Hi,
I have Dependent Personality Disorder and I've been married (2nd marriage) to my wife now for going on 16 years. I have a biological son (with ADHD and anxiety from bullying) and 2 stepson who are both both successful adults. My struggle is twofold
1.) My bio son has a lot of baggage from his biological mother, from being relentlessly bullied, and underlying depression. My wife says that she understands his diagnosis, however is always telling him what he's doing wrong and is usually very short with him. He feels that this is not a family because he notices the differences in the way that she treats him vs her own sons and what she has always allowed them to get away with.
2.) My younger stepson is very cocky and frequently makes fun of me behind my back. I know this because I can hear the side comments that he makes to his girlfriend as well as their eye signals whenever something comes up for me to make a decision. This makes for awkward moments for me whenever he and his girlfriend are over. I am not paranoid here, I have actually heard him calling me all kinds of names saying that I need to turn in my "man card" and that I cannot make decisions, etc. He is unaware that I'm in the next room when he's saying these things.
These 2 situations intersect because my wife is very hard and judgmental of my special needs son. Her son that is so judgmental of me has been no angel. He's totalled one of our cars, lied about graduating college and had us all thinking that we were going to his graduation when in fact he failed all his classes, was fired from a retail management job when cash was unaccounted for, and also had a DUI a few years ago. He's now working in a good paying job and is independent. But is very judgmental of me because of my difficulties making decisions (DPD). He snickers when I say that I need a little time to think about something before I make snap decision (this is also partly due to my Auditory Processing Delay). And my wife immediately moved on after all of the aforementioned incidents that he was involved in as if none of them existed. But when it comes to my son, she judges him for being accident prone and immature in his own decision making. Yet my son does not drink, do drugs, never been in trouble with the law at all.
My DPD kicks in when a couple friends tell me that if it were their son, they would have ended the marraige immediately. Having DPD, this frightens me, the thought of not being in our marriage even though my son is unfairly judged and I'm covertly ridiculed by her son for having DPD. The more I write this the more depressed I'm becoming.