Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The second time around

Sometimes I wonder if this second time around relationship thing is even worth it. My husband and I married shortly after the ends of our first marriage. We both have fairly young children. We love each other very much... but is love enough.

Is love enough to overcome the trials of step-parenting, demands made by ex spouses and the division of loyalty? This whole thing has me tired! I thought it was tough trying to juggle a spouse and demanding parents in my first marriage, but now the second time around there are so many more forces working on us. There are so many different parties with their hands in our affairs.

My husbands ex-wife wants more child support. She wants more child support because she has decided that she wants to be a stay at home mom, therefore my husband needs to pay more. She is able bodied, young, capable of working. Even relocated the kids to another state under the guise of getting a better job. Then two years later, changed her mind and has decided she doesn't want to work anymore. So, now with her non-existent income and less visitation for my husband because of the increased distance, it looks like the courts will award her more child support.

In a discussion about this today, my husband informed me that this will cause us a financial strain because I insisted on buying a house a year and a half ago. And that is just the down side to owning. Excuse me! Somehow our financial strain is going to be my fault. Let me give just a little more background info... I work full time, I bring home more than half of our family's income. With my income alone I could comfortably afford 1/2 of our mortgage, my car payment and all of the expenses for my own children. We also bought a house a year and a half ago because our neighbor in our rental was an ex-con that was dangerous and any other rentals that we looked at would cost as much as buying. Yet somehow, even with those factors at play our financial hardships will be MY FAULT?!?!

Now mind you, I do not in any way blame my husband for this. I blame a greedy ex. His comments came to the surface when I made a comment about it not being fair that I will have to work more overtime when child support goes up so that we can afford the difference. It would do no good for him to earn any more money, because the more he earns, the more she will want to take.

It seems that no matter what, I am the bad guy here. I didn't take his kids away. I'm not demanding half his income. Yet somehow I'm to blame here.

My husband made many choices long before I came in to the picture. Decisions that put balls in motion to create our current situation. I came along late in the game and just said, "Hey, I love you and I'd like us to have a nice life together!" And now I realize that saying that makes me demanding in his eyes and has caused all of our future problems.

Am I just destined to be the evil step-mother and a pushy and demanding wife?

Other step-mothers/second wives out there... are these problems normal? How do you overcome issues like this? How do I stand up for myself and say that I will not allow myself to be the whipping post everytime something goes wrong?

--The Short of It

3 comments:

Ryter said...

Heh. I have been a stepmom and 'last wife' for 18 years. His first marriage lasted 8. It still meanders in our life and the only good thing is that the step dgtrs. have a new - and very good - take on our relationship now that they have kids of their own. The ex still hovers in the background. We still have issues that began with child support and visitation. My take on it? Your kids deserve nothing less than his. And relax...and take everything one step at a time. Nothing is going to magically go away.

DaWei said...

Your situation isn't fair to you, of course, but wonders if you started a blog just to whine in public.

The Long and the Short of it said...

Dawei...that's exactly why we started this blog. Have you not read our profile?!?!
**The Long of it**