Stepchild wants to see finances and money spent on his stepsiblings.

It continues to be none of the eighteen-year-old son's business if his father elects to spend money his father has earned, on someone other than the eighteen-year-old as well as spending money on that eighteen-year-old. No matter what the OP may have said anywhere, the eighteen-year-old's behaviour continues to be difficult to defend. His father spent money on someone else: well, boo bleeding hoo; this does not entitle him to demand to be reimbursed for family holidays or any other sort of holiday enjoyed by someone else. Unless the other thread says that the eighteen-year-old has been living on crusts and is not getting any help from his father while at university, his behaviour remains unpleasant and dog-in-a-manger as well as intrusive and entitled.

Demanding to be reimbursed for any money spent on his father's second family is never going to be a good look, and does not deserve to succeed.

Ok he’s 18 and his young emotions justify that he’s feeling jealous and worried about his dad remarrying and having two step kids. Does that mean that he’s right? That he should have any say on what his dad spends his money on? It’s understandable to feel one way, but should his dad listen to him?

Very bad luck on perhaps a third of the adolescents in the country, that. Marriages just do end in divorce, for a wide variety of reasons, and divorced adults do move on to new relationships. It happens.

Eighteen-year-old son in this particular set-up could be grateful his dad has paid more than absolute minimum required maintenance for him and his younger sibling, rather than grudging anything at all going to two children in exactly the same position that he is in himself, that is, not living with their father for most of their time.

How convenient, it's all on this one too. if you can't be arsed to even read the thread you're commenting on, no wonder you're advising on the wrong information.

Exactly. People are ascribing their adult emotions for their 63 year old fathers to an 18yo who has had step-siblings foisted on to him. Most kids want their parents affection and resources to be spent on them, not unrelated randoms.

My dad is 63 and has recently set up his own business and is earning really well, he has £100,000 sitting in the bank now. Which he’s hoping to use as a retirement fund as he doesn’t have a private pension, but I’m seeing as my inheritance. I didn’t think I’d be getting one, so I’m very pleased. I will be asking for monthly bank statements from him to ensure that any money he spends of my future inheritance is on my list of authorised expenditure.

’Excuse me dad, your weekly groceries have gone for £78 to £89 can we give be a bit more careful in future, that’s my inheritance your blowing on Tesco finest!’

’Hi dad, sorry that holiday request has not been authorised, £2000 for a week away? That’s £2000 I could be putting towards my mortgage in a few years!’

I have no truck with this, anymore than I would if the dad chose to spend all his income on holidays or sports cars - his money, his choice.

It’s basic psychology, but people don’t want to hear it because it means adults would have to actually put their kids before their own desires.

If you posted a link I might be bothered, but I don't have one and am not about to hunt the board for it. Sorry.

Pure projection and a toddler’s view of the situation.

Lovely speech. But...

Try reading the thread, and the one about the school trip. It's exactly what she claims.

People keep same “child living in the same house”. SS wants to be the child in his dad’s house for goodness sake!

I would absolutely have hated to have had two kids in my dad’s house. He was my dad. They have their own dad.

Watching his dad spend money on a child who lives in the same house as his dad and towards whom his dad is acting as a father really ought not to make an eighteen-year-old unpleasantly jealous.

For all we know the father actively insisted on paying for the school trip: "no, no, please let me, I love to make Johnny happy". Where does your "should be paying for" come from? Are people not allowed to buy things they want to with their own money? It has been made clear that the father has also paid for expensive holidays for the eighteen-year-old.

I mean, goodness, whose money is it? Not that of the eighteen-year-old, any more than my father's money belonged to me when I was eighteen.

I do not forget that when the OP's younger child was taken out to see a show by the OP's sister who was in the country for a visit, the eighteen-year-old was unpleasant about that and quizzed the child to find out who paid for it.

If it would rankle with many teens that their fathers spent their fathers' own money, many teens should wind their necks in and not show everyone what nasty people they were being.

Give him a break, he’s an 18yo watching his dad spend money on things that the child’s own mum and dad should be paying for and can afford.

That would rankle for many teens.

MademoisellePraline
She reckons she's got a house she rents out, earns plenty, got some ex who pays "over and above"
Then claims all of that with her ex combined couldn't cover one of her own children's school trips.

She made no such claim, if you read her posts. What she said was "My husband paid for a school trip for my son which my son spoke openly about, with gratitude." and "Any money spent on my children like that ski trip and family holidays is resented bitterly."

I ask again, why should this man not pay for a child living in his house to go on a school trip? It might be possible that he did this as (for instance) a Christmas present to the child, or just because making that child happy gave him pleasure, not under duress of any sort. Some people actually take pleasure in giving presents rather than totting up costs for them and expecting to get reciprocal gifts of an equal monetary worth. It's positively out of St Ignatius Loyola's prayer: https://www.theologyofwork.org/book/work-in-worship/prayer-material-for-services/closing-prayers/st-ignatius-loyola-teach-us-good-lord-to-toil-prayer/ "to give and not to count the cost".

In any case it was none of his elder son's business that his father chose to pay for something that was not for his elder son, and certainly not the business of that elder son to make the younger one unhappy about it by quizzing him and implying it ought not to have been paid for by the man who treats him as a son.

I wonder how the elder son proposes to subdivide the utilities bills so that their cost can be extracted from his stepmother. How about the use of the washing machine: that would be complicated, what with washes that contained clothes belonging to each person in the house, not to mention whether the charge should be at launderette rates or just for water, electricity and depreciation on the machine....

Oh please.

She reckons she's got a house she rents out, earns plenty, got some ex who pays "over and above"

Then claims all of that with her ex combined couldn't cover one of her own children's school trips.

Guess who pays....

Thank you. I haven't read the other discussion so didn't know about her.

I do hope her grandson has had the grace not to have a go at her about her husband's will! She may have no opinion at all about his behaviour to his father – because he hasn't got the gall to try to explain to her why he is being such an arse, and his father doesn't want to bring sorrow to her by telling her about the son he must be more than a little ashamed of.

In this case, I remain convinced that it's because OP mentioned that she's from another country. She has to be a gold-digger, apparently.

FIL Is deceased But MIL Is mentioned on another discussion.

MademoisellePraline
Turns out between the pair of them, they can't afford one school trip for just one of their children and the stepdad had to pay for that too.

"Had to"?

Maybe the poor man wanted to treat his stepchild to something fun.

But I forgot; he isn't supposed to spend any money on any of his current family, and if he does it all has to be reimbursed out of his wife's money after his death.

God why are posters here so awful to second wives? “Buzzing around a honeypot” “equally there for the money.” ?? Absolutely disgusting way of talking about another person with no basis in the text.

You miss the point.

It's not that the stepdad shouldn't. It's that OP wants to pretend she's not equally there for the money and is paying her way, with an ex who pays plenty, over and above.

Turns out between the pair of them, they can't afford one school trip for just one of their children and the stepdad had to pay for that too.

Whose mother-in-law?

what is MILs take on this ?

Then we've got OP who insists she has her own money and an ex who provides "over and above" for her children, yet between them couldn't afford one school trip for their child, and this "new dad" bankrolled that too.
I think OP and her step son have a lot more in common than she'd like to admit. Both buzzing around a honeypot they feel entitled too.

May a stepfather not give his stepchild a gift? If he'd given the same amount of money to buy the child a new laptop or whatever, would that be acceptable?

We read a lot here about how children in blended families should be treated equally, and now here is a child being treated equally and his mother is accused of being a gold digger and his stepfather accused of making his own children go without in order to 'bankroll' a stepchild.