AIBU to think blended family life is draining us all?

[PithyBeaker]

DP and I have been together five years. I have one DC from previous marriage and he has three DC from his previous marriage that are with us every other week. No kids together. The kids mostly get on and play well. There is some unhealthy competition with my DC which I don’t like and his kids are allowed much more screen time and watch age inappropriate things at their mother’s. His kids also have more care needs (ADHD, neuro-diverse, etc) than mine. DP and I try to split the cooking but he is easily overwhelmed by his kids (he is also ADHD and ASD) and things run to chaos under his control (laundry piles everywhere, mess, wrappers discarded, etc). I’m not a neat freak at all but the mess drives even me crazy (things like touching handles with filthy hands and not cleaning toilet bowl after a poo). I am often the one laying down rules, enforcing boundaries because DP much more relaxed. The house gets wrecked when they come over (it is my house). We both work full-time. DP and I used to enjoy time together but increasingly in evenings he just games and I go to sleep early. Basically: I am tired and feel like life would be easier if it was just me and my DC. AIBU to think that no matter what happens blending families never really works and I will ultimately be the one sucked dry and drained by this situation, with more net harm than good in the end? I sometimes miss the days when it was just me and my DC and it was peaceful, but also I think I would really miss my DP and my DC would miss DP’s DC. I don’t know whether it would now be more harmful to my DC (who is about to start secondary) to lose DP and DP’s DC - or better for him (and me) in the long run. Help.

You say your kids enjoys the company of his. Does he.. or is it the extra screen time, relaxed rules and general chaos?

OP, you’re really settling here and it’s not healthy.

That’s a very nice, well meaning way of thinking but it is essentially “staying together for the children”
which most people will agree rarely works and is not good for the children in the long run.

And it's a particularly shitty variant of that where you get all the worst qualities of the children but aren't able to intervene and improve these, other than by spending your own money. Then they'll either stay put for years struggling to find jobs and expecting support, or move out and not do any of the nice things where they come back and take you out for Mother's Day, because you're not their mother. Better to make the break now, for you and your own child.

@PithyBeaker I can see it is really difficult in relation to his DC, but they do have two living and competent parents. Plus you can stay in touch.

The only child for whom it is your utmost duty and responsibility to prioritise is your own son.

Would you have volunteered to foster a sibling group alongside raising your own child? Or would you have weighed up the likely impact on your child and your life and decided not to go down that route?

Let me paint you a picture. Roll forward exactly five years and your DC is at home today revising for public exams. They are sitting at the table. The house is calm, tidy and quiet. When they need a break they can wander into another room or go out into the garden, leaving their books and computer out on the table. There is no disruption, annoyance or other needs to consider. When they want to pop out to meet friends, you can easily facilitate it. Life isn’t perfect, sure, but you enjoy each other’s company and you feel comfortable that you are supporting your child as far as possible.

These are the advantages that are within your grasp.

Your duty is to your child, OP, and nothing in this setup, including having his home parasitised, is to his benefit. Your boyfriend wants to push him out so he's there as little as possible...how can you allow that?

Women so often can't bring thenselves to dump the horrible man so they stay and use the kids as an excuse and frame it as this great selfless maternal act. But in this case, the kids aren't yours and the whole setup punishes the child who is yours.

They have parents to care for them and they have lived elsewhere before. If you wanted to sacrifice yourself because it was just too hard to knock the whole thing on the head that would be one thing, but you're doing it to your son as well. Your rent-free boyfriend doesn't seem to mind booting him out so he clearly doesn't share this sentiment...

That is true. Makes me feel sick to the stomach, but I agree. Ur son would be out and him and his family would stay. Until there was eventually a costly legal battle. That is a very sobering and horrible thought.
Well said. Good insight.

Do you think perhaps we’ve cracked some Twitter manosphere playbook … how to keep your other half ground the fuck down… sorry for not replying to other comments yet, travelling all day. Later x

The tactics are myriad:

My ex used to make me decide and make all the arrangements for whatever we had to do at the weekend (and we had to do something because "I am not sitting around doing nothing on my weekend "). Therefore if we had a great time, he had it without effort, but if we had a terrible time, then he could blame me because I was the one who'd come up with the idea and planned it. Ditto for every holiday.

Always answered a question with another question:
"Would you like to go for a walk with me this evening?"
"Why would I want to do that?"

"Where are [younger son's] swimming trunks?"
"Why are you asking me?"
"Because we're leaving tomorrow and he hasn't finished packing yet. Have you seen them?"
"Why would I have seen them?"
(this could go on for a while, when a simple "no, don't know " would have sufficed)

"Why is the car so dirty, have you been driving around in mud today?"
"Why would I be driving around in mud?"

"Do you want me to get you something from the supermarket when I go?"
"Why would I need you to get me anything?"

"If you're so unhappy in the job, would it be helpful to retrain to do something you have always wanted to do?"
"Why would you think that would be helpful?"

It seems to be a typical response you get from insecure people, and I've experienced this in both men and women.

And treated waiters in restaurants like they were service creatures beneath contempt. It was embarrassing how he spoke to them.

Don't ask me why I stayed with him. After a few years, I guess I thought it was normal. I didn't even have the vocabulary to describe it to anyone else, so I never told anyone. I used to try to explain it to him ("Why do you always speak like that to me... etc.), but I would get accused of "policing his speech." Sometimes I want to slap my younger self around the head with a wet fish!

You've got to laugh otherwise you'd cry.

ps Safe travels, OP.

Sometimes I want to slap my younger self around the head with a wet fish!
I love this! It's exactly how I feel. OP, you have garnered support from so many women who have already trodden this path before you. I hope their combined wisdom will see you through the difficult day you are facing tomorrow.

@GreenhampsterAndEggs yours sounds exactly like mine 😔
”why would I want..?” so souls destroying. Mine used to come home with a face like thunder and bring a toxic atmosphere, so I’d be on edge, and when I asked if he was ok it would be “why WOULDN’T I be ok?” Or “why would anything be wrong?” And it was awful. It meant I crept around trying to appease him without knowing what I’d done…
and the day trips. He’d get himself ready. I’d get me ready, the baby ready, the bag packed and if we didn’t have the camera with us when we got there it would be my fault…
and yeah, any time we went somewhere I wanted to go it was my fault when he had an upsetting incident/ conversation even if I wasn’t there at the time.

@PithyBeaker I guess women do this too, my mother was pretty manipulative, but I think more men do it. It’s a brilliant way to gradually exert more and more control… the frog in boiling water scenario… and women being socialised to please and take responsibility for other people’s comfort makes it easier for them.

Holdinguphalfthesky, so sorry you have had to go through that as well. I honestly thought then that I was the only one, and that most of the time I was making it up in my head. The gaslighting worked pretty well, I guess. I hope you are well out of that situation now. I think we women should talk about these things to each other more, but how do you talk about it if you can't even identify it at the time? It probably took me several years after I had left to really start to see it for what it was. I've never known anyone else who suffered the "planning the day trip" blame before! Commiserations.

Just wanted to say -I’m thinking of you and sending you big hugs and strength for tomorrow.
You can do this -you know you can. Just dig deep.

This was great. Thank you. Wow, your therapist sounds excellent. Wish mine had been. She just kept telling me he wasn’t going to change, you can’t change people, you need to compromise… would have been helpful to hear “you are not responsible for keeping everyone else happy”.

Sister not nearby. I have friends in the village I can call if need be but I am reasonably confident it won’t come to that.

Also feels very familiar. The constant scrambling to organise shit and then being quizzed on why I did it that way or not a different way…

I could see this. Thank you.

Oh I went through the mill to get to her!
Therapist before her told me that having sex with my (now ex) husband was just something I should do to be nice to him even if I didn't want to, in the same way he would rub my back if he didn't want to. And I believed her, and carried on having sex I did not want to have to keep him happy for another 4 years. Didn't stop until I discovered he was slipping me MDMA to get me in the mood (and whilst I'd done drugs as a very young woman it was absolutely not part of my life now (or I thought his).
So you aren't the only one who listened to a therapist and didn't realise how bad a relationship was for you

@outerspacepotato great post about if anything ever happened to the OP with a man like this, her son could be out on his ear, and who would be there to fight it?

It happens.
It happened to my best friend 40 years ago.
She was 19 and her father had married a toxic witch with 3 children.
Her own later mother had been so loving and had died suddenly and within two years her stupid father had remarried, as it happened to a woman 16 years younger than him.

My friend was a second class citizen in her own home.
Her father died within a few weeks of being diagnosed 6 years later, and a week after the funeral she was told to leave.
Her stepmother got the house, the business her mother had built up.
It is still unbelievable that she never inherited a penny.
Her mother must be turning in her grave as her last words to her father was to mind her baby.
My friend rushed into marriage on the back of the trauma and dropped out of college.

This is not an isolated story.
It happens.

So often parents rely on people to do the right thing by their children, but they don't.
They never had the slightest intention of doing right by them.
Every penny went to her step siblings.

Thanking you (all) good night x

Good luck for tomorrow.

Remember that movie depictions of women loving their step-children “like their own” are fictional. When women talk amongst themselves, as on MN, you realise that women are not hard-wired to love all children brought into their vicinity. While most step-mothers are fond of their step-kids, when it comes down to it they can walk away pretty easily.

I suspect he’ll try to guilt-trip you about not wanting to mother his children, even though they have a mother, because some men think this is what women are made to do

All the best @PithyBeaker
I hope it goes okay.