agonyaunt | zero to nuclear?

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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Where *is* LW's wife in all this? On my first read through, I thought maybe she'd died, given how little she is in a story about her own family.

And how did LW 'inherit' a 3-year old that they are not a blood relation to? I assume that their wife in her grandchild's guardian, but that doesn't mean LW is.

Did LW evict his own wife in the process?

So let me get this straight: LW's wife's daughter died and left a 3-year-old for his wife to raise. Instead of maybe acknowledging the difficulty of the circumstances, he evicts the rest of his wife's family while they presumably were grieving? I get that 10 people living in a house is A Lot, but imho there's a hole in his story that I could drive a truck through.

I wonder if maybe LW's wife should permanently evict him. Or at least LW should grow some empathy.

Yes: Hole in the story you could drive a truck through. OMG.

I have soooo many questions.

Where's the wife?

What's the timeline of all this?

Were the adult kids involved in childcare with the 3yo?

What were the agreements for them living there?

Were there any actual discussions or did he just go straight to ~~jail do not pass go~~ eviction?

Where is the wife aaaahhhh

What, pray tell, the fuck?

My dude, when a child is left to you after the parents’ deaths you take custody or become a guardian. The only thing you inherit is property.

(Though something tells me this dude might in fact see the toddler as just that: an unsellable, money-wasting property.)

Wow, this family has way too many problems for an advice columnist to fix. My God.

I hope someone is in therapy and possibly consulting lawyers.

What a mess. Prize for biggest mess.

I'm not saying that it can neverr be warranteed, but eviction is sooooooo the extreme nuclear option and the phrasing "This obviously created some hard feelings" just kind of seems to elide a lot...

What is going on here.

Where are the other three fathers, enquiring minds would like to know?
This all sounds so luridly improbable that I suppose You Could Not Make It Up?

It doesn't sound that improbable to me, in this economy, especially if they're in a region and/or class that's pretty hard-hit. In the last recession I'm not sure how many of my great-aunt's six kids, twelve grandkids, and I don't remember how many great-grandkids there were at the time cycled in and out of her house as people lost jobs, had medical crises with no health care, left relationships that were not working, etc. All it would have taken was for auntie to start seeing a dude who thought this was all about him and this could have been my family.

Thank God she did not.

"x doesn't WANT to work" is something various outsiders have said about that family, too, while they were studying to be a CNA or get their commercial trucking license or any of a number of things that would open opportunities to them. Or even while they were just reeling from a divorce or a diagnosis and needed five minutes when no one was yelling at them. Because each individual person being a lazy bum is more palatable to a lot of people than "let's talk about the labor opportunities in their region as of 1970 and what has happened to those opportunities in 2025 [or even 2008]."

What does it matter that the adult kids have different fathers? Is LW trying to paint his oh-so-very-absent wife as wanton before he married her?

Where is the wife in all these decisions? (“I allowed”, not “we allowed”….)

How did it become clear that they wanted to be taken care of rather than helped on their feet? So much missing information in just that sentence.

And so instead of working through the ugly LW caused, he’s just noping out of everything to do with her family. Which means she has to choose, for holidays, birthdays, whatever, forever. That’s a dick move.

“Inheriting” a child - nope nope nope. (Also, who would leave guardianship of a child to this ahole rather than the grandmother, who remains conspicuously absent?)

There’s also a big big difference between saying “you’ve been here long enough, you have x time to move out” vs. filing eviction notices, which gets the municipality involved. That right there is a jerk move.

The whole thing really does reek of someone trying to avoid saying the thing that will expose the depths of their bizarre choice, and completely failing to actually make themselves sound good.

Specifying unnecessary details which imply something unpleasant of the speaker's thoughts is SUCH a boomer/gen x thing, my mother does it constantly.

Please don't generalize.

Is it not a common thing for older generations? I was under the impression that it was, at least in English-speaking countries — not that it always actually speaks to malicious thoughts, but that there's a culture of clarification on things that don't matter all that much (anymore, that is), which very much can imply something to outside viewers, like pointing the camera to something innocuous, a Chekhov's Gun situation if you will. Unfortunately for older people (in every era), they are often raised in cultures that don't mesh well with the intricacies of younger folks, so something like "that black cashier who sounds uneducated" without reason doesn't sound so innocent a lot of the time, even when they don't mean anything by it.

I don't know about English-speaking countries, but I'd say it's not a common thing. Just because your mother does it, doesn't mean everybody does. Certainly this boomer/gen x'er (not sure where one generation stops and the other begins) and the ones around me don't.

I'd have imagined that me thinking it's common would imply that I haven't seen just my mother do this, but rather that she's just the first person I think of. I don't think most people only know their parents when it comes to older gens. I digress, suppose it's more spread out and/or local than I thought, but it's definitely not just my mother, no matter how you want to slice it.

As a gen Xer, thank you.

You're welcome :)

It annoys me when people make sweeping statements.

Frankly I'd be shocked if the multiple step-kids he evicted even *want* him to show up to their family functions.

zero to nuclear?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject