Our house is chaotic, pretty sure it has been that way since we got married. Two of my adult children live with us, my son is about to move out though, he only came home when he switch jobs from one that was far away to one close to home. He keeps to himself, helps with bills and is just like me in temperament, I will miss him but glad he is getting out of the crazy house. My daughter and her 4y/o also live with us, I don't think she will ever leave. I love her but I blame my husband for this, I was a single mom when my kids were growing up. I was tough on them, I pushed them to be self-sufficient and though I would never let them be homeless, I would not make it so easy to be stagnate. I mention his roll in this because it came up last night, I was accused of not loving his kids as much as he loved mine, to which i said "Hell I don't love mine as much as you seem to".
I am tired of all the fighting, his kids are 8 and 13 y/o boys. I learned right off we had different parenting styles, he carries a lot of guilt for the break up of his marriage, his ex blames him too. My ex didn't want anything to do with his children and that tore me up when they were small, so when I met this man who wanted to see his kids and always paid his child support, I was impressed. Once I was vested in the relationship I started to notice that these boys are the center of everything.... his family, her family, family events, everything. They had never been told no. Due to the way my husband worked during his divorce he was granted 2 days one week 1 day the next. I started noticing that everytime he had them he had to plan something fun, a movie, a trip, going out to eat... never just plain family time. Food was another story, both boys were overweight, drank all the soda they wanted and never had a vegetable, dinner was normally pizza rolls or chicken strips and fries. They talked babytalk, would interrupt adult conversations. I would love to say in the three years we have been married things have gotten better, but they haven't, there are still arguments over dinner with the younger one. The older one just goes to his room and plays on his phone. I just stay out of their way when they are there, because everytime anything is said we get a call from the ex raising hell, she once sent pizza rolls to our house and told us to please feed them. Like pork chops, mash potatoes and green beans are not a proper meal. I got to the point that when they are there I just stay busy and hang out it my room, except then she is calling because I don't talk to them, though when I do they just walk by and ignore me. I am not the wicked witch of the west, I have never yelled at them, I give there father space to spent all the time he wants with them. Two weeks ago they said they didn't want to come over anymore, they miss a ridiculous amount of school which their mom says is our fault, even though they have never missed when we have them, and they miss for things like going to visit her druggy brother in jail, or lots of fake illnesses. She says its because they are stressed because they don't want to come to our house. My husband told them fine they don't have to come over then, (It broke his heart though), well my husband talked to his son the other day and he said he does want to come over and that it wasn't him it was his little brother. Fine so today is the day we were suppose to pick them up from school and we get a call last night from his ex stating that the older one is saying his stomach hurts and that he is afraid of his dad(my husband doen't yell at them or beat them, the worst he does is lecture)So my husband says "look then they don't have to come, I am not going to beg them to come see me, but they need to realize this is their choice" and hour later she is calling back to say they will just come tues for one day and see how that goes and that "my poor babies are just afraid of you". That is when we got into it... I am tired of this woman making the rules for my house, and that anytime we do something the boys don't like we get a phone call. We took them with us to a city council meeting because we are trying to get a new playground built and she calls to say we need to make time for just them and not take them to meetings, We get them on monday after school to wed before school so that leaves us just a few hours in the evening to do homework, make dinner watch some tv or play a board game but I guess that is not good enough, We need to be doing something fun. I know this letter is all over the place but I am sick of it. I raised my kids and am helping raise my grand kids and none of them have ruled my life like these two boys are trying to do. I am to the point that I really don't know how much more I can do this. Is it even worth it. Was it ever? I knew there were problems from the start, but I let him convince me it was fine. Just some added notes to tell you what kind of women the ex is; she is always saying she is sick, never can make it to parent teacher conferences or school activities though my husband never misses, the little one played tball we took him everytime she only made it to one game and that is because we had plans right after and said she had to pick him up there. He joined cub scouts but only went when we had him and she raised hell because we wouldn't take him on her days she said "you would think a father would want to do that with his son" She takes phenagrin everynight saying its because of migraines then calls us in a slurred rant. Her mother goes and cleans her house when it gets unlivable, we have been showed pictures by the boys, we taught the oldest one to do laundry when they would tell us things like they wore the same socks and underware all week cause mom didn't do laundry. But yet were the bad parents.