‘My Husband Doesn’t Help Me Take Care of His Grandkids”
I often pick up the kids while my husband is working, because I’m working part-time at age 70, and take them places and spend my money. My resources are limited, but I am generous with them. I spend the entire weekend entertaining them, playing games, and coming up with crafts and things to do. I drive my car, use my gas, and take my time to drive to pick them up and return them to their homes. Let me add: That credit card he uses for their entire weekend is being paid down every month with my money. One year I bought all their Christmas gifts with my savings and also traveled into the mountains alone on an icy road to get one gift the eldest wanted really badly. So it irks me that they exclude me from their gratitude.
I’ve considered taking the kids aside and telling them that this house is not “Grandpa’s house” – it is “OUR house,” and the money being spent on them is not Grandpa’s money, it is OUR money, etc., but I don’t think it’s my place. If hubby is sick, the kids call or send him cards (generated by the G-G), but I’ve been in the hospital a few times for serious situations with no acknowledgement. I understand much of this attitude comes from the maternal situation they are living in. But my husband sits back and soaks in their praises like Big Daddy/sponge and never acknowledges what is going on. When I mention it, he sort of shakes it off. Most recently, in saying the blessing at the table, the eldest said “thank you for letting us spend this time with Grandpa.” I felt like I had been punched. This was said after I spent $70 on groceries for some of their well-loved snacks, prepared food, spent time cleaning the rooms to freshen them for the visit, and stayed up late at night watching movies with them while my husband always trots off to bed because “he is tired.” I’m tired also – and nine years older than he is – but I stay to participate.
As an aside, let me add that I was married many years ago with three step-children and there was a resentful maternal grandmother who was interfering constantly behind the scenes – taking jabs at me and my children – and creating a pressure cooker environment resulting in my packing up my two kids and leaving the situation after seven years. It’s all very reminiscent of this same situation in my mind. I’m 70 and have given up my financial security for my husband’s. I’m not in a good place right now. — Invisible Step-Grandma
Stop spending money you don’t feel comfortable spending!! That’s step number one. You have no one to blame for that but yourself. You have agency, you’re a grown-up; no one is making you spend all your cash on Christmas gifts and snacks. No one is making you use YOUR credit card to pay off debts associated with your step-grandchildren. Why is your husband not spending any of his money on this stuff? Likely because you enable him not to. Quit enabling him! Quit kowtowing to him. When he goes off to bed because he’s tired, leaving you to do all the cleaning up, tell him you’re tired too and need his help before he goes to bed. I know you’re a baby boomer, and in your generation of women do pretty much all the domestic chores, but fuck that shit. It’s not the 1950s anymore or the 1970s or even the 1990s; It’s the 2020s and men now do like 25% of the domestic duties, hooray! (I’m being a little sarcastic here if that’s not obvious. We are still so far from equality at home, despite women making up almost 50% of the workforce, and part of that is because women continue enabling their male partners to take it easy while they run around doing almost everything at home.)
As for all the sacrifices you’re making and the lack of gratitude you get – I mean, welcome to parenthood. I get that these kids are your step-grandchildren, but the idea is the same. You’re contributing to raising them, and raising kids is a pretty thankless gig full of sacrifices. The resentment can certainly build up if you don’t remind yourself of the joy you’re hopefully getting. Are you getting any joy from all the stuff you’re doing? If so, great – consider that your thank you. Consider it your reward to see the grandkids happy and adjusting well in life. YOU are a big part of why they are doing well. And if they fail to thank you when they thank their grandpa, why not pipe up and say, “Hey, what about me? Am I chopped liver?”
The truth is, they probably take their relationship with you for granted — which is SUCH a normal teenage thing to do! — while they feel like they have to actually put in some effort with their grandfather because he sounds like a typical baby boomer grandpa who likely doesn’t engage them much. They don’t have to work for your attention because it is given so freely. It’s like, we don’t think about how much we appreciate running water until the pipes freeze and we can’t take a shower or flush the toilet. The toilets always flush at your place; your step-kids don’t have to think about how much that means and so they don’t. If it’s such a big deal to you that they show you some appreciation, remind them of what you do (lovingly! without hostility!). Remind your husband of what you do, and tell him you want him to remind his grandkids when they are expressing gratitude to him that you are just as deserving — more so, really! — as he is.
Bottom line: If you are sacrificing more than you are comfortable sacrificing, stop. And stop enabling your husband to push all financial, emotional, and logistical responsibility of care-giving on to you. As long as he’s able to, he is going to keep doing what he’s always done and what you’ve always let him do, which is prioritize his own needs and disregard yours because you aren’t demanding he pay attention to them. So, speak up and tell him what you need and don’t let him get away with ignoring you.
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If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
