When you marry a widower ...

paddy's_mum

I wish we could have moved into a house of our own but almost all my husband's capital was wiped out by restoring the house after the fire, not everything was covered by the insurance. We might well have moved a bit further down the line but since we'd only been married six weeks when just about everything I owned and a great deal of his went up in smoke, we didn't have a lot of opportunity to make choices or decisions.

It's interesting now to speculate what the son would have done with all his mother's things if we had opted to sell up and move? Would he have expected us to pay out for storage for thousands of useless, unwanted or obsolete items? For how long - till our own deaths?

At the time, he was living in my house at a highly preferential rent (at about 40% of local rent level) in an effort to help him make the transition from living with his father to becoming independent. He lived there for some months until he lost his job for gross misconduct and by then had turned my perfectly pleasant place into a hovel - have you seen those recent photographs of the house Doozergirl bought for some idea of how my house was returned to me, including the rat droppings in the kitchen that he hadn't noticed!:eek:

Despite it all, I have kept on trying to keep the peace, trying never to put my husband into a pig in the middle position, while holding onto my temper at some of the bloody-mindedness directed at me. My husband has repeatedly told him to mind his business and his manners but it won't work because hubby is incapable of meaning it - understandable since he lost his elder son many years ago and now has only this one chick. Son plays on this and any time there's cross words, stomps off out leaving hubby frightened to death that it may be the last time he ever sees him.

It's a very complex situation and not one that can be easily resolved but hand on heart, I can say that it wasn't me who turned what should have been a happy situation into a war zone. He even went so far as to go to a local pub and in front of my daughter and a group of her friends loudly announce that the famously-always-skint barmaid should find a rich man to marry her and put an end to all her troubles for the rest of her easy life ... "you know, like my Dad did"!

I never thought I'd be able to write all this with no compunction but perhaps it's time I had a well-deserved rant and stopped being quite such a Mrs Nice Guy. The pity of it all of course is that I love my weak, foolish and gentle hubby very much and if the only real solution is to leave to escape the unhappy things, I think I shall just have to put up with the bad to have the good.

Thank you all for your responses, suggestions and for letting me get some niggles and narks off my chest. Onwards and upwards and tomorrow is another day!

Minxy_Bella

Paddy's mum - I do understand how frustrated you must be. I don't know what it is about fathers and sons......the same degree of madness as it is with mothers and sons! The sons never seem to be able to do any wrong at all!

Oh how different it is with mothers and daughters, hey? Character-building though!

Errata

Paddys Mum - if it helps, keep posting, or writing down your thoughts somewhere. Things often become clearer when they're written down in black and white and can help to create a strategy for dealing with them.

poet123

Maybe it would have been a better move to have made the decision to live in your property and allow the son to rent the holiday home and so keep all his memories intact.

Not an easy position to find yourself in, but the son sounds as if he has little else in his life, and so is dwelling in the past. Families, particularly ones who have lost a child come with all sorts of baggage and as stepmother (even to adult children)you take that onboard too. Also, what seems like rubbish to one person is a thing of sentiment to another.

Being brutally honest there seems to be a lot of anger and resentment on both sides and this far down the line it is unlikely to improve. If you want to make your husbands life easier and have him avoid the heart wrenching expereince of "losing" another child it will be you and you alone who has to bite your tongue. harsh, and difficult but probably the only way forward.

Minxy_Bella

I was just wondering how things were going now, Paddy'smum - I hope the situation's improved for all concerned.

xxxx

mountainofdebt

I know I found it upsetting when my FIL's partner (they never married) literally gutted the family home when she moved in - I must admit I thought it was almost like as if MIL was being erased.

When FIL died, all OH was concerned in was making sure that certain items that had significant family value were taken from the house, though from what he said there were lots of things from his childhood that was left there. Whether he would be bothered if they were subsequently got rid of I don't know. He never said anything about the gutting of the house so I don't know if it upset him or not.

However I think this situation is different because of the fact that the OP has married the father tbh it sounds to me as if the son is using emotional blackmail against the father to full effect and the father is falling for it hook line and sinker and pmum is piggy in the middle so to speak.

Unless the father is willing to stand up to the son (and tell him to shut up and respect his 2nd wife) then I'm not sure what the answer is - OP what did your daughter say when the son made his comments?

mags2109

He is not a 7 yr old kid he is a 40 yr old man...if he is rude to you in what is your own home tell him to leave.

Steel_2

Paddy's mum - he sounds like a pox. Yes his mother died - 12 years ago. Any decent person would be happy their father is happy again and not lonely and miserable.

He's whining because he's just seen his inheritance disappear the little toad. He thinks if he makes your life miserable or his father's life complicated you may leave and then he's back in the money!! He's already had a lot of his mother's possessions. The dirty little pig has also had favourable rent from you, not lifted a finger for years to help his father and lost his job due to his own gross misconduct.

If I were you, recognise his nastiness for the growing pains of a pampered baby that's just realised he needs to grow up and is looking to blame the easiest target.

Make your husband the happiest man on the planet, delight in the time you have together and spend as much time enjoying yourself in his company. As the years pass, baby's rants will just become a boring part of the furniture for his friends and everyone else.

And his teeth will be even greener.

You're a lovely woman Paddy's Mum and his comments are unfair. But then he knows this and wants to hurt you however he can. Don't let him.

coolcait

I believe I may have been the author of the post which so upset paddy's mum earlier in the thread. Obviously I regret that. However, it is always a risk which we have to take when we post a conflicting view.

I have to say that I feel that my own post has been just as much misinterpreted by PM as she feels that I misinterpreted her.

None of us know what is 'precious' to others. One of PM's earlier posts referred to her throwing out a suitcase full of cards and letters 'accumulated' or 'lovingly saved' (depending on your point of view) over around half a century. Not everyone agreed with this action. Thereafter, PM referred to more obviously 'junk' items which had been thrown out.

The opening post refers to the adult son levelling the accusation that the second wife has tried to wipe out the memory of his mother. From the information provided by PM, I can see why he might feel that way. It's not clear to me what - if anything - of the mother's remains in the house.

There have been references to 'respect for the living'. I quite agree. That would include 'the son' as much as 'the second wife'. It would also include 'the husband'.

There have also been references to 'Miss Havisham', and shrines. On the other side of the coin there have been views that a second wife should not have to share space with the obvious memory of a first wife (although 'Rebecca' was not explicitly name-checked).

My personal view is that there is a huge range of options between 'Miss Havisham/Rebecca/shrine to the deceased' and 'wipe out all traces of the first wife'.

If the son was 28 when his mother died, that hints at his parents having been married at least 30 years (ish), and probably together longer. That is a lot of family history to be completely airbrushed away. For any child of the relationship, it could be seen as meaning that every part of their life prior to the surviving parent's remarriage had no importance.

Add to that the many changes to the son's life after PM met his father, and I can see why he might feel that PM is trying to airbrush him out of his father's life too.

I take on board all of the comments made about the son, his lifestyle etc. However, no matter how true those comments are, it doesn't negate the fact that - simply on the face of what PM has told us - his complaints on this point - how the house was cleared - may be justified. And, we were asked to comment on this point at the outset.

PM, when I mentioned that there didn't seem to be much respect in a number of things you had said, I was - in the majority of cases - referring to the way you were talking about the people involved. Even your husband. Not about you throwing out the more obviously 'junky' items.

(Although I do think you have underestimated the emotional power of 'mum's stuff' in the minds of the bereaved - especially when they are thinking about things like 'all the cards and drawings, and my blankie' and not 'all the salt sachets from the Little Chef').

I find it incredibly sad that a wife and mother of many years has been reduced to a recital of the things that she had kept over those years. That is where I see disrespect to the woman you have been talking about, PM.

More than poster has shared their own experiences from the other side of the coin. lostinrates and pusscat, for example. They have also given some very good advice, I believe. I hope it helps you find a solution which does not come down to your husband having to choose between his son and you.

paddy's_mum

I have - honestly - appreciated all the replies. Any response that makes you stop and think and question your own perceptions in a difficult and complex situation has got to be worthwhile.

I felt let down rather than angry but looking back, that wasn't entirely fair of me since I know the ins-and-outs while responders on here have only the neccessarily brief information I gave plus their own experiences to rely on.

Hubby and I have done a great deal of talking and considering this week. What the present unhappy situation has highlighted is some predicaments that may arise as a result of the 'feud'. What if my hubby were knocked under a bus next week and killed. I'm next of kin but what happens if I want one sort of funeral and stepson insists on another? How distressing, and loathsome, to be wrangling over a dead body :eek: Just the mere thought of it makes my stomach clench but you can bet your last dollar that the son will want his father put to rest with his deceased mother and brother whereas I might want something entirely different.


With the benefit of a week's peaceful thinking (and a weekend with my own dear, sensible, loyal, loving and supportive Mum) I have come to realise that my stepson would have hated anyone his father chose to take up with, let alone marry, and that a great deal of his venom is actually directed at his father, based on anger and Errata's "Miss Havisham" syndrome. If I get wounded in the cross-fire along the way, then that's just a bonus.

A great deal of his motive is feeling displaced - but if he'd held his tongue in the beginning, bided his time and given her a chance to prove her worth, he'd have had a friend. Instead, he treated the new lady/wife very badly for a very long time, with no justification, and created an enemy. Behaving like a spoilt brat who isn't getting his own way is immature and I cannot accept that a man then in his mid-thirties couldn't grasp that slander, sulking, greed, intimidation, obstruction, and all round ar*sy behaviour was going to do anything other than cause trouble ... or make me throw in the towel and go away

I have now come to realise that there is nothing to gain from trying any more, except to give the son more inside information (as it were) with which to make spiteful pokes at his father.

I have long observed that people who are insecure and jealous try to keep the loved one restrained and close by. It almost always backfires when the untrusted and repressed partner finally has enough, rejects not just the constraints but the entire relationship and breaks free. I usually express this as the insecure one creating the very situation of which they are most afraid. My stepson has created the exact parallel - by attempting to strait-jacket his father, he has lost his hold and his power to dictate since father has made it clear that his love and loyalty are with me. What the son failed, and still fails, to realise is that his father didn't want to be made to choose between his wife and his son. However, if the son won't give up the constant carping battle for supremacy, he must expect to be sidelined, surely?

So far as their trouble affects me, I'm happy to take responsibility for anything unfair, unreasonable or insensitive that I might have done. What I haven't been prepared to do is accept outright blame for things which were not my fault and which, in many cases, are none of the son's business in any case. On what basis does he have a right to dictate the colour of my kitchen floor tiles or insist that I may not buy a goose feather duvet instead of traditional blankets ..

It's sad, it really is and I know that it's not what hubby and I ever wanted to happen. It's just one more example of what John Humphrys described when he said "Speak in anger and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret"!

Thank you all.