why is called the SCs home when it isn't?

[cardycard]

I keep seeing this scenario.

Woman with her own house. She is paying for the bills. Her DP moves in. His kids come EOW. Why do so many people say it is the SC's home?

Yes

How long should it be kept secret from them?

You have said this already

But she can ask him and his children to leave anytime, so then he will have to leave his home. Just a temporary home then.

Realistically if it is EOW the kids probably feel like resident patents is home. And they are going to "their dad's" for the weekend. As the dad or step parent i would want them to feel at home as much as possible.

Situations can always change being at home is a feeling rather than being a visitor. Ie help yourself to drink or snack (within reason), chill out in your room or on the couch. Not visitor coming to chit chat and wait to be offered anything. Equally tidy up after themselves too.

Why are you asking?

You're clearly batshit, op

It's not a secret. It's just part of a stable, worry free childhood that most of us want for our kids.
When or if they start asking, then it can be discussed.

Yes the owner of the property has the rights. Why would you think otherwise? Changing the deeds or getting married changes the situation.

A 'commitment' does not change the law.

Yes but while he IS living there it is his home, so it is theirs also.

I don’t get why this is hard?

Or why you are so obsessed with what happened when he moves out - most people don’t move in with someone already planning for the relationship to break down.

I don't get the point of this thread.

most people don’t move in with someone already planning for the relationship to break down.

True but one has to be realistic. A significant number of relationships do come to an end so the children may have several 'homes'.

What on earth are you on about? The kids don’t care who pays the bills. They just care that they have a safe and welcoming place to stay when it is their weekend to be with their Dad.

I may be wildly off-track but… is this about you OP? Your boyfriend has moved in with you and you are concerned his children now have a legal claim on your home? Because if that’s it you can calm down, they don’t. When we’re saying it’s “their home”, we don’t mean they now own it.

Just that it’s, well, it’s their home. As in the place they live, have their bedroom, keep their stuff, spend time with their Dad.

I hope you’re more welcoming to them than you’re coming across here, and not telling that it’s “only temporary”. Because that would be really shitty.

Is this a hypothetical or a personal situation?

There is a current thread on the Step-parenting board where a poster who is married to her DH let her step-daughter move in at her DH's request and she has trashed her home and made allegations about OP's son. The girl's social worker had told OP that she has to let her DH and his daughter stay with her, despite her dangerous behaviour, because it is the marital home, even though her DH contributed nothing to the house and they have only been married a year (short marriage).

Are you in a similar situation?

No one does. And we are not supposed to ask.

A form has to be filled out and approved before any thread gets posted.

When it’s not. That’s daft.

its like saying it immoral for a woman to be the breadwinner.

its her house, its not his house and not his kids house, and even the most naive of SC know this. Their home is far more likely to be the one they share most time with their mother.

This doesn't sound true. Nobody can force people to stay together, not even social workers.

It’s not a secret, it’s something no child should have to worry about because they cannot buy or live in a home independently.

I feel like if I'm in a serious enough relationship to be living with someone and having their children live with us some of the time then it's all of our home and we are a big family.

I would make sure I was financially protected if it was my house and not his but ideally we would pool funds and buy somewhere bigger together.

In situations where one or both parties have kids and you want to live together one person needs to move in with the other before committing to a mortgage and marriage together.

Marriage doesn’t change this though.

er yes - if it is his home, then it is his dc home too.

what is the issue?

Who may also not own her home. Still the children’s home though.

How would you like it to be specified? The physical place where our SM permits us to spend EOW with our father, whilst making us very aware that this is not our home, and we should never refer to it as such, lest people think we are actually family.

Then that's on the father who has allowed his children to get embroiled in a situation where he is a precarious cohabitee and isn't providing a stable home for his own children.

You see a lot of co-habiting mothers warned about this - even when you have biological children together, if you aren't married and you are not on the deeds, your stability is dependent on the whims of the homeowner and we all know that plenty of men will think nothing of making their own kids homeless to punish their ex partners, let alone step kids.