really bad home issues... could use some help

i was talking about the IDIOTS that said that i was making all of this up and trying to get money out of people that was no towards anyone trying to help.

Join the Army.
End of story.
It is easy, quick, and will solve your financial problems AND will get you in the best physical shape you have ever been in.
AND you will gain a job skill that you can use for the rest of your life.
I am failing to see how many other choices you have.
Unless you are happy being on welfare/food stamps

This is not always an option. My 18 year old son can't enlist because he didn't make weight by 6 pounds. He has to lose the weight first before they'll let him in. So, everyone who keeps saying "Join the Army" "Join the Army" like it's some be all end all to the situation needs to chill for a second. It may not be as quick and easy as you might think. IF it's an option, I say great!!! Army, National Guard, Air Force...whatever, but just think for a moment...it may NOT be an option at all.

18 years old and needs to drop 6 lbs?
Then he can sign up for the DEP (Delayed Entry program). The recruters will work with him to drop weight.
Again, it all depends on how badly someone wants is.

i was talking about the IDIOTS that said that i was making all of this up and trying to get money out of people that was no towards anyone trying to help.

Join the Army.
End of story.
It is easy, quick, and will solve your financial problems AND will get you in the best physical shape you have ever been in.
AND you will gain a job skill that you can use for the rest of your life.
I am failing to see how many other choices you have.
Unless you are happy being on welfare/food stamps

This is not always an option. My 18 year old son can't enlist because he didn't make weight by 6 pounds. He has to lose the weight first before they'll let him in. So, everyone who keeps saying "Join the Army" "Join the Army" like it's some be all end all to the situation needs to chill for a second. It may not be as quick and easy as you might think. IF it's an option, I say great!!! Army, National Guard, Air Force...whatever, but just think for a moment...it may NOT be an option at all.

18 years old and needs to drop 6 lbs?
Then he can sign up for the DEP (Delayed Entry program). The recruters will work with him to drop weight.
Again, it all depends on how badly someone wants is.

His recruiters are working with him to drop the weight, I was just making the point that saying "Join the Army" like it's a given isn't exactly always as easy as it sounds. If the person isn't within the right weight class for their age and height, they have to do some work first before the Army will let them in. I have no idea where the OP falls regarding weight, so there is no telling how much she has to lose or gain or whatever for joining.

That sucks. I have a bit of an understanding of what you are going through. I think that if your stamps are part of your father in law's case, you should change yours and your husband's into your name. That will allow you control over your stamps to avoid any fraud (sharing food purchased with others not on the case). I know anything you do will rock the boat and make things more unpleasant.

Let's look at the worst case scenario: you piss everyone in your extended family off and you become homeless. You would still have your job. You would still have your food stamps. You can get emergency housing. You can get emergency assistance, but you may feel guilty. Would that stress be worse than the stress you feel now?

About me: I was married for seven years to a physically violent man and had three children with him. He got fired from jobs constantly. He broke my nose while I was pregnant with our third child. I worked two jobs while pregnant until my doctor put me on light duty. This ticked him off because he didn't feel he should have to work. I have lived in some horrible low income places. I stayed away from everyone and my apartment was one of the few the police didn't make a part of their regular stops.

I got smart and went to college, completely on grants and loans. I got a car I could drive back and forth and hired someone to watch the kids while I went to school, or had family help. Sometimes I paid babysitters in food and other services, like canning, sewing, cleaning their apartments, etc. I divorced. I made some hard decisions. I was stressed, so I ran or walked or cleaned. Anger is energy, you have to use it for your own good. Some days I was powered by anger resentment and grief.

I graduated. I remarried. My husband is a wonderful person who works his tail off to provide for his family. My family in law tries to take advantage of him working and "borrow" money. We do still help when we can, but we get our bills paid first. I have no control over that, so I use my frustration to do a better job cleaning the house or jog faster pushing the baby in the stroller. I got an hour in this morning because I was so irritated. It helped, and now I can look back at that as a victory for my day.

Point is, it does suck. It will always suck living there. It will suck more once there is a baby screaming from being ignored. Or maybe you will feel bad and step up and then resent having to care for the child when you shouldn't have to. You went in for the right reasons, you have to find a way to get through this with your head up and your dignity intact. Dig deep. You have it in you.

Is it your foodstamps or hers? If it is yours, then you buy the groceries and get the things you and your hubby wll eat only. If they want junk, they can go buy their on food. Quit buying soda and junk and you will have better food.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. If they are YOUR food stamps buy what YOU want. If your housemates give you grief, find a way to ignore them or shut them up. If they are your sister's food stamps, there isn't much you can do. And I agree, stop buying soda and junk so you can spend that money on something with nutritional value.

Congrats on the new job. Things will start looking up soon!:flowerforyou:
ETA: I didn't read all the other posts (didn't realize there were already 7 pages), so I apologize if my post is redundant!

Just my .02
You are not going to get a lot of sympathy on this board.
MANY of us had to overcome a great multitude of problems to get where we are.
My own personal "sob story".
I own a house. Wife and two kids.
My wife lost her job when the company she worked for went belly up.
A few months later I lost my job when the company moved to India.
I was without a job for EXACTLY three days.
I went from making 60K a year with an office in the dot com industry to making $8.00 per hour installing fences. Working in the hot sun digging post holes and dealing with ex felons as my work mates.
I did what I had to do.
I worked as many hours as they would let me work.
We went from $400.00 per week on food to less then $200.00
My wife worked as many baby sitting jobs as she could.
Failure was simply NOT an option. Not with two little kids.
Now I am back as a programmer and my wife turned her "please let me babysit your kid" part time gig into her own little home day care. She is making 40K per year and working from home.
Your attitude MUST change.
Instead of you and your husband making excuses as to why you CAN'T do it, you need to look in the mirror, together, get pissed, and resolve that you WILL do it and you will DESTROY anything that gets in your way. Bad temper, DESTROY that bad temper. TAKE CONTROL!!!

BRAVO! :flowerforyou:

i hope you and your wife are extremely proud of yourselves for pulling yourselves out of a terrible situation because i know i am.

Actually, we are. Before the dot com bust, we were living at our means. Both had nice new cars and all the toys we could afford.
Now, our credit is shot (still a slow rebuild) but we now own everything we have with the exception of the house payment.
We learned a lot.
My dog died about three months ago and I cried. Then I tried to remember the last time I cried before that.
I cried in 1993 attending a Military funeral.
Then I remembered. I had hurt my shoulder pretty bad and I still went to work digging those post holes. If I didn't work, I didn't get paid. Just that simple. I came home afterwords and I was just SO frustrated that it just came out. Big ol sobs.
My wife was terrified. She had no idea how to react.
I was just SO pissed and frustrated at the situation. I was tired and I was in pain.
BUT, the moral of the story is that, as a team, we KEPT FIGHTING.
And now, we are breathing much easier.
One nice thing about manual labor is I DID hit my target weight.

Just my .02
You are not going to get a lot of sympathy on this board.
MANY of us had to overcome a great multitude of problems to get where we are.
My own personal "sob story".
I own a house. Wife and two kids.
My wife lost her job when the company she worked for went belly up.
A few months later I lost my job when the company moved to India.
I was without a job for EXACTLY three days.
I went from making 60K a year with an office in the dot com industry to making $8.00 per hour installing fences. Working in the hot sun digging post holes and dealing with ex felons as my work mates.
I did what I had to do.
I worked as many hours as they would let me work.
We went from $400.00 per week on food to less then $200.00
My wife worked as many baby sitting jobs as she could.
Failure was simply NOT an option. Not with two little kids.
Now I am back as a programmer and my wife turned her "please let me babysit your kid" part time gig into her own little home day care. She is making 40K per year and working from home.
Your attitude MUST change.
Instead of you and your husband making excuses as to why you CAN'T do it, you need to look in the mirror, together, get pissed, and resolve that you WILL do it and you will DESTROY anything that gets in your way. Bad temper, DESTROY that bad temper. TAKE CONTROL!!!

BRAVO! :flowerforyou:

i hope you and your wife are extremely proud of yourselves for pulling yourselves out of a terrible situation because i know i am.

Actually, we are. Before the dot com bust, we were living at our means. Both had nice new cars and all the toys we could afford.
Now, our credit is shot (still a slow rebuild) but we now own everything we have with the exception of the house payment.
We learned a lot.
My dog died about three months ago and I cried. Then I tried to remember the last time I cried before that.
I cried in 1993 attending a Military funeral.
Then I remembered. I had hurt my shoulder pretty bad and I still went to work digging those post holes. If I didn't work, I didn't get paid. Just that simple. I came home afterwords and I was just SO frustrated that it just came out. Big ol sobs.
My wife was terrified. She had no idea how to react.
I was just SO pissed and frustrated at the situation. I was tired and I was in pain.
BUT, the moral of the story is that, as a team, we KEPT FIGHTING.
And now, we are breathing much easier.
One nice thing about manual labor is I DID hit my target weight.

And for the rest of today I shall call you my hero!

I cut almost my entire family out of my life a year ago when I got divorced and I took the opportunity to make a lot of changes in my life. It wasn't easy but my biggest regret now was that I didn't do it sooner.

This is pretty much echoes what I want to say. The situation you are in is toxic. If you are self-aware enough to want to make things better, you are not like them, and you need to save yourself. You can't save your husband, and you sure as hell can't save his family. I stayed in a bad situation for far too long, with an ex-husband who simply lacked the desire to do anything. I was convinced I loved him (I think I was afraid no one else would ever have me,) that he couldn't survive on his own (I think he's happier now that he can be the absolute minimum person he can be,) and that I couldn't make it on my own (I worked food service and retail when I was married to him. I have earned three degrees since I left him. I am working on my Ph. D. now and I get paid to do research.) I don't know you, of course, but I wish I had left sooner, before I was so old, and before so much of my life was spent trying to make him be more than he was capable of being.

I would say that I wish someone had said all this to me, but I think that more than one person did, although perhaps not so bluntly. I will instead say that I wish I had listened, instead of immediately going on the defensive.

I was in a similar situation, many years ago. I had to make the changes. You are in a toxic environment, and sorry to say but by saying it can't change is adding to the likelyhood that it will not. There is nothing you can do about anyone else, people will change only if they want to- you can't do anything to make them want to. You have a household full of problems-get out of them. Make a plan, day by day and make a change day by day.
My husband (divorced now) would not work, decided one day just to do nothing- it was stressful, got evicted (this was 15+ yrs ago).
I went to work- I got flyers made and went house to house in nice areas to get a house cleaning business going, where I could charge $15 an hour to clean- because minimum wage wasn't going to cut it. I got 6 jobs right away- at 3-4 hours each job, that was an additional 270-350 a week. Eventually we got divorced, (for many reasons other than non support) and I found myself a single parent, I needed to make more $$. So I pushed to get some more houses- and I did, as well as took jobs in restaurants on off times and nights and weekends. I made it work. I lived with family briefly- but that is not a solution, it was just temporary. Got on my feet- and stayed on them. Better jobs came with more experience, you can do this. Now this has very little to do with MFP topic of food control, but if you find a way to get out, (I also lost a ton of weight those months first door to door with flyers- then cleaning huge houses- oh yeah I got a great workout). But you have the power to change your environment- fear is usually what immobilizes people- hope it changes for you soon- moving is an option-move forward and make a plan!

OK... this is really making me crazy.
Contact an Army or Air Force recruter.