To make DH choose between us and old family?

[WashwithCare]

DH previously had a 10 yr living together relationship with a woman who already had 2 kids from 2 different dads. Children were 1 and 3 when she moved in with DH. They do not see their own fathers and call DH dad.

DH left his ex when we met (bit of a whirl wind romance) and 6 mths later, we married. I'm expected our first baby this month.

DH tried to be reasonable, and let his ex-gf stay in his house. He is a super high earner, and also paid child support at well above CSA rates, and more besides. HIs ex is always demanding more money, despite the fact that he is not he kid's father, and they weren't married.

Last 2 years have been a nightmare re his old family. His ex turns up screaming on teh door step, kids scream abuse at me - and oldest has now started stealing stuff from our house. Contact is patchy, and mum either changes arrangemetn at last minute, so expensive hols, show tickets etc are lost or literally dumps the kids on our doorstep.

She hasn't worked in years, and has made no attempt to train or find work.

I have had enough. I am seriously considering telling DH (and I do love him so much) that it't either them or me.. Unless he evicts them from his house, has no further contact and stops any more payments, I will walk!

Am I being unreasonable?

'always have a back up plan ladies, never surender your carear for a man`s.... get a nanny if possible or work equal hours. keep yourself in the loop.
women who take from a man ,just because they live with them have no self respect imo'

Blimey, how cynical.

I agreed with everything you said up until that!

Wr couldn't afford a nanny even if I wanted to leave my four children under five to return to work. I definitely have self-respect and just because DH is the wage earner does not mean I don't work bloody hard for my half share of his wage.

I think you have the answer as to why the other fathers are not involved. She's just after whst she can get, she'll move and find another sucker. Be grateful he didn't actually father a child with her, and take comfort in how reasonable he is with an ex and the children.

Can she afford to move though

It sounds as though 1 father tried to be involved but wasn't allowed to be/ got fed up with banging his head against a brick wall. Impossible to know if he really was violent or if it was just a story for the current man in her life at the time. I hope your husband as solicitor didn't get involved in trying to prevent the real father seeing his daughter.
A right mess for the poor kids, although much of it sounds of the mothers making and it sounds as though your husband is trying with them.

Curiosity , i admit, i am a bit of a cynic . I really didnt mean to cause offence to anyone....but i have my own "ideal model" of childcare/work ratio.... and its both parents work and look after the kids and home in equal measure.Why should women be expected to change their lives when they have kids when very few of the dads do so ?How many dads stay at home with the kids ?Obviously the nanny comment was directed at people who can afford one, not everyones circumstances can enable that
If you want to be a SAHM , then thats your right.But it comes with a negative and im afraid its the impact on your future employability, regardless of qualifications 10 years of not working isnt going to look good on your cv. It may not be fair, but thats how it is..
But personally id rather walk over broken glass than let my husband pay my way,- nothing comes with a guarentee and i will never be left penniless and struggeling again because i will not put myself in the position that a man "gives me". If i provide for myself then it cant be taken away if the relationship ends.

drloves, perhaps I'm just fortunate, but I'm at SAHM and I don't feel beholden to anyone. I worked for 20 years before my DS was born, had my own home, car and was entirely self reliant.

When I met my DH, he didn't have any financial security behind him, so although he pays the mortgage and the bills, I paid a hefty deposit for our home and the house is currently 95% in my name.

I pull my weight, work wise although I don't contribute financially on a month to month basis. If the worst comes to the worst and my DH does off and I'm left in a financially inscure position then I'll have to deal with it then. There are no certainties in life, I realise that, but I'm willing to take that chance in exchange for spending the first few years of my sons life at home with him.

I waited too long for him to come along to hand him over to someone else to care for him and don't have the luxury of family close by to help out.

It works for us, each to their own, but my self respect is right up there!

WWC I feel for you...

I was in a position slightly like yours in that my DP had recently split from his wife of over 10 years when we got together. Luckily, no kids were involved on either side, which made it simpler, but it was still a bit nasty (ex-W went to my PARENTS house to rant at them and dragged a lot of my friends into taking sides etc).

We live in a small place and it was the drawing of boundaries between DP and his ExW that DP and I had problems with and arguments about. We went to counselling together (DP and I) and got some really sound advice and help with how to draw clear lines. It was brilliant and we never had another fight about it. Maybe you and DH could try something similar?

P.S. One thing the counsellor told us was to NEVER issue ultimatums unless we really wanted to break up .

Wubbly , but youve brought loads to your relationship, you and your dh are equal and have came to the marriage on en equal footing.... so your situation is a bit different to what i was meaning.
When i married my first husband, i was very young , 17. i droped out of uni to do so at his request....he was an accountant and quite a bit older than i.I trusted him completely.I worked on and off part time between children and eventually he wore me down with his insistance that i didnt need to work ,it would be better for the kids if i was a SAHM ect. So for the final years of our marriage i lived under his shadow. He controlled every aspect of my life ...i often had to beg him for money for sanatary products. Despite his higher income he would never give me more than £160 a month for groceries and being an accountant wanted receipts to account for every penny.
Then i discovered about his 3 year affair. it was like a switch went off in my head .At first i did nothing.
Then i went and again got a part-time job, and a bank account .Believe it or not i never had one, not even a joint account. My pittence of earnings (minimum wage btw) was my way out.I refuse to hand them over to EX-H. I saved them up and then left him. I went with the clothes i stood in and the children into a council flat. The first night there we slept on the floorboards, but it was the best nights sleep i had in years !
So you see i had no self respect then, because i let him "own" me , had i kept a job , then i would not have been in that position.When i divorced him , my lawyer told me i was entitled to half of everything , (pension ,money,ect).I told her to tell him to shove his money, i didnt want anything ,only to be rid of him.
Ironicly i come from quite a comfortable background , but didnt understand how all the financial stuff works.But i learned , and wont do that to myself or my children again.Self preservation and all that.
hopefully you will see why i have the pov i do.

Wow drloves, that's rotten. Your self respect must be soaring now! Good on you.

Perhaps we're not so different after all, I had a similar relationship from 15 til 21 but no marriage and no kids so not quite so hard to get away from. The experience made me fiercely independent too, I'm still learning to give up control as my DH would no doubt confirm!

drloves; that's awful...but it's more about the fact that you were with someone controlling and manipulative, rather than the fact that you were a non-earning SAHM, I would say.

Like wubbly, I love being able to be at home with my children now (although I have started some P/T temporary work recently), they benefit from it and my OH likes the fact that I am at home to look after them. He doesn't control or monitor my spending.

If I were the higher wage earner, I daresay I'd go to work and OH would stay at home and look after the children but as he is able to earn more than me, this is the way it is for us and we're all happy with the arrangement.

If he leaves me (which he won't ), I will either go back to work (I'm a teacher so taking time out of my career is probably not as risky as it is for some women) or I'd have to claim benefits, whichever would give me more money, I guess.

its defo through the roof( not sure if that a good thing ,a friend told me that she thought i was on an "ego trip" for a while lol)
Dont get me wrong i adore my "new" DH, totally worship the man, hes kind and loving and hardworking and adores my kids by my ex , as well as his own(with his ex) and ours.I really think i hit the jack-pot big time with him.But , i cant be totally dependent on him, theres no reason as to why i couldnt/shouldnt, hes not abusive in the least.Poor guy, the only time he gets too give me is birthdays and xmas. Even our wedding we paid half each.Im just more happy this way.

drl and I are in a sense similar but at opposite ends of the scale. People on here should not forget that 50% of marriages fail and I have had at least 10 dinners with men showing off about how they have conned their wives on the divorce. The fact they're stupid enough to think that's a good seduction technique probably explains why they didn't get a second date but they do it all the time. All sorts of things, even staying home with the baby whilst the new wife works (you only pay CSA child support to your children if you, not your new wife) works) to the one who moved to Thailand and the one with money off shore and the ones who solds various bits of the business after the split not before to avoid paying out etc etc on and on.

Also for many of us who have always worked full time as I have done it's just fun and nicer. I've had 5 children over 25 years and loved my work and the money I earn and I would never feel women (or men for that matter) have to choose between a successful lucrative career and having a family. The children respect you and are interested in you if you work, they gain huge amounts for it. I love it that I now have 2 children in their 20s in a similar profession to mine, that we can talk about those things, have that in common rather than mummy arranged flowers and washed her husband's underpants today and has 20 more years of doing that between 40 and 60. Work defines many of us and countless women just cannot cope mentally with living off male earnings.

Also think of the children.... they won't thank you when the man's run off and all you earn is the mimumum wage when had you carried on working you might have earned £35k a year. Work for their sake as much as yours. You can love and have good relationships with children as a father or mother even if you haven't witnessed every last poo and puking up.

Off topic but Xenia, thanks for the idea about babysitting on major holidays.

Since DH was working till 11 New Year's Eve, anyhow, and had to work the next day, I took a leaf from your book and put the word out there I was able to sit, overnight, even.

I sat for 3 children from the girls' school/nursery and made nearly a hundred pounds for basically putting them to bed and feeding them a nice breakfast, which I was planning on doing for our family, anyhow.

sorry, i made nearly £150!

enough to pay off a car repair bill and then some.

Xenia You have met some bloody horrible men, is all I can say! I can honestly say, I have not (yet) met anyone like that in RL. Besides, I am not accustomed to failed marriages. The divorce rate in my and OH's (large) extended family is more like 3% than 50%. And IIRC, people from families where marriages/relationships work are more likely to have long-term success in relationships themselves. (By success, I don't mean that the opposite is necessarily 'failure', I just couldn't think of another word).

Nonetheless, there are no guarantees in life, and my marriage might fail, I realise that. I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. I'm not going to waste a single second worrying about it.

'Also for many of us who have always worked full time as I have done it's just fun and nicer'

For YOU it's nicer...for me it would have been hideous, which is why I didn't do it. I'm not money-motivated and neither is OH...I don't care for a lucrative career (which is just as well as I'm a teacher and therefore never likely to make much money ).

Once I go back to work (when the children are at school), I will have 30-odd years to work until I retire. That'll be more than enough, thank you very much! I enjoy my work but I work to live and not vice versa. I don't want to lie on my deathbed wishing I'd known my children better. I'm unlikely to lie there wishing I'd worked more. We're all different Xenia, and that's what you seem to be failing to realise.

As for role models...I'm not sure about that. My mum was a working mum (who couldn't afford a nanny, like the vast majority of people) and, as much as I love her very much and would never say it to her face, my brother and I suffered for it. That was a big influence in my deciding to be a SAHM.

Oh, and....I've never arranged flowers in my life!

expat - ebay?

drloves - completely understandable how you feel and I totally respect a lot of the things you have said on this thread given your circs. I completely understand how difficult it is to get to a point in your life where you can naturally feel the things you feel about the OP's situation when you have been through that.

The reason you were in that situation however was not because you didn't have a job and more because you had an abusive husband. It might have been easier to get out earlier if you had carried on working but he manipulated you out of the workplace and there wasn't much you could have changed about it I suspect. I was in the same position, as you can read above. I had to live on the child tax credit, CHB and maternity pay alone as they were the only things paid into my account, XP claimed benefits (and housing benefit) sometimes on my behalf and spent it all on himself including sometimes spending the rent which I had to get various loans in order to cover it to avoid losing my baby son's home. DH actually paid off those loans when we moved in together as I couldn't hope to pay off £2000 when on IS or even if I had gotten a minimum wage job. Out of around £480 per month I had to buy all the food and nappies, pay all the bills bar XP's phone and buy all of our clothes and shoes. What do you think went first - yep the phone and internet, clever because it meant I couldn't even communicate with anyone. He would not work or care for our son because he was 'boring'. He spent all the money in the pub, probably on other women.

My ex was awful to me and to our children too but for me the word 'marriage' means sharing and support as much as it means love and commitment. That is what it means to my DH too, he brings certain things to the table, I bring others we share the sum of all of our talents and skills and we support each other with our individual weaknesses.

With four children, and being the eldest of four, I'm not sure I want a big career anymore. Just because it is my husband who gets paid from his work doesn't mean what I provide within our relationship is not worth anything or not valued by him. Personally I have existed at the bottom level financially too and I really don't care too much if I end up back there. I feel lucky to have a good standard of living, four brilliant and amazing children, a very strong relationship with a husband who values me highly (and who I value highly) and who views marriage how I do. There is not the slightest chance that my DH will abuse me. I have been through this before and if I ever have to start asking for the things which we both claim to feel entitled to a share of now then I would happily return to how life was before DH - poor, lone parent. I was not unhappy in that life and I certainly don't feel entitled to any of the things I have now.

Money and career are not as important to me as being a mother and I feel passionately about protecting my right to this choice just as I feel passionately about a mother's right to work if that is her choice. I don't like oppression of people generally. The saddest situations to me are the ones where people are unhappy with their situations and I reckon that's where energy is better focused than on people who are happy in their lives and choices.

Having a big career is not everything to everybody and I feel rather sad at the fact that other women perhaps would overlook all my skills and contributions to society just because I didn't necessarily choose to apply them in the workplace. I think it is a misguided, and strange, argument to assert that women should not stay at home because that does not help perpetuate women's lib and rights. Personally I feel I'd rather choose my own way than be oppressed by warped feminist ideals that say I must be career driven or I am useless - to me that is just the same thing as my ex who totally oppressed me for years.

I'm not saying you have those warped feminist ideals drloves8, though you may, I'm just remembering a thread where loads of people calling themselves feminists (to me a feminist supports equality for women and the right to control their own destiny) told me they wanted me to be oppressed by their ideals rather than have my freedom to choose if what I chose was being a married SAHM who chose to take her husband's name and go by the prefix 'mrs'. In the words of the almighty Smashing Pumpkins (although an inappropriate song choice) 'What I choose is my choice' and that is one of my many mantras.

I actually don't know anyone at all that is divorced. I never married XP but I'm the closest it comes to divorce out of my entire extended family and all mine and DH's friends. I know that is very unusual though.

Oh actually XP's mum and sister are divorced but they are all I know and wish I didn't.

Hear hear curiosity.

Olifin - Yes. My mother was a SAHM for 11 years then went back to work full-time (which actually meant around 80 hours per week) employing a chidminder at first then a home-help who didn't cook or look after children (apparently) when I was 14 and deemed old enough to look after the younger ones?!?! My dad worked in Leeds and so was away all week The home help picked the younger ones up from school (her only task), when I got home I made the dinner for everyone and then supervised the 13, 9 and 7 year olds till my mum came home. I am only 25 now, this was not a normal thing then. I struggled integrating into high school and it co-incided with my mum's return to work and the onset of my hypothyriodism which went untreated for 10 years. I felt rejected on all levels and suffered with terrible depression for years. If my mum had worked all along I'd not have batted an eyelid. My twisted depressed mind interpretted her return to work as a direct rejection of me and I resented the pressure of caring for the younger ones which my parents felt was my duty. Some of the feelings I had were nothing to do with my mum's choices and were just my own struggle but her going back to work at that precise time, putting extra pressure on me and failing to notice that I was struggling or help me definitely has had an influence on my whole life. I fell out of education with no A-levels and like drloves8 met my abusive XP when I was in my teens.

curiosity im amazed at how together your are after all that.
i know im pretty damaged by what happened with my ex, so mabey that is influencing my opinions on this too much.

Blimey curiosity, you seem to be incredibly strong now. What a terribly stressful time for you.

My experience was nothing like as bad as that but...I could have done with more attention as a teenager. We were latchkey kids and I got into some bad habits (too much experimentation of various different types) as there was no-one around to monitor what I was doing. Our diet was awful too and I still struggle to maintain a healthy diet now. I, too, was with an abusive partner in my teens (16-19ish) who I moved in with. He was incredibly manipulative and controlling. Euuurggh. Not sure that was connected to my upbringing though.

I do, however, feel the need to add the disclaimer that I love my parents dearly and that I know they did what they thought was best. We have a lovely relationship now.

yet again a twat of a man gets a vunerable teenager.... anyone else see a pattern here?

Your DH needs to lawyer up (I truly don't understand why he hasn't - did I miss that?). He needs to stop all direct contact with the ex, decide exactly what sort of relationship (i.e. financial/emotional) he wants with the children, tell the lawyer this and get it sorted out properly.