To feel trapped in my own fucking home?

[ishouldbecleaning]

2 bed house. I have DDs 5 and almost 3. DSS is 11. Sleeps on sofa every other weekend. Which means we have to go to bed at 10pm. Fine. But I dont sleep and being in bed that early when I dont nod off till 2-3am is torture. Had to wake DH 3 times last night cos DSS had turned the TV back on, loudly. The last time was just before 2am. Nothings been said about it. Constantly winds DDs up. (Dds are squealy pains as they all are but he winds them on purpose and frequently) has been telling tales all weekend but then wihin minutes backtracking and telling full story after trying to get girls in trouble.The xbox is on all fucking day. Call of Duty, other games I dont want my kids seeing, scary monsters etc on. Girls only have to go within 5 foot of him and hes snapping, shouting at them. House is small and Im tip toeing around a stropping pre teen whilst dh does nothing to curb behaviour. Every evening is filled with more xbox and
Whatever dss wants to watch.

Sorry just needed to rant.

We have all 3 kids on the same weekend because if we didnt, we'd never get any down time, any time to ourselves, or any time as a couple.

You should stagger weekends, so he can have the girls room when they are away.

I am with my children's father, so don't get any 'down time' unless we go out by ourselves (v occasionally). We make sure we get time together when they are in bed, but realise (like most parents) that parenting is a full time job. Many don't have the luxury to pick & choose when to have children around.

We do it 24/7 because that is what we took on when we decided to have children.

As I said earlier in the thread, intact families don't get downtime, but then probably don't need it so much because they live with their own children, discipline them as they choose and make rules that suit. In a step family people tend to be tearing their hair out to the absence of the things listed above, hence the need for downtime.

But that aside, you've got (1) overcrowding and (2) a DSS who's allowed to take over when he visits. Even if the OP's DH were prepared to allow some basic ground rules, there's still insufficient space. So even if one of these issues could be resolved it would make life easier. Ideally you could stagger the weekends AND restrict DSS's x-box usage, but then we don't live in an ideal world! So one out of the two would be good.

As I said earlier it is your DH that is the problem. Unless he steps up and does some parenting, nothing else will really help.