Frustration

I live like every normal person out there. I work 40+ hours a week trying to support my family. We struggling to make ends meet, staying stressed about the bills, not just worrying about getting the bills paid but paid before cutoff. Surprising, that is not what is frustrating to me.

What is frustrating is that I bust my butt every day working a job through a temp agency making $9 an hour doing a $16 an hour job because there are not that many jobs out there. Then have to live with the fact of knowing that my husband’s ex is living in government housing, getting medical, food stamps, and having her rent paid by the state just because she has one of her kids living with her. We have custody but that is where my stepdaughter wanted to be. She doesn’t do anything for her son that still lives with us and when stepdaughter needs something it is either us or my in-laws have to get it for her. Her mother does nothing, has all of her bills paid for her, has medical and doesn’t have to work or do anything for her kids while I work fort next to nothing and stress about bills. How is that fair. I think that to get benefits there has to be at least one adult in the home working but it doesn’t work like that.

Don’t get me wrong, we are on food stamps and my husband and the kids are all on medical. He works construction and his work is pretty slow right now which puts more stress on me. He qualifies for medical and so do the kids and his ex even has medical but I work and pay my bills and can’t get medical. Because I work more than 30 hours a week I don’t qualify for it but if I don’t work more than 30 hours I can’t pay my bills. How is that fair.

It kills me that my mother-in-law even said that she could understand why the ex-wife doesn’t work because she has not car. When we lived down the street from her, we didn’t have a car, he was getting a ride to work with a friend and I was riding the bus back and forth to work and to school. She is no better than I am. She can take the bus and get a job like everyone else. It would do no good to get my stepdaughter back up here with us and take her to court for child support. We have to file injured spouse form with our taxes every year for back child support that was not paid because the kids were living with us and we were not going to pay her for the kids living with us and still be supporting the kids. The child support office tells him that he still owes for benefits that she received. We file taxes at the beginning of February and it is May before we get it. Then we only get half because they give it to her. We would lose more money going back and forth to court trying to get her to get a job and pay the child support than we would getting the payments. It is not worth the loss in income from the time missed at work. She would not pay it anyways. She would just call my mother-in-law and tattle to her like she does every time she does not get her way. We called her and asked her one day to take my stepson (her son) to his doctor appointment so that I would not have to borrow someone’s car to get to work so that hubby can have our van to take him. She told me that getting him to the doctor was not her problem. How is that not her problem? He is her son. Then a week later has my stepdaughter call wanting us to drive 40 minutes one way to take her five minutes down the road. But we are wrong for not dropping everything to come to her service. How is it that we have to come there to do for the child that is living with her but she doesn’t have to do anything for her child that lives with us?

I am so tired of the double standard. My husband didn’t make these kids by himself. She even has a son in California that she has not seen in over ten years. She says that she is their mother and I am not but I do more for the kids than she does. Then I have to hear from my stepdaughter that I was the reason that her mother was never there for her. The only way that we could get her mother TO be there for her was to let her move in and then she was trying to break up my marriage by feeding my husband full of lies and getting us arguing. He finally realized what she was doing and kicked her out and even more problems started. Sometimes I wish that she would just pack up and move back to Oregon where she came from and leave everyone alone. But life cannot be that easy.

I know that I am rambling but it just kills me that she can sit on her butt not work while I am stressing about bills and working my butt off. She tells us that she has a job. She says that she works for two hours a week donating plasma. I told her that is not a job. I told her that is something for people that just need a few extra dollars and that she needs to find a job. I told her that when she works the hours that I do and deals with the stress that I do every day then she could talk but until then she I didn’t want to hear from her that she is stressed. The only thing that she is stressed about is the 22 year old that she is seeing staying sober long enough to do something for her. She is 38 and still won’t work and still messing with someone that is about the same age as her oldest son. How messed up is she. She told me one day that I was jealous of her. What is there to be jealous of? I have a job, a home, and a van that is paid for. I am about 50 pounds lighter than her. I have her ex-husband and have managed to keep him and I have custody of her kids. What is there to be jealous of?