@MandaJo That’s pretty harsh and judgmental.
I think she’s right on (as usual).
The tone I’m getting is that these are two older people who are married, and the man actively dislikes the woman’s adult daughter and says so quite often, and when the daughter is around he engages in passive-aggressive activities like cooking dinner for two people without discussing what he’s doing, and he talks about what a bad idea the woman’s parenting decisions are.
Whatever character flaws the daughter has, and whatever bad decisions the mother has made, I really really don’t think that ZonexandScout is showing respect or kindness to either of them, based on what he’s said here.
From what I read about her, she sounds easy to dislike.
So was the OP…
If you read a description of me from someone who dislikes me, I’d sound easy to dislike, too.
But I’m not even sure the ease of disliking her matters. It’s the rest of that sentence–“and says so quite often”–that matters. If I dislike my spouse’s relative, I’m gonna keep my damn mouth shut about it.
Exactly. The part that chuffed me is that he said he turned the reasonable conversation about boundaries into a “larger discussion of how her treatment of her daughter needs to change”. That creates a strong image of a woman being hounded, forced to “yes dear, yes dear, I’ll try” because her new husband is so judgmental of her relationship with her daughter. It’s a terrible place for her to be.
There are also communication issues. If they traveled to a place in part to spend time with the stepdaughter, why didn’t they discuss the possibility of her staying with them? Why did they rent a cabin that was so poorly designed for her to spend the night? Why did he leave so much stuff cluttering up the room with a bunkbed that she didn’t feel comfortable sleeping there?
And if the wife wants to spend time with her daughter, and the OP doesn’t, did they consider the wife vacationing alone? Let her hang out in a cabin with her daughter, and the OP could have had some quite time at home with the dog.
This all feels like a problem that didn’t have to happen.
I have the same issue as the OP. It deals in part with the stepson but that is not the underlying issue. It’s that Mrs. Cad fails to realize that in things that affect us, we have to be a team and make joint decisions before the fact. I get blindsided by kid stuff (both step and natural) and especially finances. See, apparently we’re only a team after she has made a decision and my choice is go along or be an asshole. It has gotten really bad the last 18 months or so and it is really putting stress on our relationship.
? Chuffed means proud or pleased.
My guess is that she meant “chafed”; that might have even been an autocorrect issue.
I’m seeing her being hounded in both directions, treated as a doormat by both daughter and (to a lesser extent) husband. Daughter is abusing the relationship by crashing on the couch uninvited and without prior request, then not accepting that a “no guests” rule applies to her, only leaving when directly confronted. Husband at least attempted to have a conversation about the problem, but did fall back on a passive aggressive tactic of cooking a too small dinner without discussing the situation beforehand.
Since the husband is the only one here, and the only one we can suggest change his behavior, he should be working to empower his wife to set appropriate boundaries with daughter, rather than putting her into a lousy position that forces her hand, or just complaining about it.
I will also suggest that your spouse has an absolute right to express an opinion regarding your behavior/relationships/choices, because if they don’t, who does? They don’t get to dictate these things on your behalf, but offering an opinion has to be part of the ‘marriage’ deal.
But if it’s not his money, they need to be the boundaries the wife wants, not the ones he thinks she should. She managed in the world without him for 60 years. And I don’t think you have an absolute right to express an opinion after it’s been heard. I think my husband plays too many video games and he’d be happier if he’d diversify his leisure time. He knows I think that, and disagrees. It’d be shitty of me to hound him about his “inappropriate leisure” choices every time I saw him at the computer. He isn’t neglecting family responsibilities or spending “our” money.
I think the OP feels like it’s his job to pressure his wife to handle the situation in the way he thinks is best. I don’t think it is.
Not sure I agree with this.
I’m married. We’re both employed. Our incomes are combined. If I gave a significant amount of “my” money to a family member without her approval, she would get upset. And rightly so.
In post 36 the OP states they married post-retirement and keep their estates entirely separate. That’s what seemed off: he said he keeps out of it and “respects” her decision, but he clearly hounds her.
Interesting arrangement. If that’s the case my comments were in error.
I have a friend in a sort of similar situation. They have their own money and mixed money. My friend’s spouse has a deadbeat loser kid who gets effectively all of his spouse’s personal money. When they retire, which will be soon, he’s going to be affected because the combined money will start to be used to keep the deadbeat afloat.
Now if OP’s wife has more than enough money to cover the kid forever, it’s definitely a nonissue for the OP.
If the spouse plans to use combined money without your friend’s consent, that’s the issue, not the deadbeat kid per se. My husband and I have a similar yours/mine/ours setup. My husband would like to retire early; if he can find a way to do that without spending my money (e.g. if he waits till the mortgage is paid off and he has enough in savings to pay his share of our shared bills), I’m fine with that; otherwise, I’m not. Similarly, I could spend a virtually unlimited amount of money scuba diving, but if I were to take money from our joint account to fund my hobby, he’d have a legitimate gripe. We recently moved into a house with a driveway situation that makes a backup camera pretty much a necessity. My car has one; his didn’t. He wanted to upgrade and didn’t want to have to finance it, so we agreed he could borrow from the joint account to buy the car outright, and he would pay it back. He’s keeping his word, but if he didn’t–or if he had unilaterally decided to use that money without asking me, even if he did pay it back–we’d have a problem. The issue is violating the agreement about money, not what it’s being spent on.
All of what you said is reasonable but I didn’t explain my end clearly enough, I think. Should my friend’s spouse retire, spouse will run out of her money and will need to rely on joint money to survive. My friend would have to support her or let her starve. He will be put in a shitty situation.
Fair enough. That’s a subtler issue, warranting a visit to a financial planner perhaps. They should each have 401ks/IRAs, or a joint account, with enough money to retire on, and there should be an understanding that if one mismanaged their money, the other is not agreeing to bail them out. If they can’t get to a point of consensus and trust on this issue, again, that’s bigger than the kid. If the parent is trying to have it both ways by spending their “own” money the way they want but expecting “our” money to be their backup plan, that’s not fair. But if the parent is just choosing to spend their discretionary income on their lazy adult kid instead of on themselves, that’s their choice. It’s understandable that the spouse would prefer that the parent spend their money on couple’s vacations and the like, but that’s not the deal they made when they agreed to yours/mine/ours.