SM sounds a bit bipolar (who self medicates by drinking), having experienced that it's quite the roller coaster. Even if that is not the case it seems like SM got back from "vacation" and was not expecting the current reality and lost her E36 M3. Makes even more sense if her daughter and kit were stressing her out and now sees more of it coming.
Chin up, you have some things to figure out, but not in dire straits.
I kind of wonder if you stepmom may also have some sort of undiagnosed mental disorder. Might explain why they suddenly came home from their RV trip way earlier than planned. Unfortunately, there’s not really any easy (or good) way to bring that up. Your dad may end up needing some emotional support, so I’d be leery of cutting them off completely.
In reply to infinitenexus :
You don't need to apologise to me, my opinion is meaningless here.
My point is how it sounds. Take a look at how many thumbs up my original post on the subject has on here. Now take a look at how many your original post has.
There are 2 basic kinds of problems: emotional and real/logical( there are more but for this purpose we will stop there). The reality is you don't have a huge savings, your car is broken and you aren't sitting around playing videogames. The emotional reality is far far different. Your step mom acted in an emotional way to you. You can't solve emotional problems with logic anymore than you can solve irrational arguments with rational thoughts.
The way you communicated this to the forum meant no one agreed/thumbs up your post.......and others got a ton of likes. This should tell you that the way you are communicating this isn't exactly popular.
In the future when you do try to reconnect with dad and stepmom try to realize that the way you communicated it was wrong. That's what I'm saying.
This comes from someone who lost their mom to cancer and recently had some real concerns about losing my dad. You only get do much time with them, I'm trying to help.
To both of you: yes and yes and yes. My wife and I have definitely been coming to the realization that she has some form of undiagnosed mental disorder. She panics and freaks out and worries about everything and she feels basically nothing unless she drinks, then she often gets emotional (although usually good emotions.) She did snap at my wife once over the silliest thing you could imagine - my wife took my stepsister's daughters to daycare once, because it was morning and Terri was already drinking and "didn't want to put a bra on." My wife dropped the kids off and told the lady there that they had eaten breakfast. Terri called my wife up later that day angrily berating her, because - and get this - my wife introduced herself as Alessa, and not Alessa Nicholson. She snapped at my wife for like 10 minutes on the phone saying that this last name means something around here and she should be proud of it. When she finally got off the phone, SM called back 3 minutes later to apologize. I told her my wife was in the bathroom. So she talked my ear off, apologizing, and again reiterated and demanded that my wife be proud of her last name. Ahh, the rants and raves of drunk people! Another 5 minutes when by and she called again apologizing and wanted to make sure everything was okay.
SM definitely has some issues. Can't remember if I said this earlier or not, I've said so much I lose track. She used to be a meth addict years ago, before she met my dad. Did it for years. Met my dad and gave it all up and they've been fine, they just both are functional alcoholics.
infinitenexus said:There's an Amazon about 30-40 miles away. That will pay more than pretty much any job around where I live, and they tend to hire a lot around the holidays so that's going to probably be where I go for. My concern there is all my injuries from being in the army - standing up for that long is extremely painful for me. Hell, just being awake is painful. But I guess I'm just going to have to suck it up and deal with it for a while, at least until I finish school and can get something better.
My wife works at Publix. They're a good company but they hire part time and after a while they sometimes move people to full time. She's asking if she can get more hours today. Fingers crossed.
It sounds like you've got a roof over your head for the time being, so next focus has to be a job. Hourly pay is less important than decent benefits in your situation. Very soon, Drs appointments may cost you more than the Mustang is currently costing you each month. I think we were paying around $100 per prenatal OB visit, and that's with my wife's care being augmented by the VA (she's the Vet, not me). I don't know what Amazon's benefits are like, or how likely you are to qualify for them, but it's really easy for one doctor's appointment to wipe out a whole bunch of extra hourly pay, so don't prioritize the hourly wage over decent benefits.
And this needs to be a priority soon too as many places have 60-90 day waiting periods before you're covered. That means if you got a job with benefits tomorrow, your wife will be in her second trimester before any appointments are even partially covered by an employer.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to infinitenexus :
You don't need to apologise to me, my opinion is meaningless here.
My point is how it sounds. Take a look at how many thumbs up my original post on the subject has on here. Now take a look at how many your original post has.
There are 2 basic kinds of problems: emotional and real/logical( there are more but for this purpose we will stop there). The reality is you don't have a huge savings, your car is broken and you aren't sitting around playing videogames. The emotional reality is far far different. Your step mom acted in an emotional way to you. You can't solve emotional problems with logic anymore than you can solve irrational arguments with rational thoughts.
The way you communicated this to the forum meant no one agreed/thumbs up your post.......and others got a ton of likes. This should tell you that the way you are communicating this isn't exactly popular.
In the future when you do try to reconnect with dad and stepmom try to realize that the way you communicated it was wrong. That's what I'm saying.
This comes from someone who lost their mom to cancer and recently had some real concerns about losing my dad. You only get do much time with them, I'm trying to help.
I did notice that, that pretty much no one likes my comment but they all like the "tough love" kind of comments. I figured I probably worded something horribly - I'm really good at doing that - but my emotions are just pretty raw right now. Also I would like to reiterate that SM has zero intentions of reconnecting with us.
In reply to STM317 :
I have medical insurance covered, fortunately. $50/month and my copay for pretty much anything is $20. Honestly all I want now is dental insurance!
yupididit said:Situations like this are what savings are for. Glad you got that part covered.
MD unemployment backpay; For your unemployment, you should call MD and ask them if/ how currently being employed affects the back pay you're owed. It shouldn't affect it enough to not get a job in the hopes of the money coming soon.
Mustang: Call the lender and ask for a 3 month (or whatever they can give) extension payments due to hardship. What a lot of banks do is add those 3 months on the end of the loan which prevents you from a repo and having late payments on your credit report. Hopefully, your unemployment backpay will arrive and you can use the money to buy a used 5.0 engine to replace yours with then sell the car! In the meantime call your insurance company and let them know it's currently not being driven to get lower insurance payments.
Working: Most certainly get a job or any job, same with your wife. Pregnant women can typically work well into their pregnancy if they're healthy. It's also better for them to be active etc. If you could both find employment that'll help lighten the load significantly. If Walmart is there then I would apply. They're a huge employer and have various positions. Yall both might be able to find jobs.
Canada: I think this can be a long term goal. But your focus should be stable self-sufficient life and employment right now for your growing family. Possibly push it down the road a year or two.
Family: Sometimes that just can't be helped immediately. Your parents obviously had this on their mind for a long time. Crazy to me that the first time y'all catch wind is when you're getting kicked out. I'm sure having a baby didn't make them feel any more comfortable with the living situation.
I know the GI-bill is based on if you're going to school full time or not and if the school is online vs f2f. So try to keep that going while working.
Overall from my observations of your plans you've made threads about, I think y'all just need to slow it down. It seems like you had a lot of good plans but the timelines had you doing too much. School, moving to a new country, saving money, getting out of debt, and having a baby. All at the same time or within a year. Spreading yourselves thin!
We do have big plans for certain! We want to have a good future. All of our plans were big but still attainable until this happened, unfortunately.
Alright dude. None of us are going to be able to psychoanalyze your stepmom from here. You've got work to do. Go do it. Sounds like the overwhelming consensus is tough love. You have a lot of expert opinions from people (for instance a bunch of us recommending that your wife work during pregnancy have had a working pregnant wife) in various facets. Now get away from the thread and go get things done. Check back in a few days and let us know how things progressed.
In reply to infinitenexus :
Understandable.
As for jobs that you can do sitting down here's an odd one: rural paper route.
I know it sounds insane but it's my wife's part time job. In winter it's $2300 a month and 20-ish hours a week. In summer it's roughly double the money with about 30-ish hours a week. The only skills required is the ability to drive a car.
Lets not get too hastey accusing the Step-Mom of being mentally ill because she took a weekend away to think things out. She's being completely rational in wanting to avoid two babies in the house. I don't think it's anything more than that, honestly.
Some people just don't enjoy direct day-to-day interactions with kids. Its very easy to end up becoming a free babysitter.
She's making her move while she can, because it'll be harder to do when everyone becomes comfortable and reliant on the situation.
In reply to John Welsh :
His mistake was calling the "perfect" daughter, an unstable, breathing ingrate, piss poor parent, to her face. Then stepmom got liquid courage.....
Pops needs to step up and say what he thinks because he doesn't have any stones to really say anything. Although if the OP thinks back this has been always the case with dad. Jmo.
tuna55 said:Alright dude. None of us are going to be able to psychoanalyze your stepmom from here. You've got work to do. Go do it. Sounds like the overwhelming consensus is tough love. You have a lot of expert opinions from people (for instance a bunch of us recommending that your wife work during pregnancy have had a working pregnant wife) in various facets. Now get away from the thread and go get things done. Check back in a few days and let us know how things progressed.
Wife is at work right now. I'm sitting here in the house waiting on a repairman to finish fixing the front door jam - looks like it had been kicked open and broken. So I'm just waiting. Once he's gone then it's back to the storage unit to get more stuff and finish moving in. And then maybe begging the cats to forgive us for all this moving haha.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to infinitenexus :
Understandable.
As for jobs that you can do sitting down here's an odd one: rural paper route.
I know it sounds insane but it's my wife's part time job. In winter it's $2300 a month and 20-ish hours a week. In summer it's roughly double the money with about 30-ish hours a week. The only skills required is the ability to drive a car.
If something like that is available here I'd take it in a heartbeat. Jobs are scarce here. It's a typical small town job market. My only few choice for employment is working something that sucks for the next year. Thanks for the recommendation though, I will look it up!
In reply to infinitenexus :
Absolutely,I hope you find something.
The small-town part is what makes it lucrative though because it's rural. There's 1300 people in the nearest town herr
Ranger50 said:In reply to John Welsh :
His mistake was calling the "perfect" daughter, an unstable, breathing ingrate, piss poor parent, to her face. Then stepmom got liquid courage.....
Pops needs to step up and say what he thinks because he doesn't have any stones to really say anything. Although if the OP thinks back this has been always the case with dad. Jmo.
Some slight clarifications but for the most part yeah. Lemme add my typical paragraph of details:
When SM was busy screaming at us and my dad and the walls and everything how awful we were, she accused us of not cleaning. Now her and my dad often sit on their butts and drink and watch tv or sit on the front porch and drink. That's about all they do. We cleaned daily, especially my wife. So Terri said we didn't clean and I told her "your daughter left p*ss and sh*t filled diapers all over the house and we cleaned them up every single day for her while you were gone" and she immediately interrupted and screamed "don't you dare tell me you cleaned!" Keep in mind the house is pretty much spotless except for some dog hair from their dogs.
Im realizing you're right about my dad. The whole time it was going on he just kinda said hey let's all calm down now, everyone stop. SM snapped at him and screamed at him for looking at porn in their old house - roughly 7-9 years ago. Dad pretty much tucked his tail between his legs so he wouldn't upset anyone, apologized to us a bunch and said he had no clue what was going on, gave us some cash to get us out sooner. Looking back I should have opened my eyes and realized more of this behavior in the past. Of him never having stones to say things in situations because he doesn't want to upset anyone. I mean, he raped my mom many years ago. And he's always had a drinking problem.
Longer term - Being ex military gives you a jump to the front of the line for any federal employment. Look around on usajobs. (Direct experience, lost out on a job because a vet wanted it and I didn't have military in my history, vet was less qualified). That said, process can take 6 months depending and at least where I am they are talking about a hiring freeze coming probably.
infinitenexus said:tuna55 said:Alright dude. None of us are going to be able to psychoanalyze your stepmom from here. You've got work to do. Go do it. Sounds like the overwhelming consensus is tough love. You have a lot of expert opinions from people (for instance a bunch of us recommending that your wife work during pregnancy have had a working pregnant wife) in various facets. Now get away from the thread and go get things done. Check back in a few days and let us know how things progressed.
Wife is at work right now. I'm sitting here in the house waiting on a repairman to finish fixing the front door jam - looks like it had been kicked open and broken. So I'm just waiting. Once he's gone then it's back to the storage unit to get more stuff and finish moving in. And then maybe begging the cats to forgive us for all this moving haha.
So do the budget. Take the oil pan off of the Mustang. Start looking into night jobs for you.
Repairman finally finished up. Thank you everyone for the replies. I'll be spending the rest of the day moving our stuff from our storage unit to this tiny house, then tomorrow or the next day once a bit more money clears from stocks selling (again, we're only talking hundreds of dollars, I don't have much) I'll have a tow truck bring the mustang here. I really, really hope it's just a rod bearing that I can fix. In the end my wife and my cats have a roof over their heads so even though my situation sucks I'm grateful. As many of you have said, we'll make it, it'll just be tough. Also it hurts having a parent tell you they hate you, and the other parent too much of a coward to say anything about it.
Oh and lastly, today is my wife and my third wedding anniversary! I'm just grateful we didn't have to spend today in a hotel as well
In reply to infinitenexus :
No matter what, blood is thicker than step-blood.
Weak willed people commit physical acts. Jmo again.
Re-Mustang- put a cheaper same year truck motor in it and trade it in!
I’m going to jump forward in time for this one, you may want to have a discussion with your wife once things have settled down (for god’s sake don’t do this in the next few days) about the way your families shaped the way you both react to stressors. The more self aware you are both about this, the less likely you will fall into behavior patterns that will affect you and your child negatively in the future.
infinitenexus said:Oh and lastly, today is my wife and my third wedding anniversary! I'm just grateful we didn't have to spend today in a hotel as well
Happy anniversary
And message incoming
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:infinitenexus said:Oh and lastly, today is my wife and my third wedding anniversary! I'm just grateful we didn't have to spend today in a hotel as well
Happy anniversary
And message incoming
Happy anniversary!
infinitenexus said:Oh and lastly, today is my wife and my third wedding anniversary! I'm just grateful we didn't have to spend today in a hotel as well
happy wedding anniversary!
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