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From the stories I have read
so far, my situation would seem to be rather unusual (and I'd love to hear
from anyone else in The BSWC with similar experiences).
I am now 53 and I married my
husband 2 and a half years ago. He is 62 and has 2 children by each of his
previous wives. Since I met him seven years ago, I have got on well with
his first wife's children who are grown up and leading their own lives.
His younger two were living with their mother and visited us regularly. I
didn't really enjoy their visits, although I put a smiling face on and
accepted that it was necessary for them to have contact with their father.
I was always hugely relieved
when they went home to their Mum and I could clean up their mess and get
back to normal. He found their visits difficult and taxing, since his
parenting skills leave much to be desired, but I normally let them get on
with it and didn't interfere. Last year, for reasons I don't really need
to explain here, the two younger children were sent to live with us
permanently. The daughter is 17 and the son 13 - both difficult ages for
anyone - she doing her A-levels and he reaching adolescence. I was dead
set against them coming because I knew how uncomfortable I felt when they
visited and the thought of having them permanently positively turned my
stomach. My husband begged me to give it a try and said that it would only
be for a year or two. I was very depressed about it right from the start,
but I have been trying to cope. Sometimes it does get almost bearable, but
every now and then I reach the depths of despair.
Most of the time they stay
out of my way and I stay out of theirs, which I thought would work out
fine, but the atmosphere in the house is awful. My husband splits his time
up between being with them or being with me but the time we spend together
- all four of us - is the absolute minimum. This, I know, is down to me -
I resent them being in my house and I try to pretend that they're not
there. The problem is that the times we are all together are usually the
most unpleasant, so that's why I try to avoid it.
I now find I'm staying at
work late every night because I don't want to go home. I especially hate
being with the kids when their father isn't there. It's not that they are
particularly bad people - I think they are perfectly normal kids and doing
what kids of that age normally do. They are generally lazy, messy and
selfish. It just seems the only times I talk to them are to tell them to
clean up a mess or ask them to do a chore or stop doing something they are
doing wrong. I wouldn't blame them for thinking of me as the wicked witch
stepmother.
The problem is neither my
husband nor the children have the same views on housekeeping as I do. I
knew my husband was lazy and untidy when I married him and I took him on
in full knowledge of this and, because I love him, I decided I would live
with it, which I did. But having three of them, all equally untidy and
lazy is driving me mad. I feel like a skivvy in my own house! The extra
workload is unbelievable - extra washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning,
shopping and my husband never does any gardening - all that on top of a
very exacting full-time job. They do help with washing up (but as we have
a dishwasher that's not really a great effort for them). Their bedrooms
are absolutely disgusting and I just haven't got the energy to even try to
do any housework in them, so I leave them to live in their own rubbish
heaps.
Lately I have begun to think
about moving out and leaving them to it, but my husband says that it would
be the end of our marriage if I did that. I'm beginning to wonder whether
the end of our marriage might be the more bearable option?
