Ask Amy: Partner contemplates future with awful children
Dear Amy: My boyfriend of eight years has raised perfectly awful children.
They lack basic kindness and empathy toward their father -- and toward others in general.
I have raised two children of my own who volunteer, assist with nonprofit organizations, and are wonderful and caring individuals.
We mainly spend time around my family; his children are in college.
We don't spend any time with his daughter. She won't accept that he is even dating me (I ruin her perfect picture of what a family is), and his boys are very selfish and self-centered.
Their behavior leads my daughters to question why I would stay with my boyfriend and tolerate his kids' behavior.
We don't live together, and I try to distance myself from much interaction. But when I hear his children speak to him disrespectfully, it leads me to doubt whether we can ever be together because of the way they act.
My boyfriend and I are in our 50s and have been working toward a combined life for some time. His kids cause me to question our future.
Before moving ahead in selling houses and possibly marriage, I would like to know how to reconcile these differences in my own little brain and be OK with one set of offspring acting one way and the other one acting completely differently. I wonder how I can manage to tolerate this if I stay with my boyfriend.
-- Worried
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