to not have step kids while I have Chemo?

[bessyboots]

AIBU to have emailed OH's ex wife to tell her we will be unable to have his children (we have them every other weekend) aged 12 & 14 for at least 6 months while I undergo Chemo for breast cancer?

She relies on us to have them as she works full time, but I am worried about catching an infection from them. I have my own DS who is 8.

I'm very sorry that you're ill and can only imagine how frigtened you are, but you must know how unreasonable you are being about this. You have as much chance of picking up bugs from your DH & son as you do from step children.

"she is prepared to be flexible and has already adjusted some of her working hours but I think she is being really selfish and have told her we all have to to take the good and bad in life and this is the bad. I need to focus on being well."

Just rad this. It's you that is being really selfish.

Ah love, how scared and thrown in to a tail spin you must feel right now.

I think it is probably natural to try and claw back control when so much seems beyond you ability to mould and shape right now.

Maybe have a chat with the docs and nurses in oncology about what stratagies you can take to cut down your potential to catch infections. Raise the SDCs question, ask them what they think.

They are more likely to have had experience of this before than anybody here and will be able to help you work out what is a step further than required, what sort of flexibility is required in specific circs and the extent to which any threat of infection can be best minimised.

I am so very very sorry you are having to face this. And I am so sorry your DH, child and SDCs are going to have face it alongside you.

I hope you all get the support, emotional as well as practical, that you need.

I am really sorry you are ill, and hope that the chemotherapy works.

However, YADBU and forgive me, but it almost sounds as if you are using this awful situation to manipulate things with the ex and the step-kids.

He comes as a package, and to say you cannot have the kids to stay at all for the next 6 months is unwarranted and unjustifiable. Particularly as you have your own DS.

We have a close family member undergoing chemotherapy at the moment, I have been ill for last two weeks so have avoided her. But if I told her that I was ceasing all contact for 6 months she wouldnt understand it.

And why did you're DH tell the kids that they are well and you take priority? That may be the case, but did they need to know that? Surely he could just juggle all the balls on an as and when basis.

Sounds to me like you have issues with the step-kids. I understand that, I am a step-kid myself who didn't get on with my step-mum, but could understand her resentment at weekends being disrupted all the time by my arrival.

Having said that you must have known what you were getting into when you met him.

Please don't use this horrible illness to create/cause more bad feeling, you need to focus on getting better without the politics.

Just sort it on an as and when basis, like the ex says.

If the boot was on the other foot how would you feel if she emailed you saying "I'm ill, the children are moving in with you for the next 6 months"

Terrible situation for you to be in and I hope all goes well.

But I have to agree with everyone else and say YABU. 6 months is a long time and you will probably have ups and downs in that time. A close friend had cancer in his twenties and while the chemo was far from pleasant, in between treatments he felt pretty normal and went back to work, like Ledkr describes. You might find that you are one of the lucky ones who has an easier time and then you will have damaged your husband's relationship with his children and ex unnecessarily.

The children have always been his children and always will be. That can't stop for 6 months because of illness, even serious illness. This is something that affects the family and they are part of that family and have to be granted the same consideration as your own son during this difficult time.

The ex actually sounds pretty reasonable, particularly since she must be fuming about being asked for something she wasn't granted herself in her time of need.

YABVVVVVU

If this is not a reverse AIBU I will be very !

OP you obviously realise you and DH were unsupportive/unhelpful when ex was ill so can you not see how awful you are being? Appreciate you must be scared and may not be thinking straight but does seem awfully manipulative and selfish behaviour on your part. I wouldn't want this kind of behaviour on my conscience while I was having chemo and trying to focus on being well - I would worry that my need to be vindictive while I was ill would prevent me from healing well and getting better (another type of selfish but one that has less repercussions on those around you). If you are genuine please take a step back and think about how unfair and unnecessary your request is on both DH and your step DCs.

oh! I did not consider that it could be reverse, but, reding it back, seems like it really could be! oh dear. I hope not!

Also op,you will not at anytime need help to get to the toilet and chemo is every 3 weeks so you can probably write off a couple of days then life will resume as normal untill the next dose.

Also your resistence will not be affected until you have have afew treatments and even then you cant stay in all the time to avoid germs.

Please listen to people on this thread cos this is really very unreasonable and being unselfish will help you through your illness in more ways than you can imagine.

If you mess with these kids heads anymore than necessary and muck up their Mums job and relationship then you may find yourself with them with you more than once a fortnight.

Is this a reverse AIBU? Must be.

Could everybody please cut this lady some slack and be a bit more constructive? She has a life threatening situation to deal with, this is the main driver of what appears selfish.

That said, I'm not going to sugar-coat this. OP, YABU to drive the step-kids out of your home, as others have said. I take two different immunosupressants and at the outset I really feared catching infections. After 3 years of them, I find that I do get about a third more self-limiting infections, they feel about 25% worse and they last about 20% longer. I actively avoid the more serious infectionse.g. , the campylobacters, if I hear they are around.

Looking at it objectively, I could either decide to get on with life as much as possible, or withdraw from life and concentrate on my health. With frankly, no certain outcome. I looked at places I could go to do this, but I knew I would miss my family too much, probably to the extent it was detrimental to my health. If you want to totally focus on your health and privacy, is there anyway you can withdraw from the family home and do this? Extreme, but you need to reall think these things through. You created and/or accepted your family situation and that must also be respected during the bad times.

Are you a member of a cancer support group? Have you talked to other people engaged in battling your kind of cancer? What do they do? How do they manage? Do try and reassess what options you have for the sake of those around you.

I think most people have expressed sympathy for her illness, merry.

Yabvu

YABVU. I'm sorry you have cancer and will have to have chemo but you cannot disrupt the kids' lives like this. The infection risk argument doesn't work as you will still be around a child anyway, and presumably your husband and indeed you will have to venture out into the wider world at some point.

I've seen my mum go through chemo and it is not pleasant and does have side effects but she didn't need help getting to the bathroom or anything like that.

You really do need to rethink this. I cannot believe your husband is going along with it!

(Perhaps the people suggesting this is a reverse AIBU are right...)

It's not that I don't feel sympathy for the OP's illness, but the fact that she is proposing that the step-kids don't stay for 6 months is totally unreasonable.

I have every sympathy that you are going through chemo and treatment but at 12 and 14 the kids aren't babies and might even be old enough to pull their weight and help. And with an 8 year old in the house, there's going to be the normal run of coughs and colds and whatever else brought home from school.

Plus, in the nicest possible way, if the ex was ill and you didn't help, why should she feel like she will help you out now? What goes around comes around, and you should try as much as possible to keep to the normal routine with the kids.

Apart from YABU, which you have been told, i have just realised that this means that your DH is happy not to see his children this Christmas or Easter, which makes you both VVVBU.

Teenagers need their parents as much as younger children and if they know the deatils of your illness, it will be a scary time for them, also.

This could totally disrupt this terms schooling, as they will be upset by this, which could have far reaching consequences.

I agree with Hecate, no one is unsympathetic.This just smacks of using having cancer as a trump card to wrestle things round to her way of thinking. There is no value to her argument whatsoever, whether she is scared or not she should not be punishing the stepchildren by treating them merely as potential carriers of disease.I think it will do irreparable damage these children to be excluded so obviously without any real cause.

Playing the cancer card is very very bad form and it will actually do her a lot more harm than good.

And FWIW any man who would say "I am his priority and he'll see them when he can" to his kids would seriously go down in my estimation.

His kids should come first, last and always.

The worse case senario could be for your DH to book pantos etc and take all of the DC, so that you rest.

Are you in touch with Macmillan nurses for support? or elsewhere?, they can be a source of comfort and also a sounding board.

They will know where this reaction has come from and talk you all through it.

Sorry OP, I agree with the others.
As much as the DSD may have understood what their Dad was saying to them, I've no doubt that they seem compliant but just in order to be 'good' children. Without showing him or you, they were probably torn up. First their Mum being really poorly, and now you. Their little world is shaken. And as poorly as you are (and I'm very, very sorry about that) you cannot just sweep children aside as you start your treatment. You just can't. You must know that?

Another point to note here, particularly for your DH, is that if the children are compliant because they simply are not bothered, then that spells serious concerns for him as a Dad, and you all as a family.

As saddened as I am by your illness, I'm angered when satellite families seem to lose sight of where priorities should lie.

Do the right thing, OP. For you all.

If it is reverse AIBU ... I'd still say the same. The children should come first and be supported by their parents. That's what adults do.

The lady with cancer (OP or not) needs support as well but doesn't need to exclude children to get this

Is there any way you could adjust your home so that you can have privacy and a 'safe place', and they could similarly have an area to themselves?

At 12 and 14 they can be expected to be understanding and considerate (hell - even helpful w.r.t. keeping your DS entertained and cheerful). I think to cross out six months of visits put of hand is unnecessary, and potentially creates tension in the family precisely when everyone needs to pull together for mutual support.

Maybe if you could annex of an ensuite or a private bathroom for yourself, and maybe put in one of those cheap little fridges and a kettle in your bedroom so you could have a yoghurt or a cup of tea without feeling obliged to make chit chat with your step children. I'm sure if they were asked they would not disturb you - play consoles or go out lots etc.