To think husband doesn't get to have it both ways re children?

Is he choosing to work weekends during his contact time because you need the money and he needs to provide for all his kids or are you well off enough that he doesn’t have to work these hours? To me there’s a big difference between buggering off to the pub with his mates and working for the good of the family. Some people are too quick to judge this guy as a shit dad but then also too quick to judge others who don’t provide for their children. Imagine if this man didn’t bother working and didn’t pay child support, people would be all over the fact he’s a dead beat dad who should get a job and work all hours to support his multiple kids with multiple women.

I was just thinking, I wonder where this stuff about you knowing what he was like before having DC with him had come from. You'd said nothing about his behaviour when the DSC were younger. Now we see it was purely assumption from that poster.

Leaving aside the main issue of the step dynamic, there are some fairly OTT responses on here about the kids being left all day at 12 and 14. Mine are that age and as a single parent, in the holidays or weekends i will sometimes disappear for several hours at a time leaving them to sort their lunch etc. I have things to do and they are perfectly happy in the house. If they are unwell, (cold/ headache, not vomiting or bed bound) I go to work. I do think the dad here is out of line but the hysterical pearl clutching about the "poor kids" being abandoned is the wrong angle to come at it from.

Exactly.

And why would he change if OP continually sorted it for him?

Your husband is a lazy father.

It is NOT on you to parent his children.

I assume you don’t have full custody of the children so he should be actually spending time with them during the minimal time they’re at your house.

stand up to him and tell him to parent his fucking kids.

A day out planned in advanced that the DH knew about!

You make it out as if she just grabbed her children and went out without the older children without a word.

Again, her DH could have asked her if she and her sister would have minded to take them along when they had planned to go and also asked the older children then if they wanted to go and the children would have been up early and gone along.

Would it kill their dad to? I love how shit fathers are just accepted and women are expected to fill in for them. The kids are there for contact time WITH HIM, not OP. The way he’s treating them is going to impact them, he’s a horribly selfish man.

He sounds like a shit father, checking out of family life. YANBU

As a teen I would have loved to have the house to myself, or myself and a sibling. I would have hated an outing with a toddler or two.

And surely that is the point. Are the SC happy?

Do they want to do anything on the weekend? With or without you and your DH?

Money for the cinema and a pizza or an outing somewhere.

if the kids feel like that, that’s entirely on their father.

‘Kids are paramount’ - yet not to their father, so the responsibility falls on the stepmother? That’s convenient! Basically, she’s allowed to take issue with this as long as she sucks it up and does what he wants anyway. Because that emotional blackmail is supposed to work on women, whereas men are tutted at and expected to continue being men.

Fuck no, and I’m glad she didn’t fall for that one.

How does it contradict?

Nowhere in her first post did she write that she doesn’t check on them or engage with them.

He's shown you what kind of father he is.

You need to decide what to do with that information.

Would you want this for your own children?

My ds is 13. I would be livid if he was treated this way.

Except that those whose husbands already have children and who are great dads that don't dump on the stepmum, don't need to post on here because we are on the whole pretty happy.

No one denies that there are different expectations/ pressure on males and females when it comes to parenting and no one is saying that is fair. It's 'disingenuous' of you to suggest that I am implying this.

The fact is that OP went for a day out with her own two biological children and left her two step-children in the house without inviting them.

I can tell you that as a stepchild myself, that would have hurt like hell. Stepchildren are incredibly sensitive to things like that. Whatever is going on between this couple, the children's feelings should have been paramount. She should have invited them.

Neither OP nor her husband are behaving in a way that is in the best interests of their children. I am not 'laying all of this at OP's feet' - I have repeatedly said that they are both at fault.

OP went out to an exciting place that they probably would have liked to go to.

They're 14 and 12, not 4&2.

They've been invited on days out and declined. They spend their time with friends playing football or gaming, sounds to me like they are perfectly happy.

It's OP's husband, feeling guilty because he knows he's not prioritising his children and he's decided to make that OP's fault rather than take responsibility and adjust his own actions.

People on here get so dramatic when it comes to stepchildren. Assuming the kids want to spend the day with their stepmum and much younger siblings rather than doing what they enjoy with their mates.

The only one in this scenario who sounds unhappy is the husband. So it's up to him to change things.

I obviously did which is why I have just said your subsequent posts contradict your first post. What's your point?

It doesn't sound transactional from OP's side at all @CountFucula . She just has boundaries. We are so used to women, especially stepmothers not having them, it makes us question it when they do. Boundaries are healthy, show good self esteem and are a great example to set to kids. If you give men like this an inch they take a frickin mile and more.

Where did I attach more blame exactly? Can you specifically point that out?

But yes, she could have made better choices.
Is that really debatable?

He's a shitty dad. The evidence was already there with the older kids.

She wasn't conned.
.

Poor kids - they have a shitty dad.

and I cannot imagine treating children this way - good that you ask them to come with you anyway - it’s the right thing to do.

it all sounds very transactional in your side though OP - imagine your own children being treated like this?

The voting is more sensible and lacking as much projection than the comments.

He’s being incredibly out of order OP, carry on as you are and take no shit from a man who chose to bring at least 3 children into the world and can’t be bothered parenting any of them at the weekend if he can hide from them at work and expect someone else to do it for him.

Yes. Let’s make sure that, even if we can bring ourselves to acknowledge a man’s failings, that we attach more blame to the woman affected by it.

She should just have made a better choice, shouldn’t she? 🙄