My fella, step dad to my children ages 11 and 14. He has two of his own but they are now 19 and 20 - he didn’t see them much growing up maybe every other weekend and they rarely see him now they are older.
he gets really annoyed at my children, like he’s never had kids before. My youngest child forgets to replace the toilet paper so start using one off the refill stand. My son is 11 and is neurodivergent, but my fella thinks it’s all an excuse for bad behaviour and poor listening. So my fella won’t replace it himself, he just leaves it as it is. I therefore sort it out and replace and get more loo rolls in there and chuck the old rolls away. Then my fella seems to get annoyed.
my daughter had a hair bobble that had dropped into the drain of the shower tray. My fella said I am just going to leave it there and she can remove it herself as I am not doing it. It just seems so petty.
They leave some of the doors open downstairs (we have a dog and try to stop it going upstairs but we also like them shut in winter to keep warm) but then my fella sometimes leaves them open too.
they make drinks and leave the glasses on the side but then so does his eldest son (20 years old) when he comes round. If they have a glass of milk sometimes they forget to put it in soak.
it is rare that I hear anything positive about my children when he has been home on a morning and I have gone to work - he constantly moans about how they were. He criticises them constantly sometimes to their faces and sometimes behind their back to me.
at work he is so very patient and kind. But at home that patience rarely exists.
i don’t know what to do. The children just don’t seem happy with his nit picking. When I do rise to defend the children and say they are kids they need to learn etc. he gets annoyed. He said they are old enough to change a loo roll, shut doors, get hair bubbles out of shower trays, put glasses in soak etc. He said we used to be a team - we probably did in his eyes as I just used to agree with him all the time.