Sad step mum

[Mentalhealthworries]

Another night of sitting in my car in the terrible weather while DH and his kids enjoy tea at home.
I can’t bear it. Life as a step mum really sucks! Don’t do it if you have a choice.

Not all kids or teens or young adults bicker like this. Of course siblings bicker sometimes...but not as young adults.

This is down to your DH and poor parenting I'm afraid.

Have you ever told them to stop it? I don't necessarily call that parenting...it's just asking them to stop the arguing.

Maybe next time tell them you get a headache when they argue and bicker... I'd say that to my own DC.

They were 10 when we met, I tried and tried and tried for 5 years. They are horribly rude and exclusive and used to whisper and laugh. When they reached 16 I disengaged. I don’t wish them any harm and will always do what’s right, on good days I’ll cook a family meal and try harder. On bad days I’ll get in my car.

It makes me sad thinking about you in your car waiting to go home. I know this won’t solve anything in the bigger picture but could you go to the cinema or something?

It sounds hard OP. Honestly I do sympathize.

But your DH needs to step up here. Yes his kids are his priority etc... But you are his wife and he needs to help this situation for you. Just letting you drive off in your car every night whilst they have tea isn't on. He should be trying to figure out a solution to this problem and parenting his kids properly so that it isn't so uncomfortable at home for you.

His kids are important. But so are you!

Obviously I do not know the whole story. But why would you want to sit around listening to them bicker? It is a shame you cannot go somewhere nicer and treat yourself. I have a step mum and she is great but my dad was not! Sorry OP that it is like this.

Crikey this is no way to live. Your husband is a fool. He should have made the relationship with you non negotiable. 10 yos are a lot easier to manage than teens.

This is an odd situation to unpick

I feel for you - your DH clearly panders to them and the bickering does sound more than normal (but for mixed twins maybe not so much)

But then the other side is you seem resentful that they still want to spend time with their Dad indeed that they are around at all

Why marry him if you didnt want the children

Being in the car is such a passive aggressive move do you do it every time

Woe is me.

If you’re going to be so ridiculous, you’re going to suffer for it. If I was your dh I’d let you get on with your stop...it’s no skin off his nose.

You could go home, have a bath, go to bed early, sit in your room.

I used to sit in the bedroom while ex DP and DSS ate, it drove me mad.

Sit in your room and watch tv/read a book instead?

Sounds like a shit Friday night 😔 where are you? If you're in the area you're welcome to come have pizza with us - Horsham, West Sussex

I'm sure you have good intentions but offering a complete stranger off the internet to come to your home is worrying for want of a better word.

I don’t do it every visit just when I feel I can’t cope with it. It’s not woe is me, I’m happier here than with them and I have a choice. When they are in my home I’m uncomfortable. DSS doesn’t do it now but used to just walk into our bedroom, I was getting dressed after a shower One time i was naked. His reaction, “why do you have no clothes on, that’s disgusting”!! He was told that I had just showered and was getting dressed and to never do it again! He knocks now! He walks around in boxer shorts and nothing else. I’ve told him to get dressed. It’s a shit life.

Great duck chill your beans, I’m sure it was light hearted!!

What has your husband actually done to rectify their behavior in the 9 years you've known them?

Could you go to the cinema op? Bohemian Rhapsody is currently showing and is brilliant apparently (I'm planning on going next week). I've had to leave the house before when my ex had his daughter, I got to the point where I had to or I might've said something there'd be no coming back from.

I really feel for you.
I was that shitty stepchild.
As mumsnet often says, you don’t have a stepchildren problem - you have a DH problem .
Personally I think you sound as equally pissed off with him as you do with them.
For financial reasons you are stuck at the moment ( don’t you just hate it when people post ‘ leave him then’ as if it’s as easy as writing it!) so if I were you I would be trying to make the best of it - and sitting in your car on a rainy November night eating a Tesco sandwich ( not even an M&S one - come on, you can do better than that! ) does NOT cut it.

Speak to your DH before the twins next weekend.
Tell him it is utterly unacceptable that you feel forced out of your own home by their childish behaviour and he either a)makes them behave to an acceptable level or b) he takes them out for dinner & cinema/visiting granny/cousins etc.
When you come home on the twins visiting Friday I would ensure I had everything prepared. So I would swan in, make a coffee/tea and go upstairs with the nice magazines I had bought myself. Then I would run a beautiful bath illuminated only by candle light. While the bath was running I would flick through the takeaway menus and order a meal for one to be delivered in an hour. I would then nip downstairs with my earphones on and get the bottle of wine/champagne out of the fridge ( I put it in yesterday! ) . I would pour myself a glass, stick some tunes on the speaker thingy with blue tooth and get in bath. After nice bath I would sip on wine while flicking through magazines until take away came. I would have requested DH bring it up when it came -vthe can pay for it too then! I would eat my meal while watching what I wanted on telly. Then I would put a face mask on and meditate on calming energies.
In the morning I would do my hair and face then go out for brunch with a friend/S . Then i would go shopping, even window shopping. Or visit an art gallery, or a museaum, or gonto the cinema, or a craft fair, or a stately home, or a garden Center or ....well whatever I damn well fancied. Then , if the twins were staying over Saturday night I would make sure I was invited somewhere. Or repeat Friday night.
I would NOT be driven out of my home.

Another option is to speak to them like you are all adults and say that their behaviour is juvenile and if they want to keep having weekends at your home then they need to change their behaviour. Ask if you can all do somethimg next time they come - even if it’s only pizza and trivial persuit/ monopoly / etc. Make one last big effort and if they reject it then you have every right to say to DH that you will never stop him seeing his kids but they are no longer welcome in your home and you are changing the spare room into a den and one of the bedrooms they use into a craft room/ zen room/ yoga room - a whatever floats your boat bloody room as if he forces the issue you need somewhere to go when the twins are visiting. Oh and he will be sleeping in the other twins bedroom from now on as you are kicking him out of your bed until he realises he is a husband too.

It’s time to face the music ! Now bin that bloody sandwich and get home in the bath!!

Sounds like a shit Friday night 😔 where are you? If you're in the area you're welcome to come have pizza with us - Horsham, West Sussex.

I'm sure you have good intentions but offering a complete stranger off the internet to come to your home is worrying for want of a better word.

Is it? Really? I actually thought it was a lovely gesture. Perhaps if we all a bit nicer to strangers the western world wouldn't be in quite the state its in. Most people are relatively normal (i.e. they aren't going to rob your house, rape you or murder your family, and as the offer came from a UK town you are unlikely to get shot with a semi automatic weapon). If I was sitting on my own i would probably be more cautious but the invite was from "us", so the robber/raper/murderer knows that he/she will be taking on more than one person......which in itself is probably enough of a deterrent. If only there were more of bruise in the world.

DH knows where I am and why

So you made sure he knows you are going to sit in your car all evening. If you can't tolerate them why not go somewhere more warm and comfortable at least? Choosing to sit in your car and making sure he knows about it whilst he is having an evening with his kids is both dramatic and manipulative.

I think it’s nice that they maintain regular contact with their dad. It’s not bizarre at all.

Why not suggest they come separately?

Or maybe get a divorce 😬

Yorkshire yummy mummy thank you that was a great post, funny and caring! Thank you. Xx

I know someone who is in a similar situation, not you though as the dc are younger.

The wife has made the situation so difficult that whenever it is his weekend to have them he either takes them away or stays with his mum. From where we are watching it does seem as though she hasn’t made the effort to bond with them. Yes, they can be difficult and yes they can be rude but they are still his dc and he loves them very much.

I can understand your frustration but they come as a package and you did know that when they were 10. How did he deal with them when they were little? Can he not alternate them now, or split them up over the weekend, in order reduce their squabbling?

Feel sorry for you, OP. This is why I will follow your advice and will never get into a relationship with a man with kids.

I told him I was going to the supermarket and for a drive, he knows why. If I’d just disappeared he’d be concerned where I was probably. Not manipulation, just a statement of fact.

Yabu. Your house your rules. Time to give them and their dad an ultimatum. You are enabling this behaviour.

It’s ever so easy to blame the step mum in this situation for not trying hard enough.

Believe me I tried so hard for a very long time.

The kids didn’t ask their parents to split, they didn’t ask for dad to meet someone else and spoil their unit but it’s pretty normal life.

Kids can be horrible. If you had a friend’s child who treated you badly would you keep on trying with them forever regardless!? You knew the friend had children?