to not give up my Saturdays?

[Frey11]

My husband shares a daughter with his ex who does a hobby. She has practice during the week, which DH and ex take her to depending who's night it is and at the weekend she has a game on a Saturday. The time varies but it's typically around mid day and takes at least a couple of hours.

My husband has always worked Saturday days, he has a day off in the week and works Saturday. We have SD 2 nights a week, one in the week and at the weekend it alternates one week Saturday night with DH collecting on his way home from work and the next weekend it's Sunday night.

SDs mum has just changed jobs which requires her to also work Saturdays. This was never mentioned to us until she'd already taken the job and I'm now being asked to have SD every Saturday and take her to said game. This means my whole day revolves around this as it's always in the middle of the day.

I also have two pre school children and work all week myself. This is my time with them to do things we don't get to do in the week, see friends, soft play etc..

AIBU to not want to do this every Saturday?

I regard that as progress though I understand some may disagree

Thing is, even if you think that's true, there's no risk of anyone on MN turning this into a mission creep situation. That's a very real risk if the OP does it.

Have we?

You keep referring to childcare being a possibility.

Is it?

Do you think a childminder who works Saturdays and either has no other children to take care of or is able and willing to make the other children spend a large part of the day in the car or watching an unrelated child play football is going to be easy to find and cost significantly less than what the mother could be earning?

But why does the OP need to be the one thinking up solutions?

94% of people agreed that it simply isn’t her problem to solve.

Why should she care more than the child’s parents? They can figure out their own solution.

I see the poll results , where I voted with the majority, as saying that this is not OP’s ongoing problem, calling for a periodic investment of time she is unwilling to make.

A big difference from being unwilling even to think about it. If you belong to the latter camp, I join the PPs who have asked, in so many words, what are you doing in a blended family? This question is consistent with YANBU.

I think theres a difference between periodically stepping in to help out and being tied down to a schedule that was decided upon without your input.
I do actually think there is a certain amount of obligation within a marriage to help your spouse out when the shit hits the fan, and this extends to their children, but as the old saying goes "failure to plan on the ex's part does not make an emergency on OPs".
If ex had a emergency and OP agreed to take DSD as a one off, that would be kind of her and fair enough. Blocking out every third Saturday for this would be opening herself up to pressure to do this one and that one on top because Granny has a cold that week or uncle is going out or little Annie's not going to training this week as she broke her ankle so can't take DSD blah blah blah and I predict it would be alarming how quickly everyone else dropped the rope and left it to OP.

I don’t think OP should feel pressure to conform to anyone else’s timetable, @Backagain23 . I said explicitly that was my idea for myself and not a standard I held for anyone else.

I fully agree with you about holding her boundary against mission creep, and I’ve said that. I don’t know that we’re actually very far apart. I think others on here are approaching the issue more ideologically.
My fundamental disagreement is with the idea that a young girl’s feelings come second to an ideologically impure small effort.

My fundamental disagreement is with the idea that a young girl’s feelings come second to an ideologically impure small effort.

The problem with this is that you've not dealt with the very real possibility that OP involving herself at all makes the situation worse. The attachment you have to that idea sounds ideological in itself.

You speak of DSDs feelings, but how exactly do you think she's going to feel if OP engages with the issue as you advocate, is strong armed into taking her the 30% of the time you thought you'd do and that the younger DC would cope with, is expected to step up more and 'holds her boundary'?

OP is the adult. She needs to hold her boundary, with kindness to the girl if not love. It is part of her role. If OP is honouring everyone I believe most girls will cope. The specifics are age dependent which is another reason that information would have been useful.

One also hopes she has other resources. We will never know, because she is long gone.

Why should this kid suffer because the parents are clearly working hard but the step mum doesn’t want to give up her precious Saturday?

This is a really weird take. Why on earth would any suffering that results from this situation be the OP's fault?

Why is it not the fault of the parent who decided to take a job that requires them to work every Saturday, knowing full well that their child's other parent already works every Saturday? If OP's DH was single, or if he and his ex were still together, they wouldn't be able to both work every Saturday. The assumption that OP will just step in and happily give up half her weekend, every single weekend, is really disrespectful.

Or maybe it's the fault of both parents for failing to communicate effectively and come to a compromise in the best interests of their child? They could both make a Flexible Working request asking for alternate Saturdays off for childcare reasons. Or they could split the cost of a babysitter. But instead of looking for their own solutions they want to pass the responsibility on to OP, who is also "working really hard" all week and has young children so too bloody right her Saturdays are "precious"!

I do know how hard this is. I walked away from a lovely romance with an older man a long time ago.

I realised I did not really love his DC and wasn’t likely to grow into it (I already loved a number of children). Without that love I thought it would be too much of a strain.
My view was that if I stayed with him I owed it to his DC to fake that love. I did like them and IMO children won’t necessarily probe the difference. But it didn’t feel right.

FYI I was looking back to that experience: in OP’s situation, I am pretty confident I could find about 30% for those children. No judgment on anyone else.

Excellent point neverbeenskiing

What on earth is this word salad?

Yeah, what does this actually mean?

That you are having trouble with pronouns

Obvious ones

So @Frey11 who is going to look after the girl

@poetryandwine
The problem is that guarding against mission creep would lead right back to the start of this to thread.
"I agreed to take DSD to hobby every third Saturday (using you as an example, Poetry) and now I'm being asked to #bekind and #thinkofDSDs feelings and cancel XYZ plans I have with my own kids because ABC can no longer take her when they said they would. AIBU to tell DH this is his problem to solve?"

MN - "you're either a family or you're not, your kids don't matter, they are registered at the same address as their dad, you should have known when you married him that you are obliged to serve his ex, DSD didn't choose this" blah blah blah

Might as well just hold the line and not get involved from the start.

We simply disagree, @Backagain23

You can now see that I am speaking from some experience. If you are comfortable that you are taking a reasonable line you as an adult can hold to it.

Admittedly I am always surprised that more women (it doesn’t seem to be such a problem for men, or I am less aware of it) don’t think through how they will do this before (or instead of) committing to a man with DC.

I know this boundary holding can be learnt. I learnt it. I decided it was too much of a strain, but I came to this realisation when I was in a position to walk away. One can only hope that if both OP and her DH are invested in their marriage and she holds firm, he will take her seriously. Otherwise she has a huge problem but IMO this crisis only brought it to the surface.

She can't do it for her own children if she has to give up all her Saturdays for someone else's child. And drag them along to sit there, too.

It really is that simple.

I do get it, it’s not fair that it falls to her automatically without being asked . And I would be annoyed with the mother no doubt initially

All I’m saying is if she doesn’t have the kind of relationship with the SC’s mother that she doesn’t want to do it to help her out, then at least try it for a couple of months for the SC’s sake .

In an ideal world the parents would do it , but this isn’t an ideal world and she’s part of a blended family . It’s so complicated in blended families, but I would try to help the child out at this time in her life. It won’t go unnoticed by the kid. If it’s too much or the little ones are struggling, then at least she can say she tried it. Anyway there are too many unanswered questions like the child’s age, what the hobby actually is - is it seasonal how many terms does it go on for etc?

Bigger picture when the little ones are older the eldest sibling will be around to help I’m sure and will love it. All I’m saying is I’d try.

It won’t go unnoticed by the kid.

Hmmm, big assumption there. You've no basis at all to say that. It's quite conceivable that if OP does even part of this, DSD along with her parents will start to see it as their due, rather than appreciating it, and will be unhappy at any attempt to withdraw it. In an ideal world that wouldn't happen, but as you point out, this isn't an ideal world.

This.

I'm also speaking from experience and I wish I could go back to when I was standing in OPs shoes and tell me not to bother, it won't be appreciated, it will never be enough and you will come to resent them all.
The day I drew my boundaries came as a shock and there was some push back but things have rebalanced nicely.

@Backagain23 same.

Give an inch and people take a mile and don’t even thank you for it.