i can’t do this anymore. step kids are ruining my life.

[stepparent55]

Hi everyone. Just want an opinion and whether to know or not AITA? I know i keep complaining on here about my situation. But this is the only space i have where i can talk openly about my life and what seems unfair. I can’t talk to friends / family as their response is always: you knew what you were getting into. While that may be true I wanted to know your thoughts on how I feel and whether this makes me a terrible person.
Do I have a right to think it’s completely unfair that I have to look after my husband 4 children from a prev marriage every weekend? My child goes to their dad every weekend. And what should be time to myself to reset and rest, instead becomes increasingly harder and I end up dreading every weekend. It seems unfair that on weekends my child’s going to her dad, and another woman’s children (4) come to me and I have to look after them so she can get free time off? Even when my partner does help out with his own children, I am still left cleaning up the house after them, cooking, buying groceries, washing their clothes, drying their clothes, bathing them and making sure they don’t get hurt the weekend when they are in my care.
Is it wrong of me to feel like this is an unfair trade? on weekends, what is supposed to be my time, i am stuck with someone else’s children. She gets her time off but i don’t… i can’t help but feel really bitter and resentful. not at the children but at the situation.
Sometimes, i feel like just leaving the house every friday before they turn up in the evenings and come back on sunday evening when they are gone. but then the house is a disaster, i mean legit upside down (curtains pulled off etc), dishes undone for 3 days which i was to do, i have to change my bed sheets and my child’s bedsheets at the kids have slept in them, peed in them etc. it’s just too much. I really regret marrying a man with 4 children. I wish i found someone with only one or two children.

Leave. Life is too short. I have noticed that nearly every stepchild problem here is a dad marrying again to get childcare.

You keep posting about this situation as though someone here is going to come up with a miraculous solution. Or are you simply venting?

I couldn’t live like this, I would separate.

I’d leave.

I'd leave him.
Have you actually talked to him about this? You seem to blame the mum, but he's the one that calls you up to collect them if she drops them at the restaurant. He's the one working 12 hour days, 7 days a week, when he knows she'll drop the children off.

This is probably why she divorced him and turns her phone off. He doesn't parent. He shouldn't be helping, he should be doing it all. If he won't, I'd refuse to have them. Its for contact time with their father, not with you. He needs to be there.

Absolutely spot on.

His lifestyle 12 hours a day, 7 days a week doesn’t work with kids - or at least it does if he has someone to do the domestic work.

I think you’re stuck in a rock and a hard place. Yes, you want to support your husband, but, just like the stepkids mum you want some time off too - which I get.

But you’ve married someone who works over 80 hours a week - I think this is the consequence. Marry someone who works insane hours and be expected to do everything from cleaning to child care.

I guess the question is asking yourself how do you want your life to be? Accept how this is now, or have a difficult conversation to make some changes.

NRTFT but what immediately leapt out is your anger towards SDC's DM. WTF! This is 100% a DH problem, stop blaming her for your DH being a dick.

Divorce this man asap

If he works 12 hour days 7 days a week then by all means he can and should reduce his official time with the children, because he isn’t actually having them at all. He can then increase his maintenance to their mother.

Otherwise he can prioritise being a father, seen as he chose to have 4 children. He can make considerable effort to be around and parent them and have a real relationship with them.

It’s not your job to parent these kids and while being a step parent is one thing I wouldn’t be happy sending my children to their fathers ever weekend just for them to not even see him.

The bottom line is he isn’t being a parent. You, OP, are facilitating him not being a parent.

It does not sound like she is the most responsible parent either....why have 4 kids with a man who can not parent his own kids?

I think the poster should just leave. The man can step up or perhaps grandparents. It is not her problem. Her priority is her own dc. Lesson learned for her, do not marry a man with kids. All they want is a free nanny.

thanks. thats exactly someone with crippling declining mental health from this situation needs to hear. with an autistic child struggling already and your best word is call me a mug?

It’s really bizarre that he is working 7 days a week. Child support is worked out across his income so if he worked 5 days she would get a relative amount. It sounds like you have to look after them when he is working. How the hell have you got yourself into this? Why did you let him move in with 4 kids coming to stay. The biggest issue is if she is an alcoholic and neglecting them he should have them full time. He needs to move out to do that if you don’t want to be caring for them all. You could be married without living together? Are you sure he doesn’t work so much so you have to do the childcare. I’m a single parent I had rules for dating. - never date anyone who doesn’t have their own home - ideally without children - no one is moving in with me - they don’t need to meet my kids. I don’t want to be a step parent I have enough to manage with my own. I have a partner and it’s worked.

Yes exactly! And the kids are attention seeking because their parents neglect them. What’s your financial situation OP? Can you walk?

Then dont be there and turn your phone ?off like she does. Let him deal with his own children!

Options available to you OP.

DH needs to go to court and get a proper court order for contact. He also needs to adjust his hours at work.

In the meantime, go and stay with your parents at weekends so you're not home and available to take the kids in or parent them. If you go back and the place is a mess, go back to your parents' and tell your DH you won't come home until he has cleaned the house. Take your child with you if need be.

Honestly your DH sounds incredibly selfish and you need to get him to step up here - for you AND his kids. 7 days a week at work? Sounds like he's using his job to avoid taking on any parental responsibility - and because you're so resentful of his ex-wife, you're refusing to see who is truly responsible for the situation you're in. Trust me. He likes being at work. He's choosing this set up over being there for his children. Think about that.

Your husband/kids' father is BU and TA.
Cut your losses, and leave. Your unhappiness is evident, and well, it's not gonna change 👍

She's right, though.

You're a grown adult - you don't need to do any of this. This is all a choice.

Choose better. For your child if you won't do it for you.

Two things stand out to me

1- most Mums dont get time to themselves as they the Dads are either absent or living in the same house

2- usually tbe point of children going to the non-residents parents house is to spend time with them and not to give the resident parent time off.

I think you need to tell both of them you are unavailable and go out and turn your phone off. After a few occasions of them being dropped at the restaurant and your husband having to close it I am sure things will change.

Does he.work 12 hours 7 days a week? It sounds like custody arrangements need to be changed or made more formal

It’s a minor point, but when do you get time to see him if he works such crazy hours OP? What’s the point (for you) of being married to him?

You keep repeating the same point. What are you going to do about it?

You have a husband issue. Your husband knows full well he runs a restaurant and can't be there to look after his children every weekend. What exactly has he tried to do to resolve the issue? The fact is, he can't work every weekend, because it doesn't fit in with his children. Does he have Court ordered contact arrangements? If not, then perhaps that is something that is needed. He can then ask for every other weekend and perhaps 2 nights during the week. It would mean he'd have to make he's available to look after them. Instead he's ignoring the issue, because it's easier for him to have you look after his children. Yes, you knew you were marrying a man with 4 children, but you weren't expecting to be solo parenting them every weekend whilst he works. That's not an option for you any longer. You need to tell your husband that you aren't prepared to look after his children every weekend. He either needs to make alternative childcare arrangements or be available himself. Employ a restaurant manager to oversee the restaurant at weekends, so he doesn't need to work or so he works every other weekend. The situation is not his children's fault - they are living with an alcoholic Mum, in a chaotic household and are neglected. This is a problem your husband needs to solve, you aren't responsible for parenting his children.

I’d be tempted to have someone pop into the restaurant a few times over a weekend to assess just how hard he is “working” while his kids are at home with OP.

Yes. Childcare and/or to get financial help with paying child support.

I don’t date men with kids but if I did they’d have to be earning significantly more than me, and be in a position where they don’t need to be working a crazy work schedule.

This is so I wouldn’t get left with all the childcare or having to cover most of the household bills so he can pay for his child support.

Women need to be a bit smarter when they get with men because men are quite happily doing various cost/benefit calculations before they get married .

In OP’s husband’s mind he was getting free childcare and a way out of his flatshare when he married her.

Its not often i say this on here, im more of a long time lurker anyway.

But i really think you need to separate.

The mum is an alcholic and while ive every sympathy for people with problems, i would never have them or there kids directly linked to my own kids.

Its difficult now but it will be a nightmare when they hit teenage years when they will struggle with the mental toil they have endured with their mum.

Your also not really in a relationship if he works 12 hrs per day 7 days a week.

First and foremost you have a duty to your own biological child and second dury is to yourself.

1. Your mixing problematic people into your own childs life. 2. You have no time to look after yourself to be a good parent to your own child.

I'd separate.

Not your circus, not your monkeys.