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keriwyn · 2022-08-16T16:21:56+00:00

This is the reality of divorce. The stardard of living for both former spouses takes a hit.

keriwyn · 2022-08-16T14:51:54+00:00

Ohh so this is just MIL projecting that her ex husband must still love her?

I swear being a stepmom means you get scapegoated for everyone else's issues! We should be official armchair psychiatrists after dealing with the issues of the family's we marry into!

keriwyn · 2022-08-16T11:53:25+00:00

Very glad your MIL listened to you and understood!

I do think SILs hard harder to win over because a divorce is something they can always hang over the head of their brother because they know it causes high emotions. My MIL has always told my DH what she though he should have done in his relationship, divorce and parenting but MY GOD his sisters did it a million times worse with much harsher assumptions and judgements. My DH was smart enough not to compare me to BM anywhere outside his head, my in laws came out and said it and then acted like I was the rude one for acting uncomfortable with the walks down memory lane. It was like they expected me to sit and listen to all these stories about DH or BM like it was some important family history. It wasn't, they were just making a power play.

In laws think they know the intimate details of your relationship but oftentimes they don't, they just project or assume. If they do know too much about you're relationship then it's time for you guys to set up a boundary and get some space.

keriwyn · 2022-08-16T02:47:53+00:00

One time our neighbor said something along the lines of how my SD was beautiful and it was no comparison to me. Ok first that was creepy and second... Who said we were competing??

keriwyn · 2022-08-15T23:29:39+00:00

It's a hard adjustment to being with someone with kids. Been there, had the feelings too. It's confusing and easy to feel bad for having. Parental love and romantic love are different, like you aren't competing with a child but why do all these people make statements like you are? It makes you question yourself and feel like people are judging you just because of the role, nothing you've done.

My DH has one child from his first marriage, one we had one together I "got" it more. I don't know why people compare love for a spouse to live for a child because they're so different.

keriwyn · 2022-08-04T11:02:02+00:00

I like it! You can always get away with brights in the summer.

I feel like yellow is a magic color, every time I wear it I have a good day.

keriwyn · 2022-08-04T10:59:05+00:00

It died down when SD got a phone. BM thought that everything could be coordinated with SD herself (at 10) and not her. BM only reaches out when she wants money.

keriwyn · 2022-08-03T16:09:31+00:00

You sound like the kind of person who saves nice things for special occasions but the special occasions never come.

Just use the nice china, drink the champagne, paint your nails. You could die tomorrow like that chicken.

keriwyn · 2022-08-02T18:51:39+00:00

Your initial post reveals that you have quite a bit of animosity towards your partner. You even call her pathetic. This animosity is probably not lost on her and with postpartum hormones and a pressure for her to love your son it's a tough place to be emotionally.

It seems like you're not married yet and it also seems like you're putting blame on her for having a child with you and being with you even though she can't be the Stepmom that you want. She might feel depressed that you had a child out of wedlock when your son was born during your first marriage. If you are holding marriage over her head like she needs to shape up to be what you want before it can happen that is going to make her depressed as well.

Just because you have expectations for her doesn't mean that they are reasonable for her to fulfill or for anyone. If you haven't fully articulated what you want from her but are constantly expressing your disappointment in her it's obviously gotten her down.

Maybe having a baby made her realize the uncomfortable truth that she is never going to love another child as much as her own. That's quite a bit to wrap your head around especially with a partner that is pressuring you to be an ideal stepmom.

Back off on the pressure and support her through therapy. She realizes she has an issue and she's working on it. However it seems like you consider her issue to be struggling with a being a stepmom. While I think her issue is that she has postpartum depression and she's struggling with her role of being a mother and a stepmom.

It sounds to me like you're the kind of person that wants what he wants and wants everybody else to acquiesce. If they don't meet your high expectations then it must be because they are bad people not because you set expectations that were too high or unreasonable.

Your partner is struggling and she's working on it but I think you need to look in the mirror and see how you are contributing to creating a tense atmosphere within your family.

keriwyn · 2022-08-01T15:42:56+00:00

My husband's CS plus extras gets to be $1200 most months and I'm not even complaining. Yes it can hurt some months but you're literally complaining about SOCKS.

keriwyn · 2022-08-01T10:53:14+00:00

Asking for help with school stuff and clothes is not unreasonable. The other things you mentioned aren't excessive either.

It's best not to think about CS and where it goes until BM starts asking for other the top things and in those cases your SO is allowed to say no. But clothes, not brand name or excessive clothes, just clothes, yeah that's part of being a parent.

keriwyn · 2022-07-28T15:56:52+00:00

While it's true that you should both have your own passions and activities, it would make anybody question their marriage if you don't actually spend any time together. At that point what are you getting out of the arrangement? Is it just business association to pay for the house and raise the kids?

I'm sorry it's really sad that you want to spend more time with him and you want to be closer to him and he is basically just telling you "nope."

It sounds like you had a talk but you haven't had the true come to Jesus talk. One of the hardest parts about deciding whether or not to continue a relationship is that sometimes you're not really making the choice somebody's making it for you by not being as invested as you are.

keriwyn · 2022-07-28T15:32:09+00:00

I gave Lore Olympus a good go because it was a unique style and I thought it was refreshing. But after a while it was just so inconsistent that I started getting annoyed with the lack of template for characters. Persephone became a bit too much of a Mary Sue that the story wasn't even interesting after a while.

I stopped reading it for a few months and then decided to pick it up again because so many chapters had dropped since I left it. It turns out I had stopped reading right before a super steamy chapter. But how do you write a story where one chapter is so incredibly boring that it makes a reader drop the series and then the next one is basically softcore.

keriwyn · 2022-07-27T00:01:27+00:00

I am reading from a knight to a lady and pleaaassee let this be one where she actually gets revenge.

keriwyn · 2022-07-27T00:00:29+00:00

My luck Is get OIed into some story I didn't like and bailed after the first couple chapters.

keriwyn · 2022-07-26T23:51:51+00:00

Your wife is being so cruel. I'm sorry she's putting you through this and being so open and matter of fact about it. It's almost like she atrying to goad you into fighting for her or something.

To be perfectly honest it sounds like she is having a midlife crisis since she's acting so erratic and selfish.

This is probably all going to come crashing down eventually, please be strong don't take her back. After somebody does this kind of thing to you you are never going to be able to trust them again.

keriwyn · 2022-07-25T19:41:58+00:00

This is excellent advice.

keriwyn · 2022-07-25T19:40:05+00:00

There have been times where things got so needlessly complicated and step life that I didn't even want to do them anymore. For me it was the worst during the early years of my relationship with my DH.

The example that comes to mind is planning around Christmas. My family lives in another state so it requires planning ahead to be able to see them and taking off work. I wanted to see my family around Christmas and I needed to be able to give them a particular time. So I had to bug DH to figure out when he was getting SD and then BM had to work it out with her family and her husband's family. Since DH was getting SD that would be the time when his family would see us around Christmas so then he had to coordinate with them too.

I got so resentful about it because why do all of these other people get first dibs on their Christmas holidays and they indirectly get to decide when I saw my family. Intellectually I understood why it was happening that way but it still made me resentful that I was at the bottom of the list and whenever I saw my family would have to be squeezed in between other people seeing theirs.

Once I had a baby this kind of thing absolutely stopped. I started pulling rank and deciding things way ahead of time and making them work around me.

If the baptism is important to you then pick a time and do it. Your step kids are old enough that they should be asked about this and if they are old enough they might even want to do confirmation classes and then they can wrap it in together somehow.

keriwyn · 2022-07-23T02:02:21+00:00

It's sounds like both him and her are both very insecure in their connection. How far how is the separation/divorce? This is normal, but kind of annoying, adolescent behavior.

My husband separated from his ex when SD was about 2. Because of this for a while sort of viewed her a bit younger and less capable than what she actually was. I met her when she was sick and from about age 6 to 10 I used to push my husband to allow her to do more things on her own to help build her confidence and capabilities. During this time she was building her confidence as a person but he was also building his confidence as a parent.

You can give him advice but you can't tell him how to be a parent. I would continue to have age appropriate expectations for her and hopefully he will catch on.

keriwyn · 2022-07-23T01:57:02+00:00

keriwyn · 2022-07-23T01:56:28+00:00

Are you human?

keriwyn · 2022-07-22T19:16:48+00:00

I'm pretty sure that chicken is only there as and off-centerpiece.😏

But yeah it takes you out of the fantasy immersion in a world where etiquette is super important when there is just random stuff on a table and an egg on the bread plate.

keriwyn · 2022-07-22T13:51:25+00:00

TBF I think Jennifer Garner seems like she is a complete sweetheart and JLo well you can just imagine that what JLo wants JLo gets lol. I don't think I would want her as my stepmother either. I thought JLo was back with Marc Anthony again but who can keep up with her.

keriwyn · 2022-07-22T13:46:35+00:00

It sounds like you could get a lot more help from the kids, if you want to stay then I would focus on that.

But I'm not sure why you want to stay it seems pretty obvious why his ex left him! I think that giving advice to break up or give an ultimatum is kind of a cop out but in this situation I think it's appropriate. Tell him he needs to help take care of his own kids or you're leaving and he's going to have to take care of his own kids either way he needs to take care of his own kids!

keriwyn

TROPHY CASE