I don't want his children living with us anymore

[ByAquaKoala]

My partner and I have been dating for a while. He’s a bit older than me and has two children, whom I’ve always gotten along with. His kids (now 15 and 17 yrs old) primarily lived with their mother but would spend occasional weekends with us. The kids looked like they have been having problems with their mum (it was always so complicated) so when a couple of years ago, we bought a house together, one of his children decided to move in with us permanently, and the other now plans to spend more time here as well. I couldn’t say no, and I agreed — but I made it clear to my partner that he needed to set boundaries.

Since his divorce, he’s adopted a “fun dad” approach, allowing the kids to do whatever they want. While I understand why he’s doing this, it’s starting to impact me and our household.

I’ve never had children of my own, and honestly, I’m struggling to adjust. The house is constantly messy, no matter how much time I spend cleaning. The kids don’t contribute to any of the housework, which makes me feel overwhelmed and unappreciated. I go out of my way to buy groceries for everyone, including specific items tailored to my dietary needs, but they often eat my food. This has left me without anything suitable to eat at times, and I’ve had to skip breakfast until I can make a trip to the store.

I’ve spoken to my partner about these issues multiple times. He always says he’ll address it or talk to them, but nothing ever changes. Recently, he even suggested I lock away my food or label it with a pencil marker, which I found absolutely ridiculous.

I feel like I’m constantly sacrificing my own needs to cater to them. I never wanted to take on the role of “new mom,” and I was very clear about that from the beginning, but now it feels like that’s exactly what they all expect of me.

This is my home too, and I crave my own space, peace, and quiet. Lately, I’ve been feeling frustrated and even resentful about having them here so often. I feel terrible for thinking this way, and I know it’s not a nice feeling to have.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you handle it? I love my partner deeply, and aside from these issues, we get along so well. He’s truly special to me, and I don’t want this to end because of these challenges. But at the same time, I don’t know how much more I can take.

I do get your point but that's not the case. I don't mind to have them in my life. I don't want them to live with me 24/7. When they were visiting us odd weekends and days in week, everything was fine, no problems at all. Now it's unbearable because they are uncontrollable. That's the change from visiting and being nice to living and being horrible to live with

I had a similar experience - when my DH and I moved in together, his daughter was 18 and living with her mum. She fell out with her mum, moved in with her boyfriend's family, fell out with his mum, and moved in with us. Rinse and repeat for the next 5 or 6 years. It was absolute hell. She was bone idle, unemployed, ungrateful (I gave her a bloody car when she passed her test, didn't get so much as a 'thank you' because it wasn't the brand new top-of-the-range sporty VW Golf she thought she deserved), used our house as a hotel, and her room was a pit of filth which I was expected to clean.

I would never have considered moving in together if I'd known his daughter would be living with us. Part of me still wishes I'd moved out when she moved in. I have as little as possible to do with her these days.

OP, it'll break your relationship if your DP doesn't sort his kids out.

They may not move out though. I have teens and have told them they can stay as long is needed and my home will always be available to them. Even as adults as a place of refuge or an escape.

Well if your problem is that they live with you, regardless of how they behave, then you're fucked. You can't get together with a parent and not be prepared to live with their kids should circumstances require it.

Sometimes it's easier to swim with the tide than fight against it. Ideally your partner will put in boundaries his teens keep to - but life isn't usually that simple. If you want to make this work, make it easier on yourself. Get a padlock for one food cupboard (code, not key is easier or you can get one that opens with your fingerprint). Have another locked box in the fridge.

Put rogue items left around the house in a bin bag, and either dump it in their bedroom or put it somewhere you can't see it and tell them where it is when they realise they've lost something. Accept their room/s will be a mess and close the doors so you can't see them. Make sure the rooms you use the most are the way you want them and don't focus on the whole house.

Or, if you simply can't, break up and move on. But teens won't be teens forever and young adults do have increasingly more consideration for others than teens do usually. A good relationship could last a lifetime, but ups and downs are normal.

You can't separate him from his children, but you can end the relationship or arrange two homes and enjoy a LAT relationship.

That's not how it works when you're in a relationship with a parent.
You don't have children of your own, so I don't judge you for not getting this. But children and parents are a package deal. A good parent doesn't take on that role 50% of the time. It's 100%, all the time.
There will be times when people see less of their children, but if at any point they need you, you step in. That may make him a bad partner for you, but that makes him a good father. And trust me, you'll get over having a bad partner, but those children would be damaged for life if they didn't have a good parent. His job as a father should and will always come before you.

You are living with a father and his teenage children. And having things eaten from the family fridge, things not being cleaned up, the kids not participating in the household... Welcome to normal life with teenagers. The difference is that they aren't your teenagers, so it bothers you more than it bothers him. You don't have that unconditional love for them to take the edges off. However, it's important to realise that children deserve to feel that love form the people who provide the roof over their head. And they should be accepted for who they are. That doesn't mean in any way that they can't be taught certain skills that they don't yet have. Of course they should be given the proper guidance towards becoming fully functional adults. But teenagers don't start behaving like responsible adults just because they were told so once. Parenting is a slow process, with many arguements to be had over and over and over until one day, sometimes years later, they finally get it.

So what I'm hearing you say is that you expect your partner to have some sort of magical way to make his teenage children do as they are told. And that your response to these teenagers behaving like every other teenager in the world, is that you'd rather have your partner cause lasting psychological damage to his children by not opening his home to them, because that would make you - his partner of a few years - happier. Can you see how unreasonable that is?

So by all means, talk to the kids about not eating your things. Sure. Do what you need to do to keep your things safe. Label them if you have to. But stop thinking of this as your house. This is their fathers home, and therefor also their home. They get to live and exist there just like you do. And that means they will be teenagers and make mistakes and mess up. You don't kick them out for that.

The real trouble is only solvable be leaving, @ByAquaKoala. Because the real trouble is that teens are generally horrible to live with.

Annoying, messy, disrespectful, lazy, selfish, moody and expensive. They can be charming, funny and great company but they mostly save that for everyone they don’t live with (it’s why our kids’ friends are delightful and our own are stroppy wee sods.)

When they are your own kids it’s almost bearable because you love the very bones of them and remember the absolute joys they were as little children. And you’re hoping that comes back.

But they aren’t your kids, so you don’t have that to fall back on. Their actual parent is slacking, leaving it to you to play Bad Cop.

You can protect your food, you can hire a cleaner, but the actual pain in the arse of living with teenagers is still there.

A parent always has the chance that their children will ill need to live with them, and nowadays parents need to take that into consideration well into a child’s twenties.

The advice is still the same. If you can’t offer a welcoming home to teenagers (which you clearly can’t because you don’t want them there - I would be the same) then you can’t expect to live with their father.

You need to move out and sell the house. This is your home and everyone, your DP and his children, are treating you with complete disrespect. Them eating the foods that you have bought specifically for your dietary requirements, leaving you without is selfish and detrimental to your health.

Give your DP an ultimatum, either his children stop helping themselves to your food and treat you with respect, or you leave.

I think a family meeting is long overdue.
Parenting is not about being a fun parent, it’s about teaching your children boundaries.

Why don’t you book a solo holiday . Go away for the week and leave H to cope . Tell them you are sick of being treated like a door mat
Your H needs to take responsibility for household tasks , it sounds like he’s happy to let you do all the leg work x
Do you have a cleaner ?

Are you paying at least half and probably more of the household bills then? Even though they are his kids? The whole lot of them are taking the piss out of you.

I’m agog at all the ‘teens will be teens’ posts on this thread. Is everyone just accepting that their teens are lazy, rude, selfish, and filthy, because that’s just how teens are? Where is the discipline and teaching them how to be good people?!

If he can't afford to buy you out, you will need to sell the house and split any equity. You are contributing more financially, even though there is only one of you and three of them. The disrespect with your food is the icing on a shit cake.

Do not keep subsidising him and his children. He is taking you for granted. He should be absolutely mortified when his childen eat your food and should rush out to replace it. He doesn't sound bothered at all.

What it sounds like is that Dad is not setting any house rules, and so what I would do in your situation, OP, is have a house meeting where you ALL sit down and decide what is acceptable and uacceptable at home - the house rules.

These teens are approaching adulthood fast, and treating them as adults in this way will stand them in good stead when they have to house-share with others. It also means they have a stake in the rules.

Make it a discussion, and all listen to eachother and your reasons for the rules you each would like - teens will often want rules for their concerns too, often around privacy and fairness.

When you explain about your food, and the problems if they eat it, then they will almost certainly agree to a rule of 'don't eat AquaKoala's food if it is in the box' or whatever. The rules will thus be particular to your household and what suits all of you.

If you cannot come to an agreement on rules that you can live with, or if they still continue to eat your food etc, then I personally would leave. You are not their parent, and so you can walk away.

Do you know how expense GF LF food is compared to normal food? Times that by 4 for the 4 people in the house and it’ll get expensive. I have to have GF LF food and I’m thankful that my DH and DD can eat normal dairy foods. Much cheaper. Anyway OP tried that and it wasn’t good enough for the teens. They still want the normal food too.

@Girlmom35 It’s OP’s home too. She owns half of it. She pays more than half of the expenses.

@ByAquaKoala I have no experience with step parenting but I’m a lactose intolerant coeliac. You have my sympathy and anger on your foods being selfishly and thoughtlessly eaten. Definitely get some sort of lockboxes while the teens learn that the world doesn’t revolve around them and their dad learns how to be an actual parent. Do the teens realise how much extra your food costs? I’m also guessing that they’ve never seen you unwell from a food reaction so don’t take it seriously. Maybe they think it’s just a fad or preference. It would almost be tempting to eat the wrong thing and let them see just how sick you get. Personally the stench emanating from the toilet would teach a lesson to doubters of my food intolerances. BTW, not all teens are filthy greedy rude twats. My teen DD isn’t. My brothers and I weren’t. It wouldn’t have been tolerated by my parents. We knew that and did as expected of us. If my DD doesn’t tidy up after herself to our satisfaction she gets called back to do it properly. She grumbles and sighs a bit but a few times of that and she learns that it’s less annoying to do it rather than have us on her back. Good luck with sorting out your family and home arrangements.

You and your partner are in different life stages and incompatible.

He is a Disney dad of teens who won't set reasonable boundaries with them regarding mess and food and you're becoming resentful. He is also a lazy partner because he's being dismissive of your needs for food you can eat and a clean environment.

If you want to stay with him, you are going to have to live with what is. Your home is also his children's home. You're going to have to secure your food and clean. I really doubt he's going to change and step up and expect more of them and them to change. He seems to take the easy way.

So stay as things are and you make changes, stay as things are and have resentment, or split.

Well, he's not really 'stepping up' if he's refusing to parent his dc, stop them eating OP's food, teach them how to contribute to the house, etc., is he?

Why would OP? Presumably she'd parent her own dc. She's not the parent of these dc. Hopefully OP's dc would have more respect for her than these kids do!

OP doesn't have kids of her own.

I was been sarcastic, I said when someone pulled me up on it.

Sorry, @vodkaredbullgirl - that went over my head!

Can you buy the house next door? You would have your own space and family time on your terms.

He's seen you coming, OP. He can carry on being the Disney dad while you do all the grunt work and keep his home running.
Unfortunately if you get together with a parent, you inevitably become a parent-type person to their offspring. An adult role model at the very least.
It's tricky for you to roll things back with having a house together and presumably a mortgage, but please think hard about whether you want to be a significant regular adult in these teenagers' lives. If not, you need to separate out your living arrangements and possibly think about whether you want to continue being in a relationship with this person.

not sure if you didn't read the full thread, but OP bought the house with DH. The children lived with mum.

It's not "their home",. they just decided to move in, they weren't invited, no post has mentioned that something catastrophic happened leaving no choice, they just decided dads was nicer and rocked up.

Kids might trump girlfriend. But when kids decide to come live in OPs house (dear dads new wife, not girlfriend) and disrespect her at every turn... including eating food that means she isnt dreadfully ill (coeliac - gluten and dairy free) its a different story. 🤔

Telling OP to put up with it or move out is laughable.

Dad needs to step up. Division of chores. Wi-Fi turned off if they don’t do them. No washing done etc. I think it helps if they have a regular routine jobs at home. Most teens still need prompting with this, however it should get easier over time.