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.

If your husband isn't home but working then why are they with you? It's supposed to be when he is off work to spend time with them. Perhaps stay at a cheap hotel some weekends yo recharge. Let your husband deal with them all.

But they are both parents of these four kids - so why not every weekend or at least half the time even if it’s a mixture of week days and weekends? 50/50 is very common nowadays.

As a third party you need to go into a relationship with a parent who has four minor children asking if you’re prepared to take care of them full time because custody arrangements can change.

Especially in this case where OP’s husband is claiming this woman is a careless alcoholic.

If your answer to that question is no, don’t marry the parent of four kids!

ETA: And seeing your young children once a month is really poor. Why are you advocating he sees his kids even less than he should rather than suggesting he reduces his hours so he can parent his kids every weekend?

23 pages in, so certainly not going to RTFT, but there isn’t a chance in hell I’d be looking after someone else’s 4 kids at weekends. I wouldn’t even think about a relationship with someone with four children (child age), though! Fuck that.

This is your reality, though, and only one way to change it…

OP I genuinely feel awful for you.

You are being treated like a chump by your husband and his ex.

In your shoes I would tell my husband he sorts this ASAP officially through the courts or we are over. I genuinely mean that too. You deserve better.

This.

Talk to your DH - or maybe just go away for a weekend & leave him to it?

Unless of course, you're a SAHM. Then you are a bit unreasonable.

So YANBU to expect DH to do the bulk of care for his own children. It should mainly fall to him

But YABU to expect to be childfree at weekends when you married a man with 4 kids

I will but my parents will also make my life hell (mentally) not physically at least like my husband is. however living with my parents seems like the better of the two evils. the issue with working full time is my child is at school 8:30 am - 3 pm. quite hard to find a full time job to accommodate these hours. i really want to finish my masters but it doesn’t finish until september next year. only then i can hope for a good paying job and with hours that suit me and my child.

My kids have been going to their Dad's every second weekend for many years. When my ex met his partner, she made it clear she wouldn't be mothering them. She stays in bed lots of the weekend they're there and doesn't do any cooking for them, she made sure he hired a cleaner, he does all the food shopping, cooking and cleaning up while my children are there. They have a child of their own, who she will do things for, but mostly she leaves it to my ex. You need stronger boundaries, she seems to have it all sorted out!

For your own child's sake, you need to leave this man OP. He is not considering the needs of your child, or you.
I'd also be making a referral to Social Services, if the children's mother is alcoholic and neglecting them.
Get your own child out of this mess.

Your DH could change this dynamic but he won’t.

He could go to court for proper arrangements and not pay over the top maintenance.

He could sell former marital home which he’s renting out and sever financial ties with his ex. How is she getting full benefits if she has another property? If her share of the equity is expected to be over £16000 after costs then she wouldn’t be eligible.

He also needs to provide better accomadation for his children so why isn’t he doing that?

As for the neglect. I wouldn’t send them home.

Then you need to prepare to take all that money and spend it on housing yourself and your DD.
Moving into a 1 bedroom flat and hoping your DH continues to be an absentee father was always a shit choice. You're not blameless in this situation, but you are actually the only one who can walk away from it because they are not your children. So do it if you need to.

But actually I’d be walking out the door. Why on earth did you marry him?

Moving into a 1 bedroom flat and hoping your DH continues to be an absentee father was always a shit choice

This nails it. This is exactly what Op was banking on.

Use childcare. Work weekends when your child is at her dad's. You have options, you could pay your own rent.

I also have an autistic child. I cannot imagine how distressed he would be at having to share his bed, home and toys with 4 other children at the weekends, especially rambunctious ones. I think my DS would actually combust! I feel terribly sorry for all 5 children in this scenario.

I cannot think of a single reason why you shouldn’t cut their father loose. You obviously have some means to pay for food, bills, etc. Presumably you would be a high priority for SH because your child has AN? And might it be relevant that you are already (very) overcrowded at the weekends? Are you claiming DLA for your DD (if she is entitled)?

FWIW I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect your DH to parent his children only at his EXW’s house, but (again) that’s a “him” problem. He needs to change his life - quite drastically by the sounds of it - to step up for those children, particularly if the EXW can’t or won’t. “But I have to work 80+ hours a week” does not even begin to cut it once you are a parent. Earn less, own less, do less - but DC get ONE childhood and it’s on the parents not to fuck it up.

It won’t be easy, but there will be a way to get rid of this human albatross round your neck. If I were you, I would try to get SS involved as a parting shot. He also needs to fucking grow a pair and get a court ordered schedule that gives both parents reasonable on/off time, AND stick to it, with or without your help.

Reading all this I think the only sensible solution is that he gives up his restaurant and gets a job with regular hours. He can’t possibly parent while working 7 days a week.

If he is unwilling to do this the options are to
leave him or go to court for a more balanced childcare arrangement. You cannot possibly have 2 adults and 5 kids in a one bed flat.

Hopefully moving back in with your parents will be short term to allow your husband to create boundaries with his ex wife regarding childcare and child maintenance. If he doesn’t, you know you’ve been a live in nanny for him. Do you mean September 2026? That’s really not too far away.

I think that you have been very naive to think that access arrangements would always remain the same. A man with 4 children could very conceivably end up having full time custody of the children due to various different reasons. I also think that you seem to be insinuating that mothers need to look after children and that they have more parental responsibility than fathers?

Anyway, you really need to move out. The quickest way is to move back in with your parents but in the long term you will need to find a job so that you can afford to financially support yourself and your child independently. I wonder if you have ever worked and lived independently. I also wonder if you are a lot younger than your DH, was he living with friends in a flat share when you met?
Please leave as soon as you can as you sound utterly miserable and your child is also suffering. Your DH doesn’t sound like he is going to step up unless he is forced to.

I’m just responding as I read this thread so apologies if by the time I get to the end, my comments are stupid. But,

if my children’s other parent was an alcoholic who was neglecting them, the last thing I would do is be completely unavailable to them because I was so busy working to be able to send this alcoholic mother £2k a month at her request and way above the CMS amount.
because that would be absurd.
what I would do, and any normal parent would do, is go to court to get full access, change job/hire staff so that I could look after them, and stop sending her £2k.

it’s so batshit that there’s no way it can be true.

Why doesn't your husband have staff members in his restaurant? He should really hire enough staff to be able to take 2 days off to see his children. He's failing his children by prioritising work over time with them.

And he should really go through CMS if he can't afford the arrangement he's set up with his ex.

You are being taken advantage of. At least once a month go and see your parents at the weekend, be away, or something. Get blinds so you put them down if you think she will turn up randomly when you've said that your not available. I know that these children are having a very hard time, but if it is that bad then a report to social services would be more appropriate. I'd consider leaving him.

Way too much is being expected of you by your husband. He is being very unreasonable.

What do you see as the solution to it? I think you'll have to tell him that you're leaving and he has to make arrangements for his own children. You then can concentrate on your child. He is really taking advantage of you. He can't continue as he is. His life isn't conducive to caring for 4 young children without you, so he'll have to make drastic changes, but that's not your problem, as you'll be gone and well out of it.

Is it possible for you to go back to your parents and work towards moving out to your own home? I think your child will thank you for doing so. She must be traumatised by the situation.

If the flat is in your name, it’s time he left. If it’s not, then you leave and go to your parents. This situation is utterly unfair on your poor DD (who you are responsible for), as well as his kids (who you are not responsible for!) Take some power and control back op, stop just passively going along with this.

i have decided i am moving back to my parents home. permanently on monday. i will still be with my husband but living separately.

for some context; when my husband and his ex split up, he allowed her and the children to live in the marital home that he owned for free. it was a 4 bedroom flat and very suitable for her and their children. rightfully so, he did the right thing by moving out when they divorced to avoid disrupting the children’s lives. even though he was working full time, he would usually take the children or pick them up from school every day, as the restaurant and the marital home were very close to each other. he would give the ex time off and spend time with his children for a few hours every day or every other day all whilst living in a shared flat. he couldn’t keep the kids over night as there was no space for 4 kids. so just because he wasn’t having them for sleepovers doesn’t mean he wasn’t helping out and being present.

then when he me me, we got a 1 bedroom flat together. we agreed from the start that his children are his responsibility and if he wanted to bring them over for a meal or to spend a few hours at our house whilst he can sneak off an hour or two at work that’s fine. what i didn’t agree with (idc whether this makes me a bad person) is the children sleeping over or being left in my care. i made it clear that i have a autistic child and the 1 bed room house we got is my child’s safe space off limits to anyone else.

however this dynamic changed when we moved together. the ex decided to take the kids knowing she’d have no help with them over 3 hours away. i don’t know what her reasons are and don’t care. they are in school at their hometown 3 hours away. she is getting CM & half the rental income of their marital home, whilst living in a council house. so financially whatever she worked out is working out for her. my husband and i are financially leaving under our means to make sure his children have what they need financially. as soon as we moved in to our rental flat she moved out and rented the marital home and brings them to me every weekend.

its difficult for him to go on weekdays, however he was previously doing that, as weekdays are less busy. he would go see the children in their hometown for a few hours every week or every other week. this was the only arrangement that worked as he is busy working on weekends.

Then by having them there in your home and taking responsibility for them, despite them making your daughter scared and them bullying her, you’re letting her down OP. The other kids are being let down by both their parents, yes. But you can’t control what they do you can only control what you do.

Put your child first. Refuse to have the kids at hours unless he is there to parent them. It’s as simple as that. Not pleasant, it won’t be a nice boundary but your poor child is suffering. Put her first.