Step kids have moved out, DH is still funding them

[Clayless]

Hi, apologies if this gets long.

DH and I have been together 8 years, he is half British, half . He has 2 children, twins who are 17. I have 2 children who are 14 and 12, together we have a 6 year old.

Until last summer DHs children were living in France, for various reasons they have come to live with us and do their last 2 years of school. While in France DH would see them on all their holidays including a long stint with his parents in the summer and he paid for them to attend an international school. Their mother passed away when they were 13, but they continued to live in France with their maternal grandparents as they didn’t want to move and he couldn’t move due to work and our child together.

Anyway when they arrived here we immediately enrolled them in independent schools, we shifted rooms about including having my 14 and 12 year old share as we only have a 5 bedroom house. We were excited to have them and have enjoyed having them live with us.

However, things seemed to take a turn after Christmas, I think they struggled with our more structured approach to parenting vs the more laissez faire style they were used to. Little things like knowing where they were at any given time, no boyfriends/girlfriends in their room. They only turned 17 in the middle of May.

His DD was easier than his DS. She immediately got a part time job saying we didn’t give her enough money and she hated being in the house with us. She works Saturdays and Wednesday evenings in a restaurant. Through this she met a 22 year old lad and they started dating. We said under no circumstances could he stay in her room but on several occasions we’d come home from work to him and her cuddling in her bed. She would also lie to us and say she was sleeping over at a friends but actually be at his.

His DS on the other hand would swear at us, tell us we were controlling etc. He would leave his room a total mess, he refused to do any chores, occasionally skipped school and just generally had no respect.

Now about 5 weeks ago (so still 16). We had taken my children and our little one to see my parents for the day, his 2 didn’t want to come. We got back and everything more or less was gone from his DD’s room. All her clothes, her expensive keyboard we bought, her expensive tennis rackets, books everything. When we asked his DS where she was he said she’d decided to move in with her 22 year old boyfriend. He refused to give an address and said “don’t worry I’ll be out of here soon too”. Eventually we were able to talk to her and she said she would still go to school but she wasn’t coming back to live with us as it was depressing and made her miserable. She kept pointing out she was 16 and could legally move out. We have been able to find out she’s living with her boyfriend in a flat share (seriously doubt the landlord knows she’s there or her age). DH was devastated but has decided not to force it.

2 weeks later his DS moved in with his maternal cousin (sleeping on his sofa) and is refusing to come back too.

DH is insisting he will still pay for their school, and is sending them money for the tube/clothes/food. He said the only thing he won’t be providing for them is money for rent as if they can’t afford that they can always come back here. He said he also won’t be asking them to return any of them items they took.

AIBU to think if they want provided for they should live here and if they are happy to no longer live here then we shouldn’t provide for them anymore?
We are struggling to make everything work financially and it feels like he doesn’t see that our child together and my children are now going without so his kids can through a strop!

Gently OP kids are for life. I still financially support my adult children where I can (they shop at our house😂) and will continue to do so for as long as I can. Responsibility does not end in my view but I expect I will be flamed

His DD was easier than his DS. She immediately got a part time job saying we didn’t give her enough money and she hated being in the house with us. She works Saturdays and Wednesday evenings in a restaurant. Through this she met a 22 year old lad and they started dating. We said under no circumstances could he stay in her room but on several occasions we’d come home from work to him and her cuddling in her bed. She would also lie to us and say she was sleeping over at a friends but actually be at his

So you are happy for her to be considered an adult when it comes to working and earning but still a child when it suits the agenda.

You cant treat her as an adult one minute and then as a child the next.

The fact you don’t think he should pay for his unhappy children gives some insight into your attitude towards them, and it’s probably a big reason why they’ve felt the need to move out.

AIBU to think if they want provided for they should live here and if they are happy to no longer live here then we shouldn’t provide for them anymore?

Why should they have to live with you to be provided for when they haven't lived with him for many years?

Expecting him to cut off his school age children is downright ridiculous. If you were my Oh the mere suggestion of that would be a marriage ender.

In their eyes he has chosen not to live with them for years because he chose you and your children, why should they have to live with you now if they hate it?

If he wants to maintain any relationship with his children he should close down your suggestions of cutting them off and should be working his arse off to build a closer relationship with them given he is their only parent.

how are you spinning that as the father abandoning them? The mother decided to move them away.

Never expect to be flamed for that 😍

There is never any reasonable reason to move country away from your children or allow your children to move countries away from you. That is the starting point, it is always unreasonable unless there are genuine and insurmountable mitigating factors (i.e. law or court order, irremediable financial hardship).

Having a job in one country is not a barrier. There are plenty of remote jobs the father could have attempted to find if he had been serious about living with his kids. Granted he wouldn't have had to take that step if he had not agreed to live in another country from them in the first place.

He's half-British, half-French. It's in the OP.

And i do have an idea where his family lives since it's also in the OP " While in France DH would see them on all their holidays including a long stint with his parents in the summer and he paid for them to attend an international school"

Do people not even read the OP anymore?

That's almost entirely what happens when you're 16/17. You can legally work, but you are not legally an adult. Some things are allowed, and are great to promote independence, but some things are still inappropriate. OP isn't wrong to view some things as OK and some things as not.

OP, at what age do you think you should be no longe financially responsible for your DC? How would you feel if your DH turned round when your DC are 17 and said he was no longer willing to pay for them? What will happen when these DC go to university? You may well find that they need a bit of help. I think you’re being staggeringly unreasonable - look at it from the DC’s point of view. They’ve lost their mother; they’ve been living with grandparents; they have had their DF to themselves when he has visited them in France- and now, they have to live not only with their stepmother but also with three younger children; you have imposed rules that mean they have no private time with a BF/GF; you seem to resent them taking their own property, and you then say that “he doesn’t see that our child together and my children are now going without so his kids can through a strop!” I’m not feeling any empathy for what these DSC have been through - it can’t have been at all easy for them. Sorry, OP, between you, you have five children and you are equally financially responsible for all of them. Kids get more expensive as they get older, and you don’t just wash your hands of them because you have made home life so unpleasant they have both chosen to go elsewhere. I’d be looking at conciliatory measures before your DH follows them out of the door.

OP you sound awful. Children lose their mother, have to move in with their father in a house that is so miserable one would rather move out and sleep on a sofa and you are bitching about their father paying for food and travel. Stepmother from hell.

It would also have been more surprising if children just a few years after losing their mother and trying to blend into their father's new family didn't have issues tbh.

It was bound to be difficult and boil over at times. Keeping communication open and maintaining a position with his children is absolutely what he should be doing.

But that's by the by, their dad needed to build a relationship with them first

It's not actually. It says "DH and I have been together 8 years, he is half British, half ."

OMG this is the least he can do. Poor children and you want to cut them off!!

If you die when your 6yo is 13 and your DH remarries and has more kids and your DC refuses to live there will you be happy if your DH decides to stop supporting your child at 17? Anybody can die unexpectedly. Think about how you will want your shared child to be treated by your husband should that happen and you die. Think about what it would be like for your DC to grow up without you. Think about the ways your child might act out. Unless you would be fine with your DH turning his back on your 6yo in the future of course you can’t ask him to turn his back on his older children.

You sound awful.

When you said they had moved out and that your DH was supporting them I thought you were going to talk about adults in their mid 20s !

Not teenagers who you drove away.

And your outage that they took their own belongings.

No wonder they both left.

He should absolutely continue to pay for them - it sounds like it wasn't a good idea for them to come to the UK.

Of course he needs to keep funding them, they’re his children!

you both need to sort this out with them and get them home, they’re too young and vulnerable to be sofa surfing and living with an adult boyfriend.

Stop whining about your money and space in the house and realise these kids need to be his priority. They have no mother now, they just have their dad and this needs to be resolved.

Can you ease up on the rules a bit and maybe negotiate some new ones with them involved too?

The weirdest thing about this sorry tale
Is the op actually thinking people will agree with her.
Your DH should of moved to France to look after his children who had lost their mother
He has constantly put his eldest children last ,and still the op is complaining and wants the children cut of from his money,while he pays for children that are not his.
Threads like this is what give step mothers a bad name

Who do you think should be paying for them @Clayless

I think he can be blamed for not working harder to make sure they wanted to be with him after their mother died. And also for not trying harder to make them welcome when they did eventually come to live with him.

He should never of left France. The kids their mother died. He should never of left ever. I wouldn’t.

This. It sounds horrendous. The least he can do is continue to fund them as long as they’re in education. Why did they have to leave France where they were happy?