Step parenting

[katherine220]

Hi. I am having big problems blending our family. The two sets of children do not get on and I feel that my husband has double standards when his children come to stay. During the Xmas period his children came and stayed and as per usual arguments broke out. My problem is that his son will automatically blame my daughter even when he is not sure who has wronged him. My husband has an automatic belief of what his son says and has told me on one occasion that he knows the truth as his daughter told him what happened. This then gets me annoyed as it kind of says to me that my daughter can give her side of the events and will automatically be classed as the liar if it does not match up to what his children have said. I know my daughter is no angel (what 13 year old is?) but my husband was annoyed as she wouldn't let the arguement drop. We very nearly separated over the issue. My husband now says that the best way forwards for us is to keep the 2 families completely separate but I don't feel this is the best solution to the problem. We are now so separate that at New Year he went to see all his family on his own while I was at work which left me feeling very alone and alienated. What do I do?

[Morgause]

Put your child first. If he cannot be reasonable I don't see how you can stay married to him.

[Quoteunquote]

Sit the children down and explain there will be no external outing or screens (computers/phone/TV) when both families are together until they have found a suitable working relationships, how long that takes is entirely up to them

I assume your Husband makes individual separate time for the children that are not living with you, and that they do sometimes have your home to themselves without your daughter, so they don't feel excluded.

Let them generate the solutions and ideas as to how they are going to make a situation, where others are not dominated by their behaviour,

explain they can take as long as they like to find solutions, and if the ones they come up with first don't work, they can go back to the drawing board,

Make sure they explain to each other which bits of the situation they find hard.

Tedious and annoying restorative process, to wade through, but it puts in place a frame work to build on.

Don't give in, make sure you pre plan your responses work as a team, don't put words in their mouths, make them generate the thoughts and ideas,

If you talk, all the see is your lips moving and they hear the sound track of the last program they enjoyed.

All the children need to produce from their own mouths, how they feel, and how their behaviour makes all other family members feel.

Good luck.

And keep updating the process, they have to really think it all through carefully, if produce the ideas for discussion.

If they have to go through the process each time there is an incident, they soon choose to get along, as it is a real drag having to jump though all the hoops again.

[katherine220]

Hi. My husbands children more often than not get our house to themselves as my children go to see their father when they visit. I have told my husband that the issue needs to be dealt with fairly quickly as my children are older and soon I will not be able to enforce them visiting their dad when his children come (which I don't like enforcing now anyhow) and it makes my children feel excluded. Thanks for the advice I will certainly try to put it to him when we get a chance to talk.

[Quoteunquote]

it is the uninterrupted chance to talk that always the killer, really hard to do.

another good reason to make sure that they are the ones using energy to solve the problems.

[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight]

Hi
I understand what you mean about alienating your kids.
I've sent mine in the past to their dads or gparents when they've been ill just to make sure going along with Disney dad that sk's had rooms to use when visiting and the house to themselves.
I hated it and would never do it again, I felt awful.
I'm tempted to tell you to tell him to take them to a bloody hotel 'if it's THAT bad but see that it's upsetting you and you can't keep them separate all the time, so the advice you got above is good. Hit them where it hurts and they'll make an effort to get along. No tech gadgets sounds a good idea..
Hopefully some more seasoned sm's will be along in a bit with better advice - problems don't go unanswered on this board

[katherine220]

Thanks. It's really good to know that there are others out there in similar situations who are prepared to give good supportive advice :-)