To think partner could have done more?

[HagridsHut]

My partner invited me and the kids for dinner on monday and to stay over on Monday night. We accepted. He also had a 12 year old daughter, my kids, both boys are aged 8 and 10.

My kids were obviously excited to be staying somewhere new so there was a lot of showing off and hyperactiveness. I expected that.

But it got tedious very quickly. They were all out in the garden and his DD and my youngest DS quickly turned against DS1 and started saying he couldn't play with them. DS1 reacted by doing his best to wind them up. This obviously was counter productive. So literally every 2 minutes DS2 and his DD came in to tell me DS1 had done this and that ...

"He's just kicked me"
"He's just called me a lesbian"
"He's just swore"
"He's pulling faces"

etc etc... EVERY bloody few minutes.

Thing is, DP just sat there. He never made any attempt to tell his DD off for her part in it all and just made out that it was simply "kids" but it wasn't, it had gone beyond that IMO and I didn't feel I could tell his DD off so it ended up with my two getting 100% of the blame. DS1 ended up getting sent to his room where he cried and even then the other two kept running in telling me he was pulling faces at them through the window. I was getting so stressed out.

Then, when thing had calmed down slightly, DS1 came out of the bedroom and the other two came to play inside. This quickly became a game of "lets lock DS1 out of the bedroom"

So there was lots of banging and shouting upstairs before DS1 came down and said "They won't let me play". DP did absolutely nothing, didn't even react. I said "why not?" and his DD came stropping downstairs and said "I don't want HIM in my room" to her dad. He said "why not?" so she said "he keeps tormenting the cats". DP rolled his eyes and carried on watching TV. Leaving me to deal with DS1 who was becomming disruptive again because he felt left out. (The cats shouldn't have even been in her room).

So after DS1 came downstairs for the forth time saying "I'm bored, they won't let me play", tears in his eyes, giggling upstairs I made it quite obvious that I was getting annoyed.

DP calmly said "it's because she won't let him in her room." well yes, I know! but I can't do anything that ... he could!

But he didn't, just carried on watching TV.

Eventually when he started fearing for the state of the banged doors upstairs, he went up and "had a word" with his DD about letting DS1 play. She said she would. A few minutes later, DS1 is downstairs saying "they're doing it again".

I was so stressed out I seriously wished I hadn't gone and was searching for a nice way to say "fuck this, I'm going".

When they'd eventually gone to bed (where they just played up even more, his DD gave my DS's mini eggs, making them hyper still) DP turned around and said "I think your boys are just a bit excited".

Yes, they were but it wasn't ALL them. I feel he could have done more to help. The way it is now, I seriously doubt I'll ever stay over there again with the kids and thats not great for our relationship.

AIBU?

You do need to talk about this with him. Your expectations seem to be very different. If there's a big mismatch between your parenting styles, and if he can't see how difficult the evening was for you, then your relationship is going to be limited to dates without the children.

Also, it doesn't appear that you said anything to ds2 about his role in this. Did you threaten your two with the possibility of going if they couldn't behave themselves? It seems that all 3 were out of order at some point or other but only ds1 lost out. You could also have indicated to your dp that you expected him to be more involved with his dd or, if he couldn't be arsed, then you would deal with her.

Sounds to me like they were bored and neither of the adults tried to do anything constructive about it other than get stressed.
If you're a couple, then the children are shared and you both should reprimand ANY bad behaviour from ANY child.

sounds like all the kids were a pain in the arse to be honest - your intervention didn't seem to help either.

The older girl was bound to be territorial - it's the first time another woman and her kids have been in her home and she's showing who's boss. Understandable I think.

I'm sure it will settle down.

Yes I was trying to be understanding of her position which is why I didn't want to seem like I was getting at her. If she'd said "no boys in my room" I would have been fine with that but she seemed to be delibrately setting one against the other by allowing one in and not the other.

It wasn't just that though.

In the car on the way home from our day out, his DD left a can on the back shelf of the car. As DP set off it started tapping against the glass. DP told her to take it off as it was annoying, she said "no".

He told her again and she made a half hearted attempt to reach it before saying she couldn't. So DP said to her "take off your seatbelt quickly and get it" (this on the middle of a motorway) and she said "no".

So DP started saying "well, will one of you take off your seatbelt and get it?" meaning my boys.

I told them they were not to take off their seatbelts and he seemed to think I was being awkward but for one thing neither of them had left it there to start with. Secondly why pass the buck onto another kid because his wouldn't do as she was told and thirdly, I thought it was a bit off to ask someone elses kids to take off their seatbelts to rectify something his own child had done because she was refusing to do it herself.

Maybe I'm being over-protective, I don't know.

Thing is there is talk of us moving in with them eventually. I can see it would probably settle down but there was signs there of "my child does no wrong" and I think on a permanant basis, that would make things impossible to live with.

First off I think you were holding back too much - sounds like all the kids needed a very firm talking to and you should have said to DP that you needed to deal with it together rather than silently willing him to do as you expected. Why didn't you? Have you been together long? TBH all your kids are going to find this new 'blended family' difficult to adjust to unless they are amazingly placid. I remember being a 12 year old girl and I think most of us are fairly charmless and simmering with hormones at that age . You do seem focussed on DP rather than on sorting your kids (all 3 of them) together - are you unsure about him and this is just your tipping point?