Don't Want To Do This Anymore

I realized something after seeing my stepkids and the ex last weekend.  I've been SO looking forward to when the legal ties to the ex would end, when child support would end, that I didn't fully consider the fact that they will still do things that are difficult to deal with, that there will be college graduations, weddings, babies (hopefully in that order), that "managing" that entire difficult situation will never go away.  I knew it on one level, obviously, but the reality of that was a smack in the face after last weekend. Yes, we'll get a bonus to our budget after three more child support payments are made but it won't make it better.

It's been so long since we dealt with my stepkids and ex on a regular basis that DH and I aren't in sync anymore like we used to. Any contact results in conflict between us the last few years. This past weekend wasn't any different.  I'm still ticked at him and it's been almost a week.  

I realized after that weekend that if this is how we are going to be while with them (and hubby is interviewing for a job back in our home state - so we'd see them more often), I don't want to do this anymore.  I thought when they both reached 18, it'd get better.  It won't. Unless DH and I can get back to being on the same side instead of me on one side, his kids/ex on the other, and him in the middle with his tail between his legs, it's not going to work. We are either united or we aren't together. 

He asked me, after last weekend, why I keep putting him in the dog house. I don't put him there.  He goes in all on his own.