Dear Prudence,
I have been married for 10 years. I don’t have children, but my husband has two sons. Both are in their 20s now and were in their teens when we married. I struggled a lot because my stepsons were disgusting and disrespectful, even for teenage boys. They would go entire weekends without bathing to the point that I had to drive with the windows down in the car because the stank made my eyes water. They would walk past me and completely ignore anything I said, even if it was hello. Their rooms were so filthy and full of old, moldy dishes that we got roaches and had to rip up the carpet in each room. My husband just shrugged and said I was the problem for having a problem with the boys. I tried so hard and even went to private therapy because I loved my husband and believed the promise that things would get better once the boys got older. That was a lie.
Within the span of six months, one of my stepsons is facing felony assault charges for a bar fight, and the other one drove drunk into a tree. He survived with permanent bodily and brain injuries. He will need caretaking for the rest of his life. Both were on probation while this happened. My husband and I have already remortgaged the house and taken out savings to clean up the messes his sons have made.
Everyone is treating this like some kind of unexpected tragedy, so I am getting a lot of well-wishes, and they just make my blood boil. I earn more than my husband now and have a small separate property that I inherited that my husband expects me to sell in order to pay for another lawyer. I can already see the future where my husband dumps the daily care of his disabled son on me and expects me to wipe his butt while he goes to play golf. The pattern of the past predicts the future. I can’t live like this.
The problem is I moved for my marriage. All my support here is tied up with my husband and our marriage. I will become the evil stepmother that I always tried not to be in everyone’s eyes. The terrible person who left her poor husband at his lowest and abandoned my two stepsons in need. How do I navigate this? I can’t just leave and get an apartment on my own with all our money tangled together and the debts we have and more that are coming. Help!