Bedrooms at mums

[Stepmooster]

DH and his EX are not on speaking terms all communication via sols. Contact issue just about resolved but now DH feels he has one battle to fight on behalf of his son and that is the bedroom situation. DSS11 lives with his mum and half siblings, and has to share a bedroom with his sister (my DH ex DSD) who is 15. Their brother who is 18 (my DH ex DSS) has his own room. 18 year old has quit college not making much effort to find a job and is still at home coming home at whatever AM after drinking with his mates.

DH does not want his DS to share a room with either of them. DH would like the 18 year old to move in with his dad (not my DH) or elsewhere, or for my DSS to live with us as he thinks sharing a room with a 15 year old girl is unhealthy and not much better with a layabout brother.

EX treats her eldest like he walks on water, so this is not going to go down well. DSS has says all the time he likes his bedroom, and came to stay for a week when he was ill so he could rest quietly. We live 50 miles away from DSS main home so we are talking moving schools etc if he does come here.

Is DH being unreasonable?

and it would be a bad move for DSS now but nothing to stop it taking place in Secondary and him moving to a school by you, they change all their friends when they go to secondary school anyway.

At the time DH was living in a tiny bedsit so that he could afford the mortgage and other expenses. When his parents died the inheritance went to pay the mortgage. When I met DH despite earning a good wage he was living on the breadline and he move into my home that I had bought for myself and gradually we traded up . With one of our children I had the bare minimum for maternity leave.

Why should he not continue to pay the mortgage on the home in which his child and the mother of his child lives

The woman is remarried, at what point does she take some self responsibility?

I would never have expected my exh to pay the mortgage on my house?

I always consider that if I was financially unable to put a roof over my childs head, that that child may have been better off with dad. You may see what your husband did as a good and noble thing arisbottle, but I actually believe a child needs a decent home with BOTH parents, so your husband living in a tiny bedsit, where his child didnt have a room, a bad thing, not a good thing.

I also think using his inheritance to pay for a house for his ex wife, rather than himself, is a bad thing, it does not guarentee a home for life, what if ex remarried and gets divorced after 15 years, the new exh becomes entitled to a share of the equity, unless there is some solid legal paperwork drawn up and the exw is merely maintaining a lifetime interest in a house that belongs to your husband or his children.

You see something good, I see something foolish.

Same actions different views.

But the bedsit was temporary until he got back on his feet and from what I have been told he was at the house with his son every evening and would just go home to go to bed. Soon he had rented himself a larger place and until today he has had 50% care of his son, as we do today.

DH has always been insistent that his son should not suffer because he left the marital home. So he has grown up in the home that he would have done if my husband has not left. They had planned that DSS would have benefited from having a full time parent at home, there is no way that his mother could have stayed at home until DSS started school so DH covered her living expenses which included her mortgage.

My DH had a good career and knew that in time he could buy a home and have a good quality of living, his ex could not manage that on her own whilst raising a child on her own.

When DH met me I was a high earner and therefore again we knew that in time we would be able to pay off our own home and by doing so for his ex we gave her some financial independence. It also allowed us to have the large family we both wanted without feeling that we were depriving our existing son. His ex wife can live in the house as long as she wishes but eventually it will go to our DSS.

My husband's marriage failed when his stepson was a baby and therefore he did not need a room of his own with my DH, as I said they parented my DSS together in the marital home.

His ex wife can live in the house as long as she wishes but eventually it will go to our DSS

How do you know that? As I said "unless there is some solid legal paperwork drawn up", if there was appropriate legal protection drawn up, then fair enough, but then he was more or less "lending" his exw the house, not paying the mortgage for her, as he (or DSS) maintained ownership of the actual property.

And in the current economic climate, nothing is guaranteed.

Personally, I would not have wanted to be so beholden to my ex, nor do I think for children of separated / divorced parents, that contact should take place in FMH.

I can see why you think your exh has done a good thing, its not a path I would have chosen, especially if it meant I didn't have enough money to take maternity leave with my children, I would feel they were the ones who had been deprived of my time.

I just have a different view of things, I do think though, that given the financial situation you are describing for your DH, it is unfair to expect the OPs DH to be able to contribute in the same way, not to expect him to - it may have been the right way for your DH, but it wouldnt be for everyone, and I especially do not see why the DH here should be paying the mortgage on a house there are other children living in and a new husband, from what I read, the exw, the new husband, the older DD and older DS are not his responsibility - so 4 out of the 5 people living there are not his responsibility.

You may have been happy with the situation, but I wouldn't have been, I expected to get of my backside and go to work when exh and I split up (in fact I waited until I had a promotion and a FT job before I left to ensure that was the case).

It smacks of financial control, and to a certain degree preventing the ex from moving on with her life, all under the guise of being a martyr or possibly guilt, guilt (even unplaced unnecessary guilt) makes people do strange things.

We all make life plans, I certainly never got married with the intention of getting divorced, but life changes.

If you ask me, you have had no choice but to be happy with the set up as is, if you want to be with your husband.

When I met DH despite earning a good wage he was living on the breadline

and this contradicts that he was doing just fine under that arrangement tbh.

There is solid legal paperwork drawn up.

Yes I have to be happy with the set up and initially it was hard, however I grew to love DH because of that setup. We were friends before we were dating and I knew both him and his ex. I know that if anything were to happen between DH and I he would continue to be a fantastic father.

When the split first happened I did think they would get back together and I suspect that they hoped for the same. DH moved out of the marital home and rented a bedsit type place up the road. As I said earlier he was handing over almost very penny to his ex, and I think you are right, guilt played a part in that. His job at the time was reliant on meeting targets and bonuses and because he was heartbroken he was not bringing home as much money as he should have done. As I think I said earlier he was eating his evening meal in the marital home and then going home when DSS had gone down for the night . I think this went on for about a year. When we started dating he could never afford to pay for a meal, buy gifts, even meals at home I paid for all the ingredients . Life was financially tough until DSS started school, however we always knew that it would get better so we were not worried. DH had not created a 5 year hole in his CV and he is now reaping the reward from that. His ex did have a great hole in her pension and career progression and he feels that he needs to pay her back for that, as well as for caring wonderfully for our DSS.

Because they split when DSS was a baby it did not cause any extra upset or raise false hope by DH having contact in the former marital home. DSS who is now in his late teens, still lives between both homes and we are all in and out of each others homes. We see ourselves as one extended family. We alternate Christmases and stay with each other and do the same for birthdays and other big events. In some ways it is easier because I knew them both previously.

DH does not want to control her at all, that was one reason for paying off the mortgage so that we are not as involved in her financial affairs. When DSS went to school she was also able to gradually go back to work full time, meaning that over time our financial input could decrease. DH would never dictate to his ex how to spend maintenance or who could live in the house.

I was sad that I could not have much maternity leave with my eldest son, but that is how if often works when you have a second child. DH already had a child and he had made a financial commitment to that child and therefore it would have been wrong for me to force him to go back on that agreement just because I was so keen to start a family as soon as I could.

His ex has moved on with her life, she has had relationships and as I said we have never dictated who is or is not in the house.

Yes it was made clear to me from day one that I to accept the situation and at first that was difficult, but that is the life of a step parent - a life you freely choose.

Our stepson at the time was better off staying with his mother for lots of reasons:

I would imagine he was still being breasted
DH did not want to be a SAHP, his mother did
His mother hAs chosen a relatively low paid profession , my DH a potentially high paying one. Therefore it made sense for my DH to be the breadwinner.

He could have kept DSS with him and stayed in the house, he would have required a full time nanny. That would have been daft when he had a mother who wanted to look after him. I don't know how much a full time nanny earns but I suspect it is not far off what DH was paying his ex in maintenance. So even financially it made sense.

I'm slightly confused by your posts, either your DH has gifted the house to his DeX, which is what you first mentioned, or there are strict legal documentation which will effectively mean that she has an agreement that she can live in the house but it belongs to your DH or his DS, i.e. you haven't "given" her a house.

If you have gifted her the house and her current will states that it will go to her DS, this could be changed at any time on a whim by her without any consultation, if for example she had additional children with her new husband.

If your fine with that, then great.

It sounds like you have a great relationship with her, so you're clearly doing something right.

Sorry, the house is hers to live in for as long as she wants, it is a house that she loves so I cannot see her moving for a long time and DSS will be off to university soon . However it will eventually be passed on to DSS. If she wants to sell there is a lump sum that she can take out but the rest will go to DSS. The lump sum should be a very healthy figure which would allow her to buy a modest house outright or put a sizeable payment on a larger one.

Having discussed it the plan is for her new husband to move in with her and they will sell his own rather lovely home. As I said DSS is in his late teens so I am it sure that they will have children . However he is quite a bit younger than her and he has no children, so we cannot be sure.

So if there is solid legal paperwork drawn up dictating what can happen to be house - your husband's money and inheritance is protected either for him or dss.

As opposed to you suggesting the OP s husband continues to pAy the mortgage on a house where there are 3 adults living and1 adolescent.

There is no iinfant to protect in the OPs case - plus your scenario sounds extreme and while I am glad you are content and happy wIth it and hindsight says it worked - it sounds like a recipie for disaster to me a d unworkable for most.

I had a chat with DH last night, and yes it does really get to him that he is paying to house 3 adults in a house that his son has half a room to himself. He hasn't yet pushed to realise the charge because he was trying to sort out the contact issue with his son, and he was sort of hoping that his ex and her new husband would 'step-up'.

We don't know the new husband's financial situation, although she started co-habiting with him during the divorce process and denied it right up until 2nd hearing. We only know he has a property the other side of the country. She always said that he was unemployed during settlement. Recently during course of negotiating contact arrangment ex advised DH's solicitor that new husband was out of work. But when DH was arranging to take DSS for a week when he was ill, she told DH via text that her husband couldn't drive him to meet us halfway at the time we wanted originally, because he was at work so him not working is a lie. DSS also told DH that his stepdad has always had a job. During settlement DH had his exs bank statements which showed a grand or 2 here or there being paid in by cash with reference 'new husbands name' he challenged his ex as to where this money came from if he was unemployed. They settled without having had it explained. DH has concerns that new husband is up to something dodgy, but is keeping his nose out.

The FMH is a nice house in an expensive area, DH thinks that his ex and new husband like it too much to want to move out without a fight. The new husbands house is in an area of the country that has seen huge house price falls so he's probably not selling it hoping it's going to pick up in value. His house was originally on the market during divorce settlement but as soon as settlement reached it was taken off the market.

DH and I want to move closer to DSS its best for DSS and his sister to be together. The only way to do that is to get the charge realised, but there is no guarantee that once the house is sold that the ex will stay in the area and then there are 3 kids and 2 dads not seeing their kids if they move to the other end of the country. DH is under pressure from his parents to do this, he was sort of hoping having the chat about bedrooms with the mother might prevent the need. If DSS is happy and not moaning to DH or grandparents, DH not feeling so shafted and also not seeing his son upset.

Thank you for everyone's input and DH is not going to raise the bedroom matter with his ex nor mention to DSS if he wants to live here. Other than telling him he can come here as much as he likes. DH is however going to speak to his solicitor about the charge. Although the charge/mortgage wasn't my original question it is evident that is what is motivating DH (and of course DSS moaning about bedrooms).

Seems reasonable to discuss the issue of the charge on the house with the solicitor. Of course it was right for your DH to pay the mortgage on his children's home, but now that his ex wife has remarried the situation has changed and needs to be re-evaluated to find a new solution that's reasonable for everyone.

Your DH should avoid presenting the issue as him paying for 3 adults who could all pay for themselves- better to say that he needs to release some of his share of the house to live nearer to his children and make contact arrangements more workable.

It's great that you've got to the bottom of your DHs concerns. The solicitor will be able to sort something out (but the situation may get fraught in the short term).
If her new partner has a job in the area then it's unlikely they'd uproot everyone just to be difficult. So hopefully you can settle near to your son.
(I don't suppose you could afford to buy the FMH?)

I don't think I said that the OPs husband should buy them somewhere new outright however they may be able to offer more financial help to get somewhere larger. Alternatively they could offer to have the son living with them.

The first priority however needs to be sorting out frazzled relationships as this will do far more harm than sharing a bedroom - which is the reality of life for many children. My children share bedrooms. They are all part of an extended family and need to stop trying to catch each other out and sort out their issues without running to a solicitor all the time.

VBisme, well yes we could afford to by the FMH but we would have to sell my home first. Do you not think that would be even worse for relations? That my DH gets the house his ex obviously has a huge emotional attachment to. How would DSS and siblings feel if we took it on, let DSS stay and kicked the others out? I assume that is what you mean to do, otherwise it would be very creepy living there otherwise.

I agree Arisbottle that we need to stop running to solicitors all the time, but when one party is playing games with contact and now remarrying and not realising the charge what are you supposed to do?

What lessons in life is it teaching DSS that his mother can do whatever she wants and use him as a pawn?

And having thought about it a lot more since my OP, if the family does end up splitting up because my DH wants his money and to be off the mortgage then 1) she shouldn't have agreed to the court order in the first place, one that SHE wanted when she was already co-habitting with her now new husband
2) She shouldn't have married him less than 12 months after the order was agreed if she couldn't afford to keep the home, takeover the mortgage and buy my DH out.

She is not a child, and needs to stop playing the bloody victim all the time and take responsibility for her life and actions.

Your dh seems so callous towards his stepson, he was his step-father for 11 years but now that he's not together with the mother he wants him to move out and sees him as a bad influence on his real son.

he's not callous, he's suggesting he move in with his dad for a bit of structure. As soon as my DH left the home he was drinking and smoking at age of 14. When DH tried to talk to his ex about it, as he did parent him for 11 years and was called 'dad' by the boy she told him he wasn't his concern anymore. Since then he's been expelled from a school (which I only found out last night), and now dropped out of college and using home as a doss house.

DH used to care a great deal about the other kids and still does. He was allowed contact until the divorce settlement didnt start going the ex's way and then suddenly her solicitor says you're not allowed to see them anymore. What he fears is that current bedroom arrangements is causing DSS and his sister to hate each other and for DSS to hate his brother too.

What would you do if you had 3 kids and the eldest was not studying and drinking most nights and coming home late disrupting the household. Would you ask their dad who lived nearby to look after them to give some normality to the other 2. Perhaps a father-figure is what the boy needs?!

I'm sure if this were a parenting thread about my 18 year old son is disrupting the household alot of MNers would be suggesting he goes and lives with his dad.

But anyway as I've said already DH isn't going to ask the ex to suggest her son move in with his dad he's going to seek to realise his charge so we can move near to DSS.

It sounds like he took the divorce really hard, but tbh you're basing this on the moans of an 11 year old. Your dh isn't there so doesn't know about the comings and goings of his step-son, he could be job hunting and having no luck despite trying hard (like several people I know, my DP included), studying may not have suited him (it doesn't suit everyone), and he could only be going out at the weekends (as most 18yr olds do). You can't base his behaviour, to the extent of your dh pushing for him to be removed from his family home, on what his little brother is saying.

I can't see why he doesn't ask ss if he wants to live with you.

I don't think an 11 year old boy and 15 year old girl should be sharing.

The other children are notbyour problem - your only focus helping S S.

hi Izzy upthread i got a lot of flak for suggesting that, 50 miles from his mum and family etc. But if DSS wants to then great. DH was assuming he had to discuss with his ex about it first, or should he just speak with DSS and inform afterwards???

I dont buy a lot of the criticisms about how its economic times so the kids should share. There are 3 sets of parents and 2 fathers who have bedrooms for their children. As long as amicable and ample contact is faciltated what the heck is the problem with one of the dads looking after one of the boys instead of mum?