Your Second Husband Won't Adopt Your Kids

I am sorry to hear that you are unwell. You are in a terrible bind and there is no easy answer to your situation.

You need to begin couples therapy right away. In session, focus on talking about feelings, and don't discuss the subject of your impasse head on (will he or won't he adopt your kids) until all the feelings are on the table. Oftentimes discussing and resolving feelings is all that is needed to overcome an impasse, whereas tacking the impasse head on can often create a bigger deadlock.

I know that you said that your husband needs to be number one, but I don't think that you have fully grasped the severity of his emotional disturbance. Your husband has a tremendously childish aspect to his personality. He acts like a mama 's boy who is one of your children instead of your husband. He wants you to put him first, ahead of your kids. No wonder he doesn't want to take your children.

He relates to you like you are the mommy whose job it is to nuture him. He doesn't want to grow up and be responsible for children when he is a child himself. This explains why he refuses to accept adult responsibilities. Most men would take it for granted that when they marry a woman with children they automatically assume responsibility for those children. Your husband wants his cake and to eat it too! He wants you, and not all the responsibility and baggage that you have brought with you. In therapy he needs to explore why he needs to remain in a childlike state. Was he overindulged as a child? If so, this would explain his sense of entitlement.

Or, on the contrary, was he emotionally deprived as a child? This would be another cause for his sense of entitlement (people who were deprived as kids often expect their life partners to make up for their early losses). My point is, the reasons behind his not wanting to take care of your kids is a symptom of his own unfinished business.

Unless he gets in touch with his feelings and where they stem from, your deadlock will never be overcome. You can choose to continue playing the role of mommy to him while you are alive, and you can choose to feed his illusion that he is first in your life. However, the fact is that your children must come first. They are in their formative years and they need to be protected and provided for.

If he isn't capable or willing to do so, then you are going to need to come up with an alternate plan for caring for them. If you don't have a family member or friend who will take your children, then he is forcing you to become single again so that you can search for a more suitable life partner and parent for your children. I hope that he doesn't force you to choose between the real children and the man who still acts like a child, but isn't one any longer.