Husband making my daughters feel unwelcome in our house - long.

[MrsFedUp]

I'd better give a bit of background here.

When I left ex-h my 2 dds stayed with me. A couple of years ago they both moved (at different times) to their dad's & are both still there. When I first met dh he did try really hard to get on with my dds who were then aged 6 & 7. Things were fine for a while but their dad kept telling them dh had nothing to do with them, couldn't tell them what to do etc & made the girls feel guilty for being nice to dh (although he was quite happy for dh to pay for all my dds needs while he did everything possible to avoid the CSA). Things unsurprisingly went totally downhill & have never really recovered even though both girls are now teenagers, realise their dad was in the wrong & are now okay towards dh (i.e. treat hime the same as they treat me, ex-h & their stepmum - they are teenagers).

I suspect that a large part of the reason dd2 moved out is the way dh acted towards her as he seemed to take dd1 moving out really personally & took out a lot of his anger on dd2 as she lived here for about a year on her own before following dd1 to their dad's. We now have another 2 dcs together & my dds visit for 2 nights every 2nd weekend.

Problem is every time my dds are here dh is a nightmare. He's sullen & very bad-tempered with me & my dds. He huffs & sighs if they try to sit in the living room with us until they get uncomfortable enough to go upstairs or if he can't wait for that he simply goes upstairs. He often ignores me & my dds when we try to talk to him or if he does respond it's just a grunt. He gets annoyed if I give them money - I insisted on giving them £5 each pocket money when they're here & he eventually accepted that but this afternoon when I gave them another 14p so they'd have enough to go along to the shop for a treat he sat & muttered & moaned. Then when they came back from the shop he wouldn't even let them in the living room with their ice poles & made them go upstairs. He claimed it was so dd3 wouldn't start howling about not having one but she was out cold on the couch! When I told him how fed up I am of the way he's treating them he grabbed his coat & left shouting that he's being driven out of his own house.

I know how hard he used to try with them & I know that he's angry at how devastated they left me when they chose to move out but I can't help feeling that he needs to let go of his grudges (he comes from a family of world-class grudge-holders) & remember that he's the adult. I can honestly see us splitting up over this as I feel torn between my dcs & my dh & I'm afraid there's only one way I can go

If you've managed to get this far, thanks for reading - I am a regular but have name-changed as I know people on here in RL.

Your DH is behaving unreasonably. Clearly he is entitled to feel miffed that he supported your daughters and they treated him appalingly but that is years ago and he needs to get over it. Your ex is a prat and not much of a man or father if he will take someone else's money for his kids but not let them be a SF to them. Sad all round. I feel for you.

What do you want to do? If it were me, I'd be furious with him and I'd let him know it. Sulky men are a terrible burden. If he stormed out of the house,I'd be delighted because nothing is more tedious than a man moaning in an armchair. But that's just me. Maybe you're more sympathetic.

They are your children, you come as a package. End of story.

Sorry, but I have zero sympathy or tolerance for a grown up who behaves spitefully to children. Whatever they feel the justification/reason/excuse is.

He cannot expect a child to behave like an adult.

I am so very pleased that you are so clear that if it came right down to it, your children come first, I think that it is important to make that clear. That he HAS to change. Pronto.

He can't blame a child for behaving like a child ffs.

I think he has to change his behaviour. I wouldnt allow my dp to treat any of my children differently. I also think that you should have given your dd's extra money so they could buy a treat for your other chilren then it would have been fair and your dh couldnt moan but then he would probably have found something else to have a moan about. I feel for you and if i had to choose between my dp/h and dd's i know who i would choose.

There is only one way you can go isn't there?
If you feel he wont change then he has to go. He's lucky to still be there IMO.

Spot on, M2P.

It sounds like he's driven your daughters out of your home and now he's trying to drive them out of your life.

Haven't got any advice, but this guy is an asshole. Anybody who acts like this towards kids has no right to be around them IMO.

I'd give himhis marching orders. My dad's wife always made us feel unwelcome and it has left so much hurt and bitterness and seriously badly affected our adult relationships with my dad.

Sorry, but it's true. What's more I was really hurt that my dad never protected us from her nastiness. He went for an easy life, but he sacrificed his relationships with his three kids in order to get it.

although it's easy for us to say it and much harder for you to assimilate our advice into your life,..

...I agree with everyone, you and your dd's come as a package. He is out of order.

How to make him change is a much more complex question.

Thanks for your replies everyone. I'm going to try to talk to him again when (if?) he comes back. Thing is he takes every slight complaint/criticism absolutely personally, no matter how it's phrased (& I'm always careful to phrase things so it's not an attack). When we argue he can sulk literally for days - sometimes up to a week - & it's always me who apologises whether I'm in the wrong or not just to keep the peace. In fact I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times he's apologised in 7 years together - if he's in the wrong he just acts as though nothing's happened & it never gets mentioned (by him) again.

It's like having a 36 year old child - if there's nothing on telly he wants to watch he switches it off. If I switch it back on he stomps upstairs to lie on the bed rather than watch 'crap'. It's my own fault - the longest relationship he'd had before me lasted less than 6 months & he moved straight from living with his parents to living with me.

I know really what I have to do but I've been a single parent before & it's not fun. I know that money is never a reason to stay together but I have 2 dcs under 3 & no-one to rely on for childcare if I go back to work now (although I do at least in theory have a job to go to as I'm on a career break). We have a joint mortgage as well - I don't even know where I'd stand there

It is not your own fault if a grown man chooses to behave like a toddler.

Yeah well, he SHOULD take it personally, it's him personally making the personal choice to behave like a wanker to two children.

Don't apologise again just to make the peace. I have done it, as I am sure a lot of us has, but I would never over something as important as this. My advice, for what it is worth, is to pay no attention to whether he comes back or not. Carry on your life treating your children as you want and let him see his behaviour has no effect. He is acting like a baby. treat him like one.

His behaviour sounds very controlling. He's denying you a say by emotional blackmail. Perhaps you could leave him for a week or so, and let him know that you are not happy but you don't feel able to approach him as he always sulks and gets defensive. Or perhaps you could do your talking with a relationship counsellor in the room (Relate.)

I don't want to be unsympathetic, but my dad really messed up and it continues to be a very big deal for me and my brother and sister and we've got kids of our own now.

You know, thinking more about this it's actually sinking in that I'm repeating parts of my last marriage all over again.

My ex-h was emotionally, physically & sexually abusive but it took him having an affair with my best friend (who he's now married to & bringing up my daughters with) for me to actually leave. Current dh has never been violent towards me but I'm just as down-trodden this time as I was last time. I start to feel depressed a few hours before dh is due to come home from work & when I see him coming down the road I jump up, switch off the telly if it's on & make sure I'm bustling about just so I don't have to suffer his disapproval.

I'm under no illusion that I'm the perfect wife btw - the house is mostly clean but never perfectly tidy & I do have days where I'd rather play with the dcs, read & knit than mop the kitchen floor or wash the windows but I do always try to support dh & make sure the house is fit to live in.

I'm sorry for waffling on - I think I'm just trying to get my head around all this.

MrsF did you ever get help or counselling when your last marriage broke up?

I think it can be really hard to recognise the patterns we get stuck into without professional help of some sort. I always find it easy to spot everyone elses patterns but I keep making the same mistakes.

That post makes me feel so sad. If you want to leave the housework and play with your kids all day, do it. If you want to watch tv right up until he is home, do it. You are an adult. You can do what you want to do.

You deserve better than this.

Mrs Fedup, he needs someone really tough to stand up to him, not many people are so tough, or can be bothered to be(i.e: is he worth it? Plus, with two other dc's inthe house it is difficult.

My dh is also a sulker so I know what you're talking about. It is like having another child around the house.

It's easy to say he needs a big wakeup"grow-up" call but how to put that into practice is difficult.