Readers, please send your letters. They can be emails, formal letters or handwritten notes. They are edited solely for grammar and spelling. Also, they are sometimes edited for length.
Dear Doctor Love,
My husband and I have been married for twenty-four years. He is an excellent provider for me and he obviously loves me as much as I love him.
We get along very well except for one thing. He has a son and daughter by a previous marriage. My husband was a “weekend father” who was never really close to his children. According to him, his ex-wife tried to make things as uncomfortable for him as she could and did everything she could to turn the children against him. Because of this he sort of kept his distance from them. Eventually he lost contact with the daughter but the son is still around.
His son is married and has an adorable four year-old daughter that my husband and I dearly love. We never see the son except the times when he wants us to baby sit for him. Then he drops the child off and disappears for the weekend. The son has always lived a wild life style and along with his wife he sells drugs as well as uses them. It breaks my heart to see the child brought up in this kind of life.
My husband knows the situation but he ignores it like an ostrich with his head in the sand. He does not even want to know about the son’s behavior. I have been urging him to take legal steps to get the child in our custody. My husband loves the child but he says it is his son’s business and if we try anything he will probably quit bringing her around. I think that his attitude about it is a mistake.
I am really starting to resent every thing about this but the baby. What can I do?
/s/Resentful
Dear Resentful,
Your husband has made plenty of mistakes in his past but this time he is probably doing the right thing. We cannot police everyone in our own little world and the fact is that the child belongs to the son and his wife. People like that can usually only hold their lives together for a while before it comes collapsing down around them. The jails are full of them.
You should enjoy your grand daughter at every opportunity and show her all the love that you can. There is a chance that circumstances will bring her into your custody. Even if it does not, you will have the satisfaction of helping to bring her up with your values as part of her life.
