Paying for the stepchildren

[StepMum2Be]

Hey i'm new so please forgive any faux pas! I'm not a mum biologically but i'm about to inherit two teenage step children. I appreciate this may not be the right place to voice these concerns but i'm willing to try it. The children aged nearly 13 and 17 have very few manners and with the great insight (bit of sarcasm there) of a non-mother I relate this to my own childhood and how my mother beat manners into me. My OH is a total Disney Father, he will not hear a word of criticism about his children and is hostile if I dare to bring up anything that he doesn't agree with. So here goes, i'm a good earner, I earn equal to OH and we split our household bills 50/50. We like to eat our regularly and work long hours. As we have the little darlings every other weekend we tend to eat out with them also. I'm always expected to pay 50% of the bill and it's starting to grate a little. AIBU?? Should he pay a larger percentage? Thanks for listening and I hope to hear your views.

My dcs have never 'thanked' me for taking them out for a meal. I think they have quite good manners and are generally considerate. They do say thank you for ordinary meals at home most of the time but not when I haven't actually done anything but put my hand in my pocket. I think as a teen I would assume that my parents would naturally pay for my food in a restaurant they had taken me to.

Anyway, the whole thing sounds grim.

My brothers and I have a fantastic step father. He loved my mother from the very beginning, and always put us as children first (still does even now). He has done more for us than our biological father has ever done. He's fed us, clothed us, kept a roof over our head, as well as providing us with all the emotional, mental support we have ever needed. To us he is our dad, the only thing that separates us is genetics. I do imagine he found it difficult initially to know when to tell us off and set boundaries.

What I will say is once you're living together and especially when you're married you are a parent and you are family. Disney dad will have to realise that no kids are perfect (I certainly wasn't). I think it is perfectly reasonable that they should say please and thank you, manners cost nothing, but at the same time I think it's fair to expect you to contribute financially. You can't just take on a parent but not their kids.

Can you sit him down and ask him to watch next time his kids to see how they interact with you and watch to see if they say please and thank you if you offer them something or give them something? Make it clear you're not accusing his kids of being brats you just want to make sure everyone is treated equally.

If he's not willing to do this, or makes excuses for them. I would question why he's not willing to make sure you are treated fairly and kindly.

My children don't thank me for taking them out for a meal. Because it's, you know, my job to feed them and if that's done with a meal out then I don't expect thanks for that. They do every now and then say "thanks for a lovely day Mum" which is worth everything to me. It may be that it just never occurred to them that they needed to thank you because they see you and their Dad as a couple, a unit if you like and they don't feel the need to thank their father for providing food for them. You say that you and your DP like to eat out so they come along, it's your choice, don't eat out if you begrudge paying for them or verbalise that it would be good manners to recieve a thank you. Personally it wouldn't bother me one bit but it does you but I don't think they're in the wrong here at all.

If you don't like them and you don't want your money to pay for them, then stop paying into the joint account. Pay half each for shopping etc from your own accounts when you're together. Absent yourself on the weekends when he has the kids. You don't have to worry about them having no manners and costing you money if you're not seeing them or paying for them anymore.
That might well sound impractical if you want to continue being in this relationship, but it's probably better all round if none of you have any respect for each other.

My child thanks me after every meal and he's 6

Yes, I don't think eating out is top of my teens' list either. You are continuing to do the thing you and he do without sconsidering if it's the thing they'd like to do in their time with their dad

Really midcentury? My teens are 16 and 19 and will always thank me if we go out for lunch or dinner and I pay. They also take me out sometimes (bother have jobs) which I think is really sweet.

OP I do think the stepchildren are rather rude, but why would you want to live with a man who, in your own words, "is hostile if I dare to bring up anything that he doesn't agree with." Not surprising his kids are so rude if that's how he behaves is it?

I sense walking away is not an option (at the moment).
Looks like there are two relationships: OH & children, OH & you...
Change it (difficult), or walk away!

StepMum2Be, did you start off on the 'wrong footing'? Were the children perhaps hoping their parents would get back together, but now are just 'making the most' of the time with their dad? And honestly, did you ever actually want children?

Sorry for all the questions, it just reads like you find them a burden. Can't separate what might actually be 'bad manners' and what may be exceptional irritation on your side. You have a choice with the finances though, if you don't want to pay for your husband's children then don't. However, if you make it any more obvious that you merely tolerate his children, your relationship may unravel. Remember, the kids are never going away, even if you stop spending your money on them.

I don't feel I need to love them

StepMum2Be, those children deserve better than a stepmother who tolerates them. Children need to be surrounded by love.

but why would you want to live with a man who, in your own words, "is hostile if I dare to bring up anything that he doesn't agree with"

happypoobum, oracle.

Not sure why you should walk away as the kids are not permanently living with you and won't be around forever.

It's simply about paying equally.

If you are both good earners and you are not struggling to pay half this meal bill then I would leave it as it is. You may not love these children but if you love your DH they are part of your life too and it would be very petty to split the bill differently. You DH would maybe find this a bit of a rejection of his LOs. Not worth it unless it's actually a pure financial issue

I think that you need to try to understand them. To consider that what you see as rudeness is not the same as just having no manners.

It must be hard to try to understand them if you haven't enough goodwill to want to, but that's what you have to do.

happypoobum mine aren't old enough to take me out and are very much at the age where they can expect their parents to be paying for their food. They thank whoever has cooked the meal at home and would thank, for example, my Mum if she took them out but they don't have to thank me for buying a pizza in pizza express any more than they thank me for going to the supermarket. Providing food is sort of what you do when you have children under the legal age of work (one of the dcs in the OP is 12 ) and it is the decision of the adult to go out to eat. I thank my Mum if she takes me out because I am 44 and she doesn't have to feed me any more.

My DC thank me if we go out for dinner and sometimes after normal dinner at home.

Fwiw I don't think you have to like your step children. But if you don't, then you certainly don't move in with them! There are plenty of people who I know that are rude and I don't like very much, I don't live with them. that's what you do when you don't like someone, you opt not to spend time where they will be. That would involve not being in their home. Loving their father does not trump that. Sorry. They deserve to be living with people that at least like them. If you don't? Well then leave them be and see their father when he isn't parenting.

I don't like my own child all the time, let alone my step ones. I do love them though, albeit in different ways. They're all teens, and all can be fairly objectionable sometimes. It goes with the territory - being a teen is hard and sometimes that comes out as being a bit of a dick.

Difference I think between my situation and yours op is that bringing my own child into the set up means we're on a more even footing. It makes things far easier in many ways and touch wood to date neither he nor I have overstepped the mark much with each other's children. If mine is being a dick, dp lets me know (gently), and vice versa. More to the point, we respect each other's parenting.

I don't think anything you've posted so far suggests that you are a wicked SMS btw. Maybe (and I mean this kindly I swear) have a read through a couple of books about parenting teenagers. It might be that what you view as Disney-dadding is more a case of your dp picking his battles (an approach I favour myself).

For those questioning why op posted in AIBU - she said in her OP that she's new to MN. It's often the first board that pops up on a Google search and not everybody realises that its tone can be quite so fucking ridiculous spiky.

As a stepmother to a very difficult DSS and a lovely husband who does have disney tendencies, I think you need to have a proper talk to your DH2B.

Discuss the joint bills account, say that the kids expenses are coming out of there, see if he thinks that he should pay an extra £100 or so to cover that. You can do that without criticising the kids, making it about the amount of money that is spent as a household and who pays for what.

When DH and I first got together, we set up a joint account for bills. For the first year or so I would monitor how much was spent on what, and we would discuss it to make sure we were paying enough in each.

We were much stricter about paying for our own in the early days. DH earns considerably more than I do and on the last holiday he paid for all of us including my kids.

You do not need to love the kids, nor be part of their lives every weekend. I would suggest letting the three of them go off and do stuff sometimes. You get to see friends etc.

Oh and do not ever suggest parenting techniques, you will never be thanked and it is a surefire way to start an argument.

I would be going along with the others on this thread saying you should cut your losses if the children were any younger, or you were planning on having children together.
I'm guessing your relationship is based on a child free life as that is 10 days out of every 14. Also once they turn 18 I guess you will see less of them.
The problem is you seem very committed to this relationship but have posted here rather than having a discussion with h2b. Why is that?

I agree with PP, I don't think it will work, unless they quickly go to Uni, leave home & you see them twice a year. or if they are around, maybe you should go elsewhere.
You haven't had kids, so maybe you don't know how vile teenagers are capable of being.
Maybe they see no need to be polite & friendly, maybe they consider you as the person who got in the way of a reconciliation (in their minds)
Maybe they don't want their father to have a new GF, & Maybe they haven't taken to being pulled up on their manners. Don't like you & are being deliberately unpleasant.
BUT, IMO I think if you are living together your OP should ask them to be polite, if there is any blame, it is him who should feel the brunt of it.
3 years have gone by, & I would expect him to support you, particularly as you are paying for his children.
I would guess this will not work out for you sadly.

You say wanting them to have more manners doesn't make you a bad person I agree but this bit concerns me greatly:

I don't feel I need to love them, they have everything they need from their mother and father.

In your posts you criticise the children directly, criticise your partners parenting, criticise his ex's parenting and then say this? You are basically saying well their parents did a terrible job so it's there problem not mine.

I have step family if I felt like they "didn't feel they needed to love me" and spoke about me with the hostility that comes across in your Posts I would be devastated. Likewise if a partner spoke about me and my kids the way you do here about your family it would be a deal breaker for me.

You are basically saying I don't feel I need to bother loving these kids.

A man with kids is a package deal. You need to be prepared to take these kids on and treat them as your own. The money is not the issue here and nor Is the parenting. the biggest issue is that you seem to be totally disconnected from these kids. It reads like
You think they are an inconvenience. You find them rude and expensive and don't want to even try and love them. If even half this attitude is evident in your every day life then it's likely one of the reasons they are so rude.

Please give very serious thought to if you even want to be a step parent. It is still being a parent and it's a very challenging role. If you go in with this attitude then it's all going to go wrong very fast and you will all be far worse off. Please for the sake of these kids don't enter into this marriage unless you are prepared to take them into your family properly. I don't give a shit who pays for them but you BOTH have to love them.

I really wouldn't bring up the money, it sounds so petty and you'll not come across well, your dh2b will probably turn more disney if he feels he has to protect them from your hostility (which he may have picked up on already).

I have been step mum to 1 sulky teenage boy and 2 hostile teenage girls, it just takes time and not taking things personally. I could have been any woman tbh whoever I was I would have got the same treatment, it wasn't personal, I was the woman that was with their father instead of their mother (never an ow, just how kids see things from their point of view iykwim).

My dp would never have brought up money and neither would I, we've both forked out for the others kids (mine ain't perfect either) you're meant to be a family, albeit not the traditional one and you need to act that way even if your biting your tongue and not rising to the bait. Just smile, they do grow out of it (eventually)

I don't live with my fiancé yet, but as we're engaged I consider his 16 and 19yo sons as my stepchildren. I have a 9yo.

We're going on holiday together and I'm paying half. Not only are we 2 to his 3, but mine is cheaper airfare (slightly), free on the long train journey in the country we're going to and won't have gold luggage. I'm getting stung.

But... I earn more, I suggested it, he pointed out it was unfair, then when I insisted we were one family, thanked me genuinely and said he loved me.

I don't think his boys should thank me - why should they know who is paying?

Come to think of it, when we go to the pub for a meal, I don't think the kids thank us - it's our choice to eat out, and they could hardly be expected to pay. I think all 3 are well mannnered. It's not that it would be wrong to say thanks - but I don't find it rude not to, over a meal out. I'd think it more wrong if during the meal they asked me to pass the salt then didn't say thanks!

I think given you earn the same, if it's not big money then I'd let it go - if he was acknowledging the financial role you'd taken on. If it's a larger amount - second families, it's OK to not contribute equally. Someone upthread mentioned uni fees. I would never expect to pay for uni for his sons. But what I would gladly do, is carry additional costs because he had less disposable income. So similar really I suppose.

The big issue for me here is your boyfriend seems to just expect this and not say thank you - that's more of a problem than the kids.

i inherited a 7 year old step son and the way his father spoilt him (ignoring his mothers instructions) really wound me up. Note the past tense..

A meal isn't a dealbreaker, but what will be? School trips? University fees? First car? Deposit for a house?

At some point you're going to ask him to make a choice and the chances are he'll choose them. If you're going to be happy with him you need to accept that this is the price you pay to be with him and let go of your resentment, otherwise it will eat you up. If you can't accept it, you need to think about whether this is really the right relationship for you.
And you don't need to love them, of course you don't. But you don't have a limited, finite amount of love in you, and giving a bit to someone else costs you nothing. You may even find you get some in return.

I am not a stepmother, but I am a stepdaughter times 6. That's right, I've had 6 step parents.

Teenagers are vile, and step parents are an easy target. When the step parent has been around ever since the child was very young, then a parent-child relationship can be appropriate, and paying for the children and relating closely to them is a part of that. I am still close to one of my step parents, who was my SD from my ages of 5-15.

Once you hit teenage, the newly arriving step parent is not a 'parent' but a 'parent's partner' in the eyes of most teens. The relationship will tend to be very different. The natural level of closeness is far less, and time with only the parent without the step there feels very natural. Any attempt to get close and act like a parent/impose rules/dictate behaviour is likely to be resented by the teenager as an inappropriate intrusion. TBH, they feel that way about their bio parents too, but are given less choice with regards to that.

Teenagers are more likely to be polite to more distant figures that they spend less time with too, so a bit of the three of them going off might do you all some good.

I would also think it would not be natural for these outings to be paid out of a joint account.

I don't think there is any reason to say you can't make this work, but you do have to all understand the boundaries that are acceptable to all of you and stick to them.

I don't feel I need to love them

I have a stepfather who I am fairly sure feels this way about my brother and I. It is very sad, my mother adores him, he is a useless stepfather and has always treated us as an inconvenience. If she dies first he will be a very lonely old man. Tread carefully OP.