Does your OH exclude you from his life with his kids?

[jacketspudntuna]

Just posted in AIBU but here might be better.

Basically DH has his kids every weekend. Saturday he took them to a football match, saturday night they watched movies together and Sunday I was at work all day. So he pretty much had the weekend to himself with them (I'm trying to point out here that I'm not always in their faces!).

During work yesterday he text me asking how work was going, what was I upto etc. I text back saying work was fine, a few other details and asked what he and the kids were upto. He replied saying "just housework and then I'm taking them home and going to tip on the way back."

Last night, still nothing knew he thought to tell me about his day.

Today a message popped up on the ipad from his ds saying what a great driving lesson he'd had with him yesterday and he'd really enjoyed their drive out. DH replies "me too, you made me really proud, you're picking it up so quickly! really enjoyed it!".

Why would you not think to mention this when I asked about their day??? he does this all the time. Wants to know the ins and outs of my kids lives yet deliberately fails to include me in theirs. A week ago he accussed me of "ear wigging on a private conversation" because I overheard him mentioning activities for the following day and wondered if we were going somewhere nice!! How rude for a grown woman to be accussed of ear wigging in her own home!! There are plenty of times I've been talking to my son and DH has asked "what was that about?".

It's so one sided. The way he deliberately tries to exclude me from their little family is actually making me resentful.

[Petal02]

It’s the lack of continuity that upsets me. It’s like having a bf, then not having one for two days, then back to normal. We fall out about it, then we make up and the next two weeks is heaven. It’s the same all the time

I could have written this. I don’t think my DH ever intentionally created this situation, but it was like normal life for two weeks, and then …….. HALT!!! MY SON IS IN THE BUILDING. We’d then have Thurs-Sun of intense DSS-orientated time. In DH’s ideal world, he’d “pause” our marriage for the weekend. and then “resume” on Sunday night when DSS had gone back home. We used to fall out about it, then we’d make up, and then it would be a repeat performance when the next EOW access weekend began. Life ran in cycles.

But with the benefit of hindsight (DSS has been away at Uni since September) all of the above was a result of guilt/desperation/borderline obsession (sounds a bit Heathcliffe, doesn’t it?) and Disney parenting. DH never quite got over no longer being a RP, and used to spend EOW trying to compensate for it. There were times when I felt the father/son relationship was actually quite dark; DH would lie, mislead, be duplicitous etc etc , and that’s not a healthy parent/child relationship IMO. When you feel like your DH’s sole purpose in life is the pursuit of another person, it’s not great.

[shey02]

Shit man, slightly off track there!

OP I totally can relate to you, feel excluded most of the time. One of my dp's dc does not care for me one bit. She is coached to hate me and disrespect her father. Unfortunately he struggles to control this behaviour and the child is able to influence the EOW's and weeknight access to a great degree.

As a result, the disney/guilty parenting comes in and myself and my children can feel cast aside, me almost as if I don't exist. Bear in mind that in between my dp's access with his kids which he has at his home, we (him, I and my dc) all live together at my home as a family. My dc treat him with emmense respect, he has a great influence on them, is very involved and they love him as a father, so even they deserve better. On the flipside, if I share one meal together with his kids in a month it's alot. Dp and I are very close in every other way, we are best friends (apart from when his kids are around) and want the future to be with each other.......... So it can be very hurtful and he doesn't even realise he's doing it.

So the only way I have been able to cope is by totally detaching as this happens EOW. I hardly see them, have no idea what they're up to and it's the lack of continuity that upsets me. It's like having a bf, then not having one for two days, then back to normal. Usually we will fall out about it, then make up, then the next two weeks is heaven. But it's the same all the time. We are years on and just wish that he felt a need for this to change. It really is not healthy for anyone, BUT I can't help feeling that he has the best of both worlds.........? It's too easy for him. But OP if this was happening in MY house, OMG, the relationship, much as I love and adore him, would probably be over.

[Russianfudge]

Great minds Bahumbug!

[Bahhhhhumbug]

sorry Russian x post

[Bahhhhhumbug]

.. and here's me thinking being a good parent involves teaching my children amongst many other things , that it's not all always about them and to share and be considerate and kind and realise other people in the world have needs and should be considered. When all along all I needed to do was instill in them that they always come first and no-one else including me matters as much as them.
By some miracle however despite their misguided upbringing they have both grown up to be social and considerate, kind selfless adults who don't think the world revolves around them

[Russianfudge]

Applauds linerunner for quick wit

[Russianfudge]

And anyway, sometimes the kind thing to do is to teach your children that the world doesn't revolve around them... no? One day these children will be in adult relationships and (if we believe the stats) there is a high chance that this will involve step parenting, half siblings, second wives etc. It is our responsibility to model considerate adult romantic relationships - the hard part of "putting your children first" is often not putting your children first in my opinion.

[Bahhhhhumbug]

Oh 'ere we go ! I am obviously a bad parent then because I would try and get my husband and children out in the optimum order based on who was in the most immediate danger of drowning/dying in a fire and who therefore needed my help first and the most. That is because I love them both equally but just in very different ways.

[LineRunner]

Yes fine, but you wouldn't do it secretly, would you?

[Russianfudge]

When were the children drowning?

If my DD and her stepmum were drowning, my ex would save our daughter first because she is a child and his paternal instinct would be to ensure the survival of his young who are less able to fend for themselves. I imagine even were she a 25 year old woman he would still save her first.

But that isn't really the point is it?

[purpleroses]

Ethel - the child in this situation is not drowning and needing their life saving. They are having a driving lesson - a bit different surely?

[EthelDorothySusan]

If there was a partner and a child drowning I would always go for my child be they 2 or 32, that is what being a good parent is all about, your child comes first.

[Bahhhhhumbug]

Ethel I don't agree either. Young children's welfare should obviously put before that of adults but beyond that a couples relationship should be and can be given equal importance to the relationship with their joint or individual children.

See Russians point about love not being diluted the more people you give it to. Romantic love and love for a child are obviously very different but can be equally strong.

[Bahhhhhumbug]

Yes Linerunner this phenomena does seem more virulent amongst but probably not exclusively to NRP dads (my DH was NRP when they were younger) and is probably a lot to do with a misguided need to compensate.
Exactly Russian Fudge love isn't like cutting up a cake and when it's gone it's gone or the more people you share it amongst the smaller slice they get !
It is a form of madness that separated dads are prone to - I mean my SSs are late twenties /early thirties now and yet their dad still feels the need to hide his love for me under a bushel.

[catsmother]

bangs head on wall

The OP has said "It's not actually been included in the activities that bother me, it's the privacy and secrecy." and *"So he pretty much had the weekend to himself with them (I'm trying to point out here that I'm not always in their faces!)."

She does not have a problem with the stepkids spending time alone with their father. What she objects to is both being dismissed - rudely - when she tries to make simple polite conversation - as you do - about what her husband has been up to. It's normal for couples to spend time doing their own thing every so often with or without kids - but it's also normal to chat together about what you've been doing.

In addition to this there's a very strange dynamic going on where the H feels he has the right to know "the ins and outs" of all the OP's been up to .... which implies that he wants to question her in greater detail than might be normal, yet hypocritically blocks her from speaking about him and his kids.

His hostility and touchiness surrounding his kids is what the issue is here - not the OP throwing her toys out of the pram because she imagines she's being left out.

[Russianfudge]

EthelDorothySusan I don't agree with you. Any good husband will value his wife as highly as he values his children. And any good father will role model a healthy, loving relationship where both himself and his wife respect each other as equals. He will also not raise his children to be considerate to others.

The OP isn't suggesting that he can't have time alone with the children and I don't think anyone else has either. We all need time alone with our children. But the sneaking around, no detail as to where or when, spending family money with no discussion, keeping secrets. That is not a healthy relationship from any angle.

[EthelDorothySusan]

Any good Father will put his child above any other relationship he has and it is odd behaviour to think that someone would look at it as being excluded and not want children to have time alone with their Father.

[Bahhhhhumbug]

Maybe with the car thing as well , he doesn't want his son to know it was you that provided the car, made the suggestion etc. because that might steal some of his completely dedicated dad thunder. So if he had told you , then you in turn might mention it to his son who would then realise it was partly thanks to you too.

[Russianfudge]

Yes, like Dad's capacity to love couldn't have simply multiplied to accommodate for a wife. It has to stay the same but be divvied out between wife and kids and kids must at all times feel that they get the lion's share

[LineRunner]

I do get your drift, Bahhhhumbug, and maybe I am lucky that my OH is full-time dad, in the sense that he has nothing to 'prove' to his kids - they already know he is the one that stayed.

[Bahhhhhumbug]

Back to OPs predicament though sorry for hijack but I wonder if some of this phenomena is going on in her case. A sort of 'No course I wont invite your stepmum or involve her in choosing a film we can all watch (or whatever) because you are everything I need when I am with you so I/we don't need her.' Or some such shite , to 'big up' his love for his kids or whatever, I'm sure you get my drift.

[Bahhhhhumbug]

yes the joys, indeed , one time he made a derogotary remark about my weight gain when I was talking to his eldest about exercise (I often have 'girly' talks with SS1 he is in the beauty industry ) and I said about one that flattens your belly and I bemoaned the fact I never had one up to a few years ago and DH interrupted (in a quite scoffing 'pffft' way actually , not in a jokey way) 'You have now!'

Another time, upon me retorting to him saying 'that's an old wives tale' (before we had ever discussed whether we might ever marry ) by saying 'I'm not old or your wife'. He muttered under his breath to his son (I was other end of room) 'and you're never going to be either !' I was heartbroken to find out via overhearing him telling his son before me , that he never intended to marry me.

He categorically didn't mean this and that wasn't at all how he really felt and has always told me how he has been smitten from the start (hence the now 'DH')

What got me with the 'belly' comment was DH has always swore blind he still fancies me , blah blah , it doesn't bother him in the least and so on and knows how badly this weight gain has affected my self esteem. Yet here he was in effect revealing in front of one of his sons that my body is not as attractive to him as it was and it does bother him after all.

I know it sounds pathetic and a huge over reaction but my DH is not at all one to insult or put me down in private or in front of anyone so it was so out of character I can only conclude it was part of his 'She's not all that, boys , don't worry you're still my number one' campaign. This nasty snidey little DH alter ego only ever appears in the company of his sons. Or used to before I lost it with him last time he did it !

[Aroundtheworldandback]

Babhhhumbug I had to laugh at your point that dads have to put down stepmum to make kids feel he loves them more (nothing to laugh about here though) because that is just so true. It's made into a competition where dad keeps having to 'prove himself'. The joys...

[Bahhhhhumbug]

My DH is a bit like this but both our DCs are grown up (we have none together) and if my DC for example rings me if I don't offer the information he will say 'What did he/she want?' or 'What was that about?' but god help me if I ask same after one of my SSs rings him.

In my case though it is definitely because he knows I don't approve of their constant (I wouldn't mind occasional) 'borrowing' of money/things/favours (especially one of them) and their general sense of entitlement to same , so I suppose I have driven their relationship underground.

DH also started doing this weird thing - till I called him on it - and catsmother you hit on this in your post. He started to get quite dismissive with me and ridicule things I said in front of his adult children , things I knew he previously had agreed with. Almost as if to demonstrate to them that 'She's not all that , you are still my number one' or something. I called him on it right in front of them as well , which he hated because I actually stated why I thought he was doing it (as ' some sort of pathetic male bonding/chest beating exercise with his sons' ) and made it clear to them he didn't ever behave like that to me usually.

It never happened again . It is a weird phenomena though in Stepland that dads somehow have to put their DP/DW down in the eyes of their DCs in some misguided attempt to prove they still love them too.

[theredchicken]

I suspect your dp knows his relationship with his kids is not as "normal" and healthy as it could be and it's all a bit Disney. As such he feels a bit ashamed and so keeps things to himself.

It could be that he's just rubbish at communicating but the "ear wigging" comment would suggest he is trying to actively keep you out of the loop.