In November 2022, my wife died. I have three adult stepchildren that she left behind. They have all made it clear that I am not their dad, even though I have been in their lives for over ten years. In his spare time, their dad has moved to the Philippines.

The numbers are 21, 22, and 25. Because of how expensive it is to live in our city, their mom and I have been helping them find a place to live. The baby is still in school, but the other two have jobs. After their mother died, they didn’t do anything around the house. They saved money because we didn’t charge rent. Besides that, the older two were in charge of their own bills. You name it—I paid for it all—power, water, Internet, and everything else. We even made sure the little ones had food.

They no longer help out around the house. I had to hire someone to help me clean. It’s not smart. I put the house on the market. Since I bought it, the price has gone up so much that I could now live in the Philippines if I wanted to. My house sold right away, and I’m now moving to my cabin. I told each kid that the house was sold and gave them $10,000. They knew what was going on because they saw the “for sale” sign and went to the open houses.

I don’t understand what’s wrong. You sold your home. Always. You were nice and gave money to three people who were living in the house but were not related to you. The end. They are mad at me now that I kicked them out of their house. They might have grown up there, but they never thought of it as much more than a place to sleep.

What they did to me and our house would make their mom sick, I think. They got an apartment by pooling their money, but in a year they will have nothing if they only rely on the money I gave them.