to not invite them on this day out

[QueenBlue]

My parents and sister live a couple of hours away from me and my husband so we don't get to spend much time with them or they with our child who is now 5.

They are coming up tomorrow and have arranged to take me, my sister, my nephew and my DC out for the day to an amusement park. We rarely do anything as a family so looking forward to it.

The thing is my husbands older two children are with us tomorrow (I'm off and DH is working from home in the morning but off in the afternoon). This is outside of their normal time with us due to the school holidays so my parents didn't know when they booked to come but in any event they would prefer it to be just us anyway as they don't get much time with our child and my SC can be quite full on and argumentative.

DH is pulling his face that I don't want to or haven't offered to take SC and has said he can work flex in the evening instead so he can come too with them. I've told him no and to just let my parents spend a day with me and our child.

Aibu not inviting SC and DH along? For context they are 9 (SD) and 11 (SS). Our child is 5 and my nephew is 8.

My parents and sister will be coming back to ours after we've been out to have a cup of tea and stuff and say hello before heading home so will see them later on.

Posts like this make me so sad as someone who grew up with a stepmother who didn’t even make a secret out of the fact that she disliked me.

sorry to hear that. What did your DH do to mitigate it?

I would say YANBU if DH was working all day and expected you to take the two step children around an amusement park for a day, along with the other kids, whilst he WFH.
However YABVU to effectively say they can't come along with DH though, that's just mean and seems unnecessarily spiteful.
Your DH can't be much of a Disney Dad if he can't be bothered to plan a day out for his own kids though.

I'm not sure YABU. I suppose it would have been easier for you if you'd been doing something near your parents/sister but they're coming to you and taking some of the children of the household out and leaving others behind. I get your desire to just have the family unit (blood relatives) only for once though. Part of the problem is the sort of day out you/your parents arranged - it appeals to all ages and seems very much a treat. It could also work if all go together and separate for parts of the day arranging to meet for lunch or a drink only. However, I see the issue is your DH not being more active in his parenting!

What will your SC feel about this?

I am afraid I have been the stepchild in situations like this and I am afraid to say that overtime your relationship with your stepchildren will gradually erode. You are the adult and in control of how the relationship progresses. The children have little say but they will be noticing the different dynamics with your own children and themselves. Unless you have been in this situation you will never understand how much of an effect it causes.

I think your DH should use the time his one to one time with his kids while you spend time with your child and family. It would hugely benefit his kids to spend time with dad though I do generally believe step kids should be included.

However having 3 kids myself and who is argumentative it does create a lot of difficulties and make days out not enjoyable plus as your child is only 5 what they will enjoy at the theme park and your older kids might enjoy at the the park is very different.

I would tell DH to enjoy his day with his kids and crack on with my own day.

Your partner sounds like a lazy arse but don't let the SC miss out because of that.
I am from a wider blended family and we were all just treated the same. If you're around you're included.
I also think it's a bit odd that these children spend plenty of time with you, you've married and created a blended family but your family don't really know them.
I can't imagine saying oh yes OP and youngest DC are going to Thorpe park, what's that kids you'd love to go too, well no because that's their thing. I'll take you to Chessington instead.
Just seems really contrived and odd.
Your wider issue with him not parenting his children needs to be dealt with but not by stopping two children from going to a theme park.

At no point has the OP even hinted that she dislikes her SC. The issue is that they are argumentative and badly behaved and will likely ruin the day because while DH will be there, he doesn’t want to be the bad guy by disciplining them. So the OP will likely spend the day she planned, running round after them and not get any quality time with her own family, while he abdicates parental responsibility and gets a nice day out, to which he has contributed absolutely nothing. Or did you miss that bit ?

It all sounds a bit mean, he left one young family to start a new family and now you're treating them differently

Aren't the mental gymnastics in order to vilify the woman insane?

The dad refuses to book tickets and organise the day out, he could do it, he could do it right now. But it's the woman's fault.

Poor kids will miss out, the dad their bio dad, could ensure they don't miss out and buy the fucking tickets and get them all to the amusement park. It's the evil stepmums fault she should do it.

The fact he's going to treat them to his presence is such an amazing fete how evil of the woman who has no legal claim on the stepchildren, not to organise the day out so the bio dad can be there and reap the credit of organising a day out with his children, who he will not parent.

As for why did OP have kids with a useless prick, many many many women have kids with useless idiots every single day. Because women are told having very basic standards and expectations of a male partner are unreasonable and they should be the drudge and the dogsbody, whilst a man's very presence is a spectacular fete of parenting and humaning. This thread being a very good example.

Really uncalled for comment.

Egg and cress, argumentative and disruptive are hardly terms of endearment

YABU - this is mean in my opinion.

They are not your families kids... thats simply fact. THEY didn't choose to take these kids on only OP did and that can not then be forced on others.

I say that AS a step child (my parents split when I was a baby) who has never had nor expected a relationship with my step mothers family... I have a mother, I have ONE mother, my dad had a relationship and we where polite to each other and got on but that is ALL.

She is NOT my family she is my father partner and maybe temporary in my life (as proven, I have had more than one step mother because my father is selfish and doesn't keep relationships longer than 5 or so years on average) and her family are NOTHING to do with me at all, they are NOT my family.

People put some utterly batshit pressure on step parents... if a step parent basically adopts a child (legal or not) where they are the full time parent in absence of a deadbeat parent thats one thing but MOST step parents on these threads are not that.

Many step children HAVE two parents, they do not need 'new' parents as well, they get a new possibly temporary non blood family members without any say but it is not a new/replacement of an ACTUAL parent.

Where does it say he left his first family? Maybe his ex wised up to him and gave him the heave ho for being a shit partner.

9 and 11. Preteens. Hopefully still beleive the world is fair, nice and optimistic. You're defending excluding them because they are not part of your family ?, your husband is a shit father? You're fed up of doing all the work?
They are kids and it's hugely massively shitty and cruel that you would deliberately exclude them. This has made me feel really sad and makes me realise how if taken further step children have been abused.
I'm a step mother ans I struggle with it but would never make the kids suffer for it. Any kid. Horrible.

No. Because that's what the OP is dealing with.
And now we have these posteser playing the victim relating to the step children.

So if they were in similar stories then I can see why their step mothers checked the hell out.

The blame should lie with their useless fathers and their behaviour.

YANBU op. I have two kids of my own, I don’t have step kids but I don’t see the issue here.

I often take my kids out separately and we have a lovely day without the other. I had a lovely shopping day with DD yesterday. Next week DH is taking DS to a sporting event.

It’s a non issue, he can take his kids somewhere himself.

I am sorry I don't think you are getting the whole blended family vibe.
I am a bit confused about some of your logic - especially around its not the step kids normal time to come because its school holidays... I mean your child is 5 so presumably both your parents and you knew it was school holidays because otherwise your child would be in school?

YABU. Why did you have children with a man who doesn’t bother to father the existing kids he has?

And why did you get with someone who already had kids when you didn’t want them to be a part of your family?

This would be my concern. I think it sucks. You areveey clearly signalling who you consider to be family.

In which case the SC need to understand that the different dynamics are not down to the fact that they are SC, but the fact that they are badly behaved and their stepmum is fed up being the one to manage the behaviour. Sometimes MN really does have double standards. I’ve seen multiple threads roundly condemning men for expecting subsequent partners to deal with their children while they have very little input, let alone one to one time with their own kids. It sounds as though this is a similar situation and yet the OP is getting a hard time.

You've got all the excuses in the world but what you're doing is mean and nasty.

You're going to get up in the morning and get one child ready to go to a theme park whilst the other two sit at home.

I can't imagine being so callous.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. I'm sure your SK's get fun times out that don't involve your child when with their mum and maternal grandparents. You're not doing anything wrong in wanting some time alone with your parents and biological child.