Dear Prudence,
My fiancé has been divorced for two years. He has shared custody of his 7-year-old daughter, “Cat,” and I have an 8-year-old girl. We have been trying to slowly integrate our girls into the new family situation. Cat has a bedroom at my house, and her father is maintaining his apartment until the lease runs out. We were on the road to success until his ex was forced to take custody of her 5- and 10-year-old nephews. My fiancé and I stepped up to help with child care on an “emergency” basis, but his ex keeps milking it. We have to take two cars to go anywhere, our limited budget for treats is gone, and there is a fight every night the boys stay over. We only have three bedrooms and neither of the girls want to give theirs up. The boys have been careless and destructive of girls’ toys, and the youngest wets the bed. They aren’t bad kids, but it is too much. My fiancé feels guilty because these boys were family once. I told him he needed to figure out what matters more: his future family or his old one. He told me that our family was his focus, but the boys still come over on the whims of his ex. It is stressing out everyone. Even Cat complains she just wants it to be us again. What do I do?
—Stressed