AIBU to think I can’t fix the problems in my ex’s blended family?

[boredwfh]

My exH met his current partner around a year after we split. After a string of girlfriends in fairly quick succession, who he thought could all potentially be “the one”, this relationship stuck.
She lived around an hour away from us. They moved in together in her home town quite quickly, were pregnant within a year and now have an 8-month-old baby who my DD absolutely loves.
His DP also has a 6-year-old son from a previous relationship. My DD is 9 and goes to her dad’s most weekends.
The problem is that DD and his DP’s son just do not get on. There is a lot of arguing and fighting and, from what I gather, it makes family time when DD is there an absolute nightmare. DD says she finds him annoying and has also expressed some jealousy that he gets to spend more time with her dad during the week than she does. Her dad now lives an hour away, so seeing DD during the week isn’t really practical.
DD is happy with the custody arrangements and wants to see her dad. She just doesn’t like his DP’s son.
It has now got to the point where, if DD and the 6-year-old are there at the same time, they sometimes do completely separate activities to keep them apart. They recently went on holiday together and apparently it was a nightmare because of the constant fighting and arguing.
Obviously I speak to DD about her behaviour. I tell her she needs to be kind, patient and to ignore him if she feels he is deliberately winding her up. I don’t tell her it is acceptable to argue or fight with him.
My ex now wants me to do more to resolve the situation and has suggested a meeting between him, his DP, my DP and me to discuss it.
The problem is, I genuinely don’t know what more I can do from my house.
DD also lives in a blended family here. My DP has two daughters, although they are young adults so obviously the dynamics are very different. DD adores them and gets on extremely well with my DP. We simply don’t have the behavioural issues here that her dad describes.
My ex and I don’t particularly get on and I have never met his DP. If I genuinely thought sitting down together would help DD, I would do it. I just can’t see what this meeting is actually going to achieve.
Last year, my ex tried to attribute DD’s behaviour at his house to her bedtime at mine. He was demanding that I put her to bed earlier because he believed tiredness was causing her to misbehave at his house. Yet I wasn’t experiencing the tantrums or behaviour he was describing here.
I was very much the default parent when we were together and he struggled with discipline and managing her behaviour then too.
I strongly suspect the actual problem is the family dynamic at his house. You have two fairly close-in-age children who don’t like each other, who didn’t choose to become a family, and who are now expected to spend most weekends together. Add in DD potentially feeling displaced because this child gets to live with her dad full-time, plus a new baby, and I can understand why there are difficulties.
But I don’t know what I can realistically do about that from my household.
So AIBU to decline the meeting and tell my ex that, while I will continue to talk to DD about her behaviour and expectations when she is there, the dynamics within his household are something he and his DP need to manage?

Might be an idea to go to get a feel for the situation.
Not your problem to solve though, they ought to have sorted all this out before they plunged headlong into a serious relationship and a baby. Is there a family counselling service they could utilise.

Is there a way for her dad to have her outside the blended family home some of the time? For example could he take her and the baby to visit his parents for the weekend once a month? That would have the same effect as pp suggestions, without reducing contact with her dad.

I’m puzzled as to why your custody arrangements mean you have no weekends with your DD. Why don’t you want any ‘downtime’ with her? I get that your ex lives an hour away but presumably that was his choice, so I would expect more effort from him to make up his 50% share from some weekdays.

That said, I would not be attending any meeting but would reiterate that this is on his time and is his issue to fix. I would suggest he needs to look at the dynamic between DD and the son and consider how he might change that. Perhaps a different weekend custody arrangement would help!

Has your DD not said anything about the difference between the weekends when it's just her there, and the ones when the 6yo is there too? Can't you just ask her if she'd prefer to go when he isn't there?
Perhaps this is something that could be trialled for a while - eg between now and Xmas? And it'd be worth deciding how you want to deal with the October half-term week sooner rather than later...

Yes, this might mean that the arrangement is no longer '50:50'. But that is the result of your ex moving away, living with someone else, choosing to have a baby with them and creating this new blended family.... It sounds like you are in reality already doing more than 50%, and he should be contributing to the full costs of bringing up the child you made together.

I’m pretty sure the son doesn’t like my DD either tbh, they clearly just don’t get on. I actually have her all of her October half term as we are going away on holiday. To people who ask if I want weekends with my daughter, I do, and I do have them, but the default arrangement is that he has her every weekend. If I have something specific I want to do with her then I’ll ask to have her and in fact I had my DD quite a lot of weekends in jun/jul for various reasons. It’s not really 50/50 but I cba to argue with him. I’ve asked my daughter if she would like to have more weekends with me but she’s happy with the arrangements. Her dad does take her to football training and matches at weekends which is their thing. And he’ll take her swimming and other activities on her own or with the wider family, I think this has reared its head as he had her for 3 weeks of the summer holiday , 2 of which were on a holiday abroad which by all account's was a nightmare with them arguing and I think he’s wanting to pass some of his own frustration on to me. Funnily enough my DD said she had a great time on holiday except for the son annoying her at times. I just think it was stressful for my ex and his DP especially with a baby and 2 arguing children!

I know she's only 9 but if you've offered EOW to avoid him and she doesn't want to do that then that's that. You can't make her dad choose to prioritise her on those weekends and take her out/to see grandparents and so on (and I mean all the time to keep them apart, not just sometimes). If he doesn't want stressful holidays then he can take her on his own and his partner can take her son on his own. Spoiler alert - he won't. It sounds like he got a woman to live with him and share the load with almost instantly).

You're absolutely not being unreasonable. It's his mess to sort. But having said that, I'd probably just say "ya fine, let's meet at X coffee shop for 20 minutes" and listen - it's in your daughters interests to make sure she is heard.

I think all you can do is reiterate that DD doesn't have those problems at your house and the only issue you've heard from her is that she and the 6yr old clash. You literally cannot do anything about that.

I'd probably ask DD if she wanted to perhaps stay with you one weekend a month when the boy is there. So she'd still gave 3 weekends with her dad but the clashing kids will only be there together one weekend.

Unfortunately they didn't ask to be blended and can't be forced to like eachother. Your ex really shouldn't have gone on to gave another child (IMO) knowing that the kids don't get along. Adding another baby certainly wasn't going to help at this stage.

Your ex and his partner will just need to accept that for now the kids don't get along, they don't need to, and figure out a way to manage it themselves. If he keeps on at you, I'd probably start ignoring him though. Your daughter shouldn't have to be reminded at your house about the kid she hates at his house.

Does your dd get any 1:1 time with her Dad?

Not your problem to solve. It's about family dynamics and you are not a counsellor for them so there is nothing you can do except telling your dd to try to ignore 6 year old.

Not your problem at all @boredwfh . I would do a reply to suggest he gives it a few weeks to see if it settles down having every other weekend with the 2 of them together. If that doesn't work, move to you having DD 1 weekend in every 3 when the boy is at DD's dad's so they only cross over 1 weekend in every 4.

To prove you can't sort his problems out and stop being blamed I'd go meet them. For one it will dispel any crap he has likely told his new gf about you when its apparent you aren't The Crazy Ex... And when nothing changes because it's his problem to fix and you can't continue to shoulder the blame.

I think the a meeting might be useful so that you can ask why he thinks DD dislikes the boy so much and what he is doing about it. It could be that this fuelled by jealousy, but it could be that the boy is doing things to DD that are really irritating. They are not particularly close in age, and it may be that they are expected to play together when in fact they have little in common. Is the expectation that she, being older( and a girl) , will give in to the boys demands to do things that she thinks are babyish? Or boring, or silly? How are DD’s needs being accommodated?
Id have a long chat with DD to find out exactly what her issues with this boy are, and then have a meeting with Ex, ( and both partners, or none).

I don’t understand everyone saying “not your problem”. If only your ex was being upset by it, or even the step son, I get you can say “not my problem” but your own daughter is affected by it. Don’t you want to find a solution that makes her happier each weekend and maintains the relationship with her Dad that she loves?

I had a similar age gap with my full brother and we argued like cat and dog too. That is family life - he will have to deal!

I suppose the difference is that I was very protective of my little brother and loved him really and we grew up close. However the not getting on and finding brother annoying is pretty normal!

Your DD should go every other weekend - the weekends the boy isn’t there. Same over the summer holidays. Easy solution.

My guess is this will turn into everyone having a go at you.

She needs 1 weekend with you and the next with her dad. The DPs lad is overwhelmed and his space is taken every weekend and that’s wrong. She should be with you every other weekend. So get it changed.

Id offer to meet the ex H with DD to work it out together.

To ensure he listens to her bland makes her a priority but to back him if he calls out poor behaviour

Its not your responsibly to fix it (and I don't see how you can), but she's your daughter and I'm sure you want to try to make things better for her if you can? If you won't meet them, he could turn that into the issue and frame it as you refusing to be involved. Meeting him might disarm that dynamic.

Can you meet with them but take someone with you for support, so they don't gang up on you?

Or even do it formally with a mediator? My ex wanted to do mediation and i was afraid he'd use it to bully me, but i was pleasantly surprised that it worked very well and we sorted out a few seemingly intractable problems. Otoh, my DH went to mediation with his ex and she just screamed at him and stormed out, which unsurprisingly didn't fix anything. You both need to want to find solutions.

I wouldn't meet them alone, 2 on 1, given what you've said about his sloping shoulders/ tendency to blame you.

If they were brother and sister, at those ages, it is possible that they would also be sworn enemies.

Your ex needs to have realistic expectations.

I would argue that your daughter's clear unhappiness makes it your problem.

I would sit down and discuss it. Not to lay blame but to try to work together for the benefit of the children. In a neutral location. With a mediator.

Ex needs to listen to his partners DS too! He’s no doubt unhappy for a reason.

I would meet him only with a family mediator present. If you don’t agree to meet then you may be accused of not wanting to work together in co-parenting.
lots of people saying not your problem but actually it is because it involves your daughter. It is not your fault though.
as things are obviously bad enough for your exH to ask for a meeting, I think it’s worth changing things for your daughters sake, and trial sending her there only on the weekends and holidays that the boy is not there. Just so they have a wee break from each other. Then introduce back one weekend a month at her dad’s with the boy present. No more. Until they’re able to cope with that one weekend a month together.

You could respond with something like

I have plenty of ideas for how you could change what you're doing to help alleviate things if that's what you're after, though think it might go more smoothly if you had a session with a professional parenting coach instead. As I've said, we don't have difficulties with DD's behaviour at our home and we don't encourage poor behaviour at your home, so if this isn't about asking for our advice, I'm not sure what the meeting would be about.

They need to give you a bit more info here. How do they end up falling out? Who tends to instigate? Your DD is only 9 and it must be really hard for her. Dont think a meeting would achive anything at all so YANBU. He needs to be a parent and sort this out as it is happening on his watch. He sounds like he wants it all to be sweetness and light but is deluded and seeking to blame you. Stay out of it!