His kids dont want to know our baby

[cherry80]

Got together with P five years ago, just as he was leaving previous relationship. Not ideal at all but it was over before we started. His ex wife refuses to believe this and has spent the last five years ignoring divorce proceedings, refusing to let him see kids and telling them all sorts of nasty things. He was still in phone contact and spoke to his two daughters (aged 14 and 17)at least once a week until earlier this year. Every time he asked them to meet me or come round to our house they said they had to check with their mum then the asnwer would be no. He takes his son (aged 10) to football and out to lunch every week but the one time he brought him round to ours cause his son asked to see our house, he wasnt allowed to see him for weeks. Obviously this is upsetting for him and me but i thought if he could just keep contact eventually his ex would calm down and be more reasonable. I am now pregnant and expecting our baby in March. When he told his girls in Sept they just stopped speaking to him, they havent replied to any texts or phone calls since. He continues to see his son once a week, but im not allowed to be involved. I am much more upset than i thought i would be at the fact his kids are rejecting our baby and he seems to find it difficult to be excited about my pregnancy cause his girls have cut him out of their lives. I dont know what to do but i cant see how this can continue, cause i dont want him spending every Sunday with his son without me once our baby arrives, i'll need more support off him. Any advice or help would be welcome.

BaggedandTagged a very good point, succinctly put. I always feel so sorry for children in this situation. They have a right to time with their father and they are all old enough (even the 10 year old tbh) to decide whether or not they want a relationship with you. No-one has the right to insist they accept you and if their father, or you, insist that to spend time with their father they must also spend time with you then that is nothing short of emotional abuse. Also probably not you wanted to hear. You married a man with an existing family, he fell in love with you and they didn't. You have to accept that he won't be there on Sundays when he is with his son. Many woman cope 24/7 without a DP to help share the load. Your baby will have his/her dad 6 days out of 7, you begrudge this little boy one day a week with his father? Shame on you.

Good grief! I'll never understand why any single, childfree, young woman wants to hook up with some guy with all this baggage.

cherry, you just need to live your life and enjoy your child and family.

Re apropriateness of the word bunus children , i think whether its apropriate or not depends on the sort of relationship people have with them.

If my ex met a new partner i presume she would see them no more than he does , twice a month for a few hours , so she wouldnt be filling any sort of parental role therefore wouldnt like that term used. If she wanted to call herself a bonus mother , or step mother , id expect her to act like one and be apropriateley committed and involved.

My ex met someone and he brought her along for contact ( without asking them )and expected them to be thrilled for him. She took it upon herself to say nagative things about me ( has never met me ) and then had the balls to ring me up and challenge me about an issue relating to one of the dcs . I was quite flabbergasted that her perception that her having a fling with my ex entitled her to a say with my dcs .

She actually referred to herself as their future step mother and claimed that she would be involved in all future decisions .I replied that good , dc has an hospital apointment next week , i assume she,d be taking the day off work to take them ? Obviously not !

Bunus

This thread amazes me, lots of "we", "us", etc, not a lot about the kids really.

These girls are still children, they were at very vunerable ages when the marriage broke down and still are.

Harsh truth is, they maybe detatched from their Dad, once a week for a few hours or snatched phonecalls does not a relationship make.

They may not want anything more to do with their dad for now, I don't think people can expect young children to come in playing happy families if they don't want.

They will probably be very angry that their dad left in the first place and this child will get their dad's time, they are allowed to feel this way.

They may well be angry with you op and feel it was too much of a cross over who knows, they may feel that way.

Girls of this age will, contrary to popular belief will start making their own mind up and will have their own decison processes and will start chosing their own path. Maybe they just don't want to participate in this new family. It may come in it's own time, it may not.

Why do people do this to their children. The ex should not be bad mouthing their father, it make me so angry that people would do that all it hurts is the children.

Their marriage broke down, that may or may not have been his fault but whoevers fault it was is totally irrelevant when it comes to access to the children.

Between them they have pointless destroyed the daugthers relationship with their father.

GOing for access is so often pointless, can cost £20,000 and then isnt enforcable.

It's not irrelevant you cannot force children, especially children of this age to have access with a parent if they don't want to. If they still feel upsent and angry with thier father, then it's wholly relevant. Kids don't always "just move on" as wholly "inconvienient " as that is.

That is just as damaging as denying access.

Ref DBD I got the Op and mjimsparklystockings mixed up. My bad and apologies all around.

Enforcing children to have a relationship with anyone against their wishes is horrific and tantamount to emotional abuse IMO.

It's disgusting that people feel they can force children, mini people to have relationships with people they don't want to. Eugh.

I am equally shocked that a PARENT would think any relationship is better than nothing even if it's bad. Bad relationships are terribly damaging for children and to force this upon them is just disgusting

I don't care how harsh that sounds, it's justifiable.

mjinsparklystockings Can't really comment in your case I'm afraid. My dad walked out on my mum and set up house with his OW while my mum was in another part of the country looking after my dad's parents who were both unwell (G'ma had had a fall and broken her hip and G'pa had dementia) She found out about it when she got home and found a note from him telling her he had left. My mother, whilst not perfect by any means, she suffered with depression, had never been unfaithful to my father and the OW in this case had been their next door neighbour and supposedly one of my mother's best friends! My mother had even had long tearful conversations in the past about other affairs my father (who was a serial womaniser, which didn't actually help mum's depressive tendancies) had had with this woman who, to all intents and purposes had been supportive. I never forgave either of them not just for what they did but for the way they went about it.

The examples of school and dentist, are wholly in a different league to ENFORCING a relationship (however bad), your words.

It says a lot that you can't actually see the difference. Enforcing a relationship on a child (however bad) can be extremley damaging to a child, into adult hood, they may never tell you this either. Who in their right mind would want to nuture and enforce a child into having a bad and potentially damaging relationship

I am not talking about the cold feet some kids have when their parents split up either, but forcing children into damaging relationships however bad, is thoroughly disgusting.

Sometimes it is better for a child to have no relationship than a very bad one.

The childs view may not be right, in your words, they are a child, they don't have experience, and who defines right? You becasue their feelings do not fit into your views? It is by no means an excuse for adults to ride all over their wishes and force them to have relationsips (however bad)

So it was justifiable. Your words speak volumes and I am sure stem from your situation where it has become about the adults "winning" and fuck all to do with the kids real feelings.

It might be added that my father was significantly better off than the OW and her first husband. In those days no ex wife had any claim on her ex husband's pension and so my mum, who was married to my father for 34 years now lives on state pension and handouts whilst the OW, who was married to him for one year before he died, is sitting pretty on half his private pension! My father refused to pay for me or my brothers or sister to go to university (we couldn't get grants as his income was so high) so we had to work our way through on our own. My father wrangled over how much maintainance he should/could pay my mother on the grounds that he had to help pay for his stepson to go through university!!!

The libster, that sort of ending adds insult to injury he would put his stepson's education ahead of his own children! How did your relationship with your father end up, before he died? I feel sick when I hear stories like that, for the potential future that my children will have, along with stories of ow and man marrying and dumping kids and living together happily ever after!

OP are u still here?
i was in a very similar situation to you.
in my experience you have to accept that his children came BEFORE your relationship. and that he will always be their dad.
my dh would go see his 3 other children every other weekend.
when i became pregnant they didnt take it very well at all (jealousy of course....new baby going to have dad every day and we only have you every other weekend) and although it was upsetting at times i had to accept that i was going to be alone with a new baby every other weekend.
its not their fault....as the "first" children and ones who dont see their dad every day that are owed this contact at the very least.
many times i would be sad but tried not to show it and always encouraged dh to go see his children.
dh never "pushed" the new baby on his children but in time curiosity got the better of the girls in particular
it helps that our son is adorable (!! bias mummy!!)
but they have bonded with him very well and even i now have a very workable relationship wwith them and they come and stay for weekends.
be patient. dont put demands on your hubby as he is caught in the middle and dont ever try make him choose between children...
i am a bit further down the line than you.....my son is 3.5 and i have been with dh 10 years now.
main advice...accept that he will see son on sundays but encourage weekend visits. in time hopefully you will all have some weekends together!

Sorry - late comer to the conversation.

It is very possible for a parent to influence an older child into not seeing another parent.

My DSS is now 20 and has moved out from living with his mother and has a house share.

We hear from him far more and he has a much better relationship with DH now as he has told us that if he ever let drop he had spoken / texted his father his mother made his life miserable. She sulked and snapped at him and was generally unpleasant for a few days. He can now come and stay with us and communicate with us without the repercussions from his mother.

There are many ways to manipulate children and adults.

ChippingIn A 9.40 last night. Reread that.

The op had nothing to do with the marriage break up. She cannot be described as OW.

Above CI's excellent comments, try and enjoy your pregnancy. You could expend an enormous amout of energy on this and miss the best pre-moments and babyhood/motherhood. Continue to do the right thing by the ex, within reason, and it will work itself out somehow. Problems between dp and ex may be tricky, but they predate you, and you will need to keep some sort of distance, whilst not being walked over.

If you are more or less consistently nice and welcoming to the children, they will come over the months, years to know you as such. They will probably adore the new bub, and that may provoke more wrangling from ex, for whom this cannot be easy, but, not your fault.

Try and take a long view, or even better, a very long view.

Try not to get involved in any pm on the marriage breakdown.

ENJOY YOUR JOURNEY INTO MOTHERHOOD.