BellaOnline Forums Family Step Parenting Desperate stepmom new to forum needs advice

Hi to everyone especially beleagured stepmoms!
I have read some posts not all so forgive any repetition, but I can see there are alot of experienced stepparents out there who might wise counsel.
I have lived with my common law spouse for 10 years and in that time two of his adult daughters have lived with us. In both cases, the original agreement was that they would live here rent free on the condition they were in school full time. In both cases it quickly became apparent that school was not going to happen, and each ended up in a series of dead end jobs with very little hope of advancement and certainly not a living wage.
The first daughter was moody, sullen, treated our basement like a personal apartment and completely avoided speaking to me or my (then) 12 year old son. It wasn't until my husband and I came close to breaking up that he finally told her to leave, so she went back to her mother's. She hasn't really spoken to him since and he carries an enormous burden of guilt about this, but he has never made more than cursory attempts to contact her and work things out. She is also estranged from her two siblings and most of her extended family, but he doesn't seem to acknowledge that she has difficulty with all her relationships and I am sure feels the breakdown with her is primarily related to his asking her to leave.
The second daughter, now 22, moved in with us this fall on the premise once again of "full time school". After two years of college majoring in partying she has no job skills and no career goals of any kind, and basically works to support her party lifestyle. Unlike her sister she is a warm, friendly girl who is pleasant to be around, but she operates at an adolescent level of maturity and worse, she flagrantly lies and disrespects the rules we have set. We have told her repeatedly that she cannot have friends sleep over, espeically upstairs in our bedroom, and in the short time she has been here she has broken this rule more than once. This week she had a guy sleep over and we caught her. I also should mention my son is 14 years old and they share the basement bedrooms/living area so he is exposed to this kind of behaviour at a time when he is struggling with his own adolescent impulses.
My husband is really the issue for me, I cannot believe we are going through this same unresolvable situation for a second time. I know from experience that the boundaries are never maintained by him, not only out of guilt but a general incapacity to establish loving, intimate relationships with his children. When they visit he almost seems uncomfortable, staring at the TV and making small talk just like my own father used to. He is a loving father, but he just seems so disconnected. When I try to talk about the situation now, he either starts yelling at me to get me back down ("always complaining" "don't want to talk about now (read never)" "always picking on her" . He constantly comparres her behaviour to my son's, who is 14 as though we should not have different and higher expectations of his adult daughter. I confronted her last night with him about the boyfriend and it was not pleasant. Afterward I said he had let me down and he began to defend her, saying maybe the boyfriend did fall asleep on the ouch watching TV, etc. Once that began, I knew I was sunk. We ended with him basically saying that if I dind't like it I could leave. I know he doesn't mean it, but I also know he doesn't have the gonads to deal with the situation. Is leaving the only option? Please help! I am 48 years of age and really don't want to start a whole new life, but I can't face years of this. Thanks for any advice.

One thing I think I've figured out is that men are not very well equipped to sort out emotions or to talk about them. Supposedly, their brains are wired very differently from women's. This would explain why the sexes have so much trouble communicating.

In your case, your husband may be feeling a lot of emotions but may only be most conscious of the confusion these feelings create within him. He probably feels very frustrated without knowing what to do about it. My husband frequently comments that, if there is no apparent solution to a situation, it just frustrates him to talk about it. In other words, for him, it makes it worse to talk about certain things.

It may work better for you to come up with a couple of options that seem workable, present them to the husband and the daughter at a time when everyone seems fairly relaxed, and see what happens. I heard some "expert" one time say that men are more likely to be approachable about this sort of thing in the morning than later. I've noticed some validity to this.

Perhaps the daughter would be sympathetic to the angle that she needs to set a good example for your son. Also, she may need to know that you and the husband could be liable for some of the things that could happen if certain things to go on in the house when you are gone. (I'm thinking specifically of drugs, although, you didn't mention them. You just do not need virtual strangers fooling around in your home.)

Just from a practical standpoint, is there a way to set up the daughter's living arrangement separately from the rest of the family? Can she be set up with her own entrance--even with that door keyed separately, and her access to your part of the house restricted by deadbolts? Perhaps if she had her own "apartment" area, it would cut down on what your son actually sees. It seems fair, too, to expect her to pay a small amount of rent. If she's paying rent, she may feel more "invested" in the place; and it may help focus her on becoming more of an adult. If you do work out a way to turn her space into an "apartment," that could help make rent paying appeal to the daughter.

Ultimately, if there are no satisfactory solutions, you may need to consider whether you can tolerate things as they are. If not, moving may be the best solution for you and your son. You could even tell your husband that he is welcome at your new place but that no extra live-ins will be--of course, your son would be the exception. Without sounding confrontational, just present it as something you need to do for yourself.

Of course, this would probably require your "starting over" financially; but, 48 is still pretty young. It would be hard, but it might be for the best in the long run.