'They need to spend time with us alone'

[Loco323]

Me and DH have two young DC (toddler and baby). He also has two older DC from his previous relationship who are 9 & 12.

We fell out the other night about something and I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable.

Basically he was saying we need to spend some time with older DC on our own, take them out somewhere or whatever so, in his words, they still feel special to us.

I get what he's saying about feeling special and he does have 1 on 1 time with them a lot, whenever he wants, I'd never stop him. But from my POV I don't know why this needs to involve me.

My parents help out with our DC (for which I'm very grateful!) whenever we need it and have done quite a lot when me and DH have gone out together or with friends so he's saying to ask them to watch our DC whilst we take out the older ones maybe once every month or so.

I've said no. He's okay to have one on one time whenever he wants but I'm not shipping my children off so I can join. I don't see the need. Apparently I don't show them any focus anymore since having our DC... what does he want from me? I'm perfectly nice and get on with both of them really well but I don't think we need loads of one on one time or to make a big fuss about them being special to me.

They don't live with us 24/7 they have a very involved mum so not like they need that from me.

Quite happy to go out as a family but don't see why I need to join these special 1 to 1 trips. AIBU?

@Cherrysoup cos if you're point scoring and feeling that kind of resentment you're relationship is pretty shit and divorce sounds good rather than living like that. Fuck being in a miserable point scoring relationship.

I would suggest you do it once a month/6 weeks with the older two and the same with the younger two. See what his answer to that will be.

I think that kind of tit for tat at the expense of DC is toxic. To think “you fall short on doing x for the DC, so I’m going to purposely not do y for the DC”.

Surely the OP should have a conversation with him about interacting more with the younger DC instead of using that to justify interacting less with the older DC.

Its a bit immature really.

You know their father had that option, right? Turns out he doesn’t prefer single parenthood. Weird.

Interesting he wants 2 on 2 time rather than the 1 on 1 time that might make each DSC feel a priority, in effect to be drawing a special line around the 2 DSC and him then telling you to be inside that bubble. With 2 younger DC, I'm not surprised you have mixed feelings. TBH, I don't have strong feelings whether I'd be fussed if it were once a month and make the effort to try and make the DSC feel included even more than you may do already.

If they were one big happy family there would be no inherent need to send some of the children away to focus exclusively on the other one's. Especially not when you would never do anything alone with just the younger one's.

These are not things that go hand in hand with everyone's definition of "one big happy family", as this thread demonstrates.

Very arrogant "sorry" as well. I'm a step parent and I did not marry into a family. I made a partnership and a family of my own with my partner, yes he brought a kid to the table but it was not a ready made family and I had equal say in what the dynamic we created TOGETHER would be. This is a very presumptuous statement too often made on MN.

I'd be irritated at DH expecting to take such a large percentage of precious and limited resources, ie your weekend days with your DC and childcare from your parents. Certainly he should be having time just with his older DC as well as time where you're all together as a family, but he shouldn't be expecting you to sacrifice time with your DC.

@MiddleParking I live in a city in The North of the England, one of many here that has a large proportion of Muslim and Eastern European families. And I assure you I'm not making it up. Just because it's not the norm where you are doesn't mean it isn't the norm elsewhere

Yanbu op.

It makes me laugh when posters say oh but the little two LIVE WITH YOU as if that makes it all okay and they actually don't need quality time because being picked up from nursery bathed and put to bed is enough, and shipped off to gps at the weekend so the special kids can have some attention.

It's laughable. Anyone who thinks week days with kids is quality time whilst you both work FT clearly hasn't experienced it. There's nothing quality about it.

I wouldn't be giving up 1 in 4 weekends to teach my children they're less important, no.

my dad remarried

i never see him. I would love to see him on his own. With my stepmother. Before I fell out with her

this is such a. Beautiful idea from him!

What a beautiful way of looking at it from only one perspective!

OP I am sorry I think you need to get your ducks in a row as you sound jealous and resentful towards your stepkids and I can't see how this is not going to fester and effect your relationship.
You do realise that a toddler and a baby do not have feelings of being left out and will not remember this period in their lives - you are completely projecting your own feelings on to them.

But surely there are weekend where you don’t see the step children so that reason you’ve said is moot point…..

or do the step children live with you?

Babies and toddlers grow into small children and small children are not stupid. Of course they'll notice that there being pushed out in favour of the older kids.

Op doesn't sound remotely jealous how utterly ridiculous.

You've almost filled a bingo card in one comment.

I suppose the older ones might feel a bit jealous that these new babies have come along who are the apple of their Dad's eye, and with you and Dad, they are a typical family.

I think you are being mean, and a bit obtuse. They may have said to him that they wish it was how it was before the babies came and that they feel different. He may be thinking of a solution to make it ok, and for some vague reason, wanting you to be involved. I'd be thinking they might have said to Dad that they think you haven't got much time for them, and this is his way of correcting the impression.

Do they go somewhere special with him? If they do, that might make up for their feeling. If they just see him doing chores, and the conversation revolves around what needs to be got for the house, what the babies need, it might be like being a spare part - for each of them . That feeling that the life goes on when they have returned to their main home, and they are just spectators over family bliss.

It would be sensitive to do what he asks and to get a babysitter.

Huh? There are 8 bank holidays a year, 9 this year as a very rare exception. 12 is more than 8

I agree with you op. Your boundaries seem to be exactly right as a step mum - you are kind to them and involve them in whole family activities and encourage them to spend one on one time with their dad....that's fine! Would they even want you to come or would they resent their special one on one time with their dad?

Ultimately I'm sure they understand that as much as you might like/love/care for them, you probably don't feel the same way about them as you do about your own kids. In exactly the same way that they might really like/love you, they don't feel the same about you as about your mum. That seems like the ideal stepparent/child relationship to me.

He is asking you to co-parent instead of taking on responsibility himself, dressed up in a patchwork family umbrella, to guilt you into it.
Lazy bugger. He needs to step up and lovebomb them alone but he just wants to share the family fun - nah, either you all go and do something as a six, or he treats his kids to his undivided attention (which, no disrespect to you, they would probably very much appreciate).

Oh. That’s not a nice thing to say about them

the fact your stepchildren are spoilt

i hope my stepmother didn’t think that about me. Gosh.

I don't think saying they're spoilt is even close to being "not nice"

@aSofaNearYou

Shes looking at it from the child’s perspective, which should matter most.

@Tamzo85 nobody's perspective should matter most. They should all be considered equally.

@MiddleParking

Yes he did have an option to stay single or have children with a woman who didn’t mind thinking about how his children may feel about the new situation. Perhaps he should have chosen that.

But that doesn’t mean she too didn’t have a choice not to have kids with a man with kids if she didn’t really want it - or want to think about how they feel about their situation.

His poor choice doesn’t absolve her of how she acts toward her step kids.

“He won’t bother if they aren’t here that Sunday”. So you do get plenty of weekends without them to have “quality time” with your little ones. He is asking for the same for your step children.

Did you ever discuss this type of thing together before you had DC?

My DH is a step dad to my DC. We don’t have a separate child together - although we hope to in future.

We have talked about what that would mean for our family though and how the others would feel (particularly as they are at their dads EOW and the new baby would be with us full-time which could be hard for them).

He would absolutely not treat them as being any different (although I’m sure he would feel
some different feeling on some level with a biological child). He does plenty of one to one stuff with his step children, of different ages, and would absolutely continue to do so as he would want to and would be sensitive to their feelings.

We talked a lot about it, as having a new sibling would affect them and be a big decision after already going through divorce and changes.

However, my DH has known since day 1 that my DC and I come as a package. I wouldn’t have dreamt of marrying him if he had a “not my problem” attitude to them or hadn’t already developed strong, genuine and loving relationships with them.

If your DH didn’t look for that in you, or think very carefully before having children with you, and consider how you would behave as a step-mother then that is his problem really as he failed to prioritise his existing DC before starting a new family.

Until you've experienced one of these guilt-ridden Dads twisting himself in knots to compensate for the fact he doesn't live with their older DC by putting them on a pedestal, it's an unbelievable situation to imagine. I certainly didn't see it happening before we had our own DC. I expected my EXDP to treat our shared DC THE SAME as his DS, yet he compartmentalised the family into him and his DS, then me and our shared DC.

It's really difficult to be expected to standby by and watch, when you have shared DC with said guilt-ridden Dad, and he does nothing with them simply because they live in the same house as he does!

There was a thread a while ago about second family DC being disadvantaged compared to the first family, who by virtue of their parents divorce/separation are immediately elevated to "must be allowed to do whatever they like" status.

*compared to the first family DC