Originally Posted by t walgamuth

I will not offer specific things but suggest that you consider all alternatives carefully before making final decisions. Your long term relationship with your wife and daughter are important to you and your decisions now may impact the future very much, even perhaps the rest of your life. I would want to come to agreement with the wife particularly as you want your marriage to survive your childrens transition from dependent to independent.

I am a negotiator in my business dealings so have a couple of times come up with methods to deal with our kids problems in a positive way when the mrs. was ready to write the kids off and move on.

It is worth a lot of effort to optomize your situation for you, your wife and your daughter.....and of course your grandchild.

My daughter who got pregnant lived with us in a sort of basement apartment which we had fixed up for our son when he was in college. We coached her along and at our suggestion she did not give the child his fathers last name until they were married and refused to live with him until they were married as well. The ability to be indepenent from the child's father until the mother is in a secure situation is essential to your daughter being able to become independent from you later.

Until the father of our grandson married our daughter we treated the grandson as a part of our family, which he was as a practical matter.

Some of my friends like to spout off about what they would do if such and such happened but I always say to them "you don't know what you would do until it happens to you".