Being Taken Advantage by Wife and Adult Step Daughters - At the End of My Rope

5240 Views 125 Replies 44 Participants Last post by burmik2002, 16 d ago

ATM Step Dad

Discussion Starter · 30 d ago

I've been married to my wife for 5 years. During the good times, I do love her. She has two daughters, 28 and 24 from her previous marriage. We have been together since they were in high school. Shortly after becoming a serious couple I stepped in to help support her two daughters as their father was completely absentee. My generosity was predicated on the theory that the two girls would graduate high school, go away to college and become independent. Fast forward to now and SD28 is still living at home, and SD24 is still "in college". I'm still paying for insurance, utilities, etc.

How I was raised was that when I turned 18, I started supporting myself. I worked and paid my own bills. "Moving home" after college was not even a thought in my head. From the moment I left for college, I took on my own financial support.

Not only am I completely opposed to the idea of GROWN ADULTS living under my roof (not paying rent or contributing a dime to expenses of course), I am completely opposed to paying for their insurance, cell phone, etc. IMO it's WAY past time that they were completely turned loose to fully support themselves.

My wife cries the blues about "they struggle" and "they have it so hard", which is laughable. Whenever I mention I am cutting them off from my financial support, I am attacked and abused as "evil" and "cruel". Well, one, they aren;t my "kids", I don't have or have ever had any legal responsibility to support them. The only reason I did is because I loved my wife and wanted to help her. I want them out of MY house (wife laughably claims its "their home") and off of all MY accounts. I pay for everything, 100%. Wife has never contributed a dime!

When I state my intentions, I am told by my wife under no uncertain terms that they "will live with us for as long as they want" and that "we are a package deal" and "if you don't like it, you can leave!"

I hate the idea of a divorce, but I feel as if I am being coerced and blackmailed into accepting to cater to and support two grown adults or "get out". Am I in the wrong? I know it's easy to say "get divorced" but it's easier said than done in practice. It's mentally and physically taking a toll on me and I am at a loss.

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gaius

· #121 · 20 d ago

Hopeful Cynic said:
The way I see it is that having adult stepchildren in the house isn't that different from having adult biological children in the house. You want to support and encourage them to become more independent, and eventually move out. BOTH parents have to be on the same page though, which involves difficult discussions when one parent wants to coddle the adult children. When they are biological children, it is very likely that the mother will be the coddler. When they are step children, it's very likely that the biological parent will be the coddler.

Just treat them like adults. If they are employed, start transferring responsibility for their own bills to them, like cell phone, clothing, toiletries and snacks/treats. If those things are on the shopping list, don't buy them. If the coddler wants to buy them extra things, it should come out of HER money. For home things like utilities and food, tell them these are the bills, your share is 25%, which is $$. Please pay us monthly. If the coddler wants to pay that for them, it should come out of HER money. If issues of payment develop, well, you can discontinue the unpaid cell phone from the family plan. Change the password to the wifi and Netflix until you get their share of those bills. Etc.

You have to make being a freeloader unattractive if you want them to change.

The problem with this situation is he's not coming from a place of genuine care for this girl. He's just annoyed she's costing him money. And both his wife and this girl are likely to sense that and team up against him if he starts pushing harder. Which is not going to be a good thing for his marriage. His marriage, the most important thing here.

If he can't convince his wife to get on board with steps that might be better for her daughter then he needs to just learn to either accept it or divorce her over it. A pissed off middle ground, constantly trying to save money by evicting her while uttering the lie he's only doing it because it's good for her probably won't do him much good.

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Hopeful Cynic

· #122 · 20 d ago

gaius said:
The problem with this situation is he's not coming from a place of genuine care for this girl. He's just annoyed she's costing him money. And both his wife and this girl are likely to sense that and team up against him if he starts pushing harder. Which is not going to be a good thing for his marriage. His marriage, the most important thing here.

If he can't convince his wife to get on board with steps that might be better for her daughter then he needs to just learn to either accept it or divorce her over it. A pissed off middle ground, constantly trying to save money by evicting her while uttering the lie he's only doing it because it's good for her probably won't do him much good.

Oh definitely, this has to start with a difficult conversation with their mother. Hopefully he can frame it as a brainstorming session about how they can constructively help the young women achieve more independence. Get his wife on board with non-monetary things first; they should be doing their own laundry, they could contribute to the household by making one meal a week for the family, doing their fair share of cleaning, the parents always have first dibs on the cars instead of working around the kids' needs, etc. Then ease into financial things one at a time when there isn't anything non-monetary left. Hopefully she'll see the reason in not continuing to treat them like children by doing everything for them, because that's like clipping their wings. Hopefully she's not the kind of mother who derives her whole sense of self from that identity.

It's a long term plan, not something to whammy them all with all at once. He got into this situation over a lengthy period, it can't be solved any other way unless he wants to go the scorched earth method of calling her bluff about leaving.

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Diana7

· #123 · 19 d ago

DownByTheRiver said:
They're not children. They're two adults who could probably be roommates with each other if they would work and make it just fine. Or scrape up another roommate between them. No one's doing them any favors letting them live at home not working. The youngest ones at an age where she should be getting out of school if she's ever going to and get to work.

When you study to get a post degree qualification you will still be doing that at say 23-24 especially if it's a PhD . I think it's great that she wants to work hard and get good qualifications. Loads do that. Once she has qualified and gets a job then she will be in a position to get a home share with her sister if they decide to go that route. Right now she isn't in a position to do that even if she did get a part time job as well as full time study. The older sister is working full time and should be contributing towards bills.

If he wants to bail out on his wife and step children then he should just do that. I suspect we aren't getting the full picture here anyway. A mum will always stand up for her children and there are two sides to most stories.

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Evinrude58

· #124 · 19 d ago

Diana7 said:
When you study to get a post degree qualification you will still be doing that at say 23-24 especially if it's a PhD . I think it's great that she wants to work hard and get good qualifications. Loads do that. Once she has qualified and gets a job then she will be in a position to get a home share with her sister if they decide to go that route. Right now she isn't in a position to do that even if she did get a part time job as well as full time study. The older sister is working full time and should be contributing towards bills.

If he wants to bail out on his wife and step children then he should just do that. I suspect we aren't getting the full picture here anyway. A mum will always stand up for her children and there are two sides to most stories.

It would be good if the OP came back and gave more information. What if the mom and kids are just users and there’s no way to reason with them? That’s sadly NOT uncommon in a marriage for one spouse to be giving 90% and the other 10%. What if the whole story is that the OP really does supply everything, his wife nothing?
It is extremely difficult for people the age we are talking about to change without being forced to.

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Diana7

· #125 · 19 d ago

Evinrude58 said:
It would be good if the OP came back and gave more information. What if the mom and kids are just users and there’s no way to reason with them? That’s sadly NOT uncommon in a marriage for one spouse to be giving 90% and the other 10%. What if the whole story is that the OP really does supply everything, his wife nothing?
It is extremely difficult for people the age we are talking about to change without being forced to.

This is one of those times when it would help to hear her take on this. Maybe he does complain and grumble a lot and out of sheer exasperation she mentions divorce.

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burmik2002

· #126 · 16 d ago

Diana7 said:
Did you have anger issues?

I don't feel I do. I'm very quiet mostly. I don't react angrily. But I felt I was being taken advantage of. Used. Disrespected. I'm 58. Work 60 hours a week. My wife doesn't work. I do most of the housework. I just felt very unappreciated. I guess I snapped at her and she said I had anger issues. Makes me.look like the bad guy. So she left in December while I was at work. Now she wants to work things out and come back like nothing happened. I like the peace in my house and really don't want her back.

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