Hi guys,

I'm not quite sure if its appropriate to put all my dirty laundry involving this situation here, as it would get plenty confusing.

I appreciate your imput and help regarding this issue. As I expected, I'm getting honest feedback, and helpful remarks.

To help clarify things a bit, we've been married for almost 8 years, but I've been living in my own apartment, after one of her daughters,told a social worker that I was abusive (not in a physical manner I MUST stress) to her and her sister, when she was admitted to the psych ward of a local hospital. The social worker told my wife that she would not release the child to her custody as long as I was living in the house, and so I was basically evicted from my home in Feb, 2004.

The now 15 y/o girl was admitted to a hospital with psychological issues, including being diagnosed as a "cutter" as well as manic depressive, that required 8 hospital visits, 4 seperate day treatment centers in an 8 month span.

Her sister (now 13) has also been seeing a therapist, for her willingness to "compete" with her older sister for attention, and the "rewards"- (attention, sympathy gifts) that she has gotten for her behavior. She has not been as drastic in her actions however.

Prior to these more recent (for lack of a better term) acts, I was unsuccessful in a career in Real Estate sales for a year, and unemployed for 6 months that added lots of stress to my wife's role as family breadwinner.

I also attended college and dropped out, in another unsuccessful attempt to make myself be more "respectable, and stable" in the eyes of her children. These attempts resulted in failure, that was very quickly noticed by the children, and capitalized upon, for them to consider me even more of a failure.
This resulted in them telliing me numerous times that I couldn't tell them what do do, since I wasn't their parent, and that the house wasn't mine,but my wifes.

As a result of my many failures, I became depressed, and for a time, would fake leaving the house to go to work or school, when in fact I would stay at home, spending my day on the computer. I lied to cover these acts up, and eventually was caught, in my lies.

My wife has deserved better treatment from me, during the course of our marriage, and to be honest, I'm not sure WHY she would want me to return to the house. I will be the first to admit that I have wronged her many times, with my own actions or lack thereof.

She is not guilt free from her own shortcomings, as she has enabled her daughters to "run" the house, and she has steadfastly refused to admit that she has given the "control" to them.

I don't know if divulging some of these details has helped any, but many of you have commented that you weren't aware of some of the issues, and have tried to give the best advice as you could give, given the limited ammount of informaton. Maybe this will help.

Fire away if you feel the desire.

Thanks
Nutworld