Adult Stepchildren Won't Leave Home

by norman
(lower alabama)

Adult Stepchildren Won't Leave Home

Help!

I am in my second marriage. My wife has 3 kids: 21 23 and 24 who still live at home. I don't know what to do: I love my wife and have supported her with some stepchildren problems, such as drugs, etc., but after 5 years, things have not changed.

My 21 and 24 year old stepdaughter and stepson are still living at home, neither has a job and neither has tried to get one. Each of them has a car, which my wife pays for in addition to gas and insurance. If they get a ticket, she pays for it.

Her daughter travels all over and hasn't had a job for the past 4 years and her son hasn't had a job in one year. Instead, he plays video games, runs the street at night and sleeps all day. Both adult stepchildren bring their friends over every night and some of them stay for days at a time.

When I try to talk to my wife about this she gets upset. I feel both adult stepchildren should be out on their own. Until then, they should at least clean up after themselves.

I am a firefighter and after working 24 hour shifts, I come home and the house is a wreck and I have to clean it up or it would not get clean. I even moved out once last year and wanted a divorce but my wife would come over every night and stay with me and promise if I moved home, she would lay down the law to her kids so after a one year, I did, but the deadline has passed.

I have tried so hard. I was by her side when she went through breast cancer. I walk on eggshells because I don't want to upset her after all she's been through. I do love her, but I am tired of these issues with her grown kids.

I hate to end a marriage that I have worked so hard to keep, but I don't know what to do. When we're alone, things are good, but this situation with the adult stepchildren has to stop. They never help out around the house unless they are paid for it and when I come home from work, I have to park on the street because the driveway is full of my stepchildren's friends' cars.

When I try to talk to my wife about this, she gets upset and says there's nothing wrong with parking in the street. When I bring up the written promise she made about her grown kids, she says she can't hold them to it. I feel hurt inside and don't know how to handle this. Can anyone give me relationship advice and tell me what to do about this situation with my adult stepchildren?