To only financially provide for my own children?

[tinyboxtim]

DH and I have been married for three years. Together we have eight (yes, eight) children. I have two (Ds11 and Dd9), he has three (SD10, SS9, Sd6) and together we have three (DTS2 and DD4mnths).

Our all entire relationship we have kept our finances completely separate. We do have a joint account that we each put our proportion of household bills and money for our childrens together needs in to. Besides that, I have always provided for my own children, and he has provided for his children/payed their child support. We live in the house that was gifted to myself and my first late husband. It has always worked well for us.

Because of our respective careers, the money my late husband left behind, and the amount that DH pays in cs, I have a lot more disposable cash than my husband. Because of this, my children have different lifestyle than my stepchildren.

Over the last couple of months, my eldest SD has been very resentful about this, making passive aggressive comments about how DD1 has something she doesn't have, etcetera.

WIBU to explain to her this weekend that we all have two parents in life that are responsible for providing for us, and just like how her dad, and to a much lesser expense, her mum (didn't say this) provide for her, I am responsible to provide for my children the best that I can? And to tell her that in the future she will need to bring it up with mum and dad if she wants something, not me, as, financially, she is not my responsibility?

Of course op hasen't a responsibility financially towards her dear step children, that is up to their father to make that financial provision, which I don't think he is. If he cannot afford to pay for their shared children to go to private school, and make equal financial provision for his own dc, than if op really wants them to be privately educated, she should pay the whole fees, not do this, at the detriment of her DSC.

What got to me, is op attitude towards her DSC, there is no affection or warmth there, I feel that they are seen as an inconvenience, I do not see that she will run after them with supersoakers somehow. My god, if anything happened to their mother, and they had to live with op and their father, in her house. I dread to think. She is as cold as an Iceland freezer, I am afraid.

Her attitude is that I am alright Jack, to hell with the rest, which is her DSC. If she seriously felt that way, why marry a man with kids! They come as a package, just as she has done with hers. It is not up to her to talk to her DSC, but their father, she should stay out of it, they are going to love her even more for that, I am sure. That is an awful and quite coldhearted conversation to have with a 10 year old child.

Why should you automatically love and want to provide for a partners children that you only see half of the time and who have their own mother????

Because most of us are human beings. Although we might not automatically love a child we're decent enough to realise that we shouldn't behave in a way which will actively harm that child emotionally and tailor our behaviour accordingly.

Anyway, the thread has moved on from that. It's not simply an expectation the OP should provide for his children. The OP has admitted that her DH actually pays significantly more towards the shared children because he pays school fees for them and doesn't spend a similar amount of money on the SC. In fairness, given that, they should be able to afford for the SC to have a comparable life outside school if they were being fair.

No of course you cannot expect op to love her dear step children like her own children, but bloody hell, no ounce of warmth or affection towards them, her attitude towards them is quite cold and clinical.

OPs husband does not contribute financially to the upbringing of OPs two older children so why should she be expected to take any financial responsibility for his two older children? Let's not forget the DHs children are in a better position that OPs older children because they have two Parents and OPs only have one.

But he also offered to pay half of his DC with his ex wife schooling and she said no - this is not the OP's problem . She shouldn't have to provide what their own mother won't

Read my previous posts in this thread. The OP doesn't need to provide for her SC, but their father does need to treat them equally, and that may (or may not) mean her children with him get less from him, which may leave her/them worse off.

It's nothing to do with her providing for her SC, if she has to pay more for her own younger children it's because the man she married has prior commitments to his children with ex that means he can afford to contribute less than she hoped for.

The SC do not have to have the same spent on them as OP children, and they do not need anything directly from OP. They do need a fair contribution from their father, which may indirectly impact OP, causing her to have to lay out more on her own children, because their father can't afford to. That's fine, she should have taken his prior commitments into account when she married him.

(We don't know the details of the maintenance he pays - it may be that the picture (of relative fairness to his different children) would look different if we did.)

It must be absolutely grim for the stepchildren, yes. But I'm sure it's not great for the OP's kids either. I would feel like shit if I were leading this private school/pony existence and my siblings weren't. Sure, they're step-siblings but they're young enough that this distinction could fall away if things were managed properly.

Just another man who's started a new family with no thought for the old one. No big news there.

The OP has admitted that her DH actually pays significantly more towards the shared children because he pays school fees for them and doesn't spend a similar amount of money on the SC

No she hasn't. The younger children are 2 years old and four months old, slightly young to need school fees paid for.

She has said it is likely that the younger ones will go to private school, and the assumption is that she will pay half and her husband will pay half. The husband should match the money he spends on his younger children in savings for his older children, but as the older ones can't go to private school because their mother won't/can't contribute despite the DH being willing to pay his share and the younger ones are way off school age, it's currently a non issue.

What she said - the youngest are not even school age!

People are putting words in the OP's mouth( hands? Mouth? Keyboard? Whatever)

Another way to reframe the school funding situation so that it doesn't look unfair, is that the OP DH decides he can't afford to pay for education for any of his children. However he could pay fair "rent" to OP, in whose house he lives for free, and she could use that money to pay school fees.

But they are not true siblings are they? They are not related - but then again in families it is normal for some to be better off than others eg cousins etc. why would it be hard for the step DC that their step siblings have that lifestyle that they themselves have never had?

Are you saying the OP should deprive her own children so the step children don't feel left out?
Bonkers!

I feel really bloody sorry for the OP's sc.

Just that.

Life is very unfair - with some children having a massively larger investment made in their education than others, and the way this can impact on life chances. And to see this unfairness playing out, made real in your own family. Ugh.

It's not a non-issues, if he's going to spend that amount of money on the other kids in the future he should be putting it away for elder two now.

The husband 'offering' something that he knows his ex won't be able to take makes it okay? The ex clearly can't afford to pay half the school fees. So offering school fees on the condition she pays half is worse than not offering at all, because it's just shifting the blame onto the mother when she can't realistically meet the conditions of accepting it e.g., paying half.

The Queen could offer half her wealth to anybody on state benefits tomorrow if they could match it with their own funds. Nobody would praise her for doing that, because she would be offering it in the full knowledge that it couldn't be taken. The DH's offer is similar. It's an empty gesture only made in the certainty the ex would have to refuse.

But that's not the fault of the OP! It's down to the step children's parents !!

I often wonder if all these families who insist that the same = equal factor in how unfair that can be for the children who actually live in the house where everything is the same feel about how unfair it turns out to be.

Never being able to have a decent outing or holiday with out including step children never getting as much for birthdays and Christmas as the step children do. It's not nice

OP, YANBU.

It's tough. Basically, your stepchildren's father remarried a woman with more money than he has. Through their contact with their father they are being exposed to "how the other half lives." It's pretty "in their face." Teenagers have a honed sense of grievance and injustice. It's true, the world isn't "fair," but most of us don't have what we are lacking brought to our attention so intimately on a regular basis. Rather than living in a neighbourhood where most families are about on the same footing and going to the local school where the kids again are roughly on the same footing and just getting on with it, your step children have a ring side seat to watch your family's lifestyle. It's hard. I think you have to expect a teenager in that situation to feel it is not fair and to consider her step siblings "spoiled."

All that said, I can see why you don't want to subsidise children that are not your own, who have two living, responsible parents. I think treating them the same when they are visiting and being gracious is the best you can do.

Morning all,
We're afraid you won't be hearing from the OP again (at least we blimmin' hope so) as she is a PBP. Many thanks to those who discreetly pointed this out via the reporting system. Have a lovely day, all!

Yup, but any man that was willing to treat his children with such apparent unfairness would not get my time for long.

Oh! What's a PBP? A permanently banned person? What for?

It's not a non-issues, if he's going to spend that amount of money on the other kids in the future he should be putting it away for elder two now

Perhaps he already has. Perhaps it's in the form of his flat that is intended to be for his older children. We don't know this and neither does the op because as per their financial arangement it's nothing to do with her.

She knows he is paying CM she is happy that it is a decent reasonable amount and he is actually paying it. That's where her responsibility to police his financial behaviour ends

Incidentally, somebody mentioned up thread that the poster has posted about this before and the SC DM actually came on and posted a detailed post about exactly what was going on.

Given that I wonder exactly why the OP still posts about this stuff on here, knowing that it's very likely that the SC DM will see it. I suspect that it's because as well as being cold she's also spiteful and probably enjoys posting this type of thing here in full knowledge that the SC's DM will read this and be hurt by it. And it again gives her an opportunity to flaunt her more fortunate financial in front of them.

If the DM of the stepchildren does happen to be reading this, I think she should be seriously questioning if contact should continue. I would be insistent that any future contact took place away from the OP and her older children. I wouldn't be putting my children in such an emotionally damaging situation.

the older ones can't go to private school because their mother won't/can't contribute despite the DH being willing to pay his share

Why can't he fully fund half as many years as he and his ex would together, if she was able and willing to contribute?

His ex not contributing need not prevent her children having some years of private school, it simply halves the number they can have.

If the ex could afford to contribute but has different spending priorities, that is an issue between her and her children, her choice should make no difference to what DH chooses to spend on them. His priority is to be fair to all his children.

The ex not contributing doesn't wash as an excuse for him treating his children differently, if that is happening. (We don't have enough info to be certain that it is.)

Ah.
The posting style makes sense now.

I think new house, new marriage, would have gone a long way to making more of a family out of this situation.

Apart from that I can't see anything else that can be done except dad puts money away for the children from his first marriage to make up the shortfall in school fee allocation for the 3 children with OP.

Sadly it doesn't seem as if there is much of a blended family going on here but I guess that's to be expected when so much of the OP's previous life is still such a huge part of her life now. It must be hard for the children to visit a house that isn't even their dads and I'm not even sure why he went for it.

My lovely stepmom did when she married my dad years after my mum died but it's now very much her home and has her mark all over it. We are a blended family and it works well because in our hearts we are now a 'new' family.

I'm finding that last bit very difficult to articulate.

Oh blimey, I know who it is now. It's the person who's always posting stuff like this. So it's all rubbish. Bah!

Interesting that so many people were claiming she's in the right when she's somebody who deliberately tries to post something as inflammatory and nasty as possible.

I'm relieved, I was worrying about these poor (fictional) stepchildren!