Thanks, CV and Oldtimer. I appreciate your comments and helpfulness.
Financial trust with H has been damaged in the past. He gave his WX $5K without my knowledge several years ago when we had been married for about three years.
The day before BD, he took $20K out of our joint account and put it in a new account under his name only. I didn't find out about it until nine days later, on Christmas Day last year.
We have given his S25 and D23 over $10K in financial support in the past 17 months. And that was after they had both lived with us for 4 1/2 years with no money being asked of them towards their support.
I'm 63 years old; retired and on SS. When we got married, I knew we would be paying out, in just CS alone, over $160K until the "kids" reached the "age of majority". I expected to stop supporting them to a great extent (not totally) at that time. That was five years ago. It just stopped.
My H is 52 years old and has a very good job and career. Before we got married, he "sweetened the pot" by proposing that I would help him pay child support until I retired and then he would work for 10 more years and support me. We both had the same job and made pretty much the same income. He felt that would make up for the great cash flow out of our marital funds for those years. His idea and proposal, not mine, but I liked it and it seemed fair.
I've been retired three years now. The "cash flow" out just stopped this week. I felt deceived and cheated on many levels. His D23 has over $20,000 in inheritance in her bank account.
Do I want him to "love" me more than his D23? Hell no! I want him to respect me and our marriage. I want him to stop coddling his D23 at my expense. I don't want to support her anymore. It has nothing to do with a vendetta. I couldn't care less about her or any vengeance. I don't interfere in his relationship with her at all. In fact, I encourage it. I just want some "financial security", to feel "safe and loved", and a "stable marriage", as you put it.
How could I possibly have that if he insisted that I continue to support his D23?
And in my situation, how can I "separate" my finances? We have four homes, numerous other possessions...do I ask him to start selling things off? How about the disparity in income now? Do I pay half of everything with my small SS check while he makes 5 times a month what I do?
Your suggestions are great for newly married, second marriages where both people are working and they can foresee the future and the need to protect themselves financially.
Way too late for mine...unless you've thought of something I've not?
As far as a dysfunctional family dynamic, absolutely. Look up "guilty father syndrome" and "emotional incest". That's what I've been dealing with for years.
We had marriage counseling years ago. We had been married for five years and we were having parenting style differences ( I finally refused, after many embarrassing incidents, to go anywhere with his S14 and S16, at the time, if their pants hung down on their butts, I actually had the nerve to have them make their beds in the mornings and brush their teeth, every other weekend, and I wickedly expected them to hang up their clothes and wet towels). We had an argument about his kids and he advised me that I was no longer invited to his mother's house for Christmas. I had lived in our town a little over 6 years. I had no family here. He spent two weeks at his mother's house with his kids. I was left alone for Christmas, new year's, and my birthday.
Our counselor advised my H that our marriage needed to come first and that his children should know that.
On BD, I suggested MC again. H said no. He said that the last time, he had to "do all kinds of things".
I'm hoping later this year, he will agree to R'ville.
Our marriage is getting better but I don't think it's unreasonable for me to have trust issues, especially, financial ones, given our history.
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
Wow, SS, your stories dredge up bad memories for me. My incidents weren't the same, but the feelings certainly are. I commend you greatly for your attempt at salvaging this M. I'm not sure I would have been able to even think about it after being as far down the road as you two were.
One note: I've found through the years that the only people that truly understand the difficulties of step-life are those that have walked in the step-life shoes. I hope you have other more situation-specific resources helping you through this.
Thanks, CV. I agree with you. I go on steptalk.org a lot, too. Unfortunately, It's very common to find fathers enamored with their daughters, to a pathological level. Some fathers don't want them to grow up.
The way I see it, if they're having sex (as my SD23 is since her BF spends the night), they're not little girls anymore and don't get my financial support.
I think my H would feel the same way I do if the shoe were on the other foot and I were asking him to financially support my 23 year old son who had his own financial means.
It's sad it had to come to this.
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
SS, is your H a reader? If he is, you might suggest to him that he read "The Millionaire Next Door". It goes into a lot of detail about why it is a bad idea to financially support your kids past the point that they should be doing it themselves. It also talks about how it's important to put your own financial needs FIRST. Often we sacrifice our own financial needs for our kids, this can result in A)us having to live a diminished lifestyles in retirement or not getting to retire at all and B)the very kids we're trying to help become permanently dependent upon that help and can't ever break free and get by on their own. There's a lot of other great financial info in the book, it's a very interesting read. If your H isn't a reader then perhaps you could read it and discuss some of the info with him.
thanks, AS. that's exactly what i could foresee, us having to live a "diminished lifestyle". there are many ways we could have used that money to enjoy our lives and the fruits of OUR labors.
i have nothing against assisting our children when they are adults, just not financially. i don't want to give my own adult son money, let alone someone else's.
there comes a time when we have to realize our job is done on the money-giving front.
i'll suggest the book. thank you for the suggestion!
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
The point is not whether or how long H should provide financial help to his children. But rather that he needs space to make those choices on his own without it saying something to you about his love for you or commitment to the M.
One way to do this is to separate finances. It might take professional financial help as well as counseling to figure that out. Or, it might be as simple as choosing as agreeing for you each to have discretionary spending accounts.
The important thing is to really examine the behaviors around financial matters, understand them. and choose something different. It sounds like you are trying to fix H, control his choices, use his choices as a litmus test, and manage his R with SD. Better to work on yourself and with your H on your partnership.
If you resent the choices you make about your money, make different choices. Get your own financial advisor. Figure out what you need to have the financial stability you seek as an individual and as a couple. Own it. Make it happen for yourself.
For your M to be healthy and happy, the dysfunctional dynamics around finances need to change. You own those as much as H. The difference is, you can control your contribution to that dynamic, but not his.
FWIW, I agree that is is much healthier for SD to become financially independent. My SD thought she'd get a free ride from us (room, board, tuition) at age 23 or 24 through an MA program. When she learned that we would reimburse only a significant percentage of tuition after each successfully completed class, she totally lost interest. Instead of pursuing an MA in an area to which she was not personally invested, she instead took an entry level job in a field for which she had true passion. Five years later, she is incredibly confident and successful, has her pick of jobs, and makes very good money. Had she coasted as a dependent child for another few years and graduated with an MA that she really didn't care about, she'd be in a very different place.
When she learned that we would reimburse only a ...
SS, isn't this the part that you're missing? That you're trying to rectify? That there is no "we" in your financial decisions regarding your s-kids? I'm not sure how that translates to "you are trying to fix H, control his choices, use his choices as a litmus test, and manage his R with SD." I'd love to hear more on this.
"For your M to be healthy and happy, the dysfunctional dynamics around finances need to change."
they have changed. we are no longer financially supporting his adult daughter. she has a college degree. more education than i have and more than her father has. she needs to support herself.
"It sounds like you are trying to fix H, control his choices, use his choices as a litmus test, and manage his R with SD."
sorry, but you are so wrong here. i don't care what kind of R my H has with SD. i just don't want to give her money. afterall, it is mine, too.
"FWIW, I agree that is is much healthier for SD to become financially independent."
i don't understand why you keep harping on this. if you read my post, you would have seen that she has over $20,000 in the bank of her own money. she has a part-time job. her college tuition was completely paid for. she has no student loans, no loans of any kind to pay. she IS financially independent! why would i agree to keep giving her money??
H is no longer giving her our money. i'm not testing him at all. i don't care if he wants to give her money or not. if he does, i'm gone and i'll separate our money that way. if he doesn't, i'll stay and work on our marriage.
SHE IS NOT A PART OF OUR MARRIAGE AND THAT'S HOW I HAVE TO HAVE IT. she is his daughter. he can love her, do things with her, have any kind of relationship with her that he wants to (as long as it does not include discussions about our marriage), all that. i'm sorry but i don't want to give her money. i will not give him the "space" to make that choice without saying something to me because it effects me and my finances.
i would not do that to him, either, by giving money to support my adult child without his permission. it's his money, too. it's a MARRIAGE, he's not single. if he wanted that type of "freedom", he should have stayed married to his kids' mother, for God's sake.
things in step families are not the same as the bio family.
can he pay for her dinner? sure. can he take her (or his sons) out to a play or a ball game and pay? sure.
i'm talking about THOUSANDS of dollars here, since she turned 18. i am done paying for them, legally and now, in my heart and mind. you're trying to make it something other than what it is. plus, it's been settled.
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
CV, we cross posted. you're exactly correct. the WE was left out and the decision to support her was his.
now, i'm putting myself back in and i want to be a part of it and say, enough is enough. if he wants me to be a part of supporting her, i can't any longer. if that's one of his requirements to be married to me, i'm ok with it. i won't be married to him.
i can't imagine marrying someone else, say next year, and them thinking i would accept financially supporting their adult children?
i don't know how else to put it to make it understandable.
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
SS, I really have no experience on these kinds of things, but I can see you are clear about what you want, and that's so important...Stay true to yourself.
