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Manipulative Stepson Driving a Wedge between My Wife and Me

RLJ's picture

Just got back from my stepson's wedding, where my stepson cut in on my wife and me while we were dancing. I simply walked away. I seethed with rage for some time, before deciding to leave. I told my wife that I was leaving. She begged me to at least say goodbye to her son, which I told her I could not do. Now I'm in the dog house. Details about the wedding: we never met the girl or her family until the day before the wedding, at the wedding rehearsal. He's dated her for 6 months, and she's pregnant. He then informed us that he was getting married in a pretty expensive wedding that we're helping foot the bill for. My wife manages our money and has spent quite a bit of it on this wedding, and on setting up an apartment for the newlyweds. The stepson has a long history of bad relationships with women in which he's madly in love at the 6-month mark, but then begins to have affairs and neglects the woman he's with. My wife has probably sunk between two and six grand on this wedding. I am very angry about all of this, but the final straw was his cutting in on us at the wedding.
I can feel that this has driven a big wedge between my wife and me. We normally have a very good relationship. I'm really troubled by this stepson, and don't know what to do. Our relationship has been one in which he's been very abusive to me from day one, and I've mostly taken it, in the hopes that he'll get better. He seems to want to put me down whenever he can, in ways that seem sly and manipulative to me (e.g. cutting in on my wife and me at his own wedding, where I couldn't very well create a scene). HELP!

Rags's picture

It sounds to me that what you are dealing with is a situation where the action that was the final straw is not what is at the core of the problem.

His cutting in on you to dance with his mom at his wedding on the surface seems reasonable. IMHO is is completely reasonable.

Your wife squandering your marital resources on a wedding for a less than reliable man/boy is not reasonable.

That would be a big issue for me if I were you.

I would sit down with your bride and let her know in no uncertain terms how you feel and what your expectations are concerning use of marital finances in the future.

Good luck and best regards,