There may be trouble ahead....

 There are a couple of possible 'situations' coming up, which are giving me cause for concern.  It's family stuff, which is always a problem - on the one hand, however badly behaved they are, and however much I resist being drawn into their problem behaviour, the fact remains that they are family.  My family is a bunch of angels in comparison to husband's.....although I do have one big problem relative.  Incidentally, that relative has been a giant pain again the last couple of days, just when I have enough to cope with and little patience for him.  It's husband's family who are the main problem right now though.

To give some background.....husband has 3 children from his first, very ill-fated marriage (he had them when he was little more than a child himself, with an older and extremely manipulative woman who quickly married him, as soon as he reached 18).  He has no contact at all with his eldest, a son - hasn't seen him for 15 or 20 years - the son's choice, when he flatly refused to treat me with respect.  He's hugely arrogant, a bully and downright nasty and right from the start (when he was 13) he treated me with utter contempt, fuelled by his mother and unchecked by his father, until I snapped and refused to have him in our home unless/until he apologised and gave me some respect.  Husband also has little contact with the eldest of his 2 daughters, who has a lot of her brother's 'attributes' and is foul-mouthed, extremely sarcastic and bitchy and spends most weekends posting pictures on FB of her falling out of pubs and nightclubs with her, all clearly drunk, friends.  She's in her early 50s by the way, she's not a teenager!  Husband's youngest daughter is, by contrast, lovely - she's married to a really nice bloke and has 2 adult children, they're a lovely and normal!! family.  The current problems are centred on husband's eldest daughter.....I know a situation is almost certainly going to blow up very shortly (it's brewing already) and, whilst I really don't want to get involved, I know I'm going to have to make some decisions and manage things, since husband won't be able to.  

Whatever I say is not going to go down well, I'm fully aware of that, and I will be painted as the wicked stepmother once again.  Which in itself doesn't really bother me - I and those who are close to me know the truth of what's happened over the years and that's all that matters.  But it is a shame for husband, especially now he's older and has all these health problems which are only going to get worse.  Although, to be blunt, some of the problems with his 2 elder children were exacerbated by husband himself and his mismanagement of the situations.

I find as I get older (and have more health problems myself, as well as managing husband's), I am less willing to put up with bad behaviour or stupid drama.  In my 60s and onwards, I just want a peaceful life.....I would say peaceful and easy, but it's never going to be easy, going forward.