"I have gotten myself to a co-dependant anon meeting this week"

Dear ol' dad needs to find his way into enablers anonymous.

Yes he does, I can't make him. These kids are going to make DH destitute, seriously. Just terrible. I feel really badly for him but he has no boundaries and yes is a big time enabler and they know it.

It's very difficult for me to just let it go, it really has nothing to do with me other than making me want to detach more.

I wanted so badly to tell DH today I think we should seperate until the "kids" are independant and he can be a part of this marriage, but thought it's really something I should do face to face and not on our anniversary. I do not want to be cruel, I still love him just can't live like this to much longer.

So Sorry Cat...I don't blame you for feeling the way that you do. Would the kid be willing to take a finances course? Maybe he and his dad should take one together. Happy Anniversary anyway...:o)

I have suggested exactly that to DH many many times, he refuses. But I am going to suggest to SS that he needs to learn to handle his finances and should enroll in something if he i unalbe to do so.

Now keep in mind it will probably start a big arguement between DH & I that I said anything to his son. What typically happens if I say anything about anything and it has to be pretty significant for me to become nvolved at all anymore-I a given the silent treatment, or told off by DH.

The more I think about I think I say nothing-it's not worth it, doesn't affect my credit, just my being able to take a trip or whatever with DH as he'll be paying an extra car payment. Ugh, thanks for letting me vent anyway. This is really very frustrating to me, I know I have no contol over the situation, DH is gonna get screwed and they'll be living here going up north every weekend and buying toys forever.

I gotta get out of here.

~Cat

Maybe you do need to get away. Plan a little trip for yourself and take some time to decide what you want to do. For me having a 29 year old anything living with me and DH would be out of the question.My goodness. Doesn't there come a time as parents when we have paid our dues? You have my sympathy.

That really is such an extreme situation. I mean, it's one thing to have to help a grown and basically independent kid every once in a blue moon (and by that I mean every few YEARS) with a couple of hundred bucks here and there for certain jams that can happen to even responsible people like one bounced check because of a "brain fart" or unfortunate adding skills. Or to chip in on the phone bill b/c it's a "family plan" and parents themselves are very long-winded, or to chip in towards paying down student loan debt to reward good academic performance and to make life just a little bit easier as they're otherwise earning their own keep and paying their own bills. Or to help out with a loan for the occasional necessary move, medical bill or costly car trouble because the parent has the lump sum and the kid just doesn't at the moment it's needed. Those are all things that I think are reasonable and fair types of "help" for adult children, and I myself have been lucky and appreciative to receive some of them from my parents on occasion. [Note that they are infrequent, necessary, isolated incidents and that many of them are loans, not gifts. And if I proved myself irresponsible over and over again, offers of loans would surely stop, just like at a bank or credit card company.]

But living at home at 29 with absolutely no expenses, a job whose salary is PURE PROFIT and STILL racking up debt? Debt that you then expect your parent to not only pay for but to take on the liability for on paper after you've already proven yourself completely irresponsible with managing money even after you have no bills?! Debt racked up not because you're saving to open a business or buy a house but debt for toys and just *whatever*? And this scenario lasting not six months as in a once-or-twice in a lifetime period of duress but YEAR after YEAR for no apparent reason? It *is* unbelievable, and this is a situation where even I as an adult stepchild who isn't rolling in dough would have to say that it's outrageous.

I know I've written to you before about this, but the key is figuring out the emotional "payoff" your husband is getting out of the situation. I find it amazing that a parent would put up with this extreme level of dependence and being taken advantage of WITHOUT such a payoff, of SOME sort.

Serenity,
That's what I cannot figure out? What is DH getting out of it besides a angry wife ready to leave and a mountain of debt he will undoubtledly be left to pay without even a thank you.

I know there must be a reason he continues to do this but besides him being a extreme enabler-I cannot understand it!! He knows it is not right as we tried to "hide" the car loan from me because he knew I would have not wanted him to do it(based on SS's past performance with money)-Duh!! This young man has had his home foreclosed on -after DH paid the mortgage for a yr and car repossessed. He has a 4 yr old child and now his elderly dog is here too.

Now I love my son dearly but will not cosign on a car-for goodness sakes if he can't get the car loan chances are he can't afford it!

My DH cannot, willnot say no to them. I think he must get some payoff, but what I do not know.
~Cat

This may very well be a bona fide case of that whole "parenting out of guilt" thing which I'm sure genuinely happens sometimes (and other times I think people exaggerate that verbage unduly), and your situation sounds like it.

It's funny because JUST LAST NIGHT I was talking to my mom about her uncle (my great-uncle), whom my mom is close to, who is 90-plus years old and who was hurt and sad because his daughter and grandson were too harshly ragging on him about his less-than-legible "old man" handwriting and how the two of them to this day get all this money out of him, REGULARLY, we're talking 2, 3, 4 hundred dollar checks once a month (or anytime they ask, which is pretty often), and yet sometimes treat him with some of this harsh "teasing" and disrespect that has this hostile edge to it. I said "it really sounds like both he and they, deep down, feel that he OWES them recompense, based on something he once did or said wrong, which they don't let him forget". And my mom said, "well you're pretty astute because he recently confided in me that he had had an affair many years ago and he feels like he's been paying for it for the rest of his life." (And he was married like six times, but that's a whole other story.) And I said I figured it must have been something like that, and that it was clear that in some situations like that, some people WILL take advantage of the situation and perpetuate that indebted feeling by hanging the past misdeed over their parents' head.

I'm not saying your husband had an affair necessarily, but I'm wondering if there was something that was ever said, or some promise that was broken, or some nasty fight between them or some misjudgment he once made, or an excessive punishment meted out for something one of them did as a kid that he has always regretted... which between he and them has been continually dangled over his head and which has been exploited far in excess of a normal amount of issues/residual guilt...

First of all HAPPY BELATED ANNIVERSARY Cat!! :)

I think it's excellent that you have enrolled in CODA! I went that route approx. 12 years ago after the failure of my first marriage. Learned soooo many valuable lessons. I hope it's as great for you as it was for me.

You said in your opening post "Oh, thank goodness our finances are seperate!! " which is great but the question I then have is why did you open your DH's mail? If your finances are separate and this mail was not addressed to you, why would you open it? This is clearly an issue between father and son and by you not having any "control" over it, it's causing you uneeded stress.

Detach yourself from things you can not control.

Good Luck!

"Unbelieveable-what will it take?"

Frankly, cat,

I think it will take the rustling of divorce papers...

Im sorry

Even if your finances are separate, is your credit separate? What if your husband files for bankruptcy, wouldn't that affect your credit? If you were to proceed towards divorce, do you have a prenup establishing he handles his bills, you handle yours? Perhaps it depends from state to state but I always thought marital debt (just like marital assets unless a prenup declares otherwise) would be divided in half unless one party stipulates to paying it 100% (that's what my husband did with his ex-wife -- grrr!).

Just make sure you're protected in every conceivable way possible...

"the question I then have is why did you open your DH's mail? If your finances are separate and this mail was not addressed to you, why would you open it? "

DH works out of town 3 weeks plus a month, I open all his mail, pay his CC bills online, household bills etc. He cannot receive mail on his current jobsite where he has been the past 1.5 yrs. We have done this for years, per his request. This way when payment/invoices come in from jobs I can get it dumped into the bank rather than waiting for weeks for DH to get home and do it.

This bill came in a capitol one envelope I thought it was his CC statement-though it's not a secret to me (anymore) that he co-signed on the loan.

I'm not sure about our credit being together or seperate? We have kept all our finances seperate except for one car loan. I did not co-sign this car loan to SS29, DH did without discussing with me first.

I have been told by my CPA that does my taxes I would not be responsible for this loan/nor would it affect my credit in anyway since I am am not on it and it was done without my knowledge. Hopefully that is true. We have no assets together, well the house which he owned before we met.

I know I am entitled to half of that since we have been married for 7 yr.s but I do not want this house and I would in no way ask that he buy me out or sell it. If things do not work out after I leave for the travel position I would be ok with each of us keeping whatever we brought to the marriage, cutting our losses and be done with it.

I have already decided that

1. I am postponing my knee surgery until after at least 1 travel assignment and then I will have it in AL and recover at my parents home where it's quiet.

2. Once I get out I am not returning until the adult kids are out on their own and self supporting. I do not expect DH to be happy with that, but I won't deal with the chaos anymore.

So now I am registered with lots of travel agencies, just waiting for the right job/right area to come along. I am very sad but also know I will feel relieved to not be stressing about whats going on at home, dreading coming home to who knows what and dealing with the never ending drama.

We also have SS29s dog as of 1 week ago since his mother decided she would not keep her anymore, cussed out SS29 for only contacting her when he wants something and she was tired of cleanng up dog hair. DH called me and said SS29 was in tears not knowing what to do. I agreed she could come here since they were moving the 1st of Oct but that it could not be a long term solution sice the dog is elderly, and food agressive (she almost killed my cat a yr ago-bad bite). DH agreed to this then two days later tells me they won't be moving til at the very soonest Jan 09-long story involving more drama. I have 2 cats and 2 dogs one very small, a mini doxin and I do not want them injured or killed and I feel bad as SS's dog has the right to live out her Sr. yr.s in peace and quiet. She needs to beplaced in a adult only home where she has quiet. I also worry about her potentially biting G-son, it's just a huge risk to have a dog in that condition around children and other animals. She would be just fine on her own in a quiet home.

I don't care anymore, I'm tired of the drama, the lies, and not be important enough to be considered when it vastly effects how I live more than anyone else. I'm sick of living like this. Jeez-I wrote a book here!!

~Cat

Cat, I don't think your husband is going to change. Unless I'm getting your situation mixed up with someone else (possible), I don't think your husband is enabling his sons' irresponsibility; I think he is encouraging their dependence. Didn't he go out of his way to offer one or both of them free rent when he/they wanted to rent/buy their own place? Didn't he just so happen to have a friend who wants the sons to rent his house, but not for a few months, so they're just going to "have" to keep living with you for a while longer?

Not that this excuses why a grown man with a job and a free place to live can't keep his car payments up to date. But I don't think your husband is going to "wake up" because it sounds to me like he wants his sons dependent on him (so they don't leave him? so he can play hero?) and is getting exactly what he wants.

Quirk,
Yes, same guy. Yes that is what he does, big time enables them wants to always make it softer & easier for them.

Even at the expense of his credit or being destitute in his Sr. yr.s.

I am losing hope that he is going to wake up and realize what he is doing. I do not wish to be poor in my older years. I want to retire comfortably and enjoy life.

~Cat