What do you think of this situation? unreasonable or normal?

[inapickle99]

Sarah and John have a young child together (3) and John has two older children (7&9) who stay with them 40% of the week. They have been together for 5 years.

John is self employed and was working at the weekend, Sarah was at home with all children. Sarah invited to go on a day out with her sister and niece and agrees. She drops off two step children with their dad to spend the day at his work with him and goes with their joint child on the day out (to an aquarium).

Do you think this is reasonable? No option given to the other children to go along.

Not a good precedent to set - how can the OP plan her life if she never knows when her shitty ex is going to fuck the schedule over?

They need to take Sarah out of the equation and make a contact agreement based purely on when dad is available to see his kids and then stick to it (within reason).

Ah so he takes the piss?

If she resents them then they're going to pick up on it.

It's going to be tricky to deal with,but you need to step in I think.

I'd be bringing up to the pair of them that the kids hear them when they argue and they've heard their Stepmum say things about them and it stops now though. I wouldn't be sending my kids anywhere they weren't welcome.

The difference being, the stepparent can leave any time they like. The child is stuck in whatever shitty situation they are landed in and have zero power to choose. And it is often more convenient to the stepparent to blame the child for existing, rather than blame their partner for being such a shit parent and partner.

What was the reason given for leaving the two older children behind?

Likewise it’s easier for a shit parent, and a loyalty bonded child, to blame a stepparent for the parent’s failings.

Given the escalations OP’s mentioned, I’m sure leaving is on Sarah’s agenda if her stepchildren’s parents don’t sort out a contact schedule which means they’re properly parenting.

This, really.

@inapickle99 , Sarah looks like the bad guy, but John is treating her like an unpaid childminder.
A trip to the aquarium with a toddler is a different outing to one with 3 children of varying ages.

How convenient that John is self-employed.

Turn the story around, and put yourself in Sarah's shoes.

Our of interest, why did you split up with John?

I would speak to your ex, point out that the children were upset at being left behind and over hearing the row.
ask him if you can reschedule the contact so it is at times he is not working and try to be flexible to accommodate this. I wouldn’t be happy with my children sitting at dads work all day.

There is no evidence to suggest that OP wouldn't want to have her children at the weekend. I assume that their dad requested 40/60 so that he would pay less maintenance. He is the one who is shifting his parental responsibilities onto his second wife. OP has no say in what goes on in her ex-husband's home but she can see that her children are feeling rejected and upset.

Are you Sarah? if not you being 'sure' is neither here nor there. Literally just making things up to suit your narrative that Sarah is blameless. The facts of the matter as presented in to OP does not exculpate her, nor does the fact that dad is ultimately responsible for the situation.

I agree with this. OP’s been aware for some time that her ex is dumping her children on Sarah and that she’s not happy about it. But it’s not been a problem until Sarah stops providing the fun free childcare which benefits both the parents.

I think it would be looked at rather dimly if OP took it upon herself to intrude on how dad chose to arrange childcare during his time, and/or interfered with the issues in his current marriage (not least dimly by his current wife). Essentially, OP's right to get involved begins where her children are affected (i.e. at this exact point).

Why are you so keen to blame everything on the one person who had literally nothing to do with this incident?

Cinderella was not a made-up story, but a documentary.

I have 2 DSS and have been in their lives from ages 2 & 4 . I never would've left them out of anything, neither would my family. All our children are treated the same. Whilst the boys are now 16 & 17 they are still always invited everywhere and treated the same as their little sister .
What she did was cruel

No I couldn't imagine it either, but from OP's update it sounds like this is the cause of ongoing friction between John and Sarah and, as he appears to have been ignoring her, not sure what other steps she can take? Very much reading between the lines!

I'm sure the children would rather be with their dad

I am not Sarah! But I’ve been in her shoes and it pisses me off to see so many posters blaming her instead of the parents.

I don’t think she’s blameless, but I think she’s at the end of her tether having expressed repeatedly that she’s not up for providing free childcare. Nobody’s listening to her, so she’s been pushed into taking action.

Everyone’s saying she should leave if she’s unhappy, but that means a broken home for her child too. Surely if posters here are unhappy with their partners, they try to get their point across and change the status quo before immediately leaping to LTB.

You cannot blame children for disliking stepparents who resent them. In fact you can't blame them for not wanting stepparents at all - it's not their choice, but it's often presented as something they're meant to be happy about or grateful for.

If the situation is that your partner is allowing your stepchildren to be horrible to you, though, or blaming you for his/her own failings, that's on him/her.

Back when I was in Sarah's position, I would never have dropped off my daughter's older half siblings so I could take her on a trip they weren't invited to. And my sister would never have invited me and my daughter out without including her siblings. It would be all, or none. Poor kids.

I’m not blaming OP if she steps in now to change the schedule, which she seems to be dithering on.

I’m blaming John for being a shit dad and partner.

I’m sure the children here have spent a boring day with dad whilst he curses and blames Sarah. It’s not their fault that they’ve been influenced by their dad rather than realising he’s equally capable of taking them on a day trip. They’re children and can’t think critically.

I have adult friends who were stepchildren though, who openly discuss how they hated their stepmothers, and when you actually talk about it, it’s for things like enforcing bedtimes or homework. You know, actual parenting that their slack dads couldn’t be bothered to do. Stepmums get a whole lot of shit, often for trying to do the right thing for kids they want the best for. For all we know, the kids here are crying out for attention from dad, the day trips with Sarah are overwhelming and fraught as she wrangles three kids, and she’s doing anything she can to make him stop choosing overtime over them. Arguing clearly isn’t changing anything. Yet there’s dozens of comments calling her a cunt and a bitch and cold-hearted.

These threads confuse me so much. I had a dog when I met my now husband. I quite often plan events at the weekend and he wouldn't ever say it was unreasonable of me to leave him to be responsible for her. But then, when they were wee I'd take all four of my nephews and nieces places. Id never think to exclude any child, assuming I could manage them.

We don't know the circumstances, though.

I am obviously going to really identify with those kids because I've been there - my dad was incapable of looking after us, so some random girlfriend was brought along to every access weekend until he got married again and then it was the same one all the time. To be fair, I like her. She's sarcastic and funny and deserved a lot better than my dad. I agree with you that the deadbeat dad is the issue here - I also had a controlling stepfather, and that was the other main issue in my own home. But for me, it's just bloody sad that it's the poor innocent kids who are made to feel like shit in these types of situation.

No it's not

Yeah but not usually by bullying children. Dragging kids into adult disagreements, setting your child's siblings down as less than, all because your husband is too much of a twat to take you seriously, is basically descending to his level rather than taking the high road.

Just to emphasise, AGAIN, John is the twat here. 100%. But that's for John and Sarah to work out. Sarah deciding to sacrifice the children's emotional safety to make her point, having apparently been unable to do so on an adult to adult basis, is a dick move of the first order.

That’s a false equivalence. Would you have gone away for the weekend, knowing your husband also had plans to be away for the whole weekend, expecting him to either cancel or take your dog with him, knowing it would be inconvenient for him?