Between my husband and stepdaughter I am feeling nervous, upset, depressed, unhappy. My husband didn’t go into work all last week claiming he was sick. He didn’t act sick to me except for a few well-placed coughs and a few moans that his neck hurt, but that always went away when he saw I wasn’t upset. Now if he never did stuff like this then I’d tend to believe that he’s sick, but for years he’ll decide he doesn’t want to go into work and later on tell me that it’s due to someone upsetting him not an illness, and one day off will turn into a week or even weeks. Sometimes he won’t even call in, but in all this time, he has never been fired. He was at a union job for 7 years and the not going into work thing started about 2 years in. He would use FMLA as his excuse which got totally abused. Now he is at a non-union job of only about 35 people. At first he’d take a day off, call in and go back the next day. Then he’d take a day off and not call in yet would go in the next day and everything would be fine. 2 months ago he took 4 days off in a row, only called in 1 day and went back and he said everything was fine with them. Now he has been off for 5 days, only called in 2 of those days, and I am hoping he went back today, but I wouldn’t guarantee it. How does he not get fired, or seemingly, even reprimanded for this???

On top of that, his 19 y/o stepdaughter who isn’t working or in college, saying she’s got anxiety issues she needs to work on, has been up visiting for 3 days now. We haven’t seen her in 5 months. All day long she does nothing but sit on the couch watching tv with her smart phone non-stop texting or Facebooking, or whatever. She has no desire to even step foot outside but just sits there. I have never known anyone her age who just has no desire to DO anything. We only have a 1000 sq ft house so there isn’t much room. So now I come home and not only find my husband home, but now I find her on the couch! I believe she is going back today, but nothing is ever set in stone with them.

My husband doesn’t seem to care about just how upset I get with him not going to work and gives me the same empty promise day after day about how tomorrow he’s going in and then never does. I don’t like to even come home from work when my stepdaughter is there because it just unnerves me that she has no drive to do anything and that she’s always going to be right there, on the couch, all day. I can’t focus at work because my stomach is in knots wondering if he even went in to work and if he’s going to be fired. He can’t even pay close to his share of the bills so I pay nearly double what I should be paying, I do all the grocery shopping, I do all the cleaning, I am the only one who mows the yard and keeps up the garden, yet I have to come home to them doing NOTHING! The recyclables are overflowing, dirty pots and pans and grease splattered on the stove. When she’s visiting, he turns into being unable to clean up after himself as well. It makes me SO angry!