To expect STEPSON to go to his mum's every other weekend?

[slowcooker]

This is a rant to get it off my system because I'm fuming right now.

After a long negotiation we persuaded stepson to go to his mum's this weekend but he's not going now because apparently his room there is wet and small and blah blah blah a list long of excuses why he won't go.

When I got together with my DH, 7years ago, he had 50% custody of his 2 kids and they were with him 50% of the time. It was on a rolling rota basis to accommodate the ex's shift pattern. I would look forward to the (approx) 9 weekends a year we had without the kids! The years have gone by, both kids are teenagers now they are more independent, the eldest lives with the EX full time and the stepson with us full time (for the past 9 months). In the meantime we have our almost 3 year old DD. And I'm stuck in a battle to secure sometime for DH and me as a couple!

Things are rather bad between us. If having a child changes the dynamics in a relationship imagine having a child in a blended family!

That together with work pressures (I have been working full time since DD was 11 months) and general stresses are not helping my mental well being. I feel I've hit rock bottom recently. I had some other issues at work and resigned in December.
We've been so busy with an extension and this and that, that we've not even been able to relax and sit and watch telly for months on end until the NEW year. And even now it seems like we're passing ships all the time.

I don't have family around here and DH has a sister who is lovely and helpful but she's only ever babysat for us once in the last 3 years and I don't want to impose on her as she helped a lot with my DH's other 2 kids when they were little.

At the moment whilst my DD is little the only solution to some quality time for us is to be in the house just the 2 of us (in the evenings I mean after little one has gone to bed) as we don't get to see each other as a couple any more. In any case we were never the going out type (just cinema really) but rather we would go on days out, bike excursions etc and stayed in for a nice meal and film.

I don't think this is too much to ask. I think we'll end up separating ourselves if we don't get some quality time together on a regular basis!

I feel resentful towards my stepson and his mum (for not providing him with a decent room) and my DH for not putting boundaries to people.

I want some space with just my DH and myself in our house! 2 evenings every 15 days is it too much to ask? 2 evenings where I don't have to think what is stepson going to eat (fussy eater) and of sitting in peace to maybe watch something like a film without someone barding in.

And even when I can walk around naked if I fell like it for goodness sake..

Not in a good place at all!

op I'd post this on the step parenting part of mumsnet, , likely to get some good advice and less of a flaming.

Some of you judgey pants people should really get some stepchildren at some point. Might change your point of view.

Your own children - you get some say in what they do, how they behave, their values, what type of people they are etc.

Your stepchildren - no such luck. You just have to be grateful for having the little darlings in your life.

It's not easy.

It is a massive problem that he doesn't want to stay at his mums, it suggests a problem in the home. It doesn't mean she opted out which is what you said? The mother has opted out, the step mother hasn't. Didn't you also say that the mother wouldn't let the child stay with her? Perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly (on my mobile).

The only person opting out or pushing away a child (based entirely on actual information we've been given) is the OP

I didn't say the mother wouldn't let him stay.

Ok I don't know why the mother is not having the child to stay anymore. Whatever the reason, the result is, the mother is not parenting the child. Op is.

Blah blah blah? Excellent job she's doing too

yabu i'd be so angry and hurt if dp spoke about dd (from prev relationship) like this.

I feel very sad for your poor SS.

Suffering the resentment of someone you live with is very damaging and isolating.

Many of the people you would probably describe as "judgy pants" people on here QueenRavenna already have step-children or have themselves been step-children.

If the OP has MH issues I have all the sympathy in the world. What's needed is proper support from professionals.

Op even though I understand why you're getting a kicking I do know where you're coming from.

Set up a little cave in your bedroom and put a bolt on the door. Odd occasions it's nice to retreat when you want to empty kids out of your head.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a break from teens whether their yours or not.

*they're

Queen do not assume that people who are 'judgey pants' don't have a clue what they are talking about please. You don't know what our experiences are or aren't.

Needaholidaynow.. I take your point and you are right, you can't force yourself to unconditionally love your step-child but I still would never dream of marrying someone if I at least can't act like I love their child or treat that child fairly. I didn't marry my husband until I was sure he could do that, which thankfully came naturally.

I admit that I have strong feelings about this due to my experiences and situation but I see so many threads on here with SC being treated so differently and it is quite obvious that the step-parent role just isn't suited to them and usually it is the kid who gets hurt.

Yabvvvvvu, when you got together with your oh you should have realised he came as a package, he is as much your stepson dad as much as your dd. this is what happens when you go out with somebody who has kids, did you not realise! I am afraid I have little sympathy for you, even with bio kids it's hard to have me time sometimes.

I have yet to see a reply here from someone who doesn't have personal experience of step parenting in one form or another.

So who are these people who don't know what they're talking about?

I can sympathise with the desire to have time as a couple - surely we all can? Even if some people don't get it, that doesn't mean we have to engage in a race to the bottom where no-one is allowed even the desire for a night off, ever.

The bit that is less easy to sympathise with is hoping your stepson will go and stay in a small wet room. I can totally see why that is not an appealing idea to him and I bet, once you think calmly about it, you can too. What terms are your DH and his ex on? What could be done about the room being in this state?

One thing that is frequently noted on the step parenting boards is that often stepkids end up as the focus of frustration when actually the issue is with their dad not setting boundaries. Why isn't your DH trying to manage all these things more effectively, get time for you as a couple, etc? It seems that you are carrying a lot of this and the associated frustration and stress.

Because on the sp board the badly worded op will be seen through
And support not flaming shalt be given
No one knows what its like to actually be a step parent until they are one. Same as being a parent only without nine months growing them and the unconditional love you need to see you through the sometimes hell and back that is parenting
I assume the op got with someone who had a child and thought she could cope with the care being shared between the parents, the blame as it were here, is slightly misdirected, the mother of the child is failing to meet his basic needs at her home (I too would wonder why she isn't that bothered about seeing him that she doesn't sort it, and why SS doesn't appear to want to visit her, and would be sitting down with him and asking if there's any more to it)
I took the op as it states, someone having a rant. People come on here all the time saying 'I'm sick of being a mum' I want to just walk out and keep walking.. They get support, ok they don't post in AIBU where there are some right shitty fight club attitudes, but they get support and care.

And fwiw I was that unwanted step child but am now adult and realise that my sm had a child with cerebral palsy to care for as well as the three other children she had two of which were by my father, he was always at work odd hours (policeman) so why should she have had us there when there was no chance of any contact with our dad at all - ok doesn't excuse her lying about our behaviour to stop us from going there but maybe there was no other way to make my dad listen, I don't know.
I am also a sm of sorts, I met p when his kids were very small, his sister and he split the care because the dscs so called mother had fucked off to have half a dozen kids with her new partner.
Dsd since moving back in with her mother doesn't want anything to do with p after he stopped being a Disney dad, and SS (no not dss) has been banned from my home because he sexually abused my four year old and before the pearl clutching brigade start, he is barred from the house, yes I have encouraged p to still have contact as the boy needs his father, and yes, he's 12 nearly 13 and yes if I see the little bastard I'll have to be held back from kicking his little face in fuck being adult about it after he was welcomed to our home and I've taken more care of him than p who spent most of his time on the Xbox or going on holidays and was quite frankly not fit to parent a pet piece of two by four let alone a child. Fuck anyone who wants to say 'you want to harm a child how horrid of you' I'm not interested.
Not every situation is black and white.
Have a little empathy before posting from the pov of the rejected stepchild or the parent with an ex who is an nrp. Anyone with half a heart or brain would say here that it's the mother not stepping up an doing her bit that's causing a lot of the problems here.

Op, do you have the other dc's over to stay? The one who lives with mum? Do you give her a break child free? Then she should do the same if only to keep things in her sons home happy because that's the place he lives with non frazzled dad and step mum.

Christ almighty it's obvious even from a badly written post, that this is about wanting some alone time with the Mr and there's nothing wrong with that.

Reading the words step kids does funny things to people it seems

The op made me feel quite sad and reflect on my own amazing stepdad. He never ever made me feel in any way different from his own dcs and my mum had me 100% of the time so there was no getting away from me at weekends. I was very difficult when my mum first married him but even knowing what I was like I would be mortified (even now as an adult with dc of my own) if I found out he had ever viewed me in this way. Please be nice to your stepson, his life won't be an easy one and he deserves to feel wanted.

As a parent of teenagers, I know that not all of them go out regularly, and they do hang around the house, sometimes annoyingly, until well after my bedtime, so I get very little "couple" time with my DH. The upside is they do babysit for DS3 so we do sometimes manage to go out together. So I get how the OP feels.

OP, can you do some sort of deal with SS so that he babysits, say once a week, so that you and DH can go out together? And then you take yourself off out once a week so that he gets some time alone with his dad?

He's possibly feeling quite similar to you - sounds like he's not happy at his Mum's house ( maybe a backstory there?) and in his place I'd be wanting 1:1 with Dad.

SIL sounds lovely, and maybe she could take him out sometimes? Movies or something? And what Hogwash said - be inventive about getting him out ( or into his room - mates over for a sleepover? PS3 in bedroom?

I don't like how judgemental some people are being - Op said in her original post that she needed a rant .... which she is entitled to. She sounds under considerable pressure, and if she can't be honest and let off steam here, where can she?

Nothing wrong with wanting time away from kids evenif they are not yours.

And if you were a mum talking about your child coming up with reasons like this and not wanting to go to dads you would get just as much as a flaming and would be told that its your fault,and the relationship with his other parent was more important than little none abusive things.

Dh and I took on our grandchildren 13 years ago. We now have a 9 month old great grandchild. They all live with us. DH is my son's stepfather (got together when he was 14). We have no time off because that's just how it is. We are still solid because we enjoy our family. Life is what it is.

I think people are suggesting the op posts in step parenting because it is bloody vicious in aibu. There are other areas of this site where you can rant, still get told you are in the wrong, but not have 100 posters repeating it over and over and over that you are a terrible person.

Everyone has a breaking point and it makes then act/say terrible things. Though from the op (who has been scared off) it just says she wants him to go but he won't. Much better for her to rant here than in real life.

Other people sharing how bad they have it and are coping fine, isn't going to make the op feel better is it? What if the op does have mental health problems and we have scared her off from getting help.