i can figure out. She does not work right now because she is in nurse practitioner school. I do well enough in my career, it is just the fact that her ex bad mouths me when he has his kids when i pay for them to live in my house whilst he does not pay his child support. I am a former Marine infantryman with 5 comat tours and can kick his ass sideways with my pinky toe. He is like a yappy dog you want to kick but can't because it's considered cruel. No glory in it. Not worth my time, plus i think it would make matters worse if i beat him up and put my pecker in his ear in front of his kids ( my signature move if i really don't like you, it's a Marine thing). More than anything i needed to vent. I have a bad habit of holding things in until i explode. Good to know i share common ground with others. It helps. Thanks for the advice, I didn't really know there were therapists that specialized in this. Kinda thought we were on own.
Gun(ny), Former Marine?
Gun(ny),
Former Marine? :? No such thing right? My dad has given me clarity on that many times in my life.
Like you are having to do I had to counter a waste of skin SpermIdiot who was hell bent on ruining his children by inspiring them to follow in his Opie Cunningham attempts at becoming a gangbanger. My son(SS-24)is his eldest of 4 all out of wedlock by three different baby mamas. SS is our only.
Though it never came to a physical confrontation ... which I would have relished... we did spend 16 years under a CO and battling the SpermIdiot and SpermGrandHag in court to protect my son's best interests. We never let the SpermIdiot or SPermClan get away with manipulative crap without bringing the full weight of legal, financial, and social consequences down on them like a ton of crap in a 10Lb bag.
My responsibilities as husband and father were to protect my wife and the SKid from the threats and toxic manipualtions of the SpermClan. Not that my wife needed all that much help. It sounds to me that your bride is a motivated woman who is doing what she needs to do to provide for her children and will ultimately burry her X with her own success.
My bride sure did. She was a 16 & Pregnant/Teen Mom who ultimately graduated with honors with her HS class and went on to a dual major BS with honors, an MBA with honors, and a successful career as a CPA. We met and married in college during the last semester of my 11yr undergrad career and her first semester out of HS. SS was 15mos old when we met. We married the week before he turned 2yo.
The SpermIdiot went on to pursue his quest to impregnate every available under aged womb in the Pac NW and hen dumped his three younger spawn on his own parents to raise with no help from him. The SpermGPs payed his CS obligation for my son. We never let him/them off of the hook for that support though we never needed the money and it came with much whining and crying about how unfair it was that CS on my SS was taking food out of the mouths of the three youngest SPermIdiot spawn.
My wife and I felt that SS needed to know that his PaternalBioClan was participating his support.
You and your wife have this and will do fine. There is time to get the 13yo straightened out. The example that you are setting as an honorable man/husband/father and the example that you and your wife are setting as equity life partners will ultimately overcome the crap example of the waste of skin SpermIdiot.
Stay the course and thanks again for your service.
Thank you for the great
Thank you for the great comments. Shit happened along the way but my wife is the best thing that has ever happened to me. You hit the nail on the head about her drive to excel. She spent so many oppressive years with that idiot. I never want her to feel that she can't be everything she wants to be. The Marines taught me to build folks up and not tear them down, never give up and victory is the only outcome. I know i have to take the bad with the good, and there is definitely more good than bad. I snatched his butt up yesterday and today we had a good day at the beach. She started crying because of the good time the ss and i were having boogie boarding. I have decided to be a hardass without being a douche, if that makes sense. We had a good talk last night after i read some of this stuff and it went netter than i thought it would. Thanks to you and all the others that provided advice.
And you are welcome. It was a privilege to serve.
Yes. You nailed it. My kids
Yes. You nailed it. My kids turned out just like me. I don't know how i managed to have them turn out how they did. The SD is ok, little bit of a drama queen but manageable. She takes my side on a lot of issues with her brother. Still, momma puts her head in the sand. We have had the 18 year old talk. He will not be in my house when he turns 18. I have told him that too. I know i left out a lot of details, i am a noob at all this.
His lavish possessions bother
His lavish possessions bother me because he will not pay child support. We don't need his money, it's all about the principle of the matter.
Sorry to hear that you are in
Sorry to hear that you are in the middle of such a shit creek. Like others have said, you are not responsible for her nasty spawns. That is total BS that she and your ex think you have to be the role model. That can never work if their mother is not backing you up with discipline and such. I am in a similar situation, I cant stand my SS because he acts like a spoiled brat and his parents are not the disciplining types. Nor do they bother to teach him any manners; I had to bring it up to my husband and he does try but only if I tell him to have the skid say please and thank you. I realized that the situation was never going to get any better and might even get worse so I decided to move out. We will still be married and spend time together only I will not see his kid again.
My advise is to save your mental well being and have her and her brats move out. Like you said its YOUR HOUSE and you should in no way have to feel like a prisoner in it! If your wife doesn't respect you and your house enough to discipline her skids than its not worth it. That doesn't sound like love to me.
Good luck and hope you can figure something out that will work for you!
Lol. Throw your face on an
Lol. Throw your face on an icepick. Love that. My similar activity is lying on the floor of the garage doing bong hits off of the tail pipe of my car.
I do have advice and it is what I did. Zero tolerance and bring the pain. I chose the basic standards of behavior I would require in MY home and I held the Skid to those. If my bride did not like how I parented or disciplined then she could step up and get it done before I had to or she could bite her tongue, have my back, and we could discuss it offline in private.
The Skid had a choice. Comply or suffer. He could always try to play the go live with the SpermIdiot BioDad card but that wasn't happenin with the CO that he was subject to. His mom (my wife) was the CP with sole physical and legal custody and the SpermIdiot got 7wks of long distance visitation per year. (5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring).
All in all we did not have much trouble with the kid but we did battle regularly with the SpermIdiot and the SpermClan for the 16+ years we lived under the CO. We used the same philosophy on dealing with them. They were reasonable or they suffered the full extent of every legal, financial, and social consequence we could bring to bear.
One thing we did do to address Skid and SpermClan behavioral issues was opt for a Military Boarding school for his Jr and Sr year of HS. That was a great experience for him until his SpermIdiot hacked the school firewall and they would stay up all night playing WoW. We jerked the kids ass back home to finish HS in our local HS where he knew no one and had only one semester to do 1.5 years of work. He had a choice.... graduate on time or we would drop him off at a homeless camp under the elevated interstate in Philly. I took him for a field trip to the homeless camp and left him there to meet his future neighbors for a couple of hours in the middle of a winter blizzard just to make the point. That scared the crap out of him and he graduated on time and with honors. No one from the SpermClan showed up for graduation and following his last COd SpermLand visitation after graduation and before his 18th b-day no one even bothered to call him for several years.
I raised him as my own holding him to the same standards that I would a child of my own (I have no BioSpawn). He asked me to adopt him a few months before his 23rd birthday. We made that happen. The only interface he has had with the SpermClan is to fly to SpermLand for a hike in the woods discussion with the SpermIdiot about getting his ass beat if my son has to come back due to one of the three younger also out of wedlock SpermIdiot spawned half sibs getting arrested for participating in the SpermIdiot's gang banger wannabe lifestyle.
Go with the zero tolerance perspective. It works.
Stay the course and take care of your own children if your bride will not catch clue and get on board. That may mean purging her and her toxic spawn from your life to prevent negative impact on your own kids.
Good luck. Take care of you.
I am down 56 pounds and she
I am down 56 pounds and she is down 43. I am 67 pounds from goal and she is 13 from goal. It is going well for both of us though I have slowed down to only 1 or two pounds a week in loss from a high of ll. I will have to change something soon to accelerate the loss.
Thanks! This really is the
Thanks! This really is the way i want to handle it. It fits my style. The nice guy crap has not worked at all. I have told my wife that i am about to unleash the Marine in me and straighten the little turd out. I am to the point that I don't care if she leaves. Hell, i got abs, chicks dig me. I will post an update. I'm gonna go snatch his little ass up and make him clean his room with a toothbrush and cut the yard with scissors
As a Marine Corps brat raised
As a Marine Corps brat raised by a Marine I say go for it. Standards are critical to raising children to viable adulthood.
We raised my SS-24 with the same standards that my parents raised their sons with. He just finished his first 6 year enlistment in the USAF and re-enlisted for 4 more. He is currently an E-5. His plan is to do 20 since he will be half way to retirement with his current enlistment. He leaves for 3 years in Germany in a few weeks.
Thanks for your service and ....... apply those standards in your own home.
Always good to hear from
Always good to hear from military folk. We just have a different way of doing things. I was afraid to apply all of that because, as you know, Marines can be a little extreme. I opened the flood gates on his butt yesterday and we had a great day today. To my surprise, my actions were well received by all. The problem with being a step parent is thst there is no instruction manual. We have to figure this crap out by ourselves. I think we are all afraid of losing the other because blood is thicker than water. I assumed she would chose ss over me. Being firm and showing her that i have his well being as a priority has gone over better than expected. I plan to continue this course. I will keep y'all posted on how it works out. Thank you.
gunsmoke, the military will
gunsmoke, the military will instill responsibility in a young person. others cant cut it. one of my skids was booted out of the military less than a year after boot camp. we still dont know the whole story on that. general discharge for some sort of misconduct.
after being kicked out the skid moved in with us for college then dropped out of college. the bm would not take the skid in. skid started partying and coming home at five in the morning and sleeping until past noon. skid started complaining about my making "noise" in the house in the morning while i was cleaning house and going about my day. then the skid told me to go to h*ll to my face. that was the end of it.
that is when the skids belongings were on the kerb and was shown the door. not in my house does anyone talk to me that way.
to my surprise dh backed me up. i fully expected his testicles to retract into his body like he jumped into an icy lake.
i wish you the best. stephood is never easy.
I'd say that a relationship
I'd say that a relationship and situation that makes you want to throw your face on an ice pick or have a bullet put in your head, is not the relationship for you. That's just off the top of my head.
Overall, I have no wise words
Overall, I have no wise words of wisdom, just wanted to weigh in that you all crack me up!
Thanks for the freaking hilarious thread.
Good luck, Gunsmoke, your situation is a rough one to be sure. Let us know how serving up that cold can o'whoop-ass goes.