AIBU - Partner thinks he doesn’t have to do anything for my son because he’s not his responsibility

[MumOfTwoBeans]

Currently pregnant with my partners baby, I have an 18 month old son from another relationship and I’m worried he will treat this baby differently to my son.

Anybody else ever had this? How should I approach this?

Am I being unreasonable?

What’s going to happen is that your eldest son is going to feel increasingly abandoned by you and will likely grow up with a dazzling array of emotional development problems.

meanwhile, you’ll post here every 3 months saying you love your boyfriend but you wish he’d be nice to your son.

Technically he's right.

You'll find lots of threads with step mums complaining of being left to deal with step children, the advice is they're not yours leave him to it.

Once your a family it's not so easy as you need to function as a unit. There's not a big gap between them so they'll grow up together and should be a family.

Does the child's father have an input? If he's still on the scene then there'll be a difference between them anyway.

If he has already decided that he will have zero responsibilty or involvement in the upbringing of your son who he lives with(?) what makes you think he will be a active parent for his own child?

This is something which should have been discussed when you moved in together. But all you can do now is have an open conversation around what your expectations are and what his expectations are to see if you can reach a compromise.

The best thing you can do for your son is to put him first and not raise him in an environment where he is second best to a sibling. Especially given his young age. He won't understand that the man who is present isn't his dad and why that man feels he is not a priority.

This.

Did you discuss this before ttc?

Your son comes as a package with you, if he can’t accept that then you are going to have a lot to deal with when the baby comes

Why on earth did you move in with someone who quite clearly has no intention of caring about your son? Much less have a child with him? What makes you think this man will be a decent father to your baby? He certainly isn't acting like it, is he? What were you thinking?

The only way you can treat your children fairly and decently is to kick your boyfriend out and bring up your children yourself.

I'm worried help treat this baby differently to my son

If he treats this baby differently it's a huge problem,

If he treats this baby in the same way he treats his stepson it's a huge problem

Address the way he treats your son now. You cannot function as a family with his current attitude and your children should always come first over a partner.

And yet there's another thread telling a step-mum she should be ignoring her stepson and leaving everything to his dad....?

Aside from the fact your first child is only 18 months old and you're already pregnant with another man, he doesn't get the luxury of not being involved with a child when he has chosen to join a family with a very young one. If he's useless with your child then he'll be useless with his own.

It can be a different dynamic when you join a family with older children, but when you join a family with a baby then you are either all in or not at all IMO.

However he treats your son is acceptable to you pre baby though? And surely you want him to have some sort of responsibility for your joint baby?

Technically your son isn’t his responsibility, however he does need to be accepting of him and nice to him.

Also of course he’s going to be different with the baby as that’s his own child. You always feel differently to your own child, it’s natural.

There's a balance.
Should he be doing everything that is the father's responsibility instead of the father? No. The parents of a child should be taking primary responsibility for that child.

If, OTOH, he would make lunch for you and his child but refuse to make a portion for your other child for example then he should have no place in your home.

Could you link to that please?
Is she being told to ignore the child and do 'nothing' or is she being told that she doesn't have to provide childcare, do school runs, etc and can in fact take her own child out for the day and that the parents should step up?

According to the step parent section on here, non biological partners have zero responsibility for children not their own and should be praised and rewarded if they even choose out of their own kindess to include them in a meal or read them a book or do anything for them as that is above and beyond. Read the threads - most step mothers on here strongly and actively adovocate that step parents do NOTHING for their step children and that is is excessive and unreasonable to even be expected to like them or see them as part of the family. They repeatedly state that step children are nothing at all like their own children and they should be treated completely differently by a step parent.

So if your boyfriend really wants nothing to do with him and says he is 100% your responsibility, he would fit in very well on the step parent boards. That is the most common view by step parents on here.

He was great with my son before I got pregnant and since I became pregnant he has changed. He does things for him but moans and makes a big deal out of it and when we argue he says that he’s not his responsibility

my son sees his dad once a week and that’s all

Then ask less of him in regards your first son.

There are different people on different threads. It's unreasonable to blame the people on here for saying something different to random other people somewhere else.

What are you expecting him to do? How long have you been together?

You’ve moved very fast. Things must have been going very well between the 3 of you to make having another child seem a good idea. Have you asked him what’s changed?

my son sees his dad once a week and that’s all you can't expect him to do more than his actual dad.

When i met my now dh he said he felt privileged to have been welcomed into our family. My dc were dc... didn't 'belong' to anyone! He loves them for themselves. He doesn't neglect them because he didn't father them.

When 2 wanted to live with us full time it was him that went and collected their things. No discussion.. I get the feeling your dp would prefer your ds wasn't there at all.

Is that the sort of man that you need around?

If your current partner is not a dad yet, he probably has no idea what to do. He has a lot to learn still.

If he was great with him before he may just be getting to grips with the reality of two children and trying to work out how it all works. It will be different for the two, even if your oldest only sees his dad once a week it still means he has another dad.