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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

My children are the reason he's leaving, any advice?

365 replies

PatienceRequired · 27/03/2010 15:46

Hi all,
I am unsure whether to post this here or on the step family board but i am a regular lurker here and so feel more at home on this board.

My partner and i have been together for nearly 4 years and we both have two children from previous relationships. His are grown and independant while mine are only 7 and 4 years old. We have one dd together who is 26 months.

He wants to leave due to the fact that he just can not tolerate my two children. We have had issues before with the way he disciplines them so harshly and gives them little positive interaction to balance it. But when he tries he can be lovely with them. This is the only sticking point in our relationship.

He says he doesn't want to leave me and dd but just cant bear my 2 anymore. He says if he had somewhere to go he would be gone but he seems to be in such turmoil, like he wants to stay but dosen't want to either. He seems in such a dark place i am worried for his mental health regardless of the outcome for us as a couple. Not helped by the fact that yesterday he found out he may be out of a job in 6 weeks.

We are still "friends" and are talking lots, we don't really do shouting and screaming with venom when we have a problem but a conversation, with calm voices and taking time to consider what is being said. last night he cried which is only the second time i have seen in cry. (the other being at his brothers wedding in feb) To be honest its like he's having a midlife crisis. He assures me its not "us" that is the problem but my 2 children. And he is feeling angrier with them each day as they mean that he can't be with me and dd.

I have suggested that we can't be the only step family to have this issue and there must be some help available but he won't entertain the idea at all. He dosen't have any faith in counselling or alternative therapies at all. Or any compassion for mental health problems. As if you cant see the injury it dosen't exist. I have discussed my concern with him re his mental health but he believes that the kids are the cause of how low he feels, when i question if they are just an easy scapegoat.

As it stands he's looking for somewhere to go but not coming up with any options. In the meantime we are all kinda walking on eggshells, and it has over the years affected my relationship with my kids negatively. I know i can't allow him to treat them badly, but feel like i am in no-win situation. If we stay together then 2 of my children may be affected but if we split then the little dd life will never b the same again. I know all about 2 seperate happy parents are better than 2 miserable together, and she is young enough to adapt, but either way some of them are going to end up f*cked up and thats without taking my wishes into consideration.

I'm not sure what i want from this really, any one got any advice, or similar experiences? how did you deal with it and what was the outcome? Perhaps i just need to vent and have a virtual hand hold... i don't know what to feel really...scared to think about how i feel in case i just fall apart and cant get it back together again for the kids. It just seems such a shame when we as a couple are happy together.

OP posts:
Northernlurker · 27/03/2010 19:32

Oth this is awful OP - you know this cannot continue. This man has spent 4 years with your kids - he should adore and protect them all. If he doesn't - there's nothing you can do about and it cannot be tolerated. Show him the door please.

cestlavielife · 27/03/2010 19:34

how can you possibly be "happy as a couple" with a man who does not "tolerate" your children?

have him leave...

what do your older 2 say about him? they are old enough to express some views?

madamdelfarge · 27/03/2010 19:36

He's a wanker. get rid. they are your kids. protect them.

BitOfFun · 27/03/2010 19:37

I wondered that too, cestlavielife. You just couldn't be, could you?

TheSteelFairy2 · 27/03/2010 19:38

OP, I know it is hard but I honestly believe from the bottom of my heart that if my H said this about children I wouldn't even answer him apart from to clarify that I hadn't misheard him. I would pack his belongings immediately and heave him out of the door.

I would be very interested to know what this man is like in other ways too, because the fact that you have posted asking for opinions about this man means that you are not sure of your own mind. I wonder if he controls absolutely everything else and has now moved on to the ultimate, your relationship with your own children.

Missus84 · 27/03/2010 19:41

I wonder that too SteelFairy - does he want the OP to get rid of the children so that he'll stay? Is this whole threat to leave some kind of "pick your side"?

maristella · 27/03/2010 19:41

that's it cestlavie and BitOfFun - how can you have any respect for someone who hates your children???? it defies all logic.
and for anyone to actively hate my child would bring me out in a rage.
OP if you don't protect your dc's from being bullied by a grown adult who the hell will?
i think this guy deeply resents not being allowed to 'discipline' them

Guadalupe · 27/03/2010 19:42

I know several people who have had very unhappy childhoods being treated badly by their stepparents.

It's so damaging for the children. They only have you to protect them. You must put them first. I wish you strength to do what you must do.

TheSteelFairy2 · 27/03/2010 19:43

Maybe this frustrates him because they are the only thing he cannot have direct control over.

Where are the dc's bio Dad's in this btw?

TheSteelFairy2 · 27/03/2010 19:45

I imagine my dc visiting their Dad and a new girlfriend or stepmother and her feeling this way and I feel distraught just at the thought of it .

Poor little boys who at 4 and 7 will already be fully aware that someone they HAVE to live with can't stand them. Little kids try so hard to please as well, it makes me want to cry.

thehillsarealive · 27/03/2010 19:56

this is disgusting behaviour - by both the OP and her selfish twunt of a partner.

How on earth can you live with someone who hates your DC? I just dont understand it at all.

You need to get some spine and tell him to leave you and ALL of the children as you were a package to begin with and still are.

I am so cross about this!

GetOrfMoiLand · 27/03/2010 20:06

Oh this is so sad.

Those poor boys will not be able to remember life without the OP's partner. They will have been 3 and a small baby (presumably) when they got together.

So for them the knowledge that they are an annoyance and barely tolerated will be, for them, normal. It is normal for them to tread on eggshells around the house in fear of creating soem unreasonabel feelings of anger in their 'father'. That is so incredibly, indescribably sad.

OP you said the following:

"They just behave the way normal children do. We get woken by them going for a wee at 6am ish, not necessarily by them being loud but by the floorboard squeaking, loo flushing etc. They horseplay as maggie00 puts it. He can get serioulsy annoyed just by one of them eating without closing their mouth etc. They leave toys around etc etc."

So your two sons have to live in fear of not making a floorboard squeak, chewing food in an approved manner and having their toys in the house. What a horrible life they have.

OP please wake up and smell the coffee. You will truly and honestly be better off single than putting up with this shit. Because it is not you that will suffer, it is those 2 boys.

If you stay you will reap what you sow.

ThatVikRinA22 · 27/03/2010 20:10

the more the OP is castigated for her own behaviour the less she is likely to come back and read these responses.

but please OP, dont bury your head in the sand, situations like this create damaged people.

you need to face the truth, however harshly it may be written on here, its being said for the right reasons and that is because your children dont have a choice in this. you do.

Tanga · 27/03/2010 20:14

My DH went through a difficult patch with my DD when she first turned into a teenager. From being great pals when she was younger, (he came into our lives when she was 7)he suddenly found himself overwhelmed by the teenage rebellion and TBH, some very nasty behaviour from DD at the time. There were lots of issues going on, from the very prem birth of our DS, issues with her real Dad, he had some health stuff plus problems at work etc etc.

It distressed him enormously, but here is the thing, OP, he didn't blame her. He got himself into counselling and worked on strategies to help deal with it all. I didn't have to give him any kind of ultimatum because he knew himself that it wasn't acceptable for us as a family to have such emotional upheaval.

Your DH is an ADULT. He takes no responsibility for the situation and blames two tiny children. ALL of your children will be f*cked up by this if you let him stay.

ThatVikRinA22 · 27/03/2010 20:15

i found a letter that i wrote when i was 10 years old.

i kept it. ive only read it once since i found it in 2004 amongst my dead sisters belongings.

i cant read it again. it details some horrific abuse, the details of which i had buried. i remembered the events, but not the actual things that were said, the malice with which they were said, the beating i remembered but not the words used during it.

my SF must have really really hated me, a little girl of 10.

how can i forgive my mother. she watched.

Blu · 27/03/2010 20:17

Patience, he sounds like someone who can't abide having another man's children in his family. If he has lived with them for 4 years, and ince since babyhood, he should love them and be protective of them.
He sounds dysfunctional.

He is trying to separate you from them (emotionally) , and his hostility twoards them will damage them badly.

He wants you and his biological child to be in charge of, he wants tokick your older children out of the nest.

Help him pack, and breathe a sigh of relief.

Please - for all your children's sakes.

GetOrfMoiLand · 27/03/2010 20:18

Vicar - I am so sorry that you had to go through all that shit. The memory of the humiliation and emotional pain which comes with physical abuse never leaves you (well, it hasn't left me).

skidoodly · 27/03/2010 20:46

I can't get my head around disliking little children, never mind ones you have cared for since they were babies and that you are responsible for.

Advice? Give him a deadline to be out of the house. A week would be fair.

You can't have your children growing up in a house with this man. I agree with picmaestress, he sounds deranged.

ChickensHaveSinisterMotives · 27/03/2010 20:48

I wouldn't be trying to fix this relationship, I'd be asking him to leave. There is no choice to be made.

Oscy · 27/03/2010 20:57

Help him pack. Actually, don't bother.
You've given him enough.

Your poor children.

umma · 27/03/2010 21:09

Agree with everything that has been said...put your children first.

And for what its worth I think there is something else going on here....another woman perhaps? Either way GET RID ASAP

skidoodly · 27/03/2010 21:13

I don't get the OW thing at all. There are a million better excuses for walking out on your family than "Your horrible children are forcing me to leave".

It sounds more a controlling, angry thing than anything. He is indulging a feeling of being victimised by these children because the OP is starting to stick up for herself (and them).

thehillsarealive · 27/03/2010 21:14

vicar - I am so sorry you went through all of that as a child. It made me think about some deeply buried things from my childhood - words I cannot remember, actions I can. Gladly for me I didnt write anything down otherwise god knows what state i would be in now.

Anyway, OP - please please do something positive about this, for yourself and your children.

Quattrocento · 27/03/2010 21:22

I feel really sorry for the posters who have suffered, and are having old wounds reopened. Thanks for sharing.

My godson has a stepfather who openly regrets 'taking him on'. The behaviours he experienced have been astonishingly bad, and he has suffered significant damage in consequence.

Please do leave him, OP.

wukter · 27/03/2010 21:22

I know you feel yourself caught between a rock and a hard place OP, but really you are not. The choice is not between him and your DC, it's between complacency on your part and your children's happiness.
If he can't handle his feelings in an adult manner - he doesn't believe in mental health issues, counselling? - he is not fit to be a father, step or bio, of your 3 children.

Everything you have said about him paints a picture of a controlling, self centred man. Difficult to see up close, I'm sure.

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