To not “babysit” my stepchild?

[namechangedcusillbeflamed]

I am recently married (since January) after being with my DH for 3 years. He has DSS5.

Custody is set at half with dad, half with mum. Mum is in and out the picture quite a lot, has MH issues, and sometimes says she cannot have DSS on her days (she’s working/needs to clear her head/needs to take her DSD somewhere… etc).

Anyway, me and DH have lived together for around 18 months. Prior to getting married, I was not expected to look after DSS at all really. I would obviously spend time with him and DH together, and would be there if DH nipped the shop etc. DH always works on Monday and Tuesday until 8pm, so he usually left DSS with his mum (DSS grandma) on those nights. Since we moved in together that has slowly stopped, and he is with us now. This means when I get in from work at 6pm, I collect DSS from grandmas, bathe him and put him to bed.

We have DSS Friday until Tuesday every week - 4 nights. At the weekend, DH sometimes picks up extra shifts meaning that I am now de facto baby sitter. I looked after his all day Saturday as DH was working.

I feel awful. I really do love DSS, but it’s such a step up doing all this, and I feel like it is taken for granted. When I said to DH that I was knackered after working 7am-6pm and then doing bed time after not having much of a weekend. He said “welcome to my world, first time you’ve done a full parenting shift”

aibu to that this plan isn’t fair on me?? Or am I being a shit stepmum 😭

He’s taking the mick. Well they both are. You need to put your foot down. Start doing a few things for yourself at the weekend. He can’t just expect you to do all the childcare.

Ha ha.
Yes, I read the posts. You do realise that in a two parent household, sometimes one has to work and the other one looks after the kids?
Your outrage is funny

This is unacceptable OP. The child’s parents are both enjoying free weekends and hobbies and you’re using your weekend to look after their child.

You need to sit your dh down and say that you will no longer be available at weekends as you need your own downtime. He can speak to his ex and go back to eow or spend the time with his own son.

Ultimately you’ll probably need to split because he is selfish and does not care about what you want. He sees you as being there to look after his child while he lives his life.

Split now before you have children of your own and find someone that respects you

Good luck

From OPs updates it sounds like the custody is swaying heavily in their direction - it looked like they’d only have today “off,” and that was only if his mum took him back for the one night.

If it remains like that - when is her husband “allowed” to work? Never? Not allowed hobbies unless he gets external childcare in?

I wouldn’t dream of it. We now have our stepson full time, his mum gave him up last year. We’re both entitled to a break, and surely everyone is “allowed” to work.

This is about to get a whole lot more difficult if the custody stays so unweighted and he’s “not allowed” to be away from his son.

when do you get time for yourself? Join a gym/ take yoga classes/ start running tell DH you will be going to your class at x time and he’s in charge.

Plenty of women criticise men for saying they are 'babysitting' their own kids. How is this scenario any different? The OP is complaining about 'babysitting' a child she is responsible for. If the issue is truly because the father is not around as much as she feels he should be, then why mention the child is a step child at all? Although, also why ask on here? If it is just that the father is not pulling his weight for childcare, then that is a discussion for the two of them and something that is so common in heterosexual relationships that it should not be a surprise.

However, the issue seemed to be a lot more about the fact that the child belonged to the father, not her

He’s chosen you because you’re obviously a kind person, he now has a built in nanny for his child and free childcare, can pick up extra shifts at work and do his hobby. You are facilitating all this for him.
you will grow to resent him whilst feeling guilty about the child who has 2 ineffective parents who are happy to pass him off to you. This won’t end well.

If you'd read all the OP's posts you would have noticed how many hours she's working too so I'm not sure why your comments imply this is a SAHsM situation.

When is the OP supposed to work? And why isn't that one of your questions?

I don't think you have read all of the OP's posts. I think you are using this thread to tell us what a wonderfully accomodating wife you are. Good for you.

But prior to actually getting wed, op lived with her now dh for 18 months, and helped to look after the child, but wasn’t the main carer. Since getting a ring in her finger, Dh seems to have dropped his parental responsibilities, taking up an extra hobby, and expecting op to take up the slack.

Fortunately op has realised this sooner than later, hence posting.

Somehow it seems you both forgot to have a conversation about expectations around this. I think you both need to communicate better. In your position I would be happy with during the week but I would definitely want my weekends to myself. Dh needs to stop the extra shifts as you are not a babysitter. You do have a life of your own.

Exactly

Good for you. When does the op get a break if her dh now spends his weekends alternating between optional extra work and hobbies?? And what do you even mean by when does the dh get to work? It’s perfectly clear he gets to work Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Friday while being actively supported in parenting by the op, who very normally objects to that support being extended to solo parenting a child who needs his dad all weekend? Do you know something we don’t that this dh is just so special that he should be enabled 7 days a week? You say you and your partner support each other to get hobby time- why don’t you think the op deserves any support from this man then?

OP is working, nobody has told her she can’t. Her complaint appears to be that she’s tired from working and parenting, and as the child isn’t hers would like less parenting.

Her husband has to work, I can’t believe anyone actually has an issue with that part of it. He’s “allowed” a job. What’s he going to do, resign because his ex wife has dropped her custody?

What I have actually been saying is that both OP and her husband should be “able” to work and have personal lives outside of the home, because they both should be working together to meet the child’s needs. I’m aware that’s not a legal responsibility, but I honestly believe it’s part and parcel of introducing yourself into an existing family. Get on board, or get out.

OP is “allowed” to work, pick up hobbies, whatever, but she has responsibilities that she took on when she took on someone’s child.

I actually find all this talk of “allowed” and “able to work” ridiculous. Put your big grown up pants on and get on with it.

There’s a 5 year old at the heart of this, with a group of adults arguing about who cares for him. Do you not think that’s a shame?

Surely she can do hobbies when he isn’t.

I cannot believe there a people complaining because someone wants a hobby for a few hours on a Saturday. If your husband told you you weren’t allowed a hobby or break, we’d all call him a dick.

Coordinate your breaks around each other, we’re all tired, just work together to make it work 😂.

to start with I was thinking why marry someone with young child if you don’t want to fully integrate
but then I saw his rude comment of

welcome to my world, first time you’ve done a full parenting shift”

how rude and entitled
he can’t just pick up extras shifts and expect you to look after his kid

perhoas it’s time to consider if this is what you really want before you end up pregnant yourself you can divorce but if you have kids with him
you’ll always be connected for life
is that what you want ?

I’m not blaming the woman. I’m blaming both of them. The official custody split is 50/50. The child isn’t just a visitor, this is his home fifty percent of the time - what exactly was OP expecting ? And now here we are talking about farming him out to childcare on his dad’s watch. OP and her DH need to sort themselves out and maybe dad needs to go back to court to sort things out with his ex and clarify custody as it sounds as though she’s taking the piss and he doesn’t want to confront her. There’s a little boy in the middle of this and he seems to be his actual parents’ last concern.

I don’t think you are being the least bit U. The two parents need to sort this, it needs nipping in the bud.

I don’t agree with his assertion that he’s taking up a new hobby at the weekends while OP looks after the child, but picking up extra shifts doesn’t seem unreasonable, depending on what the money is being used for.

Are you being unreasonable that you would rather not look after your DSS, absolutely.

Is your husband unreasonable for voluntarily scheduling work on his contact days, absolutely.

Rather than saying you won’t look after DSS, maybe the message to your husband is that contact days are for DSS to see his Dad and with the current set up DSS is missing out on that.

She is doing most of the parenting when the child is supposed to be with his dad, why is it unreasonable that she should want to do less?

Why are you ignoring that the goal posts have been moved since OP got married? She says they parented together before that. Since getting married her husband has passed the Monday and Tuesday evening dinner/bath time routine to OP, accepts his ex changing arrangements at the last minute because he knows it won't affect him, picks up extra shifts at the weekend which seems likely to be less about money than avoiding parenting because he's now decided to replace them with a hobby. When OP tried to discuss it he made a flippant comment about her now knowing what a full parenting shift was like. A step parent has no legal standing which means that the lions share of responsibility should fall to the actual parents.

You are the only one framing his lack of consideration for OP as her trying to control him by "allowing" him to do things. His time should be managed around his responsibilities to his child rather than how much of that responsibility he can off loaded onto someone he did not negotiate with.

Sorry, but this.

Doing the dinner, bath and bed routine two nights a week and a few hours on a Saturday is not “most” of the parenting.

I don’t believe anyone begrudges giving a child a bath whilst their dad is at work.

Picking up extra shifts to avoid the child is speculation, you don’t know that they don’t need the money. None of us do. It’s just easier to think that it’s an example of bad parenting when actually it might be financially motivated.

Looking at the timeline, it actually all looks quick. The child is 5, they’ve been together 3 years, married for 9 months already, and moved in 18 months ago. Both parties have sped through this arrangement with no discussion of what it looked like and what they wanted from it. Which was obviously a mistake.

LTB