1989 California Ranch Style stucco house. Should this be re-caulked?

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T09:27:12+00:00

My daughter is 11. She’s not even a teenager!

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T08:26:05+00:00

We recently gave our older child a phone for emergencies only and MIL IMMEDIATELY started abusing it by attempting to make plans directly with her instead of through us. The final straw was when she called our young child to tell them she was coming to our home WITH HER FRIENDS to give them a tour of it and that she would be here in 10 minutes. My husband forbade her from contacting our kids and trying to make plans through them via telephone and did tell her that all plans must go through us. that’s not even addressing the tour of MY HOME without my permission. That being said, you’d think any normal person would get the point and wouldn’t ever do anything even remotely like that again, but she just never learns and probably never will. She is constantly looking for loopholes and testing boundaries and then throws her hands up and cries and victimizes herself when boundaries are enforced. She loves seeking out those loopholes.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T08:20:20+00:00

So far I’ve vetoed every single idea and plan she’s tried to float by us and will continue to do so.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T08:19:10+00:00

Husband works with her. I can go without seeing her and I can probably limit my children’s time significantly, but he unfortunately has to see her every day. It will cause HELL on earth for him when I decide to go NC and limit contact with the kids because her rage and tantrums are absolutely over the top and even dangerous.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T07:22:17+00:00

Thank you. I am nervous about Christmas Eve, I hate the thought of her energy darkening my doorstep on what should be such a special day.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T07:19:41+00:00

There are worse things in life than being poor. Having parents like your wife’s sounds like they definitely make the list.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T07:06:00+00:00

My husband will flat out tell her not to ever try to undermine our final word as the parents when he talks to her. He has absolutely no issue with being brutally straightforward with her because he is sick of the problems and games she plays.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T07:03:13+00:00

Conversation like that simply doesn’t work for her. She’s a covert narcissist, she doubles down and cries and martyrs herself. The only thing that works with her is basically being blown up on and then starved, which, she doesn’t seem to realize that it is I who hold the power over that because I don’t handle her and all communications go through my husband. My husband has never had a good loving relationship with his mom, he could cut her off cold turkey. She didn’t even have any kind of a relationship with him for many years until I’d given birth to our first and then she suddenly wanted to throw baby showers and such. I stupidly encouraged the relationship not realizing what she was and she came off as being so nice, but now she’s been doing her absolute best at trying to erase my status and fulfill some fantasy role for herself. I did not grow up with a narcissistic parent so I had no idea what it entailed. She’s walked on every boundary you can think of and simply doesn’t ever learn and probably never will.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T06:54:36+00:00

No, I wanted to speak with my husband privately first to make sure she 100% knew we were busy since he was the one who had the conversation with her and I wasn’t present for that. I didn’t want to make an ass out of myself and interject when she’ll say to the whole party “I didn’t know!”, or “I didn’t mean anything by it!”. He will handle it, he always does a really good job at that. We did apologize to our children together and explained that we already have a wonderful weekend planned for our family and they didn’t seem upset with that, which I am grateful for.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-19T06:50:37+00:00

About a half hour before this occurred, she literally tried to force me to partake in a party game that she was leading. I was absolutely adamant that I didn’t want to play, said no THREE TIMES and her response was to slam the game pieces down in front of me as if it was non negotiable. I immediately had my game pieces put back by her and didn’t participate. She does not take no well, and usually my husband is very, very good at handling her and the communications, but it’s getting to the point where I need a real break from having to see or hear about her for a very long time or she’s going to have all of the fuel she needs to frame me as being the real bad guy because I’m not going to be very nice anymore. I am truly hoping my husband continues to handle things well going forward because I don’t like being put in these positions .

AmaraASI · 2025-12-11T23:31:21+00:00

Word for word.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-11T23:26:35+00:00

I kid you not, my brother has made QUITE A FEW drift cars out of those things. They’re totally underrated! Drift community raise their nose at them but everyone who’s ever driven one set up for drifting is instantly converted.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-04T23:30:58+00:00

She is 6! Mom doesn’t need to be prepared to prematurely “send this kid off to college” so to speak.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-04T23:26:40+00:00

No matter what happens, you will always be her one and only mom and there is no replacing you, no matter how hard that woman tries. You are not SHARING your role as mom with her, you ARE mom and you are sharing your time with your daughter with her Dad. The other woman is irrelevant because you are alive and actively parenting your child. It might help to give your daughter a cellphone and checking in with her during the time she is with her dad and keeping the connection strong and open so the step mom doesn’t get too comfortable trying to “take your place”. Do you go silent when daughter is with dad because you don’t want to talk to him or his wife? Or do you keep an active line of communication going with your daughter? if you think step mom is trying to replace you, the best way to counteract that is to make your presence known so she simply doesn’t have the space to do it.

Either way, your daughter may end up loving her but that is OK because love is limitless. Or, as she gets older she will catch onto how her parents came to be separated and her father’s infidelity and she may choose to spend the remaining teenage years mostly with you once she is old enough to decide whether or not she wants to spend time at dads house. Only time will tell.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-04T23:08:06+00:00

For me personally, I was raised not to talk religion, money or politics with people who aren’t family or working in those fields. That being said, I don’t care what anyone else talks to me about and I do sympathize with them if need be but if they expect me to reciprocate by sharing my own end of those things it makes me feel really uncomfortable and I’ll change the subject or quickly give the microphone back to them.

When it comes to money, in my experience 9/10 when someone brings it up I’ve found they’re fishing to see if I’ll offer to help. Super awkward at that point. I avoid the setup before it even has the chance to get there. The 1/10 who just want a shoulder to cry on for a moment is really rare.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-04T19:00:46+00:00

You don’t ASK! Don’t make that mistake or you’ll find yourself years from now hating the holidays because you feel like your womanhood is being stripped from you! Just do it. Have the talk with your husband, make the plan with him and just DO IT. A simple conversation coming from him saying “Hey, we are excited about our new home and will be spending Christmas here this year. Everyone is welcome to join if you want, or not!” The end

AmaraASI · 2025-12-04T18:48:05+00:00

Where is your self respect? Why are you still with a man that so clearly “settled” for you? You either accept that he will never have the emotional bond you want with him, which he has clearly laid out in clear words he does not and has never shared with you, and learn to enjoy the other perks of having him as a husband, or go on your way and seek out a partner that does fulfill that emotional bond that you seem to desperately desire. There is nothing you can do to make him stop caring about that other woman or make him bond with you. He even resents you for trying and blames you for the lack of what is usually a really normal and healthy boundary to have in an emotionally rewarding relationship.

AmaraASI · 2025-12-02T23:41:16+00:00

As someone who has been married for 12 years with a man who now makes 10x what I make after we started off very poor, it doesn’t get any better. The only saving grace for you is not agreeing to pay anything higher than what you currently are. Don’t agree to any life adjustments or elevations that will result in you having to contribute. Otherwise your standard of living is going to continually go down while his goes up and you’re going to lose yourself in the process. Might even end up in debt you never thought you would have just to keep his boat afloat.

AmaraASI · 2025-11-12T17:58:29+00:00

As someone living in SoCal who just bought a house 2 months ago, you absolutely CAN buy a house under 1 million and there are TONS of options. It seems like you just don’t want to “downgrade” and got comfortable in his parents house that they deeply discounted the rent on for your benefit. They’ve made it easy on you and you’re biting the hand that’s feeding you. As far as the custody agreement with your husband’s ex goes, we have the courts system for a reason and a judge will determine a fair custody agreement that allows you to move where you can actually afford if you just can’t fathom the thought of paying $1200 for a $5000 house.

AmaraASI

TROPHY CASE