today was my first wedding anniversary.

[brdgrl]

My stepkids don't give a shit about me, my DH forgot, we had a huge (unrelated) row, my in-laws for the most part (love my SIL) won't acknowledge me or our DD, I'm living 5000 miles away from my nearest family or friends, and my life is pretty miserable.

Well, hey. Only another 364 days until we can get divorced.

:(.

CAnt you just up and go home

Och brdgrl. That is pants.

thanks. it is pants.
he is sleeping on the sofa, and very nasty things have been said. ugh.

i met DH here; i was studying and working here; i have stayed because of him and the SCs who are in school here.

i was just at home, too...DD and I were there for Christmas...i spent lots of time thinking about our relationship and came back determined to make it work better...but now i wish i had just stayed. only, in reality, moving back would be hard because i would have no job and nowhere to live; i stayed with my sister over the holiday but that wouldn't work long-term. i don't have any money whatsoever, so it's not as though i would have a nest-egg to live off of while i looked for work, and then there's DD and childcare...i feel like i have no options.

i am supposed (oh well, have probably totally outed myself already if anyone i know reads mumsnet) to hand in my dissertation in a couple of weeks, and it won't be done at this rate. i was supposed to come back and be free to work while DH took over more time with DD and my household chores so i could finish. but it hasn't worked out that way.

oh well. the wedding was kind of a disaster anyway, so i don't feel that much worse than i did on the day, as it happens.

go home - I stayed in a shite relationship for years and years because I was terrified of leaving - I managed just fine alone with DS.

Life is too short .......

yeah. it doesn't feel shite all the time, you know? :( sometimes i feel like i am very lucky to have him and that he's a wonderful kind man. then we have a row and he's so mean. and we just have the same issues over and over and over...

Either change the rowing, change the reponses or go.

I am a mean person in a row, it's one of my biggest faults - the more I ambl hurting - the more vicious my tongue lashings get.

So the ones I love the most suffer the most.

(an explanation as to why he is mean maybe)

Make a list of pros and cons. If the cons heavily outweigh the pros, then leave.
If they are about even, or the pros win, then work out how to live better together.

:( that you are having a shitty time.

i know i don't help, because i shout.

i'm worried that it is just too late, and too much has been said...that we have this way of fighting now as a pattern and we can't change it.

i will try to make a list, but i am not sure i can assign a weight to my feelings, you know? i mean, i love him, and that ought to count for something.

we tried relate and went for over a year, but it ended up that we were just going in circles. we'd come up with a strategy for dealing with something, or she'd give us some "homework", and i would do my end of it but DH wouldn't do his. and we have problems with the kids that have gotten better in some ways, but honestly it is still too much for me to deal with very well.

latest row is a perfect example, DH had a long list of things he was going to do (house repairs; his work; things with the kids; some crap to deal with from his life before me) while I was away. But he didn't do any of it (ok, he rehung a shelf in DD's room that had fallen down); and he didn't do any of his own work; as far as I can tell, he just slept and played guitar and hung out with DSD the entire time (ok that he spent time with DSD, exceopt that one of the things he has acknowledged he wants to work on is spending time with DSS and not leaving him out of the Special Relationship he has with DSD).

he also took DSS off all chores (posted about that already, sorry), so since i got back, there has been more to do around the house. (also, made the decision without discussing it with me, which has been a recurring problem in many ways and something he has agreed to stop doing, but it carries on...)

since i was supposed to be coming back to LESS workload (just for a few eeeks until my deadline), that was not very nice. Then DH got sick so I was doing everything...DSD did walk the dog once when not her turn, but apart from that I was cooking meals, cleaning up, walking dog, had DD all the time...and DD has jet lag and isn't sleeping well or to a schedule, so i've had very little sleep, plus DH being ill next to me. And apparently i wasn't sympathetic enough to his illness, so he's angry with me and i'm angry with him because if he would just expect more from the kids, it wouldn't be such a nightmare for me doing everything in a house with two able-bodied teens and anyway he could get up and help even if he is sick, as i have to do myself...blah blah blah who cares but really ....so i've come back home and thrown right into everything and nothing i do is appreciated, i'm only made to feel that i didn't do it nicely enough. right now it is 2 AM and i am doing the bloody laundry so that the kids will have shirts for school etc etc and i am not doing it to be a martyr, but only because it needs doing and no one else will do it and if i leave it i will hear about how they've no laundry, and last time i didn't do it for DSD she was threatening to take it to her friend's mum who is "a saint" and a "good mother" unlike me obviously. Phew.

TBH, it sounds like you're always going to come a poor 4th (at least) in his list of priorities. Up to you if that's where you want to be - was he expecting you to be a "traditional wife and mother" (i.e. do all the bloody housework as well as everything else)? Because he's unlikely to change.

You say you've been married a year but you've been to Relate for over a year - kinda begs the question "why did you get married?" Obviously you love him - but tbh, he doesn't love you as much as he should, because he doesn't care enough about you, your feelings, what's important to you etc.

I don't know - only you can know whether the good outweighs the bad - but if he keeps letting his teens get away with stuff all the time and making you pick up the slack, and you allow him to do that, then you're going to continue down the path of misery, resentment and bitterness - again, up to you if you can live that way.

Where is the teens' mother in all this?

It is not that he was expecting me to be traditional wife and mother, at all - but his way when we met (and I'm told it was the same during his first marriage) was that no one did the household things. His house was a disaster zone, really almost unliveable...he did the washing up and laundry when absolutely needed, and there were huge piles of laundry all over the house; at the bottom of the piles were clothes the kids hadn't fit into for years. Everything was filthy. His finances and records were chaotic, and so he hadn't done loads of things like applying for the benefits he was entitled to, or keeping things up to date. They ate a lot of takeaway and pasta, and always in front of the TV. The kids had no jobs, and DH just waited on them hand and foot....they'd sit in front of the telly with their food on their knees and shout at him to bring them cups of water.

And that's why we were going to Relate. We wanted to be together. We decided to have a child together, but we were prepared to continue to live separately if we could not sort out the differences about the home life. I was not prepared to live the way that they were living, and he could see that it was not possible to raise a baby in that home. We did live apart for the first six months of DD's life, and in many ways, I think that was a much better arrangement (financially it was difficult, and also complicated by my immigration status). A great many things have changed and improved, and I have to be honest about that - he's done a lot, and worked to change the way that they all live, which hasn't been easy since the kids have been quite resistant. BUt we have a nice home now, with space for everyone, and it is clean and safe. We eat dinners together, and the kids aren't as spoiled and diffciult as they once were. I guess it's a case of...things were pretty extreme, and now they are at least on a spectrum of what one might consider 'normal'.

The Relate counselor kept asking me what would be "good enough", and I understand that I can't ask for perfection and must appreciate the changes that have happened...but sometimes I just feel that I have compromised on everything and I am never first.

The kids' mum is deceased. She died 5 years ago. I guess I have it easier in some ways because there is no ex....but there is a completely different set of issues, instead.

thank you, by the way.

That throws a somewhat different light on things, certainly.
Sounds as though their Dad somehow felt that he should just let the kids do what they want to somehow compensate for the tragic loss of their mum, rather than imposing discipline and order on them - I could still be wrong, perhaps he just couldn't handle any of it after his wife died and it was easier to just give in than it was to restore order.

I think you need to re-visit what the Relate counsellor asked you - how close to "good enough" is the relationship situation now? Because it does sound as though it only briefly got there and now it has slipped back a step or several.

First up though, your DSS needs to go back on the chore rota - I can't for the life of me imagine what your DH thought would be achieved by taking him off it! And am only amazed that your DSD has continued to do anything at all, most teens I know would have been shrieking about the lack of fairness and refusing to do their share either!

Perhaps then you should consider re-drawing a rota of chores, for starters. Then sit down with your DH and tell him that it is non-negotiable, that your DSC must both pull their weight if they are to learn to become decent adult members of society - and that if he is unprepared to impose the discipline himself, then the least he can do is uphold and support you when you do, rather than undermine you.

You may consider suggesting returning to Relate as well if he's unprepared to listen to you - and if the worst comes to the worst, then perhaps you do have to consider telling him that if things don't improve, you aren't prepared to stay around. But you have to be sure that you can follow through on that if you do issue that ultimatum.

I hope that you can manage to have a decent discussion with him and resolve some of the worse issues now, and then hopefully work together towards a better family situation all round.

thanks, thumbwitch, for your thoughtful posts!

I think you need to re-visit what the Relate counsellor asked you - how close to "good enough" is the relationship situation now? Because it does sound as though it only briefly got there and now it has slipped back a step or several.

yes, i think that's right...i worry whenever i go away that it will slip while i'm gone, but was depressed by just how far back things seemed to go over this last trip away.

i'm obviously going to have to get through to him somehow because i feel as though i have said some of this before and it doesn't 'stick'.

we need to have a HUGE talk. unfortunately, today DD came down sick; she had a fever of 41 degrees and we ended up putting the fight aside to take her to the doctor! she has croup, poor thing. :(