Dear DoubleTake,
My husband and I have been together about seven years. I'm 40, and he's 50. We do not agree on his continuing to financially help his kids, ages 25 and 26. The older has a 3-year-old child and lives with her grandparents, who are virtually raising their great-grandchild.
It is driving a wedge in our marriage, and now I am concerned that he's going to try to move his kid and grandkid in with us, furthering our issues.
His kids have no respect for me, and I feel that they only use us for their benefits, so the relationship is strained all the way around. Am I right in feeling this way? If so, how do I get my husband to see the repercussions his gifts and his disrespectful kids are causing?
I have no children of my own, so my husband doesn't think I should have any opinion about his kids. He has reminded me how they are his kids, so I feel shunned and not part of their family. He makes all decisions with his kids behind my back, only for me to find out later and then be hurt by it.

BETTY SAYS:

Only you know why you don’t feel like family. Whether it's hard feelings from the kids about their mother or if you act cold about money, it's time to have a conversation with your husband about why you feel disrespected and outcast.

If he has no explanation, then don't feel bad about decisions being made behind your back. You never had a family vote anyway.

Steel yourself and try to look beyond the moocher side of this. As long as the funds are coming from your husband, there's nothing wrong with a patriarch watching out for his family during the Great Recession.

You can still make a difference in the lives of your step-grandchildren, if that’s a role you are willing to risk. If you click with one of little ones, think of all of the fun outings you could have. Maybe it would help your marriage, too.

EDDIE SAYS:

Generally, people who complain that someone doesn't respect them want it to be a one-way street, where a title -- stepmother, in this case -- somehow compels people to bow down to you. That's not how it works.

When you call a 26-year-old mother a "kid," rather than "his daughter" or something similar, the tone gives me a clue that you have resented his children for quite some time. Maybe they were little witches who deserve your scorn, but the sense I get is that you probably came in with a chip on your shoulder and had an equal share in creating any problems.

Which brings us to today. I bet your husband does act without consulting you now. You've made your position -- "Cut the little brats off!" -- clear, and he plans to continue helping them. He doesn't see it as going behind your back so much as avoiding the same dang fight.

So, yes, you need to have a conversation about where things stand and how you feel about things. But you also have to go into it knowing that your husband does have responsibilities to his kids that are sometimes bigger than your marriage.

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