Happy Father's day to all. DH had a nice day. Candy and card from "Wify", that's me. Lunch at a favorite restaurant with children (adult) then a visit at our house. Also chuckled at the baseball quote. Neither one of us are baseball fans so the instructions would not have worked for us. We went about the diapering issue in a couple of ways. I took a couple of Red Cross classes in birthing and how to bring up baby, including diaper instructions. DH did not attend the classes. However, he was willing to change diapers and he was very good at it, in fact he applied his engineering education to diapering. No leaks anywhere. Somehow, we worked out the soft touch and precise diapering.

It seems that some of us are retired but many are not quite there yet. A couple of tips from my own experience: - DO a budget. Even if you're terrible at that kind of thing (I am and we are). You need a good idea of what your real outgo is and what you are spending month to month on your personal 'splurges', which we all have. Accept that housing is an expense you will always have, whether you rent or own a home. Property taxes go up, water heaters go out, roofs leak, cars die of old age. Always assume you're going to live long enough to encounter major expenses of some sort. - ALLOW for inflation. Never mind the CPI, you know how prices increase and new taxes are passed that hit your pocketbook even if they never get included in the official statistics. - PRACTICE living on your retirement income. Don't assume your expenses will go down in retirement. That isn't automatic. Our expenses went up drastically in the first year, when we traveled extensively around the West. There were new casual clothes and shoes to buy, travel accessories we hadn't needed before, and a lot of very happy poor people got our expensive work clothes from free donations. We didn't even get a write-off: the standard deduction was bigger than our charitable totals. - ANALYZE the biggest risks to you NOT achieving your retirement goals. Is your health impaired? Does your family medical history send up red flag warnings? Have you budgeted for long term care costs? Is your home suitable for universal access, or would a broken leg make it impossible for you to manage by yourself for three months? Do you have sufficient retirement savings? Pensions or annuities? Social Security and Medicare eligibility assured? Did you work for any company long enough to be fully vested - because if you did, they should have sent you a letter at age 50 telling you how much you'll receive in a monthly annuity they purchased on your behalf, for which you are eligible at age 65....but they have to be able to FIND you to send you the letter. - MAKE new friends. Boomers are really the first generation to have defined themselves by their work, and to have made most of their friends in the workplace, not from community or church affiliations. It has been shown the happiest elderly are the ones who not only retain good social ties, but who develop new ones to replace old friends that move away or die. - IMAGINE worst-case scenarios. The Boomers I know who retired (or meant to) and got into financial troubles, didn't stress-test their assumptions. Playing ostrich with your retirement planning almost guarantees life will slap you in the face with a wake-up call at some point! Everyone has risks in their daily lives. It's your retirement, and therefore your responsibility, to figure out how to mitigate some of those risks. You can't eliminate all risk, but you CAN, and should, research how to lessen the bigger risks. For example, our biggest risk was the death/disability of a spouse. Being in our late 50's at retirement meant a sizable financial hit if one of us died or was disabled by serious illness/injury. Therefore, we mitigated that risk as best we could, in several different ways. Anticipating things going wrong means you will feel better prepared and more able to cope, if something does go wrong. Like being aware of the "Exit" signs in a theatre or on a plane, having a mental plan is very reassuring.

I have been down that cancer road several times, so I know how physically and emotionally exhausting it is. You have to do what you can live with long-term, and if you feel you couldn't live with yourself if you left your husband in these circumstances, then all you can do is minimize the wear-and-tear on yourself and your daughter. I am sorry your step-son is so impossible and even sorrier your husband is so difficult and unsupportive. Cancer didn't suddenly make him a better or different person. Here are my suggestions: 1) Protect yourself and your daughter financially for the possible time when your husband is no longer with you. You may want to set up a separate bank account and sequester some of your resources so you are assured of access to monies regardless of anything your husband might do (like decide suddenly to put his sons' names on the account). If possible, consult with an attorney regarding estate planning. Given your husband's current intractability, you may not have any luck securing his cooperation. But at least you will know what your legal rights are. 2) Prioritize your tasks. Your husband's medical care is a priority. Your daughter's physical and emotional needs are priorities. Doing your step-son's laundry, picking up after him or fixing meals are not. At 14 he can do those things for himself. If he doesn't do them, his problem. 3) Look into support systems for yourself and your husband. That would include hospital services, family support groups and Hospice, so that if the burdens get too heavy to carry alone you know who to go to. Do these things while you're still capable of thinking clearly. A time may come when you're too tired to think at all. This assumes you decide to stick it out. You may decide this is too thankless a task and leave your husband and his rotten kids to their own devices. Feel right in your choice and the judgements of others won't matter.

IMO, its still the HUBBY who makes the final choice. Anyone, anyone even his own sister can tell him off and convince him not to pick up his kids. but in the end its his choice. No one elses. So it doesn't matter what a SM or a BM wants. Its the decision of that person. And let me bring another perspective to this arguement. You all are ticked off when a weekend is missed from an already constricted schedual eh..???? WELL WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BM MAKES PLANS ON DADS' WEEKENDS OR CONVINCES THE KIDS ITS NOT A GOOD PLACE TO GO??? Then WHAT? SHE MAKES DAD LOOK LIKE A PUTZ FOR THE LOST WEEKENDS. Its happening now with us. Damned if you do take them, and damned if youdont. Well guess what, i'm keeping a log for the last 2 years now of all the weekends lost with his kids and the reasons behind it. When on misses and why. Whether its a school activities, grandma's bday, cousins bdya party, just not up to it, wants to be with mom that weekend...ALL OF IT!. This way, when bm accuses my dh of it , i will have a record with dates and who showed up and who didn't so she doesn't try any funny business. and even the kdis have lashed out at my husband saying, oh your msising alot of weekends. He said yah, and who';s fault is that? YOURS NOT MINE! you want ot be with your friends, and go party and i call you ever week to know if you are coming...so dont play the tag game on me and try to guilt me. YOU ARE DITCHING ME. Be responsible , accept it and stop blaming others for you actions! And this is what i would say about this situation. STOP BLAMING SM'S FOR DADS DECISIONS. She has an imput but not the ultimate say. I think the mentality of blaming sm all the time comes for the same mentality that kids have the final say in these divorce situation and i cannot stress the fact even more that kids have absolutely no say and power lies between the adults. Between mom and dad. And in the end , a SM can b****ch all she wants, if dad says otherwise, its otherwise. And to add, if dad wants to skip one weekend, its also his right. He can make arrangments to picck them up another time for longer.