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.

Who cares if the ex is not a victim? You are not a victim either.

The 5 children are a victim. Four of them are spending every weekend in a cramped house where they are unwanted by the main adult in charge. Their “dad” barely sees them during the so called contact time.

You CHOSE this situation. Anyone with a grain of intelligence, decency and common sense could see that his 4 kids might end up coming over or even living full time with you. Which is why if you weren’t up for that - and I wouldn’t be- you shouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole.

And while you’re claiming to be the victim doing everything it sounds like you’re saying you rely full on his income, and need him to get by - so you are getting something out of this.

Fair enough, OP - so the bills you're paying would probably be much the same if you rented your own place, and surely Housing Benefit would help with the rent?

Failing that even a part time job would help towards costs, but it's hard to see how living with this man's mess is any kind of realistic option

When his 4 kids come i have to do an extra £100-150 food shop every weekend to stock up for them. the mother brings them without any clothes, so I have to buy them all an extra pair of clothes ...

Edited to add that between the extra food and the clothes that sounds like the thick end of £200 a week, so roughly £800 a month ... which would be useful money to put towards your own rental wouldn't you say?
Unless of course it's DH who's covering this spend, which would make it very different

@Pricelessadvice your user name is ironic as you have no advice at all.

Why does he bother having the children every weekend if he’s not there anyway? Surely that defeats the purpose?? If he isn’t there to have them then there’s no point. Your bitterness towards the childrens mother is misdirected, it’s not unreasonable of her to expect to be able to drop them at the home of their own “father”. It’s your husband being unreasonable expecting to work all weekend when he should be seeing his children that he hasn’t seen all week. I suspect it’s that by “having” them these 10 days a month it reduces having to pay any more in CM.

You've been asked several times - why can't you go back to your parents? Pause your Masters, get a job, earn enough to rent somewhere for you and your child.

You have a serious husband problem, and you need to stop cleaning up after him and stepchildren etc on the weekend. He's their parent. You are not. Make some nice plans on your own in the weekend and leave them to it!

thank you so much. they both are yet no one sees it and brands me the villain? when i am doing the job for both of them. i am considering moving back to my parents

Pack your bags and leave. Go back to your parents. How can you stand any of this nonsense!? They are both taking the piss out of you, wake up!

I think this is a very good idea. If you could stay with them until you've finished your masters and have a job you could save the money for a flat deposit and get a safe and secure place for you and your child away from the insane mayhem you're currently living in.

If you were my child I'd be horrified by your life - I expect your parents are too and will be willing to help.

This!!

Then if they're harming your child, you need to leave. That should be your primary concern, not complaining that the ex gets to relax.

You say you can't leave because of money... what did you do before you met him? If he comes home tonight and says he wants a divorce, what would you do? If you're only with him for money, is it wrong that he's only with you for childcare?

Your child needs a safe space, that's for your and her dad to work out. You say he's a good guy, what can the two of you do?

This doesn’t add up - how could he have time to visit them if he’s working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, and they live 3 hours away?

You know full well the reality is he wouldn’t see them at all if the didn’t drop them off and you,rather shamelessly, would be ok with that right? You’d be more than ok, ecstatic really.

Why should the ex have them at her house 100% of the time? Again I wouldn’t like my place being overrun by my exes four kids, but to avoid that problem I’d not get with a man with four kids!!

What I wouldn’t do is marry him then moan about his kids coming over to your shared house.

I am sorry this has happened to you. It’s clearly spiralled out of control and now everybody’s needs are being met… apart from yours.

So I suppose it’s a case of put up and shut up which sounds like it will suit everybody around you, or take action. I think at this point moving back in with my parents would look like a reasonable option to me. At least until your husband and his ex wife came to logical agreements about CM and childcare.

Not a chance I would allow somebody else’s broken marriage to destroy me both financially and mentally. If you take yourself out of the equation they will be forced to come to an agreement without you and inturn you could perhaps try and mend your broken marriage.

If he doesn’t want/try after you walking away you know he’s used you as ‘Step Mummy Daycare’ while it suited.

Well you are a mug. Go out at the weekends. Let him sort child care for HIS kids. Why is he working when they are over???

Your DH is the problem

No, that’s not true. Plenty of us have pointed out that all three of the adults involved (you, the ex and the husband) are a mess and it’s clear that your husband is taking the piss and is being a crap father and parent .

It’s you who is hyper focused on painting yourself and your partner as victims, and blaming it all on the ex.

When really the only victims are the kids.

So when is he having a relationship with his kids then? When did he before you came along?

Have you spoken to him to come up with a solution? He can't just allow them to be cared for by you each weekend. This is meant to be the time HE bonds with them, not you.

He needs to sort this out and if I were you I'd either go out on the weekend or don't open the door. All the while it's your problem , he won't change it. Make it HIS problem.

Doesn't he actually want to see them??

But not every week-end. This is enough to screw the relationship. And why are they pulling curtains down, peeing beds etc? And why, if they do that, is their father not fixing it?
It's not about having them it's that they are awful DC. Say no, only once a month and H clears up - or they don't come at all and he can take them to the zoo or whatever over the week-end.

If the kids mum did the same as you - marry a man with kids, then she would have been in the same situation as you. But she didn’t so she isn’t.
Its not fair to blame her.
Your dh needs to step up.

Wow. She gets to relax and you don’t. She has them 5 days a week and they are your stepchildren? The one and only person you should be angry with is your husband. He should be doing a lot more to help! They spend the weekends with you to spend time with their father not for their mum to have time off. So he should be doing that and helping with the housework. You sound very fed up so you need to talk about this. Maybe get a cleaner and get take aways. Don’t take it out at the kids or their mum. I doubt she wants them with another woman?

So why is he voluntarily paying £2000 a month?!

This is a valid point. Everyone is slagging off the bloke but actually is he paying for the op to do her masters via paying her and her dcs living costs, then her return to him would be looking after his kids on a weekend.

One weekend on , one weekend with out the children so you get a break ? That’s what we did and it worked as the kids wanted more time at weekends at home as they had local mates they never saw . Lots of people may disagree but you need to think of your life here too and how you feel . You can’t give the best to anyone if your run ragged and unhappy and your are important too .

Well if he cant take any time off from his restaurant to be a parent to his kids then at the least he needs to hire a nanny to cover weekends.
(He sounds like a waste of space)

Where is the kids wellbeing in all this?

You spend no weekends with your daughter? No quality time? How sad for her and you, or don’t you want her?

And the 4 kids who come to see their dad sees nothing of him? Why does he work 12 hour days both days when his kids are round? Does he not care to see them?

Adults making poor choices. Some adults should never become parents. Poor kids.