My Wife Demanded Separate Finances. Now That I’m Getting a Nice Inheritance, She Wants a Cut for Her Kid. (2024)

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Dear Care and Feeding,

I have two adult daughters and a 14-year-old stepdaughter. When we married two years ago, my wife and I agreed to keep our parenting and finances separate beyond the common household funds. At the time, my wife was making more than me. Well, my mother recently died and left me her beach-side condo. I planned to sell it and split the money between my two daughters and myself. They live in very expensive areas, and their rent is twice the mortgage on our home, so they could use the help.

At the same time, my wife found out that the college fund her parents promised for her daughter was just a lie. No money is set aside beyond a few grand she has saved from her child support. She is now adamant that the money should go to her daughter equally as my girls. I understand her being upset at the failure of her parents to keep their promise or that her ex is a louse, but she keeps hitting below the belt. I “obviously” don’t love her daughter or want her to have the best future.

I do, but I have been repeatedly told to stay in my lane when it comes to her.
She is a brilliant girl, but she hates going out of her comfort zone. She got into a gifted program at the magnet high school here but didn’t want to leave her friends, so she is going to the local one. There are summer dual-credit classes, but she would rather just hang out with her friends. She could be going into college as a junior if she took advantage. She doesn’t want to. My wife will not push the issue. And I don’t get to have an opinion on the matter.
What do I do here?

—College Credit

Dear College Credit,

You should point out to your wife that she was okay with keeping finances separate when she was the top earner, but now that you’ve come into some money (while she’s faced a major setback), she sees things differently. I don’t say that to suggest that you don’t help your stepdaughter out, but it’s worth acknowledging that things worked fine when she had a bit of an advantage. You should also discuss that she has wanted you to be hands-off with her daughter but now wants you to help her out with school.

Your stepdaughter’s reticence to push herself further in school is not necessarily evidence that she’s not worth investing in or that she won’t do well in college.
It’s quite normal for teens to wish to remain in school with their friends, as opposed to starting a new program all alone. I also don’t think most young people would want to start college as a junior.

I suspect you won’t like my advice, but I thought long and hard on this, and I gently suggest that you put aside some of your proceeds from the sale for your stepdaughter. You can decide exactly how much (or how little) to give, but I think the right thing to do is to help your wife with the difficult task of putting her daughter through college. However, I also think that as a condition of this gift, you should ask her to take into consideration your thoughts when it comes to her daughter’s education. She will still have the final say, but it isn’t right for her to expect you to contribute while not being able to weigh in. If you absolutely refuse to donate, which is your right, prepare for your wife to be hurt and upset. But, to be fair, that would be a consequence of the arrangement she previously agreed to honor.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

I have 50/50 custody of my almost 8-year-old daughter. The last time she was with her father, they were in a small car accident when he rear-ended someone in heavy fog. The same weekend, she was in the car with her stepmother, and they were involved in a road rage incident—some idiot sped up and around them, waving a weapon out the window. They called the police and are filing charges.

Anyway, all this has led to car trauma for my daughter, which I completely understand. I’ve tried to assure her that she is safe, but she is now anxious in the car, to the point of clutching her seat in frozen fear, screaming whenever I hit a bump on the road, and crying. I need to focus primarily on driving rather than soothing her, but I hate that she is going through this. I think the accident has affected her more than the road rage incident; from what I understand, she didn’t see the gun, and she’s talking more about the collision.

Hoping perhaps it will fade as time passes, but are there good ideas for dealing with this?

—Worried for Daughter

Dear Worried,

You should continue trying to assure your daughter that all will be well when you get in the car; let her know that while accidents happen on occasion, millions of car rides are taken each day by people across the world without a problem. However, considering that she’s had not one, but two traumatic experiences as a passenger in a very short amount of time, I think it would be worth it to take her to a therapist, who will be prepared to address the anxiety that she is dealing with and can offer coping mechanisms to help her become comfortable in the car again. Also, make sure that you, her dad, and her stepmother are all on the same page about easing her fears and that everyone is being sensitive to how she is feeling. Your daughter may not have seen the gun, but I imagine that she is aware that it was brandished, so make sure you’re also talking to her about remaining calm out in public and assuring her that while most strangers will not do her harm, it is important to remain measured and polite when dealing with people she doesn’t know.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

Our 9-year-old daughter is friends with a neighborhood girl named “Abby.” Abby is a sweet girl, but her mother is a hot mess that I don’t want to touch with a 10-foot pole. If Abby comes over for a sleepover, her mother ditches her at our door practically at dawn and doesn’t show up to pick Abby up until dark the next day. Her phone doesn’t have voicemail set up and she ignores any calls or texts about Abby.

During the week, Abby is often left alone until 10 o’clock at night. If she doesn’t eat with us, she is eating Hot Pockets. Abby doesn’t know where her mother is half the time and talks uncomfortably about her numerous boyfriends coming over and Abby being sent to play outside (she gets locked out). Abby used to live with her grandparents when she was little but doesn’t remember their full names or phone number. Talking to her mother is like talking to a wall.

My husband and I are debating what to do here. Abby isn’t in any immediate physical danger. She has food and clean clothing and is barely at the age that kids can be left alone in our state. She is doing okay in school, but struggles with certain subjects. We are moving this summer and are worried about what will happen to Abby. What steps should we take here?

—About Abby

Dear About Abby,

The Child Welfare Information Gateway describes neglect as “the failure of a parent or other caregiver to provide for a child’s basic needs,” which can include lack of adequate supervision and failure to attend to a child’s emotional needs. You should check your local laws to see how neglect and abuse are defined in your area, but I suspect Abby’s mother’s behavior would qualify. Though she may work a job that keeps her out of the home for long hours, Abby has shared with you that she spends significant time entertaining men and locking her child out of the house during the process. She is unreachable when you have her child, who often doesn’t know where she is. While I recognize that social service organizations are often under-resourced and can further complicate the life of a child, I still feel that reaching out to your local child protective services agency to report what Abby has shared with you is the right call. If your children attend school together, you may start by contacting an administrator to inform them of your concerns. While many children Abby’s age are unfortunately forced to care for themselves at home due to their parents working jobs they desperately need, this woman leaves her child outdoors to see her boyfriends. She is falling short as a mother, and I think you should act to ensure Abby is kept safe.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My teenage niece, Liza, is a kid who’s been through some tough times. She was removed from my brother’s home by child protective services when she was 8, and now lives with my husband (we also have a baby) and me. She is a wonderful kid in so many ways—kind, smart, driven—but is holding a decidedly unkind grudge against our dog, and we are at a loss as to what to do.

We got the dog 5 years ago, when Liza was 11 and admittedly, we didn’t handle it in the best way possible. We knew that my niece wanted a dog, so we thought she’d be excited too, but we did not adequately consult her as to which one. The dog also isn’t perfect (barking, peeing, some of which has improved with training). My niece has held the most epic grudge against this dog, perhaps because she feels like she wasn’t consulted, or maybe the dog has become a vessel for all of her feelings of sadness and fear of not having a family after what happened to her. We have tried to empathize with her feelings while also drawing limits on her behavior: no kicking or pretending to kick the dog and no, we are not abandoning the dog at a shelter, as she has suggested. We’ve tried simply letting her feelings be. We’ve tried talking to her about the root cause of her anger and offering to do a group session with her therapist. We’ve tried telling her she can pick a dog trainer. We even, in a moment of desperation, tried having the dog stay with my sister for a while; that didn’t work, as she complained about the dog just as often and even refused to go over to my sister’s house several times because of him (at great personal cost, as my niece loves my sister!)

This is about more than just a dog. When it comes to those underlying feelings, we talk to her about my brother (now deceased), and she has a great therapist. And we have made clear in every way that we love her, consider her a part of the family, and would like to adopt her if she’s open to it. We have a great relationship with her otherwise. But if anything, her dog grudge has escalated, and at a certain point (she’s 16 now), it has become pretty cruel (not to mention self-destructive) for her to carry these feelings against a poor dog, who is frankly pretty afraid of her.

—Dog Tired

Dear Dog Tired,

I may be getting chewed up in the comments for this one, I fear. But I think you need to rehome this dog or, at the very least, see if someone will foster her until Liza leaves your house. You absolutely should have consulted a young girl about what kind of dog you were bringing in the house, and you ended up getting one that she hates. Considering all that she has been through, I think it’s completely unfair that you’ve subjected her to five years with a dog that makes her so unhappy. It’s possible that her issues with the dog are a manifestation of her angst over her experiences, but it could just be that you got a breed of dog that she’s not compatible with. You want her to consider being adopted by you, but you haven’t prioritized her over this animal. A dog should fit in with an entire family and her feelings have been completely disregarded for a pup. I do think a group session with her therapist could be helpful to better understand exactly what her issue is with the dog, but I honestly think that her contempt for her is enough to let her go. Would you keep a dog for five years if your biological child hated it? I think that’s something to consider. Please, prioritize Liza’s feelings and get another dog. There are plenty of loving people willing to adopt a dog that needs a home. She will be fine, Liza may not.

—Jamilah

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