Some advice

[Racecourse1]

I am currently in a relationship with somebody in a highly presssured job but my partner will put me and my children first regardless. We have been in a relationship for over five years. I have two children and I suppose we are co parenting to a point as my partner has been living with us for a few years and has officially moved in a number of months ago. We clash over a few things and I am wondering if I should say regardless of the fact we live together and my partner does an awful lot for the children I am the parent etc....is there anyone out there that is in a relationship where one partner is the step parent...how do you manage all?

I grew up in this set-up OP, my mum and stepdad married when I was 6 having been together since I was 3. My mum very much had a 'my kids, my decisions' policy and tbh I'm grateful for that, I'm sure he would have been a much stricter parent than she allowed him to be and she was (and is) an amazing mum.

It did create a divide and he probably did feel sidelined sometimes, there was a feeling that our family consisted of the three of us (me, mum and my brother) and then him as a sort of add-on. But tbh that was the right thing for me and my brother, we were completely secure that she would always put us first and we needed that after my real dad had left.

An awful lot depends on the personalities involved I think, my mum is like a force of nature and he would have been in no doubt about how things were going to be from the outset. He was a passive enough character that he obviously felt he could live with that so it worked ok in their case. I think generally if your instinct is to parent your way and override him you should probably listen to it but you'll have to accept that it will be his choice whether that's something he can live with and if he can't it may well be a deal breaker for your relationship. Hope that helps a bit

My ex parented my child as well as our kids together. If I disagreed with his parenting I would call him out on it.

If I lived with someone with kids, I'd want to have a parental role.