Your Questions About Pre Marriage Counseling

My husband is forcing me to choose between him and my son. Anyone with something similar?

I have been married for 1 1/2 yrs to a man who has 3 children, and I have 3 children from previous marriages. He has sons who are 28 and 30 and a daughter who is 12 and I have twin daughters who are 26 and a son who is 24. When we first got married, my son was a pre-med student and came home only occasionally. One of my daughters I see rarely (her choice) and the other I see about once a week as she has a son and I want to see them on a regular basis. After we were married and settled, when my son or daughter and grandson would come to visit, I started noticing problems. He would call them mooches if they came to our house for a meal. And say things like “They are adults, we shouldn’t have to feed them”, etc. So it became a stressful situation every time they came to visit. He is also a neat freak, so he goes around the whole time they are visiting just looking for something to gripe about. They were actually times that he would get so upset when they were coming over that he would shut himself in the bedroom the whole time they were there.

None of my children were ever disrespectful to him. They always tried to include him in things. My son waited to apply to med-school until too late in the year to get in this fall. He was accepted for next year, and I am so very proud of him. He asked if he could move back home during that transition period to allow him to save some money up. I spoke with my husband, and he agreed he would have no problem with that. But shortly, he started looking for things to gripe about. It became so bad that he and I started going to counseling sessions. But the only thing he wanted to address at the counseling session was my son living with us. The counselor suggested that we draw up a living arrangement agreement to give to my son. We spent many counseling sessions fighting over that stupid agreement. I had every intention of actually sitting down and giving this agreement to my son, and then my husband acted like a complete jerk and started a fight with my son over something ridiculous. I told my husband he needed to apologize to my son. He told me he would. And then he decided that he really wasn’t wrong in the incident and he would not apologize. So I refused to give my son the agreement. If he wasn’t going to follow through on agreements, I wasn’t either.

Long story short, incidents continued to happen. My son ate two pieces of left over pizza without asking my husband first. Another incident my son had cleaned out his car, and placed his golf shoes on a shelf in the garage (the same shelf where my husband and I have our golf shoes on). My husband came in and said my son needed to put those up in his room. I told him they were fine where they were at. He got mad. I was always coming to my sons defense. And he was leaving. He started packing his stuff, and sent me a list of the belongings that we had acquired in our short marriage, and we needed to decide who got what. But then the next thing I know, he’s unpacked all of his stuff again. My son comes home later, heats something up and goes up to his room to eat. At this point, my husband and I are in separate bedrooms. He comes in at 10:30 at night to tell me to go up and tell my son he can’t eat upstairs. I told him he was fine, I wasn’t going to go upstairs and tell him anything. So he starts threatening that he is going to. I jump up out of bed to stop him, and of course we start yelling at each other. You guessed it, my son comes downstairs to see what the hell is going on this time. And my husband starts yelling at him for eating upstairs. This time my son tells him that there isn’t any reason that he can’t eat upstairs. This infuriates my husband, and he goes after my son and pushes him hard enought to leave a red mark. Then husband says “What are you gonna do?” My son said this, and called 911. My son didn’t press charges. So it is to the point where I have to choose between my husband and my son. And as a mother, there really isn’t a choice there. I asked my mom what she thought, and she told me if there was any way that I thought husband could change with counseling, that maybe I should give him a chance. But my thought is that he has had chances before, and he chose to go ahead with irrational behavior. I begged him to stop what he was doing because it was going to ruin our marriage. My son was living in my house and so uncomfortable that he woud get up, go to work, come home and go directly up into his room. Of course husband now SAYS he sees the error of his ways, and he has started counseling, but I don’t trust him. I think he’s going to counseling just to try and get me to change my mind, and then he’ll go right back to doing what he does, which is try to alienate me from my family.

Has anyone else went through this????? Could he change at this point? He’s 5
My son is 24 and he buys almost all of his own food, does his own laundry, and picks up after himself. He doesn’t cause the confrontations with my husband. He tries to avoid them. If my son could afford to have a place of his own, he would have. What happened to being able to help your children out when they need a helping hand?
I thank you all for the comments, but for the gentleman that called my son a brat, he is nothing of the sort. He is a very well behaved, 24 yr old, that is going to go to med school next August. He treats everyone with respect, including my husband. I only outlined issues with my son, but he really doesn’t want my daughter and grandson coming over either. I paid for my grandsons pictures to be taken, and he got mad. But I can spend 100′s of dollars on his daughter and that is absolutely fine.

Someone asked about the 12 yr old. She lives with her mother in another state. I treat her like one of my own children and when he visits, she spends more time with me than she does her father. She so wants his attention and he doesn’t give it to her. So she will come and sit on my lap, or sit right next to me and I will put my arm around her. I think he has an issue with affection.
My son is working full time and is taking a class just to keep his study skills up. I don’t pay for any of his expenses, only put a roof over his head.

I actually am the main breadwinner in my family. My husband had the misfortune of being laid off about five months into our marriage, and I have had to pay all household bills since then. I had my bills from pre-husband, our bills from current. His unemployment was enough to pay for just his commitments and none of our committments. I am sure that has lead to some feelings of self-worth on his end. I have a full time position, and then do work on the side to try and supplement. So it definitely has not been an easy time. I had thought that times of adversity can either bring you closer together or tear you apart, and in case it has been the latter.
I understand comments about an adult child moving back home. And if my son didn’t have goals and committments, and was just laying around the house, I would definitely agree. But that isn’t the case at all. I’m afraid that working your way through med-school is not really an option. The study load is so great that there is no way most students could handle it. He has always excelled at everything he has done. Not be at the top of the class would crush him. He has only gotten one B in his whole highschool/College career to this point. So he has so much potential. I just think it would be a complete shame for him not to be able to reach that potential. If my husbands adult children were in that same way I would definitely help them. One is career established and a new father and we just went and visited them. His other adult child has had drug issues and doesn’t keep a job. I have actually offered to have him stay with us and try to help him get his life together.

What am I entitled to when we divorce? Will it be easier since our kids are adults?

My husband and I of 30 years have fallen apart and we need to get divorced now. I left him last year for someone else because I was unhappy, when I wanted him back I found that he was with a lady 25 years younger than him and they’re apparently very in love. When things didn’t work for me and I missed my husband I told him I wanted him back. He tried to give me another chance and broke up with his girlfriend and moved back home. That didn’t work out, neither did marriage counseling. He missed her too much and couldn’t trust or love me anymore. He resorted to ignoring me at home, disappearing for a few days in his new condo to spend time with her!

I’ve been miserable, i know it’s my fault I deserve all this. He hates me, my kids hate me. My daughter is 26, 2 years younger than his girlfriend, and she likes her! She said they seem so happy together and she can tell that his gf is so in love with him because of the way she looks at him and she cooks for him and now he works out with her and he looks amazing. My daughter told me all this last week and I can’t eat I can’t sleep and there’s one thing left for me to do.

So how does this work? We have a giant house together, he has this condo he bought when he moved out, plus his own business, other properties and our cars. I never signed a pre-nup. What am I entitled to? Will this affect our kids? We have 3 and they are all married with children!

Fiance with depression?

Been engaged about a year and were planning to go to pre-marital counseling before setting date (second marriage for both of us). Noticed something “missing”. No affairs or anything related to that. There does seem to be criteria for depression. He admits that but does not seem motivated to do anything for it (Dr, meds, positive activiites) and instead watches TV every night and falls asleep on couch. We decided to call it splits (I am not going to wait on the sidelines-I have a lot o good qualities to share with another). It is hard not to take it personal but I know this is common with major depressive disorder and other types of depressive episodes. Why is it that some people are motivated to make a once healthy and productive relationship work and others are not. I guess it goes back to the depression, as well as the baggage from prior marriage (and his kids). Frustrating!

Should I leave my husband?

I am newly mother. My child is 9 months. I am a happy personal over all but I feel very dissatisfied with my spouse. We have had martial problems before my kid was born too but they are worst. I am very depressed with my husband. He is a nice guy but he doesn’t show any love or care for me. Due to pre existing martial issues and birth of my child has made my life very stressful. I love my child and I don’t have any thoughts to hurt her. My husband and I recently got in a physical fight and he hit in front of his parents. The parents didn’t not do anything but added to the drama. They started to call my relatives as a tactic to calm me down.
Anyways, my husband and I are separated now. He is staying with his parents, while I am back at my house. Now, the problem is that my husband wants to take my 9 month baby one week and will allow her to stay with me another week. This situation is adding more stress for me. Because I am not ready to be away from child on continuous basis. This is the first time he has hit me in front of other people. He also mentioned that if I don’t agree to this arrangement he will take me to court and declare me crazy and incompetent, which I am not. However, I am dealing with untreated depression which I didn’t seek treatment for because I thought he could use this information against me. Now, I want him to move back in the house so I can see my child everyday but he doesn’t want to. He wants a divorce and move on with his life. I am not ready for joint custody. I need my kids full time. I wish my husband could also love and care for me but it doesn’t seem he does or will. I am not a stupid women. I have good education and a job and I am also a good person but I cannot seem to make my marriage work. My husband is also a good person and smart guy. Not only that he is a great father.
Is it crazy for me to ask him to help me with my depression and work on fixing out marriage? I am willing to work and will put 100 percent and I want him to do the same. But he is not willing to work with me at all. I am not ready to leave him. I want to go to counseling with him but doesn’t. I still have a back ache from the physical abuse he put me through and my heart is scared. I am so confused by this whole situation.