Co-parenting with an alcoholic —children refusing contact. What now?

to clarify OP. Is your husband the father of your children?

how old are your children OP?

I’m autistic and you have my sympathy over the unknown here.

if they were with you 50% before then presumably they had proper places to sleep already?they are old enough you won’t need to sort childcare for them? The additional cost of having them full time would be bills and food. Sit down work out how much this looks to be. If you have them full time ex will owe maintenance although if she’s on benefits and not working this will be like £7 a week but use the child maintenance calculator to check.

if you have equality in your home then your partner should already be doing half the housework and cooking. If you are in fact responsible for all this and worried about the increase then your partner needs to step up and do his share.

completely different situation for me but my kids live with me full time and my partner want their dad. All was good until my disabled child lost his school place and I had to stop work. Like your situation my partners income meant we were intitled to no help. We muddled on for a few months but my partner was definitely resentful of the financial burden he had to shoulder. And while I don’t think the state should support when a family jointly has enough money it caused a lot of tension my children’s other parent refused to shoulder the burden and it was left to their step parent. Ultimately it broke my relationship and we split. I now get UC and have a much smaller house to clean so I’m happier with that. The resentment around money it hard to deal with. You need to either accept it or make it clear you won’t shoulder it, it’s not ok to moan about it for months as your partner literally cannot change his situation unless he gets a second job and leave you watching the kids alone in the evenings.

you can split and still have a relationship. I’m not really with my ex but we share a child and are on good terms now the financial problems are moot. He pays me more maintenance that he owes because he knows my other kids dad pays pennies and if he doesn’t pay then his own child lives in poverty too. He takes the kids who are not his out as he loves them and sees himself as their stepdad still. I invite him if we are having a bbq or whatever. I don’t think I can get over his overt resentment of me when I became a carer so a romantic relationship won’t happen for us but Personally being autistic with autistic kids and ex having kids from a previous marriage I’d be much happier with the separate house situation as it’s much calmer and run autistic acomadating not to suit the NT stepdad and children.

if you can get over the financial stuff and want to stay together then I have advice on how to cope with such a busy house. Very firm rules about them playing music and doing their share of cleaning up. Kids not allowed in your room. Get an armchair in your room and a tv so you have a safe quiet space to retreat to. Have one weekend day or a couple evenings a week where your partner takes his kids out so you can have a quiet house. Then make sure you have an evening a week or a weekend day you all come together and have quality time as a family. Are they grandparents? Perhaps ask them to have a weekend a month or have the step kids while you take your on holiday (only if other grandparents will accommodate this he other way round too!). Make sure you get couples time without any kids.

ultimately at the heart of this are your kids with additional needs and his kids with trauma. Yes it’s horrible for you living in chaos and not knowing what’s happening but they will be feeling the same. You need to take some time to process your new situation and then make a decision on if you can live with it or have to split because your partner needs to be focused on his children not worried about if his marriage is breaking down too

It's always possible that the mother could stop being able to care for the children - through addiction, life circumstances or death. When you become a step mother you take on the possibility of having his children live with you full time. If you didn't do that then you're silly.

Quite frequently, social services will take kids from unfit mothers when the father is not incapable but simply absent. Fathers are not infrequently approached about taking their kids in this situation but make it clear they're not willing to have them for more than an occasional visit and so the kids go into foster care. You can't force fathers to parent. You can't force mothers either, but there's more societal pressure so they generally do unless there's a real issue.

The same would have happened had his ex died, what would you as a family have done then?

I would advise you to RTFT before commenting. But in a situation where addiction is involved, there's no point in pussyfooting around. I have been nothing but supportive of OP, just not in a softly softly way.

Whoa, OP. Stop right there. Your husband married you despite you having two autistic children. Many would regard him as foolish to have done that. Careful that you don't step into entitled and selfish territory.

I would urge you to back away from the 'poor me' position. You have had a man in FT work living with you, helping you to bring up your children. Why should he settle for any less support for his children than you have had from him?

If you are going to have the children full time and they want no contact, the only way to stop the latter is to block the mother on all means of contact - then, have a phone, with a new number for all contact, this is only to be used for her, check this once a day and then turn it off.

Advise her that the children want no contact and that she is only to contact your husband by the above means, no turning up at the house/school, etc or you will call the police. All conversations are to go through this number and between her and your husband. This will at least shield you and the children from some if not most of the drama.

If its going to be a permanent arrangement you need to get court orders sorted.

And double check with the finances, there could be some sort of help you could get.

Maybe focusing on her own mental health and functionality is how OP puts her children and their needs first. She needs to be able to parent them as best she can. The rest of the world’s children are not her priority.

How do you think his children feel having to actively live with an alcoholic?

Their life is many times worse than yours and they have little to no agency in all of this.

Your options are

• you accept that life sucks and you work with your husband to provide loving support to all your children
• you refuse

If you refuse your husband has the option of either taking on full time support of his children. If he doesn’t they either go back to an alcoholic mother who is damaging them or they go into care (and you know how good a father he’d be to any joint children).

I sympathise and think you are getting a bit of an unfair stick here.You and DH have been in a happy RL with his DC coming over PT. sudden change ,and suddenly you have 3 traumitised DC to deal with in the future. You say you have a good job .can you get away for a few days somewhere? This clarified things for me .You have a bit of a Hobsons choice here for sure.Many 2nd marriages are hard because of DC and their needs .However you can come through and have a future .Maybe realise not for 6 or 8 months though .More like forever TBH Alcoholics seldom become completely sober

A lot of this situation is out of your control and your home life, your safe space where you feel in control, has become altered perhaps irreversibly. You can’t control your SC’s mother in this situation. You can’t control your partner. So these are your choices:

1. Work with your partner, support him and find a way to make home life manageable for you all.
2. Make plans to remove you and your kids from the situation into a home life that is more under your control.

What is best for your kids? What is going to be the best situation and environment for them to thrive?

And he's learned his: never marry a woman with children who clearly feels her children's needs trump his children's needs instead of wanting the best for all of the involved CHILDREN.

Where did OP say this ?

Indeed I think she should leave. She is clearly not the person to help these children navigate this situation. these children are probably traumatised and now living with a women who happily married a man who only saw his children the bare minimum but could help raise her children full time. Baring in mind that the mothers alcoholism isn't a new thing. and yet they still only saw the father 2 days out of 14 and see was content with that because it suited her and her children with little regard ford for anyone else.

No directly comparable experience, but I would say from experience of a number of alcoholics/ alcohol dependent people I've known that even if things improve temporarily they are likely to fall to pieces down the line.

I think you need to plan on the basis that you and your husband are likely to be more or less 100% responsible for the children from now on, with all the financial hits and complications that involves. So work on that basis. I would take my focus off of her and concentrate on the children. You have no control over her: no point in trying to predict or preempt her behaviour. Focus on making the children as secure as possible.

Sadly you are right about the risks of marrying a man with children. But he took a risk on you with your children, too. Worth remembering.

Er, why are you telling OP to do all that? It’s the father’s responsibility.

So many people just assume the woman will become default parent.

So you’re allowed to live with your kids full time but he isn’t? Sounds like splitting up is defo the best option, they’re not going back to every other weekend kids.

It’s a tough one. To be cold about it:
The step children are ultimately his responsibility. Yours are your responsibility.

Finances will be tougher for both of you if you split up. It’s so much cheaper to live as a couple with children. You might be worse off financially anyway if you leave with your children.

How much parenting are you expected to do for his children? That would sway my decision making.

I am with you though. I wouldn’t want a man with children. Either I have to take them on and subject my own to upheaval OR he doesn’t have much to do with them so he’s a shit person! I wouldn’t expect a man to take on my children either.

Equally OP’s kids must come first, so she needs to do what’s best for them.

This is really unfair. OP says they had no knowledge of this until a few months ago. Yes, the kids come first but OP is allowed to have her own misgivings and to consider the effects on her own kids who have additional needs. She posted asking for advice and there are some really unpleasant replies here. MN never fails to put the boot in with step parents.

So you'd rather the kids go live with a piss head so you can have fun? Don't get with someone with kids if you don't want to be a parent his kids will always come first and that's how it should be