AIBU to refuse to cook for rude stepson after family gathering?

[Bookworm847]

So me and DH have been together 9 years- he has 1 DS age 13 and I have 2 DS age 15 & 13 and no children together. My DC live with me and go to their Dad EOW and we have DSS EOW.
About 2 years ago DSS stopped taking to me and I may get the occasional grunt but no ‘hello’ ‘goodbye’ and he mostly just walks off and ignores me when I talk or DH will repeat the same question and he will answer him which I find rude and disrespectful.
Yesterday we planned a huge family gathering for Easter and DSS refused to go- DH told him next time he would be going which I said was ridiculous and either he is part of the family and attends or you allow him to do what he pleases and stop the ‘next time’ as that’s pointless.
we get home about 8pm and DH asks me what I am cooking for DSS as he didn’t have dinner- I stated nothing and he hadn’t eaten due to his choice to stay home and DH was more than welcome to cook for him but I wasn’t (I had been cooking all day and DH had sat drinking beer).
DH then got in a sulk and I feel I had just had enough of the whole situation- I love my DH and he is an amazing step dad but he has allowed his son to be rude and disrespectful to me in my own home for 2 years and not addressed it to the point I feel uncomfortable in my own home when DSS is here and while it’s mainly only EOW it’s hard. DH has also agreed DSS being here all week now as I am off work and home with activities planned and booked for my DC with out even a conversation- DH will be at work so I feel now I can’t relax on my weekend off

Would you have accepted that from one of your DSs, or would you have said, no, we need to sort this out? It started around the time things changed to EOW? That must have been difficult for the 10/11 year old, also changing from Primary to high school. Did your DH just take the easy option and ignore it all? Does your DSS connect (wrongly) his Dad working away with needing to pay for your children? Was it fully explained why and what was happening? I don't think that you should be giving up on your DSS. As said it is now DSS home, as well as your's. Your DH needs to stop his childish behaviour and help his son.

But the DH is setting the tone in the family towards the OP - he is lazy, demanding, entitled - he is actively and visibly disrespectful of the OP - he is the role model of how the OP should be treated. The DH is also abusing the OP by proxy by enabling his DS to be actively hostile to the OP - that suits the DH.

The DH works away all week … he won’t see his son until Fri night - and maybe not even then if he has gone back to his Mums.

Your DH is now addressing this - albeit at your instructions. I think if you decide to carry on with this relationship then there needs to be clear communication with DH regarding DSS.

DSS sounds quite unhappy, although 13 is a tricky age and they do tend to go from happy go lucky boys to stroppy grunting angry teens. I think they just dont know how to communicate how they feel, or dont know why they feel this way. Im not excusing his behaviour toward you at all, its not on and not acceptable. I dont have an answer for it.

It's actually really difficult to read how dismissive and cold you seem to be of this child who has been in your life for almost a decade.

Show your Husband this thread. I won’t call him DH cos he’s not!
He’s a complete tosser who treats you like a maid, asking you to cook for a disrespectful 13yr old. That would get short shrift from me!

Tell him straight, if DSS is with you for a week then he’s to be at home aswell to parent him, spend some one to one time with Dss and find out what the hell is going on.
YOU WILL NOT BE DISRESPECTED IN YOUR OWN HOME. Put your foot down. You don’t take it from your own kids so you won’t have it from dss.

The child is clearly unhappy and if H doesn’t nip this in the bud, it’s going to get worse.

And it’s unhealthy modelling for your children to see DSS & H treating you so disrespectfully.

Poor child. Sounds utterly shit for him. Doesn’t live with his dad while his dad plays dad to someone else’s sons.

Family out all day somewhere he clearly feels out of place and no dinner for him. Could you not have brought some leftovers back for him?

you both sound awful, yet another step parent post about a crappy family set up for all the kids concerned due to their parents poor decisions.

OP, how was your relationship with DSS before he stopped talking to you? He was living with you 50/50 and you've known him since he was 4 years old so presumably you were much closer than you are now?

If so, did he see you as a stable mother figure compared to his own mum? And when contact was reduced he lost that stable mother figure?

Wow. So the poor kid can’t even live in peace at his mums due to having step siblings there too who break his stuff.

👏👏 to all the fab parenting in this family.

He’s enabling DSSs bad behaviour towards you. My response would be cook it yourself too, albeit a slightly more colourful version.

Okay, that’s a problem. Yes, your DH shouldn’t have said yes he can stay but I don’t think he would have asked in the first place if he was happy at his mum’s.

This could be an opportunity for you to get things back on track with him. You could do all these things with him. Just tell him a time he needs to be ready by each day, and the rest of the time he can do as he wishes but it’s non-negotiable because he needs to enjoy his school holidays and you’d like to spend some time with him.

You summed up your DH perfectly when you wrote you had planned a big family gathering for Easter, you did everything and DH sat back and drank beer.
He likes an easy life whilst expecting you to do the work, he expects you to forget his son’s behaviour and carry on as he expects you to enable him to have a stress free existence.
When he is pushed to talk to his son about his behaviour he just churns out next time because like tomorrow it never comes. He can’t be bothered to be that involved to parent his child or care about your feelings.
Your DH doesn’t respect your boundaries and goes into a mood when he can’t get his own way because he believes your role in life is to please him and enable the lazy fucker to live stress free. He doesn’t care if you get disrespected, he doesn’t care if his son stays the week and the house ends up a bomb site or all the food has been eaten as he expects you to remedy that problem.
You can point the truth out time after time but he refuses to acknowledge he is the problem because frankly my dear he doesn’t give a damn!

You need to have it out clearly with your husband. If his son is staying in your house, he must behave politely and respectfully to you. If not, you are not going to cook for him, clean up after him or entertain him in any way and all that is up to your husband. How does his son get on with your own sons?

I expect your SS feels very inadequate and that he doesn't fit in either family set up. This is the main reason why teenagers refuse to mix with family members and would rather be left alone.

There are many reasons that leads to a teenagers feeling inadequate and these can be compkex but unless these reasons are investigated and considered, things are unlikely to get better.

Asking a teenagers to stop to be rude without understanding the reason for the rudeness, usually frustrations that can't be expressed because not listened to, is totally futile.

I do have a difficult teen myself and my 13 year DH is ASD and has had some worrying behaviour recently due to school issues which I am supporting with CAHMs (I self referred after school refused to help and was picked up instantly) so maybe I am just out of energy for another ‘battle’ and have let things at home slide where I am doing all the grunt work. Yes I do cook pretty much everything due to DH working away and DS13 being really picky and hard to feed so accommodating that

I think you've been very silly to let this massive disrespect go on for 2 years ,your DH refuses to address it so he is happy for you to be walked all over, Neither of them care about you. I would not put up with that ,it's not fair on you or your chlidren. Dump them both!

If only he had his actual dad there who could also feed him 🙄 ridiculous comment

Your DH has no respect for you so why would his son be interested in a relationship with you. You're not much better than your DH, gushing about him being amazing whilst complaining about a teen for not wanting to interact with you, which isn't all that unusual for teens anyway.

How would you feel if your DSs step mother wrote about them in the way you have written about your DSS?
How do you think your DSs would feel if they were dumped on their step mum, who didn't want them, for a week while your ex buggered off?

This poor kid - he sounds desperately unhappy. He must feel that he is not wanted by either of if his parents, and he has nowhere he can really call home.

It's sad that your husband automatically assumes that you'll be cooking when it's only jos son who will be eating. Of course that should obviously fall to him.
And he can't say his son will be staying the week if he's not actually even there himself.

Completely agree

@Bookworm847Did neither of you consider that your SS would need feeding when you left him alone for the day ?
It’s obviously shit behaviour on your husbands part but it’s not a great look for you either if you just left him till 8pm without even considering it.

Quite. Or he could even be a big boy and get his own food 🤷‍♀️

13 year old boys are hard work whether they are in blended families or not. His hormones will be going crazy right now and feeling grumpy, resentful and hard done by is about as normal as teenage boys get! As others have already said, it’s the lack of clearly communicated boundaries and consequences that’s causing most of the challenges. This has to be a team effort between all parents in both households.

Teen boys also tend to have ridiculous appetites and a ‘grab and go’ attitude when it comes to the fridge. My 18 yr old is back from uni at present and this has not changed! He is a capable cook but will favour a jumbo bag of crisps and some sausage roles everytime if it’s available. Does DSS know how to make basic meals? Beans on toast, jacket spuds, scrambled eggs, pasta? These food types should be plentiful and cleaning up a clear expectation. Will he be doing DofE at school? This can be a good opportunity to teach/help them practise. Perhaps he sees the kitchen as your domain and fears getting told off so he avoids trying. (Or perhaps he’s like my DS and a lazy sod when allowed to be.. but the key here is not allowing it!)

I’m lost why your DH isn’t advocating for DSS at his mum’s house - why isn’t someone stepping in to prevent his things being broken? That feels very sad and may be contributing to the resentment.

Instead of framing his behaviour as disrespect, can’t you see that he’s obviously uncomfortable around you for some reason and do some work on that? Kids don’t have many options in life when it comes to it, he has no choice but to go to your home, where he is presumably being told he eats too much and he’s rude. He is an outsider in your home as he’s the one that isn’t there most of the time, he’s struggling with something. His dad is letting him down as well from the sounds of it. You come across as brittle and a bit harsh in your messages here, if this is because you are burned out, then, as others have said, you need to deal with your husbands part in that, it’s not your stepson’s fault, I feel really sorry for him.