To not want SC to move in?

[Phylllis]

This is uncomfortable to write but I’ll put everything down so I don’t drip feed.

I’ve been with DP for 12 years, meeting his SC when they were 2, 4 and 5; they’re now 14, 16 and 17. We have our own kids aged 7 and 5 (their mum also has a 10yo). We’ve always had them every other weekend and half the holidays. Their mum lives 1.5hrs away.

Relations with their mum have always been polite on the surface but difficult underneath. She’s never encouraged SC to apply themselves, to do homework, to stick to any hobbies or to work hard. They’d arrive with nits for months on end and not touch a book between fortnightly visits. I’d hear rumours of her badmouthing me through mutual friends. The children consistently did very badly at school. Nonetheless DP (and the schools, the SEN leads, CAFCASS and social services) never thought it bad enough to move them to us.

I’ve always said the children would always be welcome to move into ours. They’ve never wanted to.

In the past year, they’ve all repeatedly said they’re expecting to move in with us when they’re 18. They have bedrooms here and their mum is apparently planning to downsize and has told them that it’s fair that they live with their dad at that point as she’s had them until 18. The older two are in college, but barely attend, having failed all but 1/2 GCSEs, and the younger is on track for the same. The older two are exceptionally messy. They’re fundamentally nice kids but wilfully uninformed and screen-addicted, and can be entitled and demanding (as I’m sure all teenagers can be).

The thing is, I don’t want to be responsible for housing three lazy adults with zero work ethic indefinitely. Life is expensive and busy, and I don’t think it’s fair that their mum’s unilaterally decided this without discussing it. I’ve raised it to DP and he thinks it’s not ideal but that we have no other option. I don’t want it.

AIBU?

This is judgy but IMO, good fathers with 3 children already do not have more children with another woman.
It is NEVER in the best interests of those first children for his time/ income to be further diluted by a second family.

Even for the second family and the naive second mother of his children, its never a good deal.

Hence why the majority of women say if they had their time over they wouldn't do it again.

Raising your own children is difficult enough at times, despite how much you love them, but trying to do what is required for children that are not yours, often while working full-time is too much.
Such a bad deal, only the most spectacularly naive buy into it.

None of this is the kids fault, and I feel for the kids, BUT, I don’t think the OP should feel guilty about not putting these children’s’ needs above her own needs, because they’re not her children. Personally I think having them all move in will be very very hard for the OP, and her own children, and would think very hard indeed about that, and whether it’s worth several (undetermined number of) years of slog is worth it to hopefully come out the other end in tack. Feels like potentially splitting from her DP is on the cards and I don’t say that lightly.

If your partner refuses to house his children then he is a terrible father, and he is already at the bottom of the parenting barrel to begin with.

This is not true because they are legally adults. It seems to me too many people want the perks of adult life , vote, drive, have sex but don't want any of the responsibility. They can't pick and choose.

One of them is currently 14 😳

I thought this wasn't happening until they were 18.

If it is happening to a 14 year old this is wrong and surely not legal and the parent will face prosecution for neglect?

Their plan is to move when they're 18, ie adults, and no longer a source of income for their mother

At best, it means the relationship will be diluted
As it wasn’t exactly coming from a strong place to begin with it doesn’t bode well for the future does it? For either Party
Looking at the time you’re posting, I take it. You fucked off. How are you finding it?

He’s still making it clear to the 14-year-old that he is refusing to have them apparently the conversation with the stepdaughter went quite well when she was told. I wonder how it was relayed to the 14-year-old.
Very strange thread

Where does the OP say he is refusing to have them? The whole point of the thread is that he is planning to have them.

Some of the comments on here are truly mid blowing.

Makes me think a lot of people on here have an agenda. Many woman on here seem to have a bitterness about broken families and its always the mans fault - once the relationship breaks down men should do nothing apart from being at the beck and call of his ex. He can't have a life because it was obviously his fault the relationship broke down.

Children have two parents. If many woman stopped trying to blame the father for everything and poison their kids minds they would get on much better. Go and live your life how you want to - be happy - stop being bitter about everything.

Not quite the case here though, if this poster is real.
She's literally described the step kids living in squalor and abuse. How any man can go on to reproduce, whilst his firstborns were constantly going to school unwashed, filthy and riddled with nits, amongst other things. The OP was even pissed and had to search their bags, because the kids were taking toiletries from their house.
Both their parents have failed them spectacularly, but it says a lot about OP if she's aware of all that and wasn't disgusted by this waster of a father, who then had 2 of her own with him.

In my view, it wasn't in their best interests that their own mum:

• had another kid if she couldn’t afford the first three
• moved hours from their dad then refused to drive for contact
• regularly withheld phone contact between contact
• moved in four boyfriends over their childhood
• allows constant screen time
• has never consistently worked
• never supported homework or achievement
• never took them to clubs or out of hours school events
• refused to buy them deodorants or taught them to wash their clothes
• didn’t meet basic medical needs

Yet to the courts / schools / their mum / SC themselves, this is all fine and “different styles of parenting.” Their mum was made to do a six week online course and case closed.

In order to alleviate the issues, DP has worked 60+hr weeks for years so he can do things like buy all the clothes and underwear and toiletries for their mum’s house as well as ours. He sacrifices time with our children to subsidise their mum, so SC aren’t adversely impacted by her behaviour. We have always asked SC to consider more time with us, even lessening our standards on things like diet, bedtimes, homework and screen time to try to compromise with them.

What more do PPs expect him to do? Kidnap them?

As an aside. I hate the term “broken family”. My family wasn’t broken when I split from my ex. It was healing. And I was a far healthier parent as a single parent than in an abusive relationship

By that reasoning the first three children shouldn’t have been born either.

Meanwhile, back to dealing with the problem at hand…

All the more the reason for their dad to have them live with him now and and at least try and repair the damage their upbringing has caused. Embrace them all and do all he can to set them on the right path.

You will be fine whatever he does and so will your dc - you are clearly a loving, competent and dedicated parent to your dc and will raise them properly.

Now is the time for your dp to step in for his dc. He decided to have 2 more dc on top of the 3 he already had. Maybe he should give full time parenting a go with his older 3. I suspect (and I think you do too) that he won’t manage it because he is only as good a parent as the person he parents with.

So at this point I would live separately from him and encourage him to really focus on his older 3 (obviously whilst not forgetting his younger 2, and you) He has a very small window to really help them if their mum is as useless as you say and still hell bent on kicking them all out at 18.

Doesn’t sound like could afford to do that without OP’s financial input, even if he were inclined to.

Not sure why it’s OP’s job to encourage him to do that, as if he’s not a grown man that can decide for himself what he wants to do. She’s responsible for prioritizing her own children.

I don’t disagree with you. Of course it’s not the ops job to facilitate or encourage it. But let’s be honest the dad is too spineless to do anything off his own back. He would have had the 3 dc move in (even move house to accommodate them all) even without any boundaries discussed - only with the op’s input did he tell his oldest about any boundaries. Op knows it will be up to her to implement them. That’s why I say he should live with his 3 dc for a while on his own so it doesn’t impact the op. Although maybe that would be setting the 3 do up for even more failure because we all know he won’t parent them properly on his own.

He would have to afford his own place if he and the op ever split up.

If I moved out he’d still need a five bedroom house, if he was planning to keep bedrooms for each SC and one for our DDs to share. He could probably do that if they all moved in (though it’d be a struggle if they were all contributing absolutely nothing) but I don’t think he’d be able to if one or more was still with their mum as he’d still be paying out 1k+ to her household.

His health isn’t what it once was and I fear if he keeps working the same hours, he’s going to die quite early.

Does an 18+ living with parents get universal credit? Would it just be job seekers allowance?

I think it depends on if they are in education? Ie 6th form or college
Does the mum own her own home? If not she will get less help with rent once 1st dc hits 18 and not in education as the benefits office will assume the dd is contributing.

I’m really not knocking you on this thread op - you sound as though you have your head screwed on and your dc will be fine. But your dp needs to do something other than just throw money at this situation in order to give his other dc a fighting chance in adulthood

Whats having more kids in a new relationship got to do with his kids who are staying with their mother who moved 2 hrs away? If they are staying with the mother he can't just go and kidnap them. Sounds like the kids wanted to be with their mother probably because they got to do what they wanted and there was no rules.

The school will do nothing when kids go unwashed and have nits - they generally don't think that's a problem. I know this because the school my kids go to have stopped sending letters out about nits because it happens so often. Nits are easy to get rid of but because they don't stay with him there's not much he can do when he's 2 hours away.

As a non resident parent there's only so much you can do. Parents can parent their kids however they want to within the law. You might not like what the other parent is doing but there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

So, if you were a non resident parent, would you do if you knew that your 14, 16 and 17yr old were going to be kicked out by their mum when they turned 18?

We all understand why the op feels like she does - but why don’t we put ourselves in the position of the dad? What exactly would we do in this situation if the mum sticks to her word?

Or put ourselves in the position of the 3dc - how would we feel knowing our mum wanted to kick us out as soon as we turned 18 because the cash was drying up?

What would we do? Realistically, for our dc who we are supposed to love

She has a private rental. She has a live in boyfriend at the moment so I believe the plan is that they’ll move somewhere smaller with the younger child when SC have been offloaded to us. I don’t know what SC’s “keep” of maintenance and benefits works out to, but I’d guess it’d be more than she’d get asking for keep from someone working part time at minimum wage.

We don’t receive any benefits currently so I don’t think we would if SC moved in. We would not expect anything from their mum.

I dont think guilt is the right word more like accountability or recognition maybe. If you enter a relationship with a man who has 3 kids and go on to have more kids you have to accept the impact you had on the first kids lives. Particularly in this case where mum was so neglectful that the kids weren’t cared for properly.

If there is a housing element of UC that the mum receives then that will definitely reduce if the 18yr old is out of full time education. If any of the 3dc move in with you and are also out of education then I can’t see you would be entitled to any UC but if they are in education (6th form or college) you may be entitled to something for a short time until they finish though obviously that depends on what you and their dad earn.