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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

852 replies

stepparent55 · 01/11/2025 13:27

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.

OP posts:
Pyjamatimenow · 01/11/2025 15:14

You can’t have it both ways. Sounds like he’s paying the bills and you’re living off his income so you’re expected to facilitate him working by looking after the kids. I’d be walking away. I’d rather go to work than be at home with 4 kids

Alpacajigsaw · 01/11/2025 15:14

MinimumRage · 01/11/2025 13:47

These poor kids. You send your own DD away at weekends and look forward to this as your “free time” and your husbands kids are shunted to you, and you assume its so his ex-wife can have “free time”. I dont read anything in this post about what the kids want / whether they’re happy.

Tough shit, not the OP’s problem

The birth parents are a pair of cheeky bastards. Just divorce him and enjoy your life with your daughter, away from these pricks and their feral brats.

Bananalanacake · 01/11/2025 15:15

And how long had you been in a relationship when he decided to move in with you? What would have happened if you had said early on, "I want a relationship with you but I don't want us to live together until your youngest is 18 and I don't want to meet them for another 2 year's"
Bet you a tenner he wouldn't have hung around too long once he realised he wasn't going to get free childcare.

ChangeEmai1Address · 01/11/2025 15:15

"Even when their father does help out with his own children"

Here is your issue. Your partner is a shit dad, a shit partner and has got you believing that he should 'help out' with his own children. No, he should parent them.

Leave, he's a prick.

Willyoujustbequiet · 01/11/2025 15:16

stepparent55 · 01/11/2025 13:37

it’s not an issue having them, i can’t stop him from having his children over just like he can’t stop me from having my child. the problem is on weekends when i am supposed to relax because my child is with their dad, i am having to look after another woman’s kids. she gets to relax i don’t.

You're thinking about this all wrong.

Its not the mum's fault, its your husband.

Why the hell should she have to do all his parenting for him? I dont blame her wanting the weekend off when she's been doing all the school run, homework, doctors appts etc. for 4 children!

Give your head a wobble.

Cloudtime · 01/11/2025 15:16

Your husband is the problem not his ex wife .
He has a responsibility to actually be a father . Hire staff even if it means having to pay less maintenance . Alternatively change to a job that actually accommodates that he is a parent of 4 children and should be taking care of them .
You are being taken for an absolute mug by him. He chooses to pay that level of maintenance and work 7 days a week. You are an unpaid childminder so he doesn’t have to step up.

Bedtelly · 01/11/2025 15:16

Pyjamatimenow · 01/11/2025 15:14

You can’t have it both ways. Sounds like he’s paying the bills and you’re living off his income so you’re expected to facilitate him working by looking after the kids. I’d be walking away. I’d rather go to work than be at home with 4 kids

Yeah that's a good point. Is he financially supporting you and your child which is why you don't want to leave?

Pallisers · 01/11/2025 15:16

WaryHiker · 01/11/2025 14:24

In my opinion, the three of you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. Obviously, more so the parents than you, but you are playing a part here.

These children are being neglected and abused by being left with an alcoholic mother who either can't or doesn't care for them to even a basic standard. They are neglected, unwashed and completely feral. What do you think their future holds if someone doesn't start looking after their physical and emotional well-being properly?

Then they are being neglected at weekends by a shit father who can't be bothered to remove them from their awful living situation but also has actively chosen a job that means he never has to see his children at all because he's found himself another woman/ complete mug to remove his responsibilities from him.

And then there's you. It doesn't sound as though you've done anything useful for these poor kids. Why have you not spoken to the safeguarding lead at their school to tell them the children are being physically and emotionally neglected by their alcoholic mother and completely absent father? Or gone to social services to talk to them about what needs to be done to rescue these children?

All you seem to do is complain about the fact that their mother is getting time off. You don't apportion the slightest blame to their appalling father, who knows perfectly well what's going on during the week but doesn't lift a finger to do anything about it. Neither does he bother to see them at the weekends.

For goodness sake, step up and be a decent human being. By all means, leave your husband as soon as possible. If not for your sake, then do it for your poor child's sake. They don't deserve to have been thrust into the middle of this complete shitshow.

But if you have an ounce of compassion and decency left in you, stop in at social services and the children's school as you leave and make sure they know these children are being abused and neglected by both their parents.

Then run a mile and do better by yourself and your own child in the future.

I agree with every word of this. Poor children (and I include OP's in that)

No5ChalksRoad · 01/11/2025 15:17

Crochetandtea · 01/11/2025 15:07

He met and married someone else and youngest is only 4 ? Fast worker !

It's really despicable. Clearly he was looking for a nanny. A full-time student who lives with her parents; move her on in for sex, housework and childcare.

As I said, I would love it if someone popped into that restaurant to see just how hard he is working.

Marcipix · 01/11/2025 15:17

I couldn’t stand it.
Can you mitigate the damage in any way? Can you lock your child’s room?
Anyone who wets the bed must wear pull-ups.
Nobody in my family has ever pulled a curtain down. What the heck are they doing? That’s not normal play.

KatyaKat · 01/11/2025 15:18

@stepparent55 if she is actually an alcoholic as you suggest, why not keep the kids full-time? Surely that would be better for everyone? Your OH wouldn't need to be paying £2k/mth, you'd be able to get them in to a routine, and they'd (hopefully) feel loved and wanted. If their mother wants to see them, she can come to you/have them EOW...she may not bother...

Zitroneneis · 01/11/2025 15:21

Marcipix · 01/11/2025 15:17

I couldn’t stand it.
Can you mitigate the damage in any way? Can you lock your child’s room?
Anyone who wets the bed must wear pull-ups.
Nobody in my family has ever pulled a curtain down. What the heck are they doing? That’s not normal play.

These poor kids were never properly parented by the look of things. I feel sorry for them

stepparent55 · 01/11/2025 15:21

Pricelessadvice · 01/11/2025 13:29

You married a man with kids. Surely you realised that you might end up having the kids quite regularly?

the problem is not me having the kids regularly. the issue is i’m being a slave. and 4 children under the age of 10 aren’t exactly easy to handle?

OP posts:
FrodoBiggins · 01/11/2025 15:22

JLou08 · 01/11/2025 15:13

You're blaming the wrong person here. 'She' is nothing to do with it. You aren't doing this so 'she' can relax. Your doing it because your husband isn't stepping up and being a parent.
Children don't go to their dads so their mum can have a break, they go because their mum and dad both have equal responsibilities for them and the relationship with both parents is equally important.
You have some real internalised misogyny, no wonder you ended up with a piss taker.

Internalised misogyny is bang on.
Sounds from OPs other posts that when she started dating H he had 4 children aged about 2-8 and saw them one evening a week. Or sometimes once every two weeks.

What sort of man did she really think he was.

Wonder what OPs Master's degree is in. Presumably not gender studies. Or social care

Cat1504 · 01/11/2025 15:23

stepparent55 · 01/11/2025 15:21

the problem is not me having the kids regularly. the issue is i’m being a slave. and 4 children under the age of 10 aren’t exactly easy to handle?

But you are enabling it 🤷‍♀️

Alpacajigsaw · 01/11/2025 15:23

Zitroneneis · 01/11/2025 15:21

These poor kids were never properly parented by the look of things. I feel sorry for them

Feeling sorry for them doesn’t make them OP’s responsibility. If there are concerns about neglect, she should report it to social services.

these kind of posts just confirm that if I I ever ended up looking for a man again, I’d go nowhere near one with kids. Fuck that. Raising my own is enough!

Milosc · 01/11/2025 15:23

You have a husband problem. He is taking the piss working and you are playing victim. You are crying about his ex having free weekends, but that is a exactly what you think you deserve. It is full out spiteful jealousy on your part. My kids were with me every single day of the year with no breaks. It is called parenting.

Stop being his bangmaid and just leave. I feel bad for all the children involved. What a miserable life.

Franjipanl8r · 01/11/2025 15:23

There are no medals for women who spend every weekend looking after other people’s kids for free. I honestly can’t see what’s in this for you at all.

Pyjamatimenow · 01/11/2025 15:25

Franjipanl8r · 01/11/2025 15:23

There are no medals for women who spend every weekend looking after other people’s kids for free. I honestly can’t see what’s in this for you at all.

Money and not being financially responsible is my guess. Don’t know how everyone keeps missing this

Zempy · 01/11/2025 15:25

stepparent55 · 01/11/2025 15:21

the problem is not me having the kids regularly. the issue is i’m being a slave. and 4 children under the age of 10 aren’t exactly easy to handle?

Well don’t do it then?

ConcordeSkyHigh · 01/11/2025 15:26

Your life doesn't have to stop. Just arrange to go out for a night. Nothing bad will happen.

Justdancinginthedark · 01/11/2025 15:27

Tell him to get another job.

No5ChalksRoad · 01/11/2025 15:28

Take the kids to the restaurant at noon on Saturday with books and tablets or whatever passes the time, and park them at a table. Let him bring them home when his shift is over.

Repeat on Sundays.

Zitroneneis · 01/11/2025 15:28

Franjipanl8r · 01/11/2025 15:23

There are no medals for women who spend every weekend looking after other people’s kids for free. I honestly can’t see what’s in this for you at all.

I don’t get it either. Use your free weekends to enjoy yourself, see friends and pursue your own hobbies or take your own daughter away for a weekend!

Do not voluntarily look after someone else’s 4 neglected children!

whynotwhatknot · 01/11/2025 15:30

sorry but unless you say no nothing will change

and if its more than he can affors and what cms says he doesnt have to pay her 2k-do a calculation on the offidical site and pay what it says

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