DH and I had a chance to talk Sunday. We were going to talk last night, but he blew out a tire on his car trying to go to work, and I needed to actually go into the temp "office", so we didnt get his car towed (he limped home) until almost 8pm. He managed to get the car home and proceeded to emotionally break down. He's drained and at his limit, too. The man has cried for 2 days, and he never cries.

During out chat on Sunday night, my major sticking point was the money to BM. DH responds well to logic, so I tried to logic into his emotional brain.

I said how, at no point in the last decade that he has been divorced, has any of the thousands of dollars he and his family has given BM helped her long-term. It hasn't lifted her or the boys out of poverty. It hasn't done anything except get her 2 weeks down the road.

And it hasn't helped the boys. They still end up bouncing from house to house. They still live in squalor. They will live with her questionable men who steal from them.

I explained that ALL he was doing was helping her limp along so that she can retain custody, which isn't exactly a good thing. That they have a home HERE. They have food HERE. They have security HERE. He IS doing his part.

Then I explained that BM should NEVER have an issue paying her rent or utilities (the two things she has complained about) because his CS fully covers both, plus the internet. Even though that isn't what CS is supposed to be solely used for.

Then DH wanted to question me about CS. Saying it wasn't meant for things like clothes and school outings. That it wasn't her job as CP to make that money stretch to those things.

I corrected that really quick. I reminded him, yet again, that I have grown up in a blended family. My SF's XW tried to make those same claims, and the judge smacked her down in court. My mom raised us on less CS because she wanted my dad to be able to keep his house, and she still managed to use the CS to buy us clothes, pay for trips, etc. DH's argument may have been valid when he was making $10-12 an hour during the recession and only paying $400/mo in CS, but not now.

So he shut up after that, either out of agreeance or annoyance, I'm not sure. I re-iterated that we don't actually help the boys by limping her along.

Then DH dropped the bomb: BM spent her money on the vehicles and needed that extra money for rent. Because she has been unemployed AGAIN and just started working at a warehouse that she tried working at a long time ago and couldn't due to her "illnesses". In other words, this won't last long.

I lost it. I told off DH and told him he SWORE to me we wouldn't help with her rent. He tried the whole "but FIL gave it to her" spiel. I told him then she could have contacted him directly and left us OUT of it. But, she didn't know we would go to him so she really was expecting DH to open his wallet to her.

He said she's close to eviction. He said he knows this job won't last. He said he knows he'll have to take in the boys at the start of the year because she'll be homeless again. If she is working at this warehouse, it will not last (she has been working cushier jobs that have lasted less than 90 days; this will be job #5, at least, since April).

I said start finding an attorney and talk to BM about relinquishing custody without a court battle. I said I didn't want to divorce, but if this continued, I would leave because this isn't what I want and it isn't what I support. I told him I divided up our income; we'll see how he takes that when we go to pay bills on Saturday.

So after that, and much crying on both our parts, we went to bed. I don't know if he thinks things are better. I think he knows they aren't because Monday just overwhelmed him. I do feel bad for him, and every fiber of my being wants to help him not hurt. However, these are things he brought upon himself (including the car thing - he has needed tires for months). He needs to see a counselor to work through his guilt (and we talked about that, too - he's not a crappy parent, but a guilty one that leads him to do crappy things). He needs to fix them.

So that is where we are. This is not how I wanted this conversation to go, or to happen. I did admit to overreacting to the picture thing, and he's going to talk to BM about getting the kids on Sunday to try again. I'm still not in a joyful Christmas mood, but I can't try to find happiness if I continue to stay bitter.