I met my husband 13 years ago, got married to him 8 years ago. I have no children. He has a daughter that he raised alone. She is now almost 25 and still living with us. She gave birth to a daughter almost 2 years ago and fought for custody of her sister's 2 children (with our help, to remove them from a bad environment). We have almost never fought over anything but how he enables and coddles his daughter throughout our entire marriage. I realize when she was younger he was trying to make up for the fact that her mother wasn't around, but I naively fell into the trap of thinking she would leave the nest "in a few years", then we could have more one-on-one time as we got older.
But now, I feel like even more of an outsider. I work later hours, so when I get home, they are sitting around the table having "family dinner". He,or we, are having to constantly help with the kids after work, on our days off, on our vacation, or taking the toddler to bed with us "to get her to sleep", which she takes as a so-called much needed break from her hectic life as a "single parent" as she identifies herself.
Her hectic life consists of getting up in the morning for maybe an hour to get the 5 and 9 year old out the front door to catch the school bus, smoking a couple cigarettes, checking her phone, then either going back to bed with the toddler for about 2 hours or going to a friend's house until time for other kids to get off bus. Maybe an appt once every other week.
If she stays home,she lays on couch, binge watches TV, eats, then takes another nap with toddler around 1pm.
Gets up in time to see kids come home on school bus. She hurriedly picks up a couple things, then has the 5 and 9 year old pick up everything else, even if it's toddler's or even her mess.
My husband gets home and maybe takes care of needed tasks, but is automatically depended on to help watch kids while she is on her phone, watching TV, or running somewhere "she just couldn't manage during the day with all the kids"
Then, she may help him cook the sides (mac n cheese, green beans, etc) for dinner. After all that, I am usually getting home from work, but she is exhausted from the day, and the kids go to bed, with the toddler coming to our bed for at least a couple hours to fall asleep, sometimes up to 11pm at night, whether she stays and watches TV, or goes out for a break.
We are late 40s and work our tails off, then come home to this.
The worst part is that my husband makes it all so easy for her. I know he loves the time with his granddaughter, but he makes excuses for why she can't have a job with 3 kids right now (even though she's only had about 3 jobs since she was 16, none have lasted more than 3 months, and she has not had one for over 2 years now), how she's just trying to get her life together but it's so hard with 3 kids, how there are just no jobs out there right now, etc.
He doesn't understand why I'm always stressed and unhappy,and I am made to feel bad if I even bring up the subject of what she is doing to further her situation in life as she is an adult. He complains about our intimacy, but how can that happen when grandkids are in and out of our room, toddler in our bed most nights, and even step-daughter walking into room without knocking anytime she feels like it?
Add that to the fact that I seem to have grown a bitter resentment that he appears to be the surrogate father to her children, and I'm about to lose my mind. I feel this will never end, or if and when it does, will we be able to salvage a close relationship?
She doesn't pay any bills, but because she spends $400 in foodstamps on groceries per month for household (a lot of stuff she buys is junk food), she is contributing her share.
I'm sorry for the long post and run-on sentences, but I have no one to talk to and I am questioning whether I am a bad person, which just makes me angrier.
I love those kids, and I love my husband, but this may finally end our marriage, which I don't want to happen, but we simply live like friends who copay mortgage, bills, care for each other, and every once in awhile I actually get my husband's undivided attention when I finally throw a fit. Which then makes his attention less meaningful.Then it's just rinse and repeat.
Am I expecting too much out of our marriage?