I am a thirty-two-year-old woman deeply in love with my sixty-three-year-old husband. He has been divorced for 10 years now, and I was not the cause of the break-up- we met two years later. We have been together for 5 years now and despite much snickering and tsk-tsk-ing, we have outlasted many of our naysayers' relationships. My family has absolutely no problem with our relationship (they always predicted I would fall for an older man), and his son is just fine with me. The problem is his daughter, who is 4 years older than me. I think because a broken home is all I have ever known, and because I have had to share both my mother and father with 7, count them, 7 different spouses over the years, not to mention 6 half-siblings, I went into this relationship knowing it wouldn't be easy, but thinking if anyone could make this work, it would be me! Well, over the past 5 years I have tried to make nice, buying gifts for her and her three children (on top of what her father buys them), put up with her drunken explosive outbursts, invited her over to our house when her boyfriends have thrown her out and when even her own overly- supportive mother wouldn't take her in-- even when my stepdaughter was threatening suicide! She eats our food, pawns the kids off on us, drinks us out of house and home, picks fights with her father, tells me I'm "nothing" and tells me disgusting, filthy details about her father's supposedly sexual peccadillos (she enjoys chronicling the details of her father's affair which lead to her parent's divorce)and pretty much does her damndest to make me leave him. I even invited her to my wedding shower and wedding this past year--I thought I should at least try. She told her dad she could not accept him marrying a "Barbie" and apparently lots of other insulting things that my hubby wouldn't tell me. Despite obviously hating us, she still calls him "Daddy" and cried on his shoulder when her digusting lifestyle blows up in her face. My husband gives my work schedule to his daughter so she can call and I won't be there. When there's a change in my schedule and she calls, he goes into another room and whispers away to her! All I hear is "Way to go, Lisa! Good for you!" and lots of corny laughter-- I swear, if a total stranger walked in and didn't know any better they would think he was having an affair! And I don't know what is going on in her life to warrant such enthusiastic rantings. The last time I heard him do that, I was genuinely interested in what happy occurence had transpired and he told me she got her welfare cheque that day and celebrated by going to a tanning salon!
"Good for you, Lisa! Way to go!" Seriously.
My husband and I don't make a lot of money and we both HAVE to work to make ends meet, but when my husband tells me we can't afford to go out for dinner twice a month, he then proceeds to give Lisa $1200.00 for first and last months' rent because she got evicted from her last place and her drug-dealing boyfriend won't support her (yes, she's on welfare, her boyfriends support her, her father supports her, her mother supports her, even I supplement her income by forking over money for OUR bills which I have actually seen him fold up, place in a card for her and deliver to her doorstep!)
Throughout all of this, all I have asked of my husband is to insist that his daughter respect "us" as a couple, and me as a human being, and to acknowledge this relationship-- no more creepy/cryptic phone calls, no more bail-outs, basically, I'd like to see him grow some balls where she is concerned and insist on some much- deserved respect. But last night he told me he will never do that-- she's too explosive, too troubled, he doesn't want to make her feel any worse about herself than she already does! I asked, what about me and the way this situation makes me feel? He didn't look at me or answer me, and walked out of the room, and proceeded to heat up some dinner for just himself, set a place for just himself at the table and wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the night. This kind of treatment from a man who has told me I am his only "success" story! I wish he'd treat me as such!
Am I being taken for granted, being taken advantage of, being stupid, or am I completely selfish and unreasonable?
keli_or
wifeyOriginal Author
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