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.

are you joking 😓 i can’t imagine looking after 5 children, 5 days a week. and ultimately would rather divorce. yes we did meet quickly and moved in together quickly. we’ve been together for a year and a half.

she doesn’t allow him. he has told her and her excuse is that if I (me) move into her and her children’s house she’ll pack her things and be there the next day to move in with the kids.

So you've been at your parents while posting 73 times on this thread?

as i explained he purchased the flat in 2010. so almost 16 years ago, as his business was doing better back then - now it’s hanging on by a thread. he gives his ex half the rental income and 2 k in CM. she asked for this figure saying the children are entitled to 500 each a month. and she says it’s not enough.

I thought the 4 bedroom property has tenants in it?! How can she just move back? Why would he even need to tell her he's selling it? Just sell it with tenants in situ and tell her after?? This whole story sounds more and more bonkers.

Yeah this is what I said upthread, these supposedly bumbling men are cunning and just look for clueless women to swallow their lies and be their Nannies/purses/nurses or whatever.

Men are often very calculating and do a thorough cost/benefit analysis before they get married, especially if they already have a kid but women lose their head and don’t think of the finer details.

I was talking to a man with a kid one day and he said he liked ambitious women and wanted to settle down with a woman who was driven etc .

I read between the lines and said so you want a woman to work all the hours
and earn big bucks so she can help pay your child support which enables your ex to stay home with your child and help with childcare in the holidays?

He was caught off guard and more or less admitted that yes that was part of his attraction to “ambitious” women.

I never went on a date with him thankfully but it was a reminder for me not to even entertain these men.

yes. i’m not looking after any children today. so i’ve been in my bedroom on my phone all day reading people’s comments and hoping for some advice to make up my mind. what’s the issue with that?

No, mainly I focussed on the fraud aspect that you'd think a law post-grad student would have realised the implications of.

But ok, it was what people said on here that made you decide to go to your mum's.. After you were already there.

What sort of law are you studying where you can't do basic research for yourself?

Even if there were no lawyers involved, the financial and child arrangements LEGALLY had to be agreed.

yes it does have tenants. i told him to sell it without her knowing and give her half the proceeds after.

I would honestly move out as this won’t resolve. Take your kid and fuck it off or stay with him and live separately so him and his ex can sort out childcare between them and you aren’t left looking after someone else’s kids

If there is no financial order she is still free to claim half of his assets!

what has the fraud aspect of what another woman decides to do got to do with me? regardless if she has the council house or not my ex is still choosing to over pay her. so it doesn’t change my situation. hence why i don’t care. if she gets caught that’s her problem. yes i stopped at my mums… sorry i didn’t rush back to pick up his kids from the restaurant and run home to look after them. i stopped at my mums which is a 15 min drive from our flat and the restaurant. after reading the comments, i decided to stay put and put my phone on DND. I don’t understand where the issue is?

yes i know, and who’s to say she won’t do that.

seems like this is the only solution

Well that would be a good result wouldn’t it as at least they wouldn’t be 3 hours away, and their dad could step up and see them without them spending half their lives travelling to somewhere where they must feel totally unwelcome and don’t even have somewhere to sleep.

i don’t know where you are in the country but there no way you can move 4 kids that fast when school places have to be arranged so this is an empty threat regardless.

A year and a half.

My partner didn't even meet my kids until 6 months in, didn't spend any significant time with them for at least 2 years, and you moved your 3yo autistic child in with him way before that.

OP you've made some really bad choices. Get a job, get your own home, and leave.

please can you have a look. the divorce was done by her, she asked for nothing, he agreed therefore it was amicable! no child care or financial arrangements were put in place.

So what is the significance of her threatening to move into the flat 'the next day' when it has people living in it and she physically can't move in to it?

It is to do with you becuase your husband is just as involved as she is. Marriage is a legal contract, you don't just get to opt out of your spouses financial set up. It doesn't work like that.

the headache i suppose? when she hasn’t gotten her way in the past she has turned up at the restaurant and taken money from the till claiming it is her business and starts shouting at my husband causing a scene

how is it do with me that she’s living and owns a council house? but isn’t legally claiming the house she and my husband lived in when they were together .

This should give you some insight into their finances OP. He kept the flat and the business, and he repays her every month in "child maintenance". I'm not sure how you don't see it.

i understand i rushed and made wrong choices, those choices are now biting me in the ass.

insight into what sorry? i know he is paying her too much but thats genuinely because of the headache she causes if she doesn’t get her own way. he kept the flat and business as she chose to not go after them. he never withheld them from her.