Annoyed, sad for dsd, but mostly wanting my time back :(

[alita7]

I love dsd to bits and I love living with her and dp and I share her care 50/50.
But this weekend is her mums weekend and she has contact at one of their family members houses and they are ill so she can't go.
Dsd feels let down and upset as she wants to see her siblings but it can't be helped I guess.
And I feel guilty for it but I'm annoyed, we have her ft but have dps other 2 and her eow. And our last weekend kid free dps ex went away for the weekend and had planned to send the dsds to their Nans but Dsd 1 insisted on coming to ours so we actually got contact out of hours shock horror!
So it will have been 5 weeks since we got a weekend together. We'd had things planned which we'll have to cancel and 2 weeks seems a long time until the next one!
I really am disappointed, I know most couples with kids don't get free weekends so I'm lucky we do but I know that In 5 months time ill have my baby and we'll probably never have free weekends again (rarely anyway) so I wanted to make the most of it now.
We do have some time without her but it's usually filled with house work or he goes out to see friends because we can't both go if she's in bed.
It's very rare for us to even have enough money to go for a meal and dps parents were lovely enough to give us some money to treat ourselves.
The thing is as much as I love doing Mum stuff for her because her own Mum failed massively in that department so she needs it (and moans at me if I fail to do it for any reason :p) and because that's how we manage the situation (dp dad and me 'mum' role) I'm not actually her mum and having a break is important to me!
sorry I just needed to rant as I just found this out and am feeling sad.

That's a shame for everyone.

Could you fix DSD up a playdate - that could make her happy, take her mind off not seeing her siblings, and give you and DP at least a bit of time for just the two of you?

I wouldn't cancel social plans if I could help it - could you get a sitter? Or fix a sitter for another night in the week and go and treat yourselves to a night out then?

Play dates are difficult because of her ld leaving her with other people's parents doesn't usually go very well :/ The only friend(good friend of ours whose known us a long time) she ever goes over to alone, doesn't have her daughter on weekends at all.

Baby sitting might be an option, the friends we were going for a meal with have two kids aged 16 and 14. They'd probably have ask one of them baby sit but I don't trust the girl at all because of all the things my friend moans about her doing, I'd come home to her and some friends passed out pissed on the floor! But might see if dps mum would do it :)

It is disappointing and no amount of guilt tripping will stop you feeling that, regardless of people saying 'nuclear families don't get time off' etc. so don't feel bad about feeling let down.

Perhaps you can talk to your DP and get him to arrange something with you when he would normally be seeing friends. Get a babysitter or ask a friend of DSD for a sleepover in the hope that it will be reciprocated. Dsd spends so much time with you that there's no reason why you can't leave her for the night with someone else once in a while.

Admittedly married couples who share the same DCs don't get the 'perk' of having a night off once a fortnight while the child stays with another parent, but they do often have helpful grandparents and aunties who will have the DCs overnight.

They also don't have the emotional stress of coping with exes and DCs who have different boundaries, while trying to be as loving as possible without overstepping the mark, so step-parenting isn't comparable to parenting for a lot of us. You don't need to measure yourself against other families to justify feeling sad.

Thanks for making me feel better for skin.
I think, though I may be wrong, that when its really my own child I won't feel as much like I should have a break as I do now? I think that's part of it really, Plus nuclear families do usually get some time before the dcs come along.
I think the problem is the lack of connections as well, she came to live here last year and so we didn't know all her school friends and parents when having her at weekends, now we're finding them a bit rude and cliquey really, dp is a man so they don't really talk to him and I've tried to have conversations with them but they don't really talk to me if that makes sense. I'm hoping when she goes to sen school in September that we can meet some new parents.
I do think we should spend more of the time he goes to friends doing something together at home but he wants to go out and often it's to help them put up shelves or something... which opens up a whole new conversation!

All that about nuclear families never having time alone is bull.

They have time before children come along and then they choose to have children together who they both (you'd hope) love totally and completely. They also know that their kids will be there all the time so they can plan to book a babysitter or family member to take the kids.

In your situation someone elses (let's face it) are landed on you with no consultation or notice and it's a pain in the arse.

It's not the child's fault, it can't be helped, but it's totally okay to feel cross.

Thanks happy, I'm not begrudging her and I want to make sure she has a good weekend to make up for her missing out too. Just would like my lie in without her bursting in shouting good morning at 8 am :p and will try and find a sitter for Saturday (dp is fine with that thank god!)

Can you swap so you have next weekend free instead?

If it was just dsd 3 then possibly, but I doubt dsd 1 and 2s Mum would swap, certainly not at short notice, it would mess up the whole contact arrangement, and we'd not see the older 2 until the next contact weekend so not see them for a month if we cancelled their weekend so we couldn't really not have them next weekend (plus we want to see them anyway) and if we didn't have dsd 3 next weekend we'd still have the older two, and then the weekends would be out of sync :/

I think I'd feel better if it wasn't half term next week :P I would normally be looking forward to having some time to do nice things with her but not having my little break before hand is going to put a dampener on that :/ Oh well at least she's lovely and she's not going to make it horrible for me :)

Aww hun that sucks!! I know how much I love the weekends I get with dp without his kids and we don't have them ft! Dp works weird shifts so we rarely get a weekend together!

You are right though, I don't feel anywhere near as resentful with our own dd as I do when plans change and we miss a planned weekend without dsc's because mum needs us to have them extra. Doesn't happen often thank god!

It's perfectly natural and believe me I miss weekends where we were completely child free and could lay in or watch dad's in our pj's all day, go toothed our for a leisurely lunch etc.

Hope you can sort the babysitter out!!

Don't feel guilty. DD4 spends every other week at her Dad's. I really look forward to it!

Well luckily the friend I mentioned whose got older kids understood when I said I'd rather the boy baby sat (he'll just sit on the xbox all night :p) so we're going out to eat together tomorrow night :) Can't have my snuggly lie ins but at least I get my meal out :)

Woooooooooo hoooooooooo congratulations hun!!!! That is fab news!!