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

That’s just awful. He has his kids for the weekend and deliberately goes to work and leave them alone, so he doesn’t get to spend time with them? What do you see in this man?

Yanbu and he's a totally shitty parent. Don't your own kids deserve better too? I have no idea how arseholes like this ever persuade any woman to have sex with them, let alone get into a LTR with them when thier shittiness is so obvious.

Carry on with what you are doing regarding your own kids but rethink whether to stay with this useless excuse for a man.

Slightly different dynamic though when it's a stepfather isn't it @babaisyou ? Nothings expected from actual fathers, as you have proven yourself on this thread, certainly not from stepfathers and it would be incredibly disingenuous of you to suggest otherwise.
It's strange how easy it is for you to lay all this at the OP's feet. But stepmothers are easy pickings I suppose.

Yanbu, he wants it both ways; he’s assuming you’ll just take over.

There’s no point in them coming over if he’s choosing to work.
I wouldn’t have taken DSC out either as another double standard was that he didn’t want them to be upset disciplined for bad behaviour like all children, yet simultaneously got upset that no one really wanted to spend any time with them and their bad behaviour.

One could also point out, yet another woman who married a crap dad, had more kids with him, and is angry that he is still in fact a crap dad.

No one is exactly a role model here.

Which is a different point to whether he was only asking her to make some lunch.

He wasn't. He was asking her to bring them on a planned day out with other people who may or may not be ok with that. But only retrospectively, since he knew about the trip himself and didn't bother to check beforehand. Meaning he can't have thought it was that important at the time.

I'm not sure I'd assume the 14 year old in particular would find the prospect of an aquarium with toddlers an exciting prospect either. You might've, but we have nothing to indicate this particular 14 year old who usually turns down invitations would.

How is she at fault?

She is the only one communicating and asking the DSC if they want to go with her, checking on them, and letting them know when she is heading out? Their father surely isn’t. How many 12/14 yo do you know want to go to soft play?

He just goes off to work without even talking to them from the way it reads and leaves her to do it and then has the audacity to get upset that she doesn’t hang around on a day that she has told him that they will be out.

How is she at fault?

She isn’t.

Your first post makes out you have nothing to do with them, don't feed them, don't invite them out. Of that's the case YABU. Your subsequent posts say you invite them out and feed them so contradict the first one.

Either way your DH is a shit Dad.

One could also point out, yet another woman who married a crap dad, had more kids with him, and is angry that he is still in fact a crap dad.

That's what's so annoying about these threads. Woman meets man. Man already has children. Man has very likely shown to woman exactly the kind of father he is. Woman overlooks it because a) she can change him or b) he won't be like that with her precious offspring or c) completely blinded by it desperate to marry and have her own kids.

Then SHOCK, turns out it wasn't personal to anyone, he's shit and now she's surprised and frustrated!

Second wives have something first wives don't have, evidence of what the man is like as a husband and father, if he didn't step up for the first one, what makes you think he'll step up for you?

Yes it's the man that's the dick here ultimately, but the woman has also brought children into this situation, and writing this thread which is why frustration is presented to her.

I usually think would I be happy with my kids being treated like this if me and their dad broke up, in this case no I wouldn’t like my kids to be treated like this regularly. Saying that my kids aren’t that age so they may be happy with the Freedom?

You could read beyond the first post then. 🙄

My kids are 13 and 15. I would be furious. Unsupervised all day is out of order.

The solution is that he shouldn’t go to work when the kids are there and he can take them out himself then.

Do they live with you all the time? If their time with you is only weekends or almost only weekends then he's pretty shitty for arranging work during his contact time.

Either way, I agree that he can't bugger off because they don't need an adult and then complain that you're not present either.

I think some people seem to believe that it’s fine for men to use work as an excuse to avoid their parenting responsibilities. And that’s what’s happening here.

He’s an NRP; he needs to organise his work so that he’s available to see his children during his contact time. There are millions of women who arrange their work around their children in this country. He can do the same.

@PickledFrog You can’t be expected to care more about his children than he does. People insisting that you must somehow compensate for his lack of care (and deciding to fuck off to work on a contact weekend is a lack of care) are missing the point. What the children need is their father to be there. No one can compensate for that.

Enabling her husband to avoid family life will not help. He knows fine well she’s made plans and just tells her at the last minute that he’s decides to opt out and go to work.

Going to work is not an excuse. It’s not some get out card he can play. It’s actually an extremely common tactic used by men looking to pass their parenting responsibilities on to the women around them.

In this case, the OP is already operating by default as being the person who will have responsibility for her children. He is already failing in that regard. He doesn’t also get to opt out of contact with his older children and then be annoyed that his wife hasn’t just stepped in and rearranged her plans to fill the void.

That’s really shitty of DH to choose to work during his contact time with them. Why even bother having them stay round when he’s working then because the whole point they are there is to spend time with their Dad.

You aren’t doing anything wrong by carrying on with your plans OP.

Is he working all weekends? Do you need the money? What happens to the money? When he is at home how is he interacting?

Well, yes. People in general don't seem to be capable of spotting patterns in behaviour. Or following the wisdom in the phrase, "when someone shows you who they are, believe them."

I am continually baffled by it in my own acquaintances.

YANBU at all OP.

I can’t believe that blame is being put on you.

Their dad is choosing to work when he knows it’s his contact time with his children.

That’s awful.

Even if you sat at home with them every weekend or took them out on every single trip you go on, that is not going to stop them feeling rejected by their father. I imagine the rejection from him is what hurts them and not whether they’ve gone to the zoo with the some pre-schoolers or not.

No amount of attention from you is going to make up for the disregard their father shows them.

That’s the problem that needs addressing.

Before loads of people rush in claiming: work, bills, cost of living, etc. Yes. But all
of the above applies to the millions of women - many of them them the sole earner in their household - who organise their work around their children.

Being a man doesn’t make it ok to just swan off to work and assume the nearest woman will swoop in a look after your children.

I would feed them if I were there and making lunch obviously. But if I have plans to go to a soft play for example with the little ones I'm not cancelling that so I can stay home to look after DSC who apparently don't need me to look after them (according to DH).

DSC are fine. They usually end up out with friends playing football or gaming. The odd time I've asked if they want to come out with me they've said no thanks anyway.

Did you miss this?

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? 🙄

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.

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?