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.

I agree with this 100%.
Bad dads / abusive men / lazy arseholes etc create unhappy stepmums who sign out.

Honestly, I do hope people take note of these threads and run a mile from potential partners with kids. It is so difficult. Sadly they do not, because 'it will never happen to me', 'he's a great dad', ...

That was extremely spiteful and selfish if her. I would LTB*h. It's one event, but it speaks volumes. Poor kids. It was really sly. She sounds precious.

Sarah benefits from the extra income brought in by John working on the weekends, so is she willing to give up that extra income or see the business fail because John restricts his work to weekdays? Or is it rather that she'd like to push the stepkids out altogether?

The issue is with John imo

Easy solution would have been for John to join Sarah and sil at the aquarium with all 3 children.

Take a few hours for his children.

Why is he working at the weekend and not looking after his children? Can the arrangements be looked at again so he only has them when he's actually minding them...not Sarah

Sarah is obnoxious. And John should leave any of the kids with her as she is a poor role model.

Provided it all went down exactly as set out then she sounds an absolute witch. I’d be devastated for your children.

Seems that Sarah would rather forego the extra income if it means John dumping his children onto her in order to work.

More misogyny. This thread is a complete disgrace. These are clearly the responses the OP was hoping for, though. I really feel for Sarah, she must be at the end of her rope.

It's sad for the children as they don't seem to have a loving SM,.OP can you reduce the time they spent there.
Sarah should not have had a relationship with a father if she resents his children.

I agree, @AliceMaforethought . Misogyny. We don't know if Sarah works or not, and I've read enough to know that some fathers work at the weekends when their children are with them.

OP's 2 DC have a mother and father, but the stepmother is blamed for not parenting another woman's children.

By all means speak to your ex about it. You certainly shouldn't speak to his wife unless you are concerned about abuse, in which case there are other avenues to pursue too.

You have an ex husband problem. She has a husband problem.

I can't understand being like this with little kids. A couple of weeks before we married my (now) husbands ex & her new partner were moving. They had a truck they were driving themselves to move stuff. She asked if husband could have his 2 boys on the day as nowhere in a truck to sit them. Husband had just started new job & couldn't get day off so I said I could have the day off & watch them. Ex turns up to drop off boys & has her 9 month old with her (new partners). I ask where he is going & she said he would have to be in a bouncer chair on the floor at her feet, no seats to strap in carseat. I immediately said give me his stuff & leave him with me too. For me it wasn't about who was biologically related to which kids. I just wanted to make sure all kids were safe & happy.

I meant to post I've read enough MN to know that some fathers work at the weekends when their children are with them to avoid looking after their own children.

You have an ex husband problem. She has a husband problem. @inapickle99

Wow that’s horrible.

Sarah is quite something. In the bin with her IMO.

No, not really.

er. Yes, yes, it really does. That's how families work- they share resources and responsibilities/ load. It goes both ways.

@puppymaddness , maybe Sarah has a well-paid full-time job, and brings more money into the house than her child's father does.

I have been in this position as Sarah.

90% of the time I would take my step son too, and all of the kids would be doing the same, mostly so they can spend time together as siblings and have some fun on his weekends with us.
But there were times I felt taken advantage of and that he should be with us to spend time with his Dad, yet it always came down to me to make the plans, take them out etc etc. while his Dad worked. I also found my step sons behaviour really challenging and with 3 kids I felt quite outnumbered taking them out on my own as I couldn’t properly meet his needs- I needed his dad with us really.
I encouraged for better open communication in order to organise weekends better so he wasn’t working when step son was with us. Unfortunately he was tied to a rota, and step son’s mum wanted him with us whether his dad was at work or not. Sometimes I wouldn’t even know if he was with us on a particular weekend so I would go ahead and make plans not knowing if he’d be with us. It was very difficult for all of us, including all 3 kids.
At the end of the day I love him very much but the pressure on me felt immense.

@inapickle99 as mum to the kids I would try and have a chat with their dad about what’s going on and the dynamic. Try and come up with a solution with the weight of the solution on dad rather than on Sarah… obviously if you’ve got concerns she’s purposefully leaving your kids out that’s different, but it might be she’s feeling very overwhelmed and out of her depth and not being supported with the kids.

That's my point, he may have had to work, otherwise he'd have stopped when the kids came.
If he doesn't work weekends he doesn't get paid.
OP hasn't come back to clarify his work situation.

Er, no, it doesn't. That's not how families work - parents make sure their children are cared for and do not dump their own responsibilities onto unwilling people who have not agreed to the care.

If John has his kids 40% of the time then presumably he’d work at some point no matter how that fell. Many people work over the weekend as standard. If their agreement is that Sarah has the kids while he’s working outside of their school hours then she’s unreasonable to have fucked them off for a nice trip out.

I would question getting together with a man who had 2 young kids, i'd wonder why the relationship ended.

Im wondering why there was no option for the step children to go to the aquarium. So many questions really, why was dad at work? Why did Sarah accept invitation if she had agreed to look after step children and it meant having to dump on their Dad. But having known the children most of their lives unless there are issues shouldn't treat as step children

The most logical explanation here is that Sarah did not agree to have the kids, surely.

If I agreed to have someone's kids and then dumped them on them at work, that would be a bit unhinged, really. I occasionally have a friend's child if she's doing a weekend shift and of course I'm not going to dump the poor boy on his mother at work having agreed to look after him! Of course, I probably wouldn't agree to have him if I'd planned to take my child to the zoo beforehand.

So my money's on Sarah not agreeing to look after the kids in the first place and John arsing off without caring.