[rockandhardspot]

Please help not sure what to do, running away to some remote island is sounding really good right now.

I have been married to my husband for 13 years (together for 15).
We each have grown children from previous marriages( my two girls are now 19 and 20). He has always been much more lenient with his two children especially when they were younger, he has always been much more strict with mine. He doesn't seem to have anything to ever talk to with them or anything positive to say about them. He says he is harder on mine than he was with his because he feels like he failed with his. Both of his kids turned out wonderful and finished college and have a good relationship with him, so I think it is just an excuse. The problem is that the difference in how he treated his children and how he treats mine now is threatening to tear my little family apart, the resentment I am feeling towards him is almost too much. He and my kids had a good relationship until they got into their teens and especially my older daughter whom sometimes can be mouthy and rude. We had an incident last night where she was getting mouthy with me and my husband intervened and proceeded to call her boyfriend stupid (he is really a bad egg and she know we don't approve and continues to date him anyway) and it escalated on both sides from there. In the process of my trying to calm my husband down he pushed me down twice (not hard or abusively), when I got between the two of them to try to get them to stop my daughter egged the situation on by telling him she knows he wants to hit her to which he replied it would be worth going to jail over. My daughter left for the evening and stayed at her boyfriends house. This whole incident has just left this awful hole in my heart and I'm seriously considering divorce, families just shouldn't treat each other like this. I don't know what to do. On top of all this I am now helping take care of my 81 year old grandmother with alzheimers and getting ready to leave in a week for another Army school out of state for 3 months.

[gardensparrow]

Ugh...what an awful situation to be stuck in the middle of! Blending two families together is never easy and it can be particularly hard if you and your husband are on different pages of how to raise your kids and how to treat them. I guess the first thing I wondered on reading your post is if your husband would be willing to go to a counselor with you and discuss some of these concerns you have? Maybe even someone your whole family could eventually see together? If he won't agree to this, it still might be worth it to talk with someone on your own and get a professional take on what's been going down in your household. And, speaking of counselors, if you're interested, I've come across a couple posts here and here during my time at Focus on the Family from their licensed therapists on similar issues. So, may not hurt to read through their advice if you have a second. Well, I hope you're able to work through these problems and find some peace in your family. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers!