To not “babysit” my stepchild?

This with bells on. The odd day or school pick up, sure. Not an expectation of childcare without even talking to you.

Either your DH doesn’t work weekends or your DSS goes to his mum’s or grandma’s, end of. AT MOST I would do once per month. As much as you can love the child, feel like a family etc, he’s not your responsibility here. The parents need to find out what you are comfortable with and work around it.

He's using you as an excuse to avoid responsibilities, it's ok not to be present during contact time because you are! He must have heaved a sigh of relief when you got married, because he sees you as a solution to having to parent but wanting to do as he pleases. Remind him his son is with him for Dad time, which isn't happening.

Well this child has 2 parent already.
I don’t think you are unreasonable not to want such a big responsibility especially without discussing it with you first.
I would think really hard about the situation and would up my contraception for now, just until you were happy with everything.

He’s taking the piss

There’s always a divide in threads like these. One half says it’s not your responsibility, one half says it is as you’re now a family. I’m in the ‘you’re a family’ camp. You’re a family. You chose this. However, I do feel you all need to sit down and work it out. Your dh is enabling his ex’s behaviour. It all needs to be addressed and a plan moving forward.

Support him as you would expect him to support you. Your married.

This is a great chance to see how he would be if you had kids with him.

Personally I think you need to leave him.

He's taking advantage of you and you're the bad guy if you don't want to be his free nanny.

He got you good.

I would be firm and say that you need free time for your wellbeing.
and the boy needs to spend almost all of his time with either his mum or his dad for his wellbeing.

We set the expectations before we married, all kids had two parents and that’s how it stayed. I had sd on rare non changeable events but eventually stopped that too for other reasons.
no I don’t believe you should be default free child care and your not unreasonable to stop

I feel quite sorry for the poor kid tbh. None of this is his fault.

OP needs to have a discussion about the share of childcare, for sure but we all have to do that. But if you marry someone with kids, you marry the package.

I think on your partner's days/nights it's understandable that the kid will be there, so he shouldn't be booking work shifts that leave you as sole childcarer, at least not frequently.

On the days the child's mum is meant to have them, I think you can put your foot down and say you are not available at all to do childcare. Make plans or be busy at work or outside of the house.

Your partner needs to sort it out with his ex, without assuming you'll take the burden whenever things go tits up.

I do think that if you marry someone with a child then you should expect to do some parenting, but I think DH is taking the piss by arranging extra shifts for his days and just expecting you to deal with it. What did you say to him when he made that comment? I would have told him then that he needs to ask if it’s ok first and that DSS is coming to spend time with him not you.

Because she loved the man, and he wasn’t expecting her to provide childcare.

If that was what he wanted from her he should have been honest from the start, not tried to dump this on her as soon as they married.

First post nails it🙌

When I got married DH had his 8 y.o. DD. We had her every weekend from Friday evening until Sunday evening because that's when her DM worked.

DH worked every Saturday until lunchtime so I was left with DD all morning. At first I found it very difficult. I knew nothing about kids and had no interest in them. But I got in and made a big effort.

Soon found out she was a dear little girl and our relationship gradually deepened. Travel forward 30 years and DH is sadly dead but DSD and I are very close, she's one of my heirs and I'm now a step granny twice over.

My advice is to work to make a relationship with the child. I have a richer life because of my DSD and my sons have a beloved older sister. My love for his DD brought DH and I even closer together. Love is everything in this life.

Will be also pick up on the ambivalence of his parents, or is this just for OP to solve?

His mother seems to have washed her hands of him, and DH escapes to work. But of course, OP must be kind…

Do you use the money from his extra shifts as household income, ie shared? If yes then I would say fair enough for you to babysit, not if he keeps most of it for himself.
Regarding the 6-8pm twice a week, I would say it is expected when you become a married couple. It would be fair to say no more than twice a week though.

And you need your weekends for your new hobby!
Plan and simple you need that time for your wellbeing also.
Even of your new hobby is reading a book in a cafe.
If you are doing pick up and drop offs he should have the decency to ask about weekend shifts.
You also need to find out why grandma has stopped the childcare.

Poor kid. What a crap start in life

I am with OP, this the husbands child so his problem to deal with. Funny how he works late when it's the child's days to stay.
Expectation like this should have been agreed before you got married. The above situation would be a deal breaker for me.
Give your husband a date and tell him you will stop doing the expected care. Its up to him then to find a solution. You have to not give in even if he pleads you to do it.

I would be off, fuck that for a game of soldiers. He has married you to make you his live-in childminder, that he screws and has her paying for the privilege too. You work, do school runs, bedtimes, weekends and neither of this child's parents are doing a fraction of that.

I agree with this.

Your DH comes as a package and whilst, like any couple with children you need to get the balance of caring right for you (& it sounds like that needs more discussion), if you love your DSS and you don’t want him to feel a burden as he gets older (and any ambivalence you feel now WILL be picked up by him as he gets older) then you need to start thinking of him as yours as well as your DHs.

Otherwise you should have passed on the marriage and just kept your DH as a boyfriend.

Utter rubbish.

I am a member of my niece’s family, by blood even. That doesn’t mean her parents can dump her on me every weekend to pull extra shifts or to look after their mental wellbeing. The child has two living parents. He doesn’t need more or different ones: he needs his parents. OP is a step-parent, and entirely different relationship. If all parties consent, she may end up being in loco parentis for certain things (but never for all, legally, given he has two living parents). But all parties aren’t consenting. Imagine the outrage if something happened to the boy while OP was babysitting him.

Well obviously the extra weekend shifts need to stop and he needs to parent his child.

Exactly, the step child factor is irrelevant here. He is taking weekend shifts and assuming you will solo parent. I am with the father of my DC and would be really unimpressed if he did this without discussing it with me