Worn-out welcome

[aztek]

Hi,

I'm a step-parent of two adults ages 27 (male) and 30 (female). They
are the children from my wife's first marriage. We have been together
for 17 years, and married for 14 years, so I've known and been step-
parent to these two from the ages of 10 and 13 respectively.

To make a long story short, I want DSS to get out of my space and take
all his self-caused problems with him, and my wife wants to funnel all
of her time, energy, and resources into what I call an enabling co-
dependence with him. This has been a fairly chronic issue, and my
wife and I have "beaten" this topic like the proverbial dead horse.
We never seem to get any rational discussion accomplished, however,
because she very quickly explodes into angry outburst mode whenever I
try to bring it up.

I've run over all sorts of options in my head, and I'm having a very
difficult time identifying what possibilities exist that lie within
bounds of "healthy", "fair", "reasonable", etc...

Its certainly occurred to me that leaving could be an option, but is
that "healthy" or "reasonable", considering the importance of a
marriage ? There is a strong love between us, which has stayed strong
through many difficult situations, and my operating premise thus far
has been that our love and marriage is far to precious to discard over
an issue like this, but this impasse is eroding that love (and yes,
I've expressed that to her). My feelings of being used grow the
longer this goes on, as the enabling also never seems to lessen - it
consistently escalates with more and more indication that there's
never any intention of resolving it.

What I'd call the "other extreme", just tolerating the situation and
working around it as best I can, has also occurred to me as an option,
but its not acceptable to me. Indeed, its what I've been doing for
over 10 years, so this writing comes at a time when I'm at my rope's
end with regard to tolerating the situation.

I can already sense a veritable chorus of "a marriage depends on being
able to talk these things out - have you tried talking through it this
way: <insert favorite discussion-helping technique>". Please be
assured that there has been ample effort put toward a wide array of
discussion approaches, to no avail. With that said, I'm certainly
willing to try anything truly new (i.e. I haven't tried yet) ... I'm
not very hopeful that any discussion is going to get me any further
than the "angry outburst" that she seems to favor using like a trump
card to shut down these conversations.

So, keeping all that in mind (i.e. she's made it clear that she's not
going to voluntarily change her agenda with her son), what other
options can be advised ?

I'm aware that this topic can get complicated, and also that I've not
divulged a great deal of detail about specifics of the scenario(s).
Please feel free to inquire about whatever may be helpful to any
reasoning about the situation.

Sincere thanks ...

[Wanda]

"aztek" <az...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:4888967d-416c-4729...@f29g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...

Hi,
I don't know if you have tried marriage counseling yet? The situation with
the son will work itself out I think if you and your wife can get on the
same page. Keep your marriage strong and work on problems together. Since
this is not your case because your wife is not too flexible, from what you
said, take your situation to an unbiased person. A counselor that can help
work it out. It may work in your favor or maybe in hers. Many times it lies
somewhere in the middle. But it's a start.
Hope it helps a little!
Wanda