To avoid partners son?

[Anyoldthing]

I've been with my guy for 10 months and in that time his 8 year old son has urinated on ceramic decorations at a holiday cottage and climbed out of the windows and thrown stones at the window, encouraged my 5 year olds to cover up, decieve or copy all of the same. Climbed out of a caravan window. Stolen out of my pockets at same caravan. Climbed out of my 5 year old daughters bedroom window and asked them to lie to me.
Following this I sat him down and made him confess what he'd done as my partner wouldn't beleive it (despite confirmation by both of my daughters, footprints on the windowledge, his history of climbing out of windows and his confession) and my partner said I forced him to admit to something he hadn't done. That drives me crazy!
He's also manipulated his father with comments around 'you don't love me' whenever I'm around overnight (especially on holidays), followed by 'I hate you', 'I want to go back to Mummy', 'if you loved me you would......' and pretended to be in serious pain, screamed his head off and cried for hours.
Shoved one of my daughters around. Shoved the other underwater despite knowing she's a none swimmer. Urinated in my garden and lied about it, despite being 10 feet away from a vacant loo then tried to make out my daughter lied.
Run off in woods which left his younger sister with me whilst his Dad went to find him.
Refused to do as he is told or more occasions than I can count.

He freely admits to anyone that his sons behaviour improved when he was taking on board my support and suggestions with his sons behaviour and he admits his son is a pain. He also admits that he often thinks its easier just to give in, because his son will kick, scream, break things and lash out like mad if he doesn't get what he wants. My partner would rather have a somewhat disobedient son that the demon who cant get his own way.

The kids live with their mum, she isn't exactly a good role model but I don't need to detail that here. My partner has them at weekends only and is often not looking forward to it.

My partner and I argue about his son more than anything and I've refused to be around him for the last 3/4 months. During a recent situation his son was banned from cubs and whilst discussing his sons behaviour I suggested that maybe he is being banned for good reason and pointed out that his Dad is very defensive at times and is perhaps overlooking the truth. As usual he went mental and stormed out. Our relationship is teetering on the brink of complete collapse and we're on the very last chance. We had an unexpected pregnancy which resulted in an awful miscarriage just 7 weeks ago and our relationship suffered terribly. He was concerned about what his son would think of the baby more than anything and was unhappy about the pregnancy.

I last saw my partner a week ago, he left in an absolute fury when I pointed out how hurt I was about him saying I bullied his son into confessing. He was also furious that I said maybe the cub leader has a point. Now he says he cannot imagine our relationship can recover from that.

I don't have solutions to our problem and I'm so emotionally overwrought it's hard for me to see through it all. I'd love for us to be a happy blended family but I feel his son comes between us, demonstrates bad behaviour to my kids and manipulates his Dad to our detriment. I love my partner dearly :(

I did have sympathy for him but his persistant bad behaviour has rather frozen me out.
I did have ideas of allowing them all to move in here, to help provide a stable life if I could but the pregnancy/miscarriage and subsequent issues had me mentally backpedalling like mad when I considered the influence the son could have on all our lives.
Which reminds me of the cause of that, we all stayed overnight at my partners and the sondid I few things which made me feel uncomfortable with him around my daughters, I can't be sure about that, it could have been biological curiosity, or it could be something more.

The man is a good man, but I don't rate his parenting. The ex is undoubtedly good to someone but has morals I cannot live with. I have to put my own kids first and protect them and even at the expense of my own relationships I guess.

Yeah, you know, really it sounds like it's time to call it a day. There are too many issues in the way. If it was the relationship and everything else was hunkydory, then perhaps it might have been worth fighting for, but this? Sad, shed your tears, and find someone who suits your own family dynamic better.

Of course you have to put your family first, surely his parenting skills are a turn off, a non mover? You can't serious want a future with a man who can't father his own children, can you?

Either you have misrepresented his EX or he should be going for custody. Can you imagine a mother leaving her children behind with a drunk?

To be honest you'd be well rid of this muppet.

And now his child is a pervert? Really? FFS OP, that's a vile thing to say about an eight year old. He's either being abused and is showing signs of over sexualisation or he's curious. I think you sound a bit toxic for him too, like the other adults in his life. Shame.

From what I've seen, the mother seems to drink nightly, often forgets what has been said when she was drunk etc
My guy works a job which is ridiculous in its demands, it changes days of delivery, can run a 10-13 hour day and can require obligatory overtime at a moments notice. I'm not prepared to divulge the nature of his job, it could perhaps identify him. I've gone through the ramifications of this with him, he took his job before he met his ex wife and had trained for it straight out of school, rather a specialist area, when he was married and she was able to be there, he was the primary breadwinner and it didn't matter so much.

I think he should go for custody too, though I can also see why he doesn't think he can cope.
I dislike his parenting and feel he could be doing better. He seems to be defeated by his own lack of faith in his capability, a self fulfilling prophecy.

He has said, in his defense to me, that he would love to take the kids and bring them up, though doesn't beleive his ex should get off scott free and go and be a lush... I assume that's his resentment of her.

I can see the point about him being a goon as a Dad, I can see how it came about and I can see restrictions of how his livelihood would be terribly threatended if he took on the kids. In the same situation I'd change my circumstances, undoubtedly and I'd have the kids out of the other persons house quickly. It's not my choice in this instance.

I don't think that his son 'did something' with my kids, but I feel uneasy about what could happen and I could never forgive myself if that tiny thought was the beginning of something grim.

No, not a pervert, just not likely to observe normal boundaries and if he's as messed up as people seem to think then maybe it's the beginning of something I don't want.

Please try not to attack, I did say I'm emotionally over wrought and not clear about all this, that's why I'm here. I want to do the right thing. Avoiding the son seemed right to me. I don't feel I can help because I'm at a loss as to how I could succeed.
I'm still wobbly post miscarriage and again this blurs everything for me.

If the father and I recovered our situation I could offer help, but I've done that before now and it hasn't worked out. If we don't recover then I don't know what happens to any of them. How far am I supposed to go before it's too far?
I have a great deal of empathy for the father, I know lots of his history. It's always very difficult to see clearly and without prejudice when you love someone, again - why I'm here.

I think he needs to get the children and 'man up' tbh. I'm sorry for giving you a hard time OP, but I really feel for this child. (But he's not being mean to my dcs). He'd rather make his exes life hard than his son's life better? Nice catch.

x post.

Well many parents (especially women) put their career on the back burner, change employment or go part time to look after their children.

Many parents use child minders or after school clubs as they cannot get out of full time work, their career is important or they need the money to make ends meet.

If the mother is so bad there are ways that he could have custody.

If the mother has an alcohol problem this is an illness and no one can help her with that unless she wants to help herself. Calling her a lush and insulting her is not the way to go.

He seems to have a lot of reasons and excuses not to step up to be honest.

Okay....

So the situation is that you are in love with a man that is a shit father. He can't control his son and doesn't want to remove him from harm as that's too much like hard work. He doesn't want to discipline him as it's too much like hard work. His son is showing BIG signs of very emotionally disturbed behaviour.

You have just had a miscarriage and your children are suffering at the hands of this child. A three year old little girl is so far not showing signs of damage.

You have options. Stay with this man accepting that 'I'd do anything for my children' is never going to be true for him, but almost forget he has children. This may risk further damage to his son and, eventually m daughter.
Separate, and absolve yourself of any responsibility but possibly carry lots of hurt and guilt.
Make him accept responsibility and support him as he takes care of his children where his son may well improve beyond recognition.

It's hard to see it from other viewpoints at times so I'm glad to get some feedback, even if I don't like all of it.

As a friend?

I can feel the change in your posts. Are you okay?

I think I was aiming for the 'accept responsibility' version of events, but he takes it as personal criticism. Hence the arguments.

I cannot accept it all as it is.
I couldn't just sit back and say nothing if we were to seperate, so I'd probably kill off all chance of a friendship by speaking out.

I would prefer to help.

It's awful when people sum up the situation as my guy being a loser but I can see how he looks that way.

I think you need to ask your partner if he loves his children and go from there. Seems like he's okay with walking away tbh, which is unforgivable.

I might just add that this could be a lucky escape for you, but his children have no hope really.

Yeah there's a change, I feel defeated. I don't think I can get through to the guy without him pushing me away assuming I'm attacking him.

But Any. this is life, we must deal with crisis and if he can't cope with you telling him the truth about something so fundamental what sort of support can he offer you when you need it?

I can't see how someone so weak is attractive.

It stems from the rest of it being so good, he ticks just about all the other boxes.
I'm really not attracted to weak men, but I was in love with him before I met his children or encountered this situation.
I'm a sticker, I tend to accept issues and do my best to get through them and support others where I can. I'm just not the kind of person who walks away just because its easy to do so.
I feel rejected by father and son for doing my best and the old adage of 'the truth hurts' really fits here as the father cannot accept it.

I feel the guy is still recovering from the damage of his marriage, he is lacking self esteem in some ways and I can compare the version of him 15 years ago and see what happened. He hasn't had much in terms of relationships which were good for him, his interpretation of the world seems to be negative.

You have been together for ten months and have not seen the boy for four. The little boy has 'ruined' three of four holidays. Why on earth did you go on four holidays in six months? Perhaps he felt overwhelmed and frightened that his dad had left him and now had a new family, with whom he was going on lots of holidays and he was just expected to like it and get on with these people and share his dad with them. It sounds crazy to me. No wonder the poor little chap was disruptive.

It sounds to me like everyone has let him down.

OP he needs a damned good shake.

They were little cheapo weekend breaks at the English coast. I had already booked them for my kids and I and I invited them to join us. The sin was keen to come along and even had a behaviour chart to earn the privelige to go on one of them when his behaviour went through a phase which motivated his Dad for a while.
(That's the period where his Dad thinks I had the greatest influence and his sons behaviour changed positively). I actively encouraged father and son to spend a little time alone on the holidays, going off together for short periods of time to keep that unique relationship.
I also encourage it with the daughter but she never gets a look in because of the son.

Yeah, sometimes I wish I could! I think he'd be happier to give his son some routine and boundaries because he'd be happier with his son and he'd elevate his self esteem. In turn the son would have firm boundaries which might make him feel safer and happier, despite not getting his own way.

He obviously has huge difficulties with his own children but even if he didn't, I would personally be very worried about forming a lasting relationship with a man who was unable to emotionally support me during a horrible event such as a mc.

Does this not tell you a lot about how he is going to be there for you (or your own children) in the future? There seem to be many levels in which to view this relationship not just the level of a very scared and unhappy little boy.

I think that you need to look very carefully at what sort of relationship you would like to be in and what relationship role models you'd like your own children to witness.

I can imagine that it's a very hard position when you love someone but love needs a good foundation on which to flourish and grow (IMHO).

Good luck with this.