Dear Eric: My wife has three living adult kids from three different fathers—ages 22, 29, and 32. The 32-year-old has a husband and two kids of her own. I allowed all of them to live with us since they couldn’t get along on their own.
Last year, my wife’s fourth adult child died, so I inherited her 3-year-old. We had nine people in our home. I am not their father but tried to give them an opportunity in life until I realized they didn’t want help getting on their feet; they wanted to be taken care of.
So, I filed eviction on all of them. This obviously created some hard feelings and things got very ugly. I’ve decided to cut all ties with my wife’s family due to this which obviously causes problems for her because I will not attend family functions, holidays, etc. Do you think I am wrong to do so?
—Stepfather
Dear Stepfather: My first question is, where is your wife in all of this? I don’t know the financial setup of your marriage, of course, but the home you live in is also her home, so one would think that she gets a say in who gets to live there and who gets evicted, particularly if they’re her own children. And maybe there was more joint discussion about the adult children not contributing enough to the household—nine is a lot of people—but it reads like some of these decisions were unilateral, and that can cause a lot of conflict.
There are many people who don’t have smooth relationships with in-laws. Sometimes that’s unavoidable. But your wife is your family, and so her family is your family. Refusing to engage with them puts her in an impossible position. Who is she supposed to choose?
You don’t have to let them live with you, but more conversation will be helpful here. Getting into the habit of making joint decisions with your wife, even if it requires more compromise than you’d ideally like, will help your marriage. And finding a way past some of the animosity with her adult kids will help everyone.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)
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