Feeling hopeless and the weight on my shoulders
So I decided that maybe I should seek outside advice from others that do not know myself or my family... Please any advise or wakeup call would be nice, please be honest.
My husband and I got married almost 2 years ago, we dated for 4 years befor marriage. My husband has this beautiful smart talented little one we will call R. I had the pleasure to meet R when R was only 8 months old. My husband did not have custody of R so we got to see R a week or two out of the month. I myself have a child that is a teenager that has not lived with me since he was 4 years old. I have not taken that well at all and my heart to this day is still torn and broken over that. SO here is my problem.... a year and a half ago beautiful R was literally dropped on us full time no warning, no money, no room in our house, no nothing... we were more then happy to handle the responsibility. Throughtout our relationship I did the fun playing reading books, bath time, etc on the week or two out of the month schedule, to me that was perfect! Before I married my husband I expressed to him that I dont think I could handle being a full time parent to anyone because of my situation to my child. Things worked out well and we did get married. Then the knock at the door, we accepted the situation and now a year and a half later I am upset at the fact that I am parenting someone elses child and not my own. I know this sounds horrible I feel like a horrible person for this and I dont know what to do about it. R is now 6 years old and we argue all the time. I ask R to do homework and it turns into a fight, R is having problems in school I get notes sent home by the teacher or phone calls from the teacher saying that R was a "handful" and I find myself yelling at R and not knowing how to handle the punishment appropriately. My husband tells me Im to hard on R although I find him to be way to easy on R the only punishment R gets from him is " why did you do this and dont do it again". I will do her hair in the morning befor school and when I pick her up from school I see that she takes it all down, I dont know why it bothers me so much! Everyday is a struggle everyday is a fight everyday I wake up and say Ok this is going to be a good day and then she brings home a spelling test that she only got 1 correct on then the whole day is bad.
On top of the school issues we are getting no finacial support from absent parent, we went to the state for help and they say I make to much money.... Yes I married him knowing he had a child but why am I in the states eyes finacially responsible for her and not the absent parent? There are some days I just want to pack up and leave but I love my husband so very much and I do love R dearly but I guess I dont know how to be the full time parent that he is looking for. I am on here being very honest and feel I need advice badly on how to deal with all these built up situations. I am also finding myself not opening up for R... If she sits by me on the couch I will move to another part of the room... Is there something wrong with me? I want to so badly have a relationship with her like I had with my own child but I shut myself down. Its not fair to R or my husband but at the same time I think its also not fair to me either, I cant talk to my husband about this all I get from him is " You knew I had a child when you married me" But my arguement is Yes I did know this but at the time we had NO idea we would be getting the full time parenting! So here we are in a 1 bedroom house with 3 of us living here no privacy and I have molded into the mommy role and I feel horrible when I think that I am taking care of someone elses child and not my own.
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You are taking on too much
You are taking on too much here. This is his child. Nothing says you have to do the raising of this child. He needs to step up. You can't discipline, he has to.
Also, most states do not take into account our incomes when looking at CS. I would contact a lawyer for a free consultation and they can tell you. That sounds fishy to me...
I think she is saying help
I think she is saying help from the state as in food stamps or financial help.
I'm a state employee and no one living in my home can get assistance. SO and I aren't married but they still won't help except medical card. BM pays CS 1 month out of 5.
Oh so many times I have told
Oh so many times I have told him Ok here is what she did or did not do for that matter and you need to handle it and literally all that happens is " Dont do it again" and thats it, then I will look at him and say " really thats it?" His response is what do you want me to do she is only 6 she doesnt understand!!! OMG drives me NUTS! She does understand she is very smart she knows how to get daddy to let her do anything she wants... she will argue a situation till you have literally lost your mind and just want to say FINE and give in, I myself though am a bit tougher then that I will let her do the whole arguement thing and tell her time and time again that I am the adult not her and she has to listen. Just lastnight she brought home school work that was not complete and pretty much all the answers were wrong on it ( This drives me nuts to cause she knows the work, I just think she does it on purpose for some reason or just does it real quick so she can go play at school ) so I told her OK you didnt do your work at school so you will do it here and you can do the dishes when your finished as her punishment. ( There was only 5 dishes in the sink ) It was a 36 Min conversation/ arguement as to why she couldnt do the dishes! Daddy hear this whole ordeal and did not step in at all. I was proud of him though cause he did at least enforce her to do the dishes but when she went to bed later he expressed to me that it really wore her out and why cant we just let her do the homework at home and let her watch TV and go to bed. On top of all this to I also have my inlaws living 1 house away so I always feel they are watching over my shoulder on parenting there granddaughter. I just think that one day I will have had enough and either walk out the door or just loose it.
With the whole income thing we went to the state for help and got denied because I make to much money ( I only make 1 dollar over min wage) Husband did finally go to child support enforcement and we got awarded the bare min for payments BUT absent parent is not working so dont know what to do from this point!
You need to disengage and
You need to disengage and quickly. I had the same thing happen to me, except 3 hellions. Finally I had had enough and told SO, if you want custody of YOUR kids, then YOU need to take care of them. This was very hard on us b/c SO had to go from 40hr week to a 26hr week.
Having my sanity back makes up for the monetary issues.
I'm just a helper. I will get the kids to or from school if an emergency, same with doc appts. I do clean the house, but I make SO clean up after his kids. He does a half ass job, but that's better than no ass. SS12 gets kicked out of school, not my problem...his problem.
You are me a year ago. Now things aren't perfect but I control my life now (most of the time) and if I don't want to particpate in their little family, I go to my room and stay there.
I find myself wanting to do
I find myself wanting to do that so badly! I have told him many times that this is his kid and if he thinks I am being to hard on her then I will step out and just be his wife and helper, then I hear him EVERY SINGLE MORNING having an arguement over clothes, hair, toys, TV, homework and I cant help but get out of bed and walk into the living room and put her back in her place to almost protect my husband from her. oh wow that does not sound good lol. I did once step out 100% If he was not home to take care of her she was to go to my inlaws house till he got home and that turned into me being the evil wife and evil stepmom so I think I do put up with a lot just to impress maybe or show them that I will take this on IDK But I am reall feeling life Im loosing it and fast. There are many times I just want to call the absent parent and tell her to take her back but I know that is not a good solution. I have also brought up counseling to him mutiple times and he will not even think about counseling he just thinks I need to get over this and start being the loving full time mommy and I know that I try my hardest to do this but it just does not work everyday I LOVE going to work Its my escape I miss my husband also I miss US I miss having the freedom to do the things we used to do now its one of us has to stay home just to go to the store, a night out will require paying someone to watch her, I should be used to this already but its like my mind is telling me its not right and I shouldnt have to take this on. But him and his family agree that it is my reponsibility cause I married him right...... grrrr its never ending unless I end it but I dont want this marriage to fail because Im in the wrong or a horrible person because I cant except another child in my life. In my perfect world it would be him and I with my son full time and his daughter part time. this will never happen but that is in my perfect world.
Thank you!!! I have told my
Thank you!!! I have told my husband that I think alot of my issues with raising her is not having my own child, alot of the issues are also that I find it very frustrating that a parent can be absent for almost 2 years and not pay a dime willingly I dont think it should have come to us having to do to child support I do hope our state is the same way with enforcing. Absent parent just bought a house so I think we are in need a little bit finacially. And its not for us, the money is for her! I want to buy her new school clothes, new hair stuff, new toys or go out and have fun for a day. Even Dr. appts need help.
Yes you knew that R was his
Yes you knew that R was his child. But remind him that he knew that R IS NOT YOUR CHILD.
LOL wishful thinking
LOL wishful thinking
I have brought up counseling
I have brought up counseling many times I know we all need it badly or it will end up with me leaving and him and his daughter doing this alone. He thinks counseling wont help anything, he also thinks counseling will tell me that Im crazy because I am having a problem being married to someone with a child. I kindly LOL reminded him that my problem was not that he has a child my problem was having this child dropped on our doorstep and I was thrown into mommy mode.
I will Def give this a try
I will Def give this a try full on 100% let him do all the parenting and I will be there for assistance. We will see how this goes : ) Im kind of a control person so this should be fairly entertaining !!!
Funny thing is we did agree
Funny thing is we did agree on some things like if she does bad on homework/ school work TV gets taken away.... The first time we did this it worked great next day so did AWESOME at all her work and even got a compliment from the teacher : ) Then we had to do it again took the TV away and her reaction was " oh my TV is gone OK..." the TV was gone for over 3 weeks!!! She didnt care! So we had to move on to tougher punishments well I said we I guess I mean ME cause daddy does not fully suppost me on it. I enforced cleaning cause oh wow she HATES to clean In fact one day I took her to school, I said " bye hunny have a good day I love you get in there and learn lots today." Her responce to me was ," Ok love you to get home and clean like you should." and ran to school! She is LUCKY she ran cause OMG I wanted to put her back in the car bring her home and make her clean the whole house!I told her dad about this and he laughed ! LAUGHED I could not believe it so I put in force cleaning hahaha she HATES it complains crys bribes the whole thing so he thinks its to much for a 6 year old to do. I remember my dad had me doing dishes at 5 years old. I was cleaing the whole house by 8 years old I do not think at all that it is to hard on her.
If your husband doesn't want
If your husband doesn't want counseling to help you marriage then go to counseling for yourself. Maybe he is afraid a counselor will point out his dysfunction. My doctor gave me a copy of these two articles: http://www.todaysmodernfamily.com/index.php/3016 "Protecting the Stepmother's Mental Health" and http://sensiblesteps.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html "What is a dysfunctional Stepfamily?"
She said the stress of my living situation was taking a toll on my physical and emotional health and directed me to a therapist. I have two step kids with lazy parents who are quite content to let me be the responsible parent while they compete with each other to be the best Disney parent/BFF. It has taken six months but I have learned to disengage and say No without feeling guilty or shamed by family members. I started by finding activities for myself a knitting class and the gym . Thanks to counseling I took control of my time and began to choose when I would be available to step in as the spare parent and I am healthier and happier . I made myself a priority.
Thank you so much I will def
Thank you so much I will def check out these links.
My kids hated writing
My kids hated writing sentences too...and when they had to learn times tables I made them write those repetatively too..for missed homework