Nutty Stepmum's Club (NSC) - Who Wants To Join Us? (Thread 2)

[Squirrel3]

Ah ha! I knew I could get it to the two thousand posts!!!!

Not a saint, just stupid!!!!!

I know that would be childish of him but I supose he is very sensitive about the fact that it is my house and I am holding back from getting it put in both our names because it is my only security, what if dp and I split up? Ds will be starting out on his own soon so he won't be living here much longer so I won't have any kids here, so what do I do, give up the house so that dp and his kids can have it? Not likely!!!!

Its a very hard situation, I have had the house for 15 years and I pay all of the mortgage, why should it be changed to a joint mortgage? I can't see him paying half of it, he can't afford it, BM takes most of his money.

Squirrel IMO you would be absolutely mad to agree to put the house in joint names - for the reasons you described yourself. Tell me to mind my own business if you like but if I were you I would not do this - not ever!

I so desperately wish I'd bought my own house instead of moving into DPs house. OK I know it's "our" house now but it still doesn't feel like it. And I now realise that I gave up the £50,000 that I got from my ex far too easily - what a bloody fool I was to give all that money to someone I'd known for just over a year!!!

I should have used that money as a deposit to buy a house, then DP could have moved in with me

I think we would need to be far more settled in our relationship for that to happen, ATM I can't see it happening ever, but if when his kids grow up we can agree to split the house up fairly if we split up i.e. taking into account the amount of money I have put into it etc I may consider it, but ATM def not.

Glad you've made that decision, I really do think you're right

We've been talking about doing our Will just lately. DP hates talking about things like that which makes it a really hard task. We're going to have to get it done but I can see us having words about it because he talks about me leaving my half of the house to whoever and dsd getting his half but I'm thinking "Whoa! Hold on - as things stand you haven't paid anything towards this house, we have a £70k mortgage, I gave you £40k towards your divorce settlement and spent £10k on the house so how can a 50/50 split be fair?" (The house is only worth about £115k)

But when we get round to doing it I'm going to make sure I have my say about it

Make sure the split is fair, taking into account the amount of money you have spent on it each, you need to work out the percentages etc

That's exactly what I thought. Don't think he'll be happy though but hard luck

I'm off now, probably be on later in the evening. We have to go bloody shopping tonight - booooo! - for a lampshade for the spare room and wallpaper for dsd's room. If I'd been more organised I could have bought them online

Morning all. Goodness you are so good at decorating and getting things done round the house NAAM. Fancy coming over to mine. I ahve a list a mile long of things that need doing and dont even know where to start. We dont have a single lamshade in the house cos I've never seen one that I actually like (not that I've looked very far tbh). Actually think I'm gonna write a list and plan what needs doing. then when Mammy comes over we can go shopping and get everythign cos she LOVES shopping and they'll hire a car so we can get it all home.

Now where do I start. Kitchen walls, kitchen tiles, kitchen light that isnt hanging by wires ........ but thatll all have to wait till we have the veggie patch planted me thinks

Hows life today with you Squirrel?

and wheres everyone else???

Hello tarantula

You'd probably be very surprised at some of the jobs I've done in my time For example: tiled a garage roof, insulated a garage roof, crazy paved a yard, built a small wall. Could probably think of more And I've always been an organised person, DP laughs his socks off at me sometimes - but he's pleased because it saves him having to do things We've had the carpet fitted in the spare room this morning. Just a couple of bits to do in there tonight then it's done. Next job dsds bedroom. We said at the beginning of the year that we wanted upstairs finished by the end of March but I think that went out of the window ages ago! We've not done bad though considering we didn't even make a start until less than 2 weeks ago

And yes - where is everyone else????

Soooooo glad it's Friday

lol NAAM I actually dont mind doing jobs like that. I plastered one of the walls in the kids bedroom and then wallpapered it. I like painting and stuff too its just the shopping bit I hate esp as we dont have a car and so can jsut nip to the DIY shop for all thethings we need so we cant do x till y gets done and y cant be done cos we need to buy z and so on and actually going to get z will take all afternoon (and if its a toss up between going out somewhere nice and going to the DIY shop well......). I also hate trailing round the shops looking for stuff too. I like really unusual things but tbh jsut cant be bothered to look for them. and as I say the veggie patch takes precedence. Oh yeah and then there is the fact that we have NO money that doesnt help either.
God I'm making it sound like we live in a building site or something. Its not taht bad honestly and quite homey Honest

god I do whinge on but heres a good example. I want to move dd into a bed. Sounds simple doesnt it. But she is going into the bottom bunk which means I need to buy a proper mattress for in and that the computer needs moving into our room which means we need to buy a computer table and put it in the walk in cupboard which needs to be cleared out and the filing cabinet moved and sorted (tho where its going to go I dont know) and then all our Vike gear needs to be sorted and some neew shelves put in hte cupboard.
Basically I need a bigger house and that woman of te telly to sort everything

Sounds complicated

I know exactly what you mean about can't do x till y is done but can't do y because we haven't got z. My old house was horrendous! Lived there for 10.5 years and it still wasn't finished when I left!! When I moved in with DP the bathroom was a building site but I soon got it done - I'd had enought of living like that. My old house really was a building site - no plaster on walls, plug sockets hanging off etc. etc. No way will I ever live like that again, just isn't worth the stress

What's everyone up to at the weekend? It's DPs weekend off (YAY!) we're having tonight and all day tomorrow to ourselves, out with friends tomorrow night, going Manchester on Sunday for the football (come on UTD!) then picking dsd up when we get back and she's staying Sunday and Monday

that sounds like a nice weekend NAAM. We arent up to anything special tbh. dss is coming round so we'll probgo out on the bikes somewhere if its fine and might plant the spuds. Actually might go to the city farm and nip in to Lidl's on the way back as dp said they are doing cheap seeds i there atm. Worth a look anyway if we are down that way.

Bit of a busmans holiday for you then - you ride your bike all week and again at the weekend Planting sounds good - means the warmer weather should be on its' way Note that I said should

How are things with dss atm? Did your DP ask him about taking the cars away?

He did have a word about it but dss just shrugged and did the sulky teeager bit. It has worried us all cos it jsut seemed so silly. Anyway I had a word also and explained that it meant I'd ahve to buy dd some more cars instead which meant less money all round and as we are on a very tight budget that it would mean less trips out etc. That seemed to get through to him a bit cos he is well aware of how little money we all have which I must admit is quite rare in a teenager.
Apart from that things are going quite well with him. I think.

You seem to have a really good relationship with your dss tarantula - that's so nice to hear

I'm off now, finishing early today because I had to come in early

Have a good weekend everyone, don't know if I'll be on over the weekend or not but hope you all have a good one

Hope everyone else re-appears too

Hope you have a good weekend with dp NAAM. take care.

Hi folks,

Am new to mumsnet, but have so much sympathy with all you stepmums out there. My dp and I have lived together for over a year now. He has 2 ds from current marriage (aged 3 and 6) and 1 dd from 1st marriage (aged 10). It has been a rocky old road for us I have to say. he and ex wife seem very friendly and amicable (good thing or not?!) Kids actually very sweet on the whole and I've put in a lot of time and effort with them to make them feel comfortable and at home with me, which I think they do. I do find the ENDLESS tidying up, washing, feeding, entertaining exhausting though. DP doesn't pull his weight at all and never helps me round the house. On a Sunday when it's time to take the kids home, I am faced with a house that looks like a bombsite and it takes me a long time to clear up. Am constantly nagging the kids to clear up after themselves, but without the strong backup from dp it's difficult. I should mention that I'm 6 months pregnant myself and am worrying about ability to cope when all 4 of them are in the house. It's not a big house and there's not a hell of a lot of room as it is. My doormat behaviour stems from the fact that I think I still feel guilty about DP leaving his current wife for me - I NEVER pressured him to leave- because of the children. Think almost subconcsiously he plays on this and uses it to his advantage sometimes. Any Cautionary tales / words of wisdom etc?

Bloody Hell - that's a bit of a poser ... If you have a fairly amicable relationship with his exes could you rope them in to suggest that the boys remember to tidy up their stuff before leaving ?? Don't let DP play on your emotions - you'll need loads more help when the new babe arrives too. How are the other kids about having a new brother / sister ??

Excited bless them - it's just I get so fed up with nagging all the time - feel like a droning bore, but I was always brought up to do my fair share around the house from an early age - it's always difficult when they're not yours!! TBH I think the problem lies more with DP who needs to pull his finger out and start doing HIS fair share, and heloing me to encourage the kids to do the same, then kids would be more inclined I think. I must stop being so soft too!!

Hello Louba, welcome to the nutty wold of stepmums.

If you have read my recent posts I have the same problem as you, in as much as my dp or my stepkids will not do their fair share, I have decided to start to change it.

This evening dss walked away from the dinner table leaving his dirty plate, glass and a lot of mess behind, I said "erm dss, you are not going to leave that there are you?", he looked at me a bit blankly, "go and put the dirty dishes in the dish washer, then you can clean up the mess you have made". He just did it without having a sulky teenage strop, he just did it without batting an eye lid, mind you I am very tired, he knows I have been up since 6am, without much sleep all night (see previous recent posts). I had just been telling how tired I am and what my day is like and he seemed quite shocked and he told me he didn't think that he could do it.

All this time I have just been (as I suspect you may be doing) doing it all myself and not making the stepkids clean up after them because its my home not theirs, but I also realised today that the stepkids do see my home as theirs. It was something dss said on the way home, he said "you know where we live there is that...." then he went on to describe something which is very close to my home, up until this point I had thought that he meant BM's house when he said "where we live". So I thought "well, if they do think of it as 'home' they can blooming well clean up after themselves."

I really don't know if this makes sense because I am so tired, I guess what I am trying to say is ask them to help out, you never know, they may suprise you and just do it!!!!

Now dp,......... That's another story!!!!!!!!!!

Ah bless Squirrel thats fantastic. Glad to see the kids are responding to you at last. It fantastic. Kids do respect those that help them even if it doesnt seem that way till much later. they know you know.

Hi Louba Welcome to the House of Fun. I'll try think of sensible advise over the weekend but rihgt now all you'll get is gibberish cos I've had a couple of Guinness

I feel really sad. I'll admit something to you all and hope it doesn't change your opinion of me.

Last year I had an affair. It is a long story and don't want to bore you all but it ended in January after a lot of will I leave won't I leave. Since then I have not been happy. I am not sure why I have stayed in this relationship. I love him. Or course I do but it doesn't seem to be in the way I used to. Part of me thinks I stayed for DSD. DD would automatically staywith me but I would lose DSD and it is not her fault. DP is not going to win Father of the Year but he isn't a bad dad. Just misguided.
I try to go to bed b4 he gets in if he has been out so I don't have to go thru the usual ritual. I have lost all interest in sex with him. He generally annoys me and I don't know what to do any more. I woke up this morning and as soon as I got downstairs I burst into tears. Spoke to my mum and she told me to see the doctor. I phoned while I had the courage but they only see emergencies at the weekend at the hospital. There is no way i can get up there without anyone knowing where i'm going and if I keep it secret they'll just suspect I'm seeing Neil again. I don't have time to go to doctors/counsellors during the week so today was my only option. I'll chicken out in a bit.
Maybe i just need to have a big cry (something I can't do as DP will think I have feelings for Neil,which I do.)

Please don't hate me.
I just need to get it out of my system.

scrub that. was feeling low. much better today.

OK where is everyone??

My excuse is I've had a busy morning

Welcome Louba definitely think you need to put your foot down - with your DP and his kids, you have more than enough on your plate and that can only increase when your baby arrives. Most people find going on strike usually works

lol at tarantula and the guinness

Squirrel nice to hear your skids are not totally incapable of doing things for themselves - hope they keep it up. At least it's a start

workingmum are you OK? Don't really know what to say but I do know that you only get one attempt at living your life - it's not a rehearsal - so if you're really unhappy (which it sounds like you are) you really need to do something about it

How's everyone else?

Hello NAAM,

I'm a bit stressed today TBH, dd had a bit of a 'break down' yesterday and became suicidal, I started a thread in 'feeling depressed' in the hope that I may get some good advice and it seems I am doing the right things with her, bloody hell! I'm so stressed ATM!!!!!

Sorry for crashing in and.... well you know.....