To fantasise about not being with my husband and his children

[YoyosToe]

Is this normal or is it a really bad sign?

I find myself daydreaming quite often about how it would be just me and our DC and sometimes I even desperately wish that were the case.

My husband and DSC have gone out tonight so it's just been me and our DC. I've put them to bed and just sat down and the house is so lovely and quiet and I can just be by myself and to be totally honest I'm dreading them coming home.

I find step parenting difficult to enjoy and it would be huge weight lifted off me not to have to do it anymore.

I do love my husband, which is why it's so weird to say this (or type this) out loud and most of the time we get on really well, have a laugh, care for each other etc.. but I just long for a less hectic life sometimes. The house just feels busy and noisy all the time.

Just to add I don't mean to say single parenting is easy, I just mean I long to have to think and consider less people (i.e. just me and my children)! If that makes sense at all.

That’s how all choicemummy’s posts read.

empathy level 0. (Victim) blaming 10.

That would be more than a little naive I’m afraid.

Nope, your standards are just embarrassingly low.

Most women do not and should not enter marriages expecting their DHs to leave all the childcare to them and prepared to "not complain" if they do.

To be fair op, until my dc grew up and left home I used to fantasise about living alone in an immaculate minimalist flat with white carpets, near Sloane Square, with only myself to worry about.

No. But it appears that some people are determined to keep the bar for men as low as possible. It’s subterranean.

Given your description of your husband I suspect that he will not accept his responsibility to his children. You cannot go on like this. The situation will not improve. You will be the one taking care of all the children while also working. He will swan in and out, leaving you to run around doing the grunt work. You are not even the hired help. You pay for the 'privilege ' of being his skivvy. You deserve better. You need to leave him because despite you saying you have a few good times he will not accept that having fathered children he needs to actually be an active parent. Get your ducks in a row. Make plans. Leave him please. Show the children - and him - that parents with a uterus do not have to do all the childcare duties. Men like this should be forcefully tattooed on their forehead with the term lazy wanker.

The only thing you can do it make your DH aware of the severity of the situation, how bad your resentment is at this point. It is only going one direction if you leave it and nothing changes. The resentment builds and you eventually reach the point where there is no love anymore. And then the relationship is over, it might limp along until you get the courage and means to leave, but you wont be happy again until you do. So, to stop that happening if it hasn't already, the situation has to change. I would sit him down and explain that if he doesn't start considering you and carrying the majority of the workload related to his children then the relationship is over. Then you know you have done your best. If he turns it around on you and starts with the you dont care about my DC then you know you have slippery lying shit on your hands, and there is only one solution to that.... Life without an inconsiderate partner is pretty blissful tbh.

I really feel for you and I just couldn’t continue to have respect for a man who used his children as weapons to avoid taking on responsibility for them. He is utterly wrong to accuse you of not caring about his kids.

When you say - he takes it as a personal attack against his DC. i’d completely read that as he SAYS he takes it as a personal attack on his DC but really he knows he can use that to keep you in line and doing more than you ever agreed to while he keeps his life the same.

It works! You’re still doing more because he pulls that manipulative line on you. I do get what it’s like to a certain extent. I once lived with someone who had a child and he would not do things like lunchboxes or washing clothing because he knew I couldn’t just sit there and watch a child go to school with a crappy lunchbox they’d tried to pack themselves and dirty clothing. I had to leave in the end. Not saying your husband is as bad but he is putting all the responsibility on you and not doing his fair share.

It would just kill the relationship for me.

Op, from your initial post I just knew this would be a another case of a man expecting his wife to just slot in and take over all responsibilities for looking after his children from his first relationship. It's a depressingly familiar story on here of men who split from their partners and then immediately move another woman in to take over the childcare for their DC from the first relationship. These sort of men just provide their semen and think that is their part done in raising DC. Him using that age old accusation that you don't love his DC every time you dare complain is the age old way of keeping you in your place. You are a woman ergo your job is to love and care for all children without complaint and you must never, ever have wants and needs of your own. Screw Him.

You know he will never change, so you need to start your plans for a new life for just you and your DC.

You could always suggest leaving them all behind.
The biggest excuses for this not being possible will most likely relate to the youngest so then you can suggest a compromise where you take the youngest with you.

Absolute bloody cheek of those parents! Being a step mother is one thing stepping up to do the majority parenting is not it!

And to add - when he tries this line of 'you don't care about my DC' it needs to go back to him 'No - you don't care about your DC, either your DC with ex or your DC with me, and you also don't care about me'.

Op it is not your fault nor responsibility that your husbands kids have a shit mum and an irresponsible dad. Your husband needs to step up and parent his own kids or you need to leave

I certainly wouldn’t be doing all the caring if I wasn’t allowed to discipline as I see fit.

And if my children were with gp’s, I’d be having child free time then. I’d also be having child free time when dh would be doing the looking after them all.

If your dh isn’t on board with this, then I’d be making that fantasy, reality.

@RocketsMagnificent7

Unless he’s been very carefully vetted before hand and the women have seen this in operation and he’s got some serious beliefs about it - any woman who goes into marriage expecting her husband to take an equal load is naive. The posts on Mumsnet should teach you that if nothing else.

Quite. She’s such a predictable poster.

@SoggyPaper

Ultimately “the bar” is whatever men will do. Whether you want to divorce if they won’t do more is another thing, but thinking we can control and set “the bar” for them and they can’t is naive.

Like I said to another poster - assume your man will be like this unless he’s very militant about not being so. That’s dealing with the world as it is.

You do realise people in healthy, equal relationships will have no need to post threads bragging about it here. What purpose would that serve? Because it should be the norm. People come here when things aren't going well and they need advice or support, it's not reflective of every relationship, everywhere.

I have a number of relationships I could reference, my own included, where equality is the norm, especially with child rearing. A mix of nuclear and blended families, full-time working mums, SAHMs and everything in between.

If your bar is on the floor then yep you go in expecting all the drudgery to fall on you as a woman, if you have standards you have expectations and when those aren't met that is where the problems begin.

In the case of the OP, prior to her SC being there full-time her husband was fully involved, doing his share. Hence why she anticipated it would continue that way when he became the RP.

What a condescending reply. People are free to feel whatever they like, we live in a free country and everyone is free to make their choices. Stop giving this sort of advice to people, it's not 1800s.

Having read all your posts op, the problem seems to be your oh and your inability to stand up to him.

Stop letting him walk all over you.

I woupdnt put up with being the sole carer for my own kids never mind for his too.

god
threads like these are such a kick to the step kids. i love my step parents. I’d be so hurt to find out they felt like so many of you do.

if you can’t love the kids, and you should know this by the time you marry, then get out if the relationship

@RocketsMagnificent7

You seem to think I’m taking a moral stand on this or trying to push for it. I’m not, I’m just saying that’s the way it usually goes. By far the majority of men are not doing anything near equal housework and childcare gruntwork, they never have, I don’t think they ever will.

Again, I’m saying expect that unless you make sure it’s not the case if you don’t want it, that’s all. I’m not saying it’s good or bad. It just is.

And the majority of people in happy relationships probably don’t do equal stuff either, they just either don’t care about that or have learnt to live with it. A couple being happy is not reflective of the amount of equality in housework and childcare imo as you seem to suggest - unless that is an expectation of the wife.

Yanbu-you nmeed to have a talk with him about how its all on you and he cant keep swanning off when he feel like it

if thigns dont change then go from there

@LovePoppy

Strongly agree. I get resenting the drudgery of parenting and wanting to vent but the attitude toward the sc from some is upsetting.

Sorry OP.
Very common attitude.
Children are women's responsibility, nay, hobby.
Your DH found himself a woman to look after his DC and then swanned off back into his Big Important Man Life.
Cheeky, cheeky fucker.
His kids will see this, eventually. Maybe not today, maybe not even in ten years ' time, but when they have their own kids...They will remember. It's a risky game he's playing, because one day he will be the one needing care, and they may well take the attitude,
"You just flytipped us onto DStepMum, screw.you.Dad". What goes around, comes around, and all that.

It is not showing him in an attractive light, that's for sure.

why are you doing it? Wouldn't life be better if you didn't?