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You guys need counseling. Adult children do not need your support anymore, dont get to decide what to do with your finances, and should be embarrassed accepting so much money from you.
Your wife is enabling. You guys should not get involved on how these grown women live their lives, how they spend money, but be staraight up and cut off support. They need to get married and form their own debts.
Ask your wife if you feel like a pure sucker, and she does not seem to care. These girls/grown adults are taking advantage of mom and know she would cave in. All this screaming and crying BS is for the birds, or immature 12 years olds.
Dont let them kids talk down on you, and your wife must support you on this. You scream on us, put guilt trips, GTFOH! Until you learn some grown up communication skills.
Mom should not permit this either, effn grow up!
Divorce is not an answer for you, but getting the tools to communicate with each other is.
= USELESS when she has NO respect for him as well as their marriage.
She's checked out that one way out with no way in proverbial door.
I think you should probably take an honest look at the decision to require the girls to be home at 11pm after high school. IMO that is really unreasonable and unrealistic. From your wife's point of view, if you aren't taking responsibility or acknowledging your mistake, why should she?
Btw I also think what your wife did was wrong. But accountability has to go both ways.
In retrospect can you really say that drawing a hard line on curfew was the best course of action for your family?
And yes, another example of my controlling behavior is saying no to bringing a cat home to the house recently. Yes, I am that terrible, controlling mean guy and said no to my teenage daughter who is about a year away from going off to college regarding bringing a cute little stray kitty home that we will now have to get neutered and declawed and live with the cat stink in our house after my daughter leaves home next year . I recognize that that kitten is a commitment for at least seven or eight years, and my daughters plan is to go off to the military Academy and she sure can't take that cat with her. So yes I said no to the cat, and I'm the mean guy. Just seems like no one but me thinks further down the road in than the here and now.
It would seem that you have not participated in child-rearing as much as you say you did, for if you did, surely your step-daughters would have picked up at least a few good habits and insights from you, no?
More and more this sounds to me like your marriage was not in very good shape before all of this happened. People generally do not do things like what your wife did "out of the blue." It is an educated guess that there were signs something was amiss that either you did not see or for which you were in denial.
Also sometimes people will do things they know their spouse will not be able to forgive them for as a way of ending their marriage without having to do much "dirty work" or explaining. They just do something outrageous and tell the other spouse to "suck it up" or "deal with it" to further enrage the spouse and get the spouse to leave them. Perhaps this is what is happening here. In that case it would again seem that your marriage was not very strong.
I think you should probably take an honest look at the decision to require the girls to be home at 11pm after high school. IMO that is really unreasonable and unrealistic. From your wife's point of view, if you aren't taking responsibility or acknowledging your mistake, why should she?
Btw I also think what your wife did was wrong. But accountability has to go both ways.
In retrospect can you really say that drawing a hard line on curfew was the best course of action for your family?
You got me there, that's the reason for this whole mess....NOT!
That was the same rule, myself, my brother and my sister had at home and we are all arguably very successful..
I didn't arbitrarily pick 11:00, it was from experience and the time I usually go to sleep on a weeknight because I have to be up at 06:00 and need to get some decent sleep..
Totally reasonable in my opinion..
NOTHING good happens after-midnight for a young lady..
Last edited by Switchback; 06-05-2017 at 06:29 PM..
You got me there, that's the reason for this whole mess....NOT!
That was the same rule, myself, my brother and my sister had at home and we are all arguably very successful..
I didn't arbitrarily pick 11:00, it was from experience and the time I usually go to sleep on a weeknight because I have to be up at 06:00 and need to get some decent sleep..
Totally reasonable in my opinion..
NOTHING good happens after-midnight for a young lady..
I don't care whether it worked for you and your siblings or not, it clearly didn't work for your step daughters. Just look how everything turned out.
I can't think of many 20 year old kids that could adhere to that rule at all; at least without feeling like a prisoner. Actually, I couldn't even adhere to the rule myself right now and I'm in my early 40s! Furthermore, I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs whatsoever! To me that's borderline crazy to expect out of a normal 20 year old- or anyone really. I don't even think I could have adhered to it when I was in high school. If my Dad had drawn a hard line in the sand, I probably would have ended up homeless somewhere.
You say that nothing good happens for young ladies after midnight- so your solution is to kick them out of the home and let them stay up doing whatever they want all night? Can you not see the folly in that strategy? It's not loving and it's actually a betrayal of trust. It hurt your family.
I'm not saying it's all your fault, but you are not owning your part in this whatsoever.
As a parent, when your child gets to be adult age, you can only set up house rules, if they live at home.
You can ask of them, as a courtesy, to let you know if they will be out late, or going away for periods of time.
they can choose, without retaliation, to listen to your advice or not,
you can show them how to spend and save money, in buying a car, home,paying off debt, work the system in their favor,etc
it is up to them to decide to listen to rational thinking,
as for your wife, she needs to let them free, they can't be depending on you guys forever, gifts are to be reasonable and on Christmas or birthdays only?
should not contribute money to raising grand kids, not your job. you can spoil grand kids, its ok , when they are kids.
buying cars, co signing loans, paying off debt, not your job any more.
but realize, you have no say in their lives, especially if you are not paying their bills.
most families, when it comes to the girls, will consider offspring to still be considered kids, until married and moved out of the home. Should that still hold true, with "of age" college graduates or working age adults?
I don't care whether it worked for you and your siblings or not, it clearly didn't work for your step daughters.
As a parent, nothing is worse than waiting on your daughters to get home at night. It doesn't matter how old they are, we still worry. If they can't respect our boundaries in exchange for free room and board, it's disrespectful.
That's the crux of the issue. They, and their mother, are disrespectful.
As a parent, nothing is worse than waiting on your daughters to get home at night. It doesn't matter how old they are, we still worry. If they can't respect our boundaries in exchange for free room and board, it's disrespectful.
That's the crux of the issue. They, and their mother, are disrespectful.
And let's be clear - it isn't just one thing or one event that eventually lead to the mess this relationship is in. It's a culmination of events that have ultimately resulted in the lack of respect. The fact that the parents are not on the same page created the rift which has been exploited by the daughters.
Quite honestly, they should have separated years ago, but likely did not due to financial reasons and consideration for their youngest. It wasn't this ONE incident (buying the car) that prompted the lack of respect by the wife. This, apparently, has been building over some length of time.
It also sounds like the wife has some regrets about how she raised her daughters. The problem is, you can't make up for a perceived mistake with money. Especially when it isn't entirely yours.
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marriage.
