to cancel the wedding?

[Mildinsanity]

DP and I got engaged in August and have booked our venue for august 2018.
Photographer is booked and dress is bought.
However now Im having 2nd thoughts, we live together and own a buisness and are very much in love, he gets on fantastically with my 4DCS from a previous relationship but wants none of the responsibilty.

I can sort of see his point as they arent his DC he never wanted children but he chose to take me knowing I have 4 children and we come as a package.
Their dad is still very much a part of the DCs lives at the moment but I never know how long that will be for as he is a bit flighty, if he does disappear and it is definetly a possibilty then I cannot work full time and parent the same as I do now, he does school runs and will look after the DC when needed and is a proper dad (most of the time but thats a different thread).

so not to drip feed DP and EX get on great, DP doesnt want EX to disappear so he doesnt have to worry about the responsibilty.

I am happy to be a single parent and I have done it for years but I dont want to share my life with someone and still effectivly be a single parent IYSWIM?

A lot of it comes down to money which is how we got to this point for example if we go out to dinner with the DCs we dont go 50/50 he would pay for his and Id pay for me and the DCs.
The food bill and utilites he only wants to contribute 1/6th of them as he doesnt see why he should pay for the DCs.

Their Dad doesnt pay maintenance just for reference.

DP is happy to play with the kids, read with them and spend time with them but certainly not babysit them or look after them.

AIBU to cancel the wedding if he doesnt want to be an actual part of the family rather than the live in boyfriend?

Sycamore just to respond about the EX being there during family time. He isnt as we dont get family time in the morning EX arrives about 5 minutes before we leave in the morning.

It sounds as if he's getting cold feet and questioning whether he can commit to you all. Pity he didn't question this at the beginning, before he got involved with a woman with 4 children.

It's his choice not to want kids but why on earth did he get into a relationship with a woman with 4 children. He's more like a housemate with benefits.

What!?

He isn't prepared to live as a real family, sharing costs, responsibilities etc? I would cancel the wedding now!

You can't spend your life like this - you will grow increasingly upset and resentful regarding finances, and you will also need his moral and emotional support which it seems he isn't prepared to give if it is in regard to your children.

What if one of them (god forbid, but it happens) gets into drugs? Or has a baby at a very young age? Or starts to fail at school? Or develops MH problems? Will all of the emotional, physical and financial strains of anything like this fall on you alone, too?

Being in a committed relationship (which marriage is) is like being pregnant - you are or you aren't. You can't just dip your toes into the water every now and then and pull them back if you don't like the temperature.

It sounds like he is a good guy who would make a good uncle but I couldn't marry someone who wouldn't even "babysit"

I think this is worth repeating too. It's not only about the money.

I wouldn't pay for four kids that weren't mine when their own dad can't be arsed to pay for them. Sorry but I just wouldn't. I would be financially subsidising his choice to not get a job and provide for his children. I would essentially be working so he didn't have to. No thanks.
The wedding sounds a bad idea though, I would let things tick along as they are.

I'm afraid I have to go against the grain and say that I wouldn't be happy to be expected to pay for somebody else's children. You say he is kind to your children, treats them well and has a good relationship with them, which are all good things. But the children are the responsibility of you and your ex DP, as you both made the decision to have them. It's not your current DP's fault that your ex is a waste of space who can't pay for his kids.

My dh 'took on' me and my 4 dc (and I took on his 1 we now have one together). My ex has money taken from source (195) that goes into our joint account. Recently my second eldest got the opportunity of a school trip which i didn't think we could afford without ex contributing half. Ex predictably wouldn't pay so spoke to dc and though sad totally understood. My Dh said "nope if we are careful and I don't get x y and z then we will have the money"
he gave up somethings he had been waiting for so dc could go on trip. Because we are a family unit we work as one and he is a real step father.

I couldn't marry a man like this. What sort of life would it be? 4 unwanted kids around the house. Any man I married would have to love the kids as much as me, we're inseparable. Marriage is about pulling together as a team 100%. It sounds like you're incompatible. This DEFINATELY needs to be sorted before marriage. There should be no 'I love you buts...' on your wedding day.

But mouldy would you get into that type of serious relationship in the first place? Because once you go down that route, there are obvious negatives that you would have to face up to.

I only hope the sex is amazing because frankly you are not getting much more out of this relationship. Partnership and marriage is about sharing and taking joint responsibility for your life together. If you had come into the relationship with 4 dogs in tow then I could understand someone who is not interested in dogs resenting the time , the energy and the financial commitment that maintaining the dogs put on you.

but your children are not dogs, their life with you is an intricate bond for ever : school, holidays, teen years, exams,university, relationships, grandchildren etc etc. How could you think of sharing a bed and calling someone a life partner if you will have to constantly negotiate so much of your life with your children around him for the rest of your lives together.

it is not really about finances and who pays for what, he does not understand or want to understand, the emotional connection you have with your children.

Not bring irrational , how? Are you hoping this will somehow change his attitude. What if he says he will just to keep you but "changes his mind" again next year , or worse, after the wedding or when there is a crisis. He stands to gain so much more from you than you are from him.

Sorry, I haven't had time to read through the whole thread, but based on your initial post:
I was a step-mother once to by then-fiance's children from a previous marriage (it didn't work out, but we almost got to the altar; failure of relationship had nothing to do with the kids). I can appreciate some of his attitude - for example, not wanting to feel financially responsible in some ways. Also, I didn't have children of my own and having the children by myself seemed very daunting. It's a lot to take on and get your head around. I let him to the main share of the child-rearing responsibilities. However, we only had the kids at weekends as they lived with their Mum.

The bit that rings alarm bells for me is where you say he only pays for 1/6 of the utilities and the food. OK, I understand that you may offer to pay for more of the food occasionally and do the odd shop without him contributing. But is he seriously working out 1/6 and only giving you that amount?
It is petty. VERY PETTY. He seriously doesn't want to pay for any of the food they eat FFS? He's actually thinking about what bits of electricity they use?! This would be big alarm bells for me. It sounds like there is a petty-ness to his personality and an immaturity. I'd be having second thoughts too. I'd also be thinking - What else is he going to be quibbling over in the future?

Calmly talk to him about your concerns. How he behaves, why you don't like it, how it makes you feel and what your worries are. You need to get a clearer sense of who this man is. You definitely don't want to end up married just to find out at a later date that your intuition and fears were right and you can't stick it. You need to do some analysing and soul-searching.

Only read the OP

nonononononononononononononononononono don't marry this baby

not fair on you or the dc.

Absolute madness.

I'm glad you've spoken up for yourself Mild I hope your okay I know what you've had to do is a massive thing but you are doing the right thing.

Our children only get one childhood and they need to know that the parents that they live with love them,want to spend time with them and value them as people.

It might be worth letting your partner have a look at this thread so that he can see that what your saying is a nomal response from a good Mum.

I'm sorry, but the majority of step-parents don't love their step-children as if they were their own. Obviously some exceptions, but that's a ridiculous statement, particularly where their DF is still heavily involved in their lives.

I'll admit that this situation isn't right, all I was saying is that I can understand, particularly as that many children is a lot. I'm at my wits end with my own 2 children some days. Maybe he shouldn't have got involved, but despite one of the favourite sayings on Mumsnet, he probably had no idea what he was taking on. A step-parents job is not to parent despite the word in the title.

Handling finances in relationships also works differently for different people. I don't think you can say categorically that it should be family money.

I would definitely make sure you're happy with the outcome OP, the divorce rate for second marriages are very high and the main cause of breakdown is children from a previous relationship.....

I think long term this is going to cause problems. If you have DC you need someone who can step up and be a support for you and them. If he's never going to be anything other than an occasional playmate who refuses to even treat them to food then I'm sorry but I think you and them deserve more.

What if you were sick? What if you needed him to look after one of them or pick one up from school? I think it's horrible that he will only pay a 6th of everything so presumably he swans about with all his extra cash whilst you struggle to pay bills and support kids?

You all deserve far more.

He's not U not to want to take on four children.

He is VU to decide this now, after he's proposed to a woman who has four children!

How could he be so detached from them, when he lives with them? Sees them happy, sad, sick, well?

It's so cold. And anyone who can do such a thing isn't someone I'd want to marry anyway!

if I was single, was never having children, and met the love of my life who had 4 dc, and wanted to marry them, I'd accept that the money would be merged. End of story. You can't say, I'll marry you but if you fall on hard times because of the expense of having 4 DC you're on your own. That's not love, and you're better off not committing to someone who's not really committing to you.

Yes, I also think that neither of you has done anything "wrong" as such - it's perfectly acceptable for him to say he doesn't want to pay for kids that aren't his. However, what's NOT acceptable is to then get into a relationship with a woman that HAS kids - it's not like you sprang it on him once you got more deeply involved.

It's the mean-ness, the penny-pinchiness of it all that I would find deeply unattractive. And I would also find it hard to love someone who would make my children feel like they were just inconveniences, and not wanted and cherished by the adults they live with. That would be the deal-breaker for me: not the money, but the attitude.

I can understand him not wanting kids but in that case he needs to be with someone else who also doesn't want kids. He can just pretend they don't exist. They will notice his lack of involvement beyond very basic things and it will effect them.

*Honestly, I think youve got 4 children. Youre expecting a lot to want someone to just come in and be a complete father to them, financially as well as emotionally, when you still have your ex being a father to them and dont get financial support from him either. It sounds like hes very fond of your children and does things with them, but hes not their father and you want him to pretend he is and pay for them as though theyre his own.
*

I kind of agree with this. I don't think many of the posters on this thread who think he should take full responsibility for the kids would actually be willing to do that themselves, it's a really big ask.

If that's what you want, though, and he's not willing to give it to you, you definitely shouldn't get married.

Fuck that. I would have to seriously down grade that relationship. I couldn't live with someone who needed to be so removed from my children.

On the money front, it doesn't make sense to me anyway. Me and my OH share our finances entirely. If I made OH pay all the bills, the only result would be that there would be more money in my account to spend on food shopping and going out (the two of us) or putting into savings for our future (bigger house, kids, etc).

What I'm trying to say is, it makes no difference who pays for what. When you're married and live a life together, who spends how much on what really makes no difference. Everything is pooled anyway. (This is why we don't even have a shared bank account, because it wouldn't change anything)

I knew a woman who did marry this type of DP - didn't want to parent, especially financially, her children, as well as non-contributing biological father. It seemed a good marriage. He supported her when she became terminally sick.

Then when she died, the deep and most bitter resentments came out. He basically hated her kids. The fall out was and is massive, even though their adults now, not just emotional, but financial as well. Issues with the will (who gets the house, disputes about what her wishes were etc).....just awful. Just one perspective OP.