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Dealing with wife and step kids

My wife and I have been married for 4 years. We were each married previously, have 2 kids a piece from those previous marriages.

My primary issue concerns the custody of my wife's 2 kids. She was previously in the military and had to serve over seas, around the time of her divorce. At the time, custody was awarded to her ex husband, because of her impending overseas tour. She has been back in the US and gotten out of the military, and has spent the past 3 years since returning state-side, working through the legal system to regain custody of her 2 kids.

While her ex has had custody, the kids spend some weekends and the summers with us. During the 9 non-summer months of the year, my wife is everything I could have hoped for in a spouse. However, I am seriously concerned about the summers. It is as if a switch "flips" and she becomes incredibly demeaning (toward me), belittling, unloving, and degrading. I sincerely fear coming home at the end of the work day, knowing how miserable it is going to be.

I will put one issue to rest...the issue is not her kids. She has very good kids, and I get along great with them, and love them very much, and they love me. The issue is a general change in my wife.

In addition to these issues, my 2 kids are with us during the summer as well. The 4 of our kids get along great together, and are similar in ages, and very good friends with one another. However, when my wife got out of the military, we made the agreement that I would support the family financially and she would go back to college during the school year, and be a full-time mom to our 4 kids during the summer. For the past 2 summers, my wife has just declared that she's leaving and going out of state with her 2 kids to visit her family (telling me just days before leaving), and giving me no indication of when she would return. I'm left scrambling trying to piece together vacation time and child care and relatives two care for my two, while my wife is out of state.

I say all of that to say that I'm genuinely concerned about my wife's custody proceedings. If she is awarded custody, I fear that life will be miserable (like the summers), all of the time. However, if she's not awarded custody, I fear that will cause a serious depression (even more serious than she's in....she's already been diagnosed as having severe depression, but refuses to take the prescribed medication), which will result in life being miserable as well. I want to be the loving, supportive husband, because I do love my wife, but I honestly don't know what to do.

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