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.

Please leave your husband asap and do not go back. A clean break is 100% what you need. Your husband and his ex will not sort out their mess whilst they both have you to abuse.
It sounds like you are possibly much younger than your husband, and possibly from a different cultural community? (as am I). Your husband has demonstrated his priority is his ex wife and children, not you and yours. Of course his children should be his priority, but he currently can only do that by 1. Using you for free childcare & 2. Sending his ex more money than she is entitled to. He’s not even spending time with them so he’s not even being a good father - he’s using the money as a way of avoiding spending time with them!
You need to get out now. Someone who loved you would never treat you this way.

Yes also very curious, as others have been about cultural backgrounds of all parties.

i am definitely staying single for a while now believe me i am traumatised

You said upthread that you were not splitting up with him though, that you would just live separately?

Also you're going to stay single "for a while"??? Jesus Christ, if you think you're "traumatised" by this whole situation then just think how profoundly traumatised your 5 year old child with SEND must be. Clearly, your DH and his Ex are a pair of walking disasters who aren't fit to parent their own children, that's not on you. But you were the one who decided to marry a man you barely knew and move your vulnerbale child into a 1 bedroom flat with him knowing the colossal baggage he came with. Your DD didn't get to make that choice. For her sake, I sincerely hope you can forget about meeting anyone else and focus on creating the stable environment she deserves for longer than "a while".

OP well done for protecting your DD and you by going back to your parents for a while.

Do not go back until he has sorted out this shitshow. CAO in place and a FO sorted.

I mean I wouldn’t go back at all quite frankly.

I have been a lone parent for many years, your financial independence now needs to come first. There are many ways to sort the wrap around child care for your DD so you can get back to work AND finish your masters surely?

Well he is having to live with your child 5 days a week ..........

OP, if their divorce is finalised to the point you are now married then this woman has no claim whatsoever to his property, empty or sold. She can’t just move in to his 4 bedroom house. Thats actually insane.

What a mess.

This isn’t true unless you also have a financial order in place.

Sorry, I misinterpreted your post. Of coure both biological parents are parents and the mother should not have 95% of the childcare. The problem is OP's DH, and she is right to leave. This is an untenable situation. But H's ex is also culpable, dealing out threats re the house she did not want part of in her divorce settlement etc. Toxic relationship - no wonder the DC are badly behaved.

when we got our financial orders the lawyers said that the £X I receive had to be detailed as the exact CM that should be given and then the extra over it is SM. This makes sense as otherwise I could claim UC despite our ‘family’ pot being reasonably substantial which would be out of order.

But the kids don't have everything they need if they're being forced to share a one bed flat with you and your child, rather than the four bed property your husband actually owns, but would rather rent out??

Because OP, they conspired to keep all of the assets in his name, even though she was living in the house, in order to allow her to get a council house then flog/rent it out and move back into the family home. Obvious conspiracy to commit fraud.

If you are genuinely studying law, which I somehow doubt, I hope to god you never represent me.

I have scoured OP's posts for evidence that she has the common sense, language skills and emotional intelligence required to study for a master's in law. I haven't found any.

"broke as a whistle"?

His ex gets free weekends because she wasn’t foolish enough to shack up with someone who has kids. If you didn’t want this and wanted free weekends like her, you should have married someone who was childless.

It sounds like a terrible situation for those children. Their mother is an alcoholic, yet their father is happy to let them live with her the majority of the time. He barely sees them at all. You are actually the fortunate one in this scenario. You can LTB and cheerily wave goodbye. Those poor children are stuck in a horrendous situation not of their own making. They have no choice. My sympathy is with them 100%.

Sounds like the children aren't parented properly and are allowed to wreck the house. Your DH needs to understand that if he has his kids over he needs to look after them himself (not help out, actually do it himself), which also means stopping them from turning the house upside down and cleaning up after them (and actually getting them to clean up after themselves)

Well hopefully your moving out will be make or break for your relationship. If he loves you then he needs to stop tiptoeing around his ex and take some responsibility for the mess he's allowed her to make. On the other hand, if her voice is the only one he's listening to then you're better off out of it.

What?!!!!

Marrying a man with 4 kids after a year and a half, and living in a one bedroom apartment while he works 7 days a week/10 hour days doesn’t ring true???!!

Bowl me over with a cement feather I’m shocked.

Yes and also this made me think, what’s stopping OP from going to restaurant to do weekend shift? What is it DH is doing that can’t be transferred. Managing a team, waiting on tables? Reconciling the till. I learnt all that in a couple of months. Would be a nice break for her, adult interaction. He gets to see his kids.

It is correct because it's not just the child maintenance she's receiving. She's receiving rental income from the 4 bed property.

Or even better, leaving the house on a Friday until Sunday so their parents have to, you know, parent them!

But as she has moved out anyway, it has been sorted.

Why do you keep blaming your husband's ex wife for this situation? Do you think it's unreasonable somehow they have a shared custody arrangement? .

I really hope you have gotten away from this user and his ex.
His children are nothing to do with you.
They are not your problem.

If your daughter is ASD, this chaos is not doing her any favours at all.

I really hope your parents support you.
Don't allow him and his ex make a mug out of you any further.

I hope you finally left that loser and got away from that circus?

She was so bad yet he had 4 children with her... go figure

But you said previously that she doesn't allow him to sell it... if it's only his he can do what he likes with it