Wife wants us to take over raising her sister's children

[Music] i'm 36 years old i have been married for 12 years to my wife who is 33 we have a 10 year old girl a seven-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl my wife has a younger sister who is an absolute train wreck and basket case she is 29 and has already been married and divorced twice she has borderline personality disorder and is an alcoholic she has two girls eight and six from her marriages one from each both of her husbands were abusive losers to her and my nieces the first husband split as soon as she gave birth to niece number one and no one ever saw or heard from him again the second husband is a dear dick who makes a hobby out of being unemployed so he doesn't have to pay child support because of my sister-in-law's wild and crazy mood swings s attempts and alcoholism she lost custody of her daughters and my wife's parents who are in their 60s have been taking care of and raising them for three years now my wife and i visit her parents quite often and we are very close with them we also see my nieces and they really are sweet girls although they do act out sometimes though who could blame them recently more family tragedy struck my mill has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and will have to start radiation and chemotherapy immediately my phil has arthritis and is starting to lose his hearing and sight they recently approached us and asked if we would assume custody and raise my nieces because they are just too old and sick to do it anymore while my wife wanted to immediately say yes i asked if we could please have time to talk it over and discuss it to which they graciously replied for us to take our time now while i genuinely love my nieces and my heartbreaks for their situation i do not want to raise them i'm breaking into a sweat and fighting off a panic attack just thinking about it i have a full-time job and three young and very needy children my wife bless her is a very good mother has a part-time job to help supplement our income and is a wonderful and supportive partner but she is zero help around the house she's terrible at keeping the house clean and is an awful cook so after i come home from work i have to cook dinner and make sure the house is tidy i have my kids help out with the chores but of course they can only do so much then i have to spend time and play with my children help with homework etc my wife helps them get ready for bed and reads to them while i do dishes then i have to make time for my wife i'm exhausted and overwhelmed my weekends are spent cleaning inside and out and doing family activities while my wife has promised to help with our nieces realistically i know a majority of the responsibility will fall to me i can't handle more stress i can't handle the chaos of two more young children who demand attention in time i'm already spread thin spending time one-on-one with each of my children how can i possibly give it to two more that's two more mouths to feed two more children to clothe shelter and provide for and educate and we will be getting zero financial assistance from the deadbeat cell and her two ex-husbands the thing is my wife has no other siblings and i'm an only child i don't think there is anyone else who can take these children my in-laws can no longer raise them we are all that is left the only other option is foster care i would feel awful putting my nieces in foster care but i just don't think i can do it i feel completely paralyzed i've already had two breakdowns over this decision out of sight from my wife and children i'm depressed i have no appetite i feel like a failure as a man as a father and as a family member i can't sacrifice my children's well-being for my nieces i won't be able to be a good father uncle to my nieces and i know i'll just be going through the motions with my own children if i take on any more responsibility but i don't know how i'll live with myself if i'll let my nieces go into the system i feel borderline s by this point but i'm trying to keep it together for the sake of everyone i don't know what to do or think please help i told my wife i desperately needed some time to myself so she was a complete sweetheart and watched the kids for me while i went to my favorite coffee shop and for the first four hours did nothing but drink capucinos and read i then started to think about what to do about the problem with my nieces it suddenly occurred to me that even though they had deadbeat fathers perhaps the paternal side of our family could be of assistance that night i got home after my wife had put all the kids to bed and told her we needed to talk i completely lost it and broke down sobbing i told her i could not take her nieces i told her how stressed i was with work how exhausted i felt every single day doing nothing but working and being a dad i told her she was a good wife and mom and i appreciated her having a part-time job and taking care of the kids when i was at work but i was starting to resent how i had to pick up her slack and cook and clean because she wouldn't do it i told her i was considering committing s because i just couldn't handle the pressure of having to fix her sister's mistakes and that i already felt like a failure as a husband and father and was sick of life my wife was white as a ghost and she didn't argue or get defensive not once she just gave me a big hug and started crying too and said she was so so sorry she had no idea how stressed i was how miserable that i hid it so well most shockingly she admitted she had grown lacks in her housekeeping and that in retrospect she was just so tired from dealing with the kids all day and working to boot cleaning and cooking hadn't really been at the forefront of her mind since i'd been quietly making up for her slack and not saying anything she had just let it go unchecked i told my wife there was no way i could take responsibility for two more children when i couldn't trust her to pull her load at the house i said i was true i heartbroken for our nieces but that my children came first and i could not geopodize being a good father to them or have them lack in any facet of life because of them i said a decision needed to be made soon and there was simply no way i could trust her to prove she would change and start helping out more and that we needed counselling because i was ready to end my life over how dreary and stressful things were i also brought up we had no guarantees the girls wouldn't take after their parents particularly her sister as teenagers and make all our lives miserable she said she hadn't thought of that and again how sorry she was and that i was right she agreed immediately to counseling and that the dynamic of our home needed to change that taking our nieces was out of the question when our own family needed some serious fixing i could tell that my talk of s terrified her and she was willing to do anything to make things better she begged me not to decay myself and then started sobbing and said she couldn't live without me and to please not leave her and the kids we decided to talk about options for our nieces after getting some rest my wife rubbed my feet until i fell asleep the next morning we took the kids to the park and while they were running around on the playground we discussed what to do about the girls i brought up the girl's father's families and asked if she knew any of them she said no but she could ask her sister for names and or contact info long story short we found out daddy had a brother a married sister with kids and his parents dadby had a married brother two sisters one married no kids and the other with a boyfriend and two children and his parents as well my wife and i sent emails to all introducing ourselves and laying out our niece's plight that their maternal grandparents could no longer care for them and that we were in no position to do so and were reaching out to see if they would be willing to take the girls who would have to be put in the foster system if we couldn't find someone daddy's unmarried brother and daddy's unmarried sister with kids never responded daddy's sister daddy's brother and parents gave us varying responses which boiled down to sorry but no we can't don't want to daddy's parents and daddy's married sister without kids both gave us yeses but here was the tricky part they were only willing to take one child daddy's parents were sweet and polite but firm in saying they had no interest in raising another man's child or dealing with potential drama from another baby daddy or baby daddy's family daddy's sister was also kind and said as much as she would like to she and her husband were barely making ends meet and simply couldn't afford more than one child my wife and i were also in counseling at this point we debated for a while about whether to just take our nieces or to put them in homes where they would be loved and wanted but at the cost of splitting them up i'm sure many redditors will bash me for our final decision but it was with our therapists suggestion we finally decided our marriage and home life was too much on the rocks and had not had enough time to heal to take on the huge responsibility of raising my sils children another long story short we got my in-laws in contact with the other set set of grandparents and daddy's sister and they are now in the middle of adoption and custody details but from what i've heard is that the grandparents of nisei and the aunt and uncle of nice b will keep in contact and arrange in person play dates and skype sessions so the sisters can stay in contact with each other and not suffer permanent separation we also told them that we still very much want to be in our nieces lives and would be willing to see them and have them for a couple days a few times a month or help in any way we could this was a very hard decision to make for my wife and i but ultimately we feel we made the right one for us we are still in therapy and are doing much better my wife is a much bigger help around the house and bought a book of easy recipes tailored to terrible cooks like her we also took this moo suggestion and started doing a bunch of crock pot meals it's cut down on labor and clean up tremendously in therapy i made a list of chores i'd like her to have done before i get home from work to minimize my stress the list has really helped because she can focus on one check box at a time and has a visible reminder so she doesn't forget also thanks to zizumu we realized we were being way too easy on the kids and gave them a chore chart as well they need to check off with allowance on saturday if they finished everything and didn't rush through it seriously thank you so much for your posts as amu you had a lot of really helpful suggestions even though we didn't end up taking our nieces our marriage isn't fully healed but it's certainly recovered and i even look forward to coming home from work now my wife really is a saint and a sweetheart and i feel like i'm falling in love with her again quick note to say the sexism and misogyny on this website was absolutely insane people mostly men calling my wife lazy and horrible and saying she did nothing all day and was probably having an affair when i stated in my first post my wife was a wonderful woman i meant it having three kids full-time and a part-time job is a lot of work she was easily distracted and tired and cleaning just stopped being a priority since i always stepped up to the plate to cook and clean and never communicated my feelings she had no way of knowing i was falling apart she readily admitted her fault in the failure of our marriage and has truly shown she is fully committed to making things right again i was shocked at the amount of hate shown on here for my wife and can only say there are clearly a lot of bitter and obviously single people on this site my wife's parents are sadly not doing so well with the combination of cancer and losing their granddaughters and my wife and i are trying to be as supportive and helpful to them as possible without geopoliticizing the progress we've made in our marriage my wife's sister is still a batshit crazy worthless excuse of a human being who actually had the goal to call my wife up and thank her for sorting out the problem with the kids and getting it taken care of and then asking if we had any money we could possibly spare to lend to her my wife basically told her sister to go duck herself and that unless the money was for an operation to get her tubes tied to not ever contact her again all in all life isn't great but it is better and i can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel for me and my family thank you to all the helpful redditors who cared the dodger bags know where they can shove it my boyfriend and i have been together for three years we are long distance we are from the same hometown but he goes to school in another state so we see each other over summer and most holidays this past summer i did study abroad in peru for two months it was one of the most amazing experiences and i had so much fun i didn't have a phone or regular internet so i communicated with ml every couple of days i told my boyfriend this would be the case before leaving and he said it was okay when i got back he was excited to see me and i was excited to see him but i was very tired and honestly fell asleep within minutes of first seeing him i'd literally gotten off the plane just an hour before when i woke up he seemed pissed i asked what was up and he just started asking how my trip was i told him it was fun told him about my friends etc then all of a sudden he says i know you cheated on me at this point i'm confused i just said what and he said i know you did it's okay it's whatever well i didn't cheat on him there were only four other guys on the trip two had girlfriends one was incredibly gay and the only single straight one was hooking up with this other girl the whole time i told him this and he just kept saying he knew i cheated on him i asked people on the trip and nobody said anything to him they're all just as confused as me i asked my boyfriend why he thinks i did and he said i just know the weird thing is that he's saying he's okay with it but still keeps bringing it up that i cheated on him it's pissing me off because i didn't i had a lot of opportunities too and never even got close to taking them i told him the only guy i did anything close with was my gay friend and all we did was dance at a club together he started saying well i don't know if it was one of your friends or a local what the hell dude i don't know what to do he just keeps saying i cheated but i didn't he also says he doesn't care but brings it up i can't figure out how to convince him otherwise aside from the face this is a totally ridiculous idea he has anyway we had literally no time to even talk to local people there enough to hook up with them because we were busy every day and all day doing things is this break up worthy i love him but have no idea why he'd be doing this okay so i want to thank everyone for all of the advice i really appreciate it that so many people cared to give their ideas a lot of people thought cheating but some suggested he was just insecure last night i asked him to come over i should have mentioned in op that the original event actually happened in mid-august when it first happened after enough i said listen you're pissing me off stop saying that i did something i didn't do and he just said okay sorry but then proceeded to occasionally bring it up since august until now also we are long distance kind of he goes to school in another state but is from my hometown he's been here the past few days due to family issues so when he was over i asked him why he feels so strongly i cheated and at first he tried to brush it off i kept pressing him and finally he said i just don't feel like you could go somewhere like that with a bunch of guys and nothing would happen i told him well you go to florida for most of the year for school with a bunch of girls so are you saying that you don't think i could do it because you've done something well he flew off the handle and freaked out started yelling that he was so pissed i'd even think to accuse him of cheating that he never had a never will that i knew about any time a girl came onto him too strong because he tell me about it which is true i just sat there and watched him and then finally asked well how is it ridiculous for me to ask you that but you think it's ridiculous that i even argue that i never cheated he just said that he knows me and he knows what i'd do finally i just got pissed and said that if he can't trust me and thinks so lowly of me we probably shouldn't be together he started going off then saying see i knew you cheated i got fed up with the crazy and told him to go he asked if i was breaking up with him and i said no i said no because i figured if i said yes he wouldn't leave but i felt pretty sure that's what i wanted to do after he left called up his brother who i'm sometimes close to and told him the story he was surprised by how crazy he was but also told me that my boyfriend's last girlfriend his first had cheated on him so he probably just thinks that of everyone now he told me that my boyfriend has some massive anger issues and has been known to get physical with people slash objects when angry he also told me about a bunch of other crazy things my boyfriend has done including running away from home as a 20 year old when he didn't get his way cussing out his mom and telling her to die when she took his brother's side over a petty argument etc some other minor things were that my boyfriend has apparently stated he never wants to move out of his parents house and continue making youtube videos for the rest of his life that and how stupid my boyfriend acted to me over me doing literally nothing made me decide i wanted to end it i called up my boyfriend and told him it's over i'm pretty sad about it i do love him but i don't want to deal with crazy dick plus it's pretty lame we've been together three years and he still thinks he wants to live with his parents forever i've asked him a million times what he wants to do when he's out of college he just says i don't know edit thank you everyone for the comments wow i'm trying to reply to most but i am reading everything people are asking how i never noticed these red flags earlier i kind of did but wasn't sure we were long distance which i think often left me confused a lot of times i'd wonder if his actions were just because we were far hearing his brother say those things just confirmed that's not the case also a lot of you were upset i called his ex crazy and referenced her cus as an example i actually knew her personally she was a pathological liar as well as being actually clinically insane and did a lot of c and was like 15 or 16 at the time throwing the word crazy around was rude of me and of course see use doesn't mean crazy i'm a bit jaded when it comes to her because she used to be my friend but has done some pretty messed up stuff so sorry if i came off as insensitive and for tossing those words around like that [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Ask Girl

Views: 32,831

Rating: 4.9044027 out of 5

Keywords: reddit girl, reddit sil, reddit sister in law, reddit sister, reddit family, reddit, r/ askreddit, r/ girl, r/ sil, r/ sister in law, r/ sister, r/ family, r/, askreddit girl, askreddit sil, askreddit sister, askreddit family, askreddit, reddit secrets, r/ entitled parents, reddit entitled parents, entitled parents, reddit twins, reddit twin sister, reddit twin

Id: fagh_bkAOdc

Length: 20min 35sec (1235 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020