To not see them again?

[SplitStep]

Try to keep it short.

Was with stbeh for just under 6 years. We have one 2 year old together and he has a 8 and 11 year old from previous relationship. I left because I just wasn't happy with a few things in the relationship that never seemed to change. One of which was the step parenting relationship was too much for me, I didn't enjoy it and I regularly felt put upon.

Now living on my own with 2 yo and much happier.

My exH keeps asking if I'll see the kids (his kids). Like when he drops off 2yo can he bring them up to see our new place, hangout for a bit or whatever. He's suggested a few times that we do some days out with all the kids too.

I know it sounds selfish but I don't want this. I think it's just better for everyone that it's kept as clean as possible and we don't continue a relationship (me and his older DC). I don't really have any desire to and I think it will just be harder the more I agree to in respect of seeing them.

I want mine and 2yo's home to be ours, I don't want H or SC in it. I just want the space to ourselves.

OP I don't think YABU.

It's unfortunate that the relationship broke down and that there were children involved. Ultimately you're not their parent. You don't have an obligation to them. If you were going to maintain a life long relationship with them then any future partners you had would have to take them onboard as well as your own child and your ex. It's just too much.

If your ex begins a new relationship with someone then they will fill the role of step parent. How would that work if you were still in the picture anyways?

It's a completely different situation if both you and the children WANTED a relationship now and in the future.

I'm just reading back over the last few pages and I'm rather confused about what people think OP should be doing...she isn't facilitating a relationship neither she nor the kids wants...surely, if anything, she's making it easier for everyone by not pretending?

She has said she'll be civil when she does see them, so hardly blanking them all together, she just won't be making plans to spend time with them.

nd obviously, the OP can do what she likes going forward. But I’m allowed to express sympathy for those children having nobody on their team for six years (including their biological parents).

How has this escalated into the children having 'nobody on their team'. This thread is batshit.

You don't have to answer op but just wondered about how you and your ex explained to the children you were splitting up. Did you all sit down and say you were leaving and what the reasons were? Did you and your ex ask them how they felt and whether they were upset that they would no longer have any contact with you? Was it a calm departure where everyone was involved? You say you were not involved in raising the children but rather just landed with the 'boring' aspects of parenthood. But believe me the mundane caring, cooking, cleaning, homework, school drops are the most meaningful to small children so you would have been a big part of their lives. I'm sure you wouldn't want to deliberately cause them emotional harm and you have every right to say who enters your new home but did you prepare them for the end of their relationship with you? You may feel that as the non biological step parent you had no obligation but personally as the adult I would feel the need to put the children's feelings as a priority. As adults we choose our relationships but kids have no choice.

I read ops posts and she has said herself that she won't be ignoring them and will chat to them, see them at birthday parties etc. So what exactly is the problem then?

Exactly. Little things like that are obviously fine.

Her ex is obviously expecting more of her than that though. People’s problem with the OP is that they are clearly in agreement with him.

@Bonheurdupasse

Pfft people here believe there are no arseholes in the world. There are, and conversely, they didn't just become arseholes at 35 / 25 / 18 years of age, having been perfectly nice people beforehand. No, they were probably unpleasant as children as well. Biology means that their parents especially mothers will love them despite their unpleasantness / arseholness, but that's not the case with other people, who don't enjoy being subjected to unpleasant behaviour. And hence are delighted to not have anything more to do with such unpleasantness when they don't have to.

Yes indeed! I like kids and have found most kids have something to like in them and will respond well to you looking for the good in them BUT, nevertheless, I have still come across a very small handful that I would not want to be minding nor have in my house and am not at all sorry to have not seen again! If a child have behavioural problems, it's difficult to impossible for anyone else to help them behave well if the PARENTS aren't committed to helping their child behave! The OP has said neither their mum nor dad wanted to deal with the behaviour problems so she would have had little to no chance of helping the child to behave well yet was being manipulated or coerced into doing most of the minding when they were at their father's. That would have been extremely stressful and draining for the OP! That's my experience from working as nurse in Child and Family Mental Health for 7 years anyway and, parental co-operation and commitment was one of the conditions of Child and Family Guidance working with a family at the centres I worked in ! The PARENTS must be committed or even a professional, even a Child Psychiatrist, can do very little for a behaviourally difficult child!

Anyone that would do it differently is of course welcome to do so when they’re in OP’s situation. That kids have no choice is really something that the father should consider, both parents actually. I don’t suppose the kids had much choice in their parents splitting up either, yet it still happened. The father really needs to be the one to consider his children’s needs when they’re with him, and hopefully he does so before he dumps his next girlfriend into the role of unpaid nanny.

The children have two people that are obliged to centre their needs, otherwise known as ‘their parents’. The OP has to depend on herself to make her needs a priority, and good for her for doing so.

Are* not see.

@Happylittlethoughts

Very harsh OP. You may not want any step parent responsibility and that's understandable. However, what I find harsh is your lack of any consideration for anyone but your own feelings and wants. Your child has a right to a develop a sibling relationship, as do their step siblings. Consider that carefully. Whether you felt it or not you have disappeared from children's lives without a backward glance. Harsh

This point about the step siblings is the most ludicrous one that keeps getting repeated. The DH/exDH has three biological children and will still (or at least should) develop a relationship between the two sets of siblings. Why are people equating this to the kids never seeing each other again?

@SliceOfCakeCupOfTea

I'm just reading back over the last few pages and I'm rather confused about what people think OP should be doing...she isn't facilitating a relationship neither she nor the kids wants...surely, if anything, she's making it easier for everyone by not pretending?

She has said she'll be civil when she does see them, so hardly blanking them all together, she just won't be making plans to spend time with them.

Yup - have the "harsh to walk away" brigade not read about OP's intention to be civil? She just doesn't want to continue in a role as step parent and being separated from the dad is surely as good a reason as any!

[quote JustUseTheDoorSanta]@AllOfUsAreDead - Being polite at the door while collecting her own child is the bare minimum, you'd expect as much from a postman who've never met them. Greeting them at her child's birthday party, again you'd expect that towards a mum she's never met who's dropping off. Nothing at all like meeting the children specifically to ask how THEY are, nor giving a card for THEIR birthday. Totally different things.[/quote]
Don't recall seeing op say she won't be doing those things. All she doesn't want to deal with any more is the children's bad behaviour or taking them to school or handling them alone. And why should she do any of those things? She is no longer a step parent. Their parents should be doing those things, not that they seem to bother.

Imagine if both parents get married, do you expect both step parents to stick around and be involved in the kids lives forever even if they split up? So the kids could end up with several step parents on both mum and dad's side. That's just stupid.

All op has to do is be civil with them, talk to them when she sees them, give a card, help if THEY ask for it. And that's it, no more.

Again, what more do you expect from her?

@ancientgran

My DH had a step child, when he and his ex split she wouldn't allow him to see the child and he had no legal rights. One day a young man came to our door, he wanted to know why my husband had disappeared from his life. They talked and he went away seeming happier.

DH didn't blame his ex, he said she felt it was better and he'd agreed (he didn't) but the point is the step child came back 15 years later because he still felt the need to understand why DH had just disappeared and to reassure himself that his memories of the positive time they had together were true.

Poor kids with people just disappearing from their lives. Adults need to take responsibility for their decisions.

I agree that PARENTS need to ( suchas in the case you describe it was
a son who came looking for his FATHER and needed answers. OP is not the mother though- those children have a mother and a father and are being reared by both. The emotional damage will have been caused by their parents splitting up and it was and continues to be theIr parents job to help them with it, not the OP's. I also suspect that, as the OP's ex sounds quite selfish, that he bears most of the blame for his first divorce so most of the burden of helping HIS children heal from his inability (or refusal- he probably thinks it's a woman's job to make her man happy but that men have no such responsibility to their women!) to keep a woman happy falls on him! If the OP and her ex's children had been close, I'm sure she would be missing them but she didn't say that- in fact, she said that step-parenting was one of the main causes of the marriage breakdown, so it doesn't sound as if she is. I don't know if she was a wicked SM or the children were difficult but she is on her own with her own child now and needs to focus on him or her. The ex's children have both parents, which is more than some kids have! What about when he reels in some other poor woman; is the OP supposed to carry on seeing them then as well? When they have their mum, their dad AND an new SM? The only responsibility the OP has s to co-operate with enabling her DC's relationship with their half-siblings! That's it! It's up to their own parents now and their dad needs to learn a lesson because that's TWO marriages he's failed at now! She does NOT want that man in her home or her life either and how else is she going to see his kids unless she has them on her own? And why on Earth should she be made to feel she has to do that? I think you're being too hard on her. Give the poor woman time to get over her marriage breakdown and adjust to being a single mum FFS- that's hard enough without ex's trying to inveigle their way into your home and make you feel you owe his kids, especially as the OP was made to be just a sort of joey for exH na his exW for their children!

@SplitStep- Sorry OP, I wrote this before I'd read all your posts and found out the main reason for the split was your ex's behaviour and treatment of you, with the youngest child's behaviour being an added strain, but not the cause. I'm sorry for that and for the way some PPs have been so self-righteously condemning of you. You're a single mum now; I've been there and it's hard enough without this ex of yours putting more burden on you and also without self-righteous busybodies trying to make you feel guilty! I wish you all the best and ignore all the guilt tripping!

@AllOfUsAreDead - if you select "see all" then you can see OP's posts. She has been extremely clear actually that her intent is not to do any of that. E.g.
I'd be kind if / when I ever do see them (maybe at DCs birthdays and drop offs or whatever) but I don't really feel any need to go any further than that.

By all means argue that is her right, but my entire point is that there is a hell of a difference between saying hello politely like strangers at the front door, and having the kids on whole days out. To me, balancing the children's needs would include a few short meet-ups to reassure them that nothing was their fault and they have value in and of themselves, plus some cards (cheap, quick, no bother at all). Such tiny effort to bolster the self esteem of kids who are in the middle now of two broken homes. OP claims to even have liked the older one, it seems unnecessary to leave little kids confused and upset when a few small steps might avert much of the upset while OP fades off into the background.

@mrshoho

Fast forward a few years and your own dc could be in the same situation as your ex step children. Your ex meets a new partner who becomes step mum to your child forming a relationship and then through no fault of the child the relationship ends. You'll see a different perspective. I'm sure you'd want your child to be considered and respected.

In such case it would be the OP and her ex's job to help their DC cope with and come to terms with the change in circumstances! If the ex treats the next woman as badly as he did the OP, then it probably will happen but it'd be as wrong to force his next ex to have a relationship with a child who wasn't hers and whose father she wanted a clean break from as it is to try and force, manipulate or guilt-trip the OP into it now!

@SplitStep

But this is why you shouldn’t have married your EXH or had a child with him. Sorry. But that’s the reality.

Okay are you going to lend me your time machine then?

What do you want me to do about that? I married him when they were 2. This is a gradual situation that has got steadily worse and more obvious as they have gotten older.

Yes, you need to build a time machine and go back and "unmarry" your ex OP! Or perhaps the PP can dig up H.G. Wells, re-animate him and ask him to make one for you??! It really annoys me when posters say this sort of thing! It's basically rubbishing someone for making a mistake- marrying an unpleasant or useless man, having a child with him- and implying they are such superior beings that they NEVER make mistakes, which is obviously total BS! There ain't none of us who's perfect!

@SplitStep Be careful you will be end up being lumbered with childcare. Roped into providing holiday childcare.

Okay for birthday hellos etc but not okay for any ‘do you mind picking up/dropping off at school / minding as x has a cold / whatever’.

[quote JustUseTheDoorSanta]@AllOfUsAreDead - if you select "see all" then you can see OP's posts. She has been extremely clear actually that her intent is not to do any of that. E.g.
I'd be kind if / when I ever do see them (maybe at DCs birthdays and drop offs or whatever) but I don't really feel any need to go any further than that.

By all means argue that is her right, but my entire point is that there is a hell of a difference between saying hello politely like strangers at the front door, and having the kids on whole days out. To me, balancing the children's needs would include a few short meet-ups to reassure them that nothing was their fault and they have value in and of themselves, plus some cards (cheap, quick, no bother at all). Such tiny effort to bolster the self esteem of kids who are in the middle now of two broken homes. OP claims to even have liked the older one, it seems unnecessary to leave little kids confused and upset when a few small steps might avert much of the upset while OP fades off into the background.[/quote]
Yep and if you read that (I'm assuming you can since you copied and pasted it) plus more like this:

Yes I would assume at some point I will see them again because we share a child so for example if our DC has a birthday party, I'm sure they will be there, if I go to pick up DC one day and they are in the garden/answer the door or whatever I obviously won't blank them. But I don't feel the need to plan or force any meet up.

Then you would see she is planning on doing that. Not your exact wording but it's never going to be is it? She's a different person to you. She hasn't said she will blank them, ignore them or anything bad.

And she doesn't have to meet up and tell them it wasn't their fault. Why can't their father do that? They are his kids, he is the one who should be explaining the situation, like he would/should have before introducing her. It's not her job to reassure them, that's their parents job. Why are you trying to push their fathers job onto her? Think he isn't capable? Kind of not really ops problem if he is useless. Being in the middle of now two broken homes is completely on their parents to talk to them about. Their spouses or ex spouses shouldn't be doing that job for them.

[quote needmoresheep]@SplitStep Be careful you will be end up being lumbered with childcare. Roped into providing holiday childcare.

Okay for birthday hellos etc but not okay for any ‘do you mind picking up/dropping off at school / minding as x has a cold / whatever’.[/quote]
This. It’s a very slippery slope. They have 2 parents and you’re not one of them. Of course stbex wants to keep a handle on his childminder using a pretence of family, of course he does.

YANBU to feel the way that you feel as those are your feelings and therefore can’t be argued but I find it incredibly sad personally.

I couldn’t imagine not getting attached to kids I have lived with or been around to on a regular basis for 6 years irrelevant of my relationship with their bio mom or my ex.

My stepdad came into my life when I was 4 and split with my mother when I was around 18 thankfully, he never gave up on me and actually I ended up living partially with him for a bit. He never ever made me feel like an inconvenience and he always always takes the time to check ip on me and ask for news if he doesn’t hear for me within 2 weeks. Now I am a full grown adult and when I go home (I live abroad) it’s him I visit rather than my mother and I make sure I pay him back ten folds for stepping in the way he did and not discarding me the second his relationship with my mom went south. I am so so beyond grateful for him and would have been absolutely heartbroken if his reaction and instinct would have been akin to yours.

I personally think stepparents who aren’t keen to take on a partner’s children as their own should avoid becoming step parents and should either settle for someone without kids or keep living arrangements separate as to not be included in the kids lives and avoid any major upheaval in case of relationship breakdown.

@Linning

YANBU to feel the way that you feel as those are your feelings and therefore can’t be argued but I find it incredibly sad personally.

I couldn’t imagine not getting attached to kids I have lived with or been around to on a regular basis for 6 years irrelevant of my relationship with their bio mom or my ex.

My stepdad came into my life when I was 4 and split with my mother when I was around 18 thankfully, he never gave up on me and actually I ended up living partially with him for a bit. He never ever made me feel like an inconvenience and he always always takes the time to check ip on me and ask for news if he doesn’t hear for me within 2 weeks. Now I am a full grown adult and when I go home (I live abroad) it’s him I visit rather than my mother and I make sure I pay him back ten folds for stepping in the way he did and not discarding me the second his relationship with my mom went south. I am so so beyond grateful for him and would have been absolutely heartbroken if his reaction and instinct would have been akin to yours.

I personally think stepparents who aren’t keen to take on a partner’s children as their own should avoid becoming step parents and should either settle for someone without kids or keep living arrangements separate as to not be included in the kids lives and avoid any major upheaval in case of relationship breakdown.

@linning OP was clearly used as an unpaid - and despised - nanny by her ExH and his ex the mum. See earlier in the thread where the ex the mum made it clear OP was not to have any relationship with the kids, and then was used for the menial childcare tasks by them.

Would you expect a nanny - especially one despised by the parents - to keep up the childcare after she's left the job?

I probably wouldn’t have moved in with someone I felt despised by, and who had made it clear I wouldn’t be part of his kids life, let alone have a child with him (their half siblings) though.

As a matter of fact I have worked as a nanny for many years (very often extremely underpaid), and not always for parents I liked, but yes I still volunteered post job to hang out with them (for free) because again I can’t imagine not getting attached to kids I see on a regular basis. Kids are not responsible for their parents behavior and attitude towards me or others and I would never let a parents attitude get in the way of my bonding with a child and doing what’s right by them when given the choice. So no I can’t relate to OP but then again I still baby sit for free 9 years on after leaving some of the families I worked for. So no, i absolutely cannot relate to OP (again not meaning she is wrong for feeling or acting differently to me) as in my world becoming a stepmom would mean I only take on the relationship with the expectation that I am in it for the long-haul and doing it in a way that benefits the kids most both during and after the relationship. Otherwise I would simply not get involved as there is nothing less appealing than dating someone who doesn’t have the best interest of his kids at heart and is willing to introduce new people to their kids on repeat and remove them with no care for the emotional impact on them and I would have zero interest being a part of that process, let alone bringing in an additional kid into that scenario by having my own with said individual.