Our Son Died and I Feel Betrayed

So my husband and I first got together in January 2021, and because his ex-wife was living with an abusive boyfriend, we immediately moved in together to raise his 8 year old son. I was a stay-at-home mom and had a 1 year old daughter at the time, whose father passed away from a heart attack when she was only a few months old. When his son moved in, it was COVID and I also took on homeschooling him through the public school. His son immediately started causing issues (not listening, destroying his room, kicking my daughter, etc.). I wrote it off as him having been through a hard time, and my husband didn’t do anything to support me (no punishments, no backing me up on cleaning his room, etc.). He allowed his son to stay up until 4 am, to talk back to me, to ride in the car without a seatbelt, to break pretty much all of my house rules. His mom refused to help financially and barely came around, so I was supporting their son financially and trying my best to fill the role.

Fast forward to December 2021, and his son moved back in with his mom and her new felon boyfriend, who she’s now pregnant with her third child with (three kids, three baby daddy’s - two of which are felons and have lost custody of their own kids). At the time, I was pregnant with my husband and expecting a son. She starts berating me, saying that my husband is “stuck up my ass”, that their son didn’t get enough attention while he was with us and my one year old daughter got all of the attention, she starts going on Facebook and attacking family members about caring too much about me and my daughter and not enough about their son. I’m crying, pregnant, almost every night because of her abuse and my husband….does nothing. He said he didn’t want to rock the boat with her because she’s so mean and vengeful and not worth the energy. So I try my best to let it go.

I give birth in March and our son is immediately helicoptered to the best NICU in the state because of trouble breathing and oxygenating. For a month and a half, we are at the NICU until our son eventually passes away.

Three days after our son passes, his ex-wife calls to scream at him and tear me and my daughter apart. She refuses to let us visit with their son, saying we didn’t pay him enough attention while we were at the NICU. We were never able to leave the NICU, because our son was barely hanging in the entire time. We weren’t allowed visitors because of COVID. Yet, twice we drove the three hours away from the NICU to try and see their son, and she claimed their son was sick and couldn’t see us. My husband called their son at least every two days. She threatened me and how horrible of a mother I am and said I was responsible for my son dying (he died from a rare issue where his lungs didn’t create surfactant, and therefore he couldn’t oxygenate). And she kept their son from us for two months. My daughter cried over her baby brother dying, and losing her “older brother”. During this time, their son berated me and my husband, illegally charged his dads card over $500 dollars and then laughed about it saying it was all a game to him. My husband completely forgot about me and our now deceased son, pushing me aside during the worst grief I could imagine, to focus on his ex-wife and their son. It was like he forgot I existed.

Now, my husband got back every other weekend with his son after agreeing to an increase in child support. But through all of this, my husband didn’t defend me, checked out for the grief process, and just played into his ex’s will. He never even talked to his son about what his son had done wrong. And now, I don’t want their son in my house. I’m terrified for my daughter and I to continue coming last in this scenario, to have my daughter emotionally abused by the son and ex-wife, or to have my husband not be by my side again and again. I told my husband that his son can’t come to our house or be around my daughter. Is that fair?

And then I’m so upset about how my husband treats me as less to an abusive ex-wife. He always just nods and does whatever she wants, or let’s her speak horrible things about me and my kids. And my husband is military and gone one weekend a month, and now two weekends a month will be spent with his son who lives two hours away. I feel like I hardly have a family anymore or any time with my husband, let alone with him and my daughter who looks to him as the only father she knows. He says that’s unfair, since he’s home every other night, except when he will be with his son, and works from home. But we don’t see him all day while he’s in his home office, and then he spends only one or two hours with us at night because he plays video games with his cousins. He’s also starting school since the military is paying for it, so time is going to that too.

Am I wrong? I just want him to care about us and spend time with us and stand up for us. What do I do? How do I explain how I feel to him? And I’m so, so upset that he’s allowed me to be treated like this while I was pregnant and then when our son was dying/passed away. Is their a solution? My husband is literally everything I could ever ask for, and we have never had a fight and I’ve never felt let down EXCEPT when it comes to his ex-wife and their son. I am constantly stopping myself from asking him to choose them or our family, because 1) how horrible of a person/mom that would make me feel and 2) I think he’d leave. 😢😥 he’s all my daughter knows and he’s the only one who understands what it was like to lose our son.