I'm finding it so hard.
I have 1 dc from a previous relationship and one with my husband. I have a great relationship with my step daughter. I always have done and we are very very close so I don't feel I can be the problem. Or am I? My step daughter is from a separate relationship.
The issue is with my step son. I've been in his life since he was a toddler. He is now 9. There has been an issue for a long time but neither his mother or my husband have realised it until the last few months.
When my step son returns home, he has began crying to his mum about when he gets told off in our house. We have been away for a few days where his behaviour wasn't great - his dad dealt with this though. I then looked after him yesterday and both myself and my mum had to tell him off. My mum because he ran into the road. This was not telling him off - more because he was running into the road and my mum had to react. I also had to tell him off for trying to remove my daughters hands (she's 4) off the swing that he wanted to go on in the park. She was screaming and he was screaming at her.
When he has returned home, he has cried and says he feels like no one likes him. He failed to tell his mother about the bad behaviour he displayed when we were away and only told her about the times myself and my mum had to tell him off. His mother then made my step son call my husband and tell him why he was crying.
Now this has been going on for years. It's only been picked up on now by both his mum and dad however people around us (on our side of the family) have come to me before to say they can see something is not right with my step son. My step daughter doesn't have a close relationship with him. She tried for years but half the time, my step son refuses to speak to his sister. They just aren't close.
He is the type of child that will do things deliberately and then say it was an accident. For example, the other week all the kids were drawing and colouring. My step son drew all over my daughters drawing (which was actually very good and I made a comment that it was probably the best picture she had ever done). He drew all over it and then when questioned, he said he thought it was rubbish - to go in the bin.
He's done it many times in birthday cards, if you ask him to write his name, he will scribble out the other kids names.
If you ask him not to do something, he will do it. When my daughter was a baby, he would deliberately be loud to wake her up and then claim he didn't know she was asleep. I have so many examples of this kind of behaviour.
Also at the weekend, he gave my daughter the box of one of his toys and shoved it in her face. The box then bent and he went crying to his dad saying our daughter had broken the box and she did it on purpose.
This has been going on since as long as I can remember. I have tried so many times to speak to my husband about it gently. I've told him I feel my step son is very jealous of the other children and maybe he just needs some alone time with his dad. It falls on dead ears.
Now his mother is also a huge problem unfortunately. She gives my husband a hard time about anything. If we send him home in the wrong shoes, she is distraught- not joking. She will moan if we don't do anything with him on a weekend. She feels it's acceptable to book holidays/weekends away on my husbands time without asking. She deliberately took him away for Father's Day this year which was my husbands time.
We always have my step son half the holidays but she will always change it last minute so he comes earlier and stays for longer which means I look after him alone. I work in a school so I'm off for school holidays but she well and truly uses me for childcare. I had him for the first week of the holidays and it was a nightmare. At home with his mum, he is allowed to swear. He tells me his mum finds it funny. We don't allow swearing in our house so I have to repeatedly ask him to stop.
She will not refer to me by my name. She refers to me as 'her' and calls our children 'a bunch of people who are more important than her son'. She admits she's asks my step son a lot of questions when he gets home to check we have looked after him properly.
So add it all together and it's all just one giant mess with one very confused kid in the middle. I don't think I can do it anymore. It's getting to the point where I cannot say anything to him without him going home crying to his mum.
I love him very much, treat him as my own - which means he is disciplined in the same way but also loved in the same way. I include him in as much as I can. I'm there for childcare.
But I feel I'm now walking on egg shells around a 9 year old.
I cannot communicate with his mother - she's blocked anyway as apparently I am manipulative and half the issue. Yet she will happily let me look after him when she needs a break.
My husband just thinks the whole issue is that he is sad when it's time for him to leave us. I give up telling him it goes much deeper than that.
I've had enough.