struggling!

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My step son is 11 yo and I just don't like him! Ok that sounds bad.
He stays over night with us alternative weekends, then one weekend a month we have him 8-7 and the other weekend my hubby just takes him to football then home. the thing is, we live in a small 2 bed flat and he won't share a room with my daughter (6yo) so he goes to bed in our bed then gets transferred to sofa when we go to bed. Housing won't move us as he isn't with us enough.
Also his attitude stinks. I try not to get involved but whenever I do he won't listen. He shouts at me or just cries.
He ignores my daughter 75% of the time or is nasty to her.
I'm now 20w pregnant with my 2nd and I just can't take the stress anymore. I've spoken to hubby who generally agrees with me but is worried about getting limited access or being taken to csa (we currently have an arrangement privately with the mum and pay her weekly)
I just don't know what to do. Just needing to rant really

I wouldn't offer support to a mum who thought it was ok to have their child woken and moved during the night as they had sorted out proper sleeping arrangements for them.

I have seen it on most of the boards tbh. The only exception being bereavement ( and rightly so). I have seen it on SN/adoption/parenting/FW pretty much everywhere. I do not think SP is targeted especially.

What "incorrect assumptions" was the OP judged on?

t's not acceptable to slag your step kids off or call them names because there is not the underlying, unconditional, secure love that is the predominant emotion ensuring attachment to them. I'm surprised at how often I have to explain that, it seems so obvious to me.

That is only your opinion though, not a statement of fact.

It is not acceptable to you, but that dosnt mean everyone believes it is unacceptable, do they?

I hope my DDs stepmum does have the opportunity to slag my DD off when she's letting off steam to her friends/family because there are times when DD is very intolerable indeed!

If my DDs behaviour is such that I am at the end of my rope, then it's likely that her stepmum has already lost patience for all the reasons you give; there isn't the underlying, unconditional love for her.

I don't expect my DDs stepmum to be lacking in a reasonable and normal emotional response to DDs behaviour - if she needs to vent and rant about DD then she's more than welcome - and I object to being told by anyone else that I should consider that behaviour "unacceptable".

nicki the a OPs DD is related to her DSS - they share a father. The first respinse on this post states that the OP is unreasonable to expect unrelated DCs to share.

and I object to being told by anyone else that I should consider that behaviour unacceptable

I object to being told by anyone else that I should consider that behaviour acceptable.......and that if I don't I am a stepmother hater Kind of works both ways really.

I object to being told by anyone else that I should consider that behaviour acceptable.......and that if I don't I am a stepmother hater

It's about expressing opinions in a non judgemental way - I haven't said you should do or feel anything; whereas the OP (and others) has been told repeatedly that feelings and opinions are wrong.

This is a statement of fact;
"........It's not acceptable to slag your step kids off or call them names....."

Whereas, this, is the expression of an opinion;
".........I don't believe that it is acceptable to slag your step kids off or call them names......"

Peruvian I disagree with you. Simple. I hate your word play and find it tedious and boring. Just my opinion.

You're right it is my opinion and I will state it as much as I wish despite the so often used "just having a rant" get out of jail free card used on this board. I would and do judge most harshly anyone who believes they have the right to call children to whom they are not related and have no particular emotional tie to unpleasant names. Especially children who have had no say in and are struggling to cope with the massive upheavals in their lives as decided by the adults that are responsible for them. I'm not a big fan of any parent calling their child names actually but it is a very different situation to the one so often cited as similar, to a loving parent losing patience with their child and having a moan about them. Those situations are fleeting and it is unlikely that the child feels unwanted and unloved because of it. There is a very particular unpleasant tone to certain threads on this board as I explained before and it's very easy to tell the difference between generally loving step parents pushed to their limits and ones where the children could never do anything right.

As for the inaccuracies you mention, the OP chopped and changed her story so many times it's hardly surprising that some posters made mistakes and couldn't keep up.

As for setting the tone, personally I think "I don't like my 11 year old step son" did that more effectively than any response that followed.

I recognise your posting style Peruvian are you a name changer by any chance? Apologies if I am wrong.

I wouldn't offer support to a mum who thought it was ok to have their child woken and moved during the night as they had sorted out proper sleeping arrangements for them.

The poster explained that the stepson wished to go to bed at around 8pm, but would not share with the other child in the household. So the stepson was able to sleep in the parents room during the evening. When he woke - as he invariably did - to go to the loo at 10.30/11 pm - that's when he had the use of the living room for a bedroom for the rest of the night.

Even if it's not what other people would do, it's slightly different from waking a sleeping child. It is also unclear why such an arrangement - presumably made by the child's own father as well as the stepmother - should be seen as all about stepmotherly wickedness.

As for the inaccuracies you mention, the OP chopped and changed her story so many times it's hardly surprising that some posters made mistakes and couldn't keep up.

Given that the inaccurate assumption was made in the first reply, that's not really an explaination, is it?

I'm not sure why it's being defended so staunchly, because the first reply on this thread provided no support, no suggestions, no constructive comments - just an instant judgement of the OP based on an inaccurate assumption made.

It's my opinion that the tone and nature of that response was a direct consequence of the OP being a stepmother, hence my highlighting it as evidence to support the comment that there are some posters who do respond differently to posts by Stepmums than to posts by people with other relationships to the DC.

should be seen as all about stepmotherly wickedness.

I thimk that interpretation of the advice is coming from elsewhere.

should be seen as all about stepmotherly wickedness. As far as I can tell not one poster ever said that. Infact I think the majority felt both adults should have done more to rectify the sleeping arrangements in 5 years.

There's over a hundred and fifty posts on this thread Peru forgive me for not getting as worked up over ONE of them as you have. I have to say though that your focus on it as an argument for inaccurate assumptions throughout the thread is somewhat flimsy. After all even the OP doesn't seem to know what's actually going on in her own life till later in the thread but you don't seem to want to focus on that.

I'm not sure why it's being defended so staunchly, because the first reply on this thread provided no support, no suggestions, no constructive comments - just an instant judgement of the OP based on an inaccurate assumption made.

Nobody has defended the first post and if you have a problem with that poster then pm them and stop tarring the rest of us with the same brush.

You are for some reason letting that post set the tone of your own and using it to evidence that all those who disagree with a SParent post are SM haters/beaters.

I suspect that if he had been staying overnight with his Dad, and proper sleeping arrangements had been sorted for him before the baby arrived, or before this point they wouldn't have had the problem of him refusing to share. He really does seem like a bit of an inconvenience and I suspect that he has been picking that up since his Dad was living at his parents, and since Dad got a new family. And yes, Dad is actually more as fault here for not insisting on it for his son. But he isn't he one who came here and asked what to do.

And FWIW if I had an issue with dd's behaviour, telling her to go and live with her Dad really wouldn't be anywhere near the top of any solutions for me. In a together family you work through issues like this, you don't have the option of batting it elsewhere - and in this case I don't see any need whatsoever.

Peruvian, if you read the OP she talks about her DSS, her hubby and "her daughter". Not "our daughter". It was therefore perfectly reasonable, until she later elaborated, to assume that the children were not related.

The OP also stated that the boy "gets transferred" to the sofa. This is a very, very unusual way of saying that someone makes their way to the sofa under their own steam and it is wholly reasonable to believe, from the OP that the boy is moved by a third party. Again, this was elaborated on later.

the OP stated they couldn't move and then later said they were in fact moving in six months. To a place where the boy could finally have his own room.

While there may indeed have been some inaccurate assumptions, there have also been some revaluations which changed the original post out of all recognition. And the OP did admit she could sleep in the living room, but didn't fancy doing so and it wasn't going to be worth it because they were moving in six months.

Perfect summary Katie

I'm confused about the moving OP. You said the council wouldn't move you, but then that you are moving?

Wow, really didn't expect strolling of this from a rant and possibly a bit of guidance on how u cope with a sc's behaviour.
Yellow daisies: it's a mutual exchange, basically someone we know will be buying a house within the next 6 months and we will be moving into their home , they will exchange with us but then hand in the keys to the flat.
Yes I am willing to try to Kip on the sofa for the nights he is staying here, he does wake himself up the same time every night (even at home with his mum) for a wee which is when we guide him to the lounge (was generally easier to say transferred) .
I didn't directly call anyone a bitch, I was insinuating that some comments were bitchy.
Ss's dad - my dh has made all decisions about arrangements, with very little input from me, I try to stand back and let him father him as he chooses, so ok I perhaps don't agree entirely with some of the decisions but it's his choice to make.
As this is a housing association property, we couldn't include a child that didn't live with us permanently on our application for housing, which is why ss does not have his own room. Also as the flat is tiny we physically cannot divide up a room to give him his own space, we are making the most out of what we have got. We have never tried forcing ss to share a room as he doesn't share at home although we have tried to "convince" him, saying we'd buy bunk beds, we bought foam bed, we'd let him decorate around the top bunk but he would simply not share. He did have an air bed until it popped and he decided he would rather sleep on the sofa.
We all enjoyed life with all of us until about 2 years ago when everything worked well and we were all happy, as I've said I do hope it is his age and that it's a "albeit long" phase.
I think the main thing that got to me from posters is the ones that say about me bringing a baby into "this mess". So basically what ur saying is that if u have step children u shouldn't have ur own? That's not how it works. And anyway what about the other children ss's mum has had? Do they not make him feel unloved and unwanted whereas mine do? That's just an unreasonable comment that truely wasn't needed to be said. And yes those comments hurt, especially as I was told I wouldn't have any more children naturally. Why shouldn't I have more. Even if we should stay in this flat I would make it work somehow, make both of my children share a room to start with, dd will be 7 in 9 days time so she'd have a top bunk. Simple, wouldn't effect the sleeping arrangement for ss at all.
As I have also stated, dh and ss spend as much time together as possible and even if ss lived with us permanently he wouldn't see much more of his dad and it definitely wouldn't be any more "alone time" than he already gets.
Like I've said it's extremely hard to get a full picture on a site like this, maybe I could/should have elaborated more on the points I made but to be fair I didn't think any one would comment let alone have such strong views.
Putting aside the sleeping arrangement, I agree with the person that said would you have commented the same way if it was my biological son I was struggling to cope with?
Anyway, I hope we can all call this a day now, let's "put it to bed" and move on. I've taken some of your thoughts on board and will be trying some new techniques with ss. Although I'm still hoping it's just a phase and we will get our more grown up chunky monkey back. See pet names, we were close once.

Oh and he is not "the boy" he is my ss. I do love him I do like him, I do care for him unconditionally, he is not a nuisance, he is not an inconvenience, he is not in the way. He is a pain in the bum most of the time and I , not having parental rights, am struggling to control that, but I still love him.

When another poster is writing about a situation regarding two children it is PERFECTLY acceptable to refer to them as "the boy" and "the girl".

It's a lot less strange than saying a boy is "transferred" to a couch and then claiming he walks there himself. But a lot of things changed out of all recognition in this story, which is kind of unreasonable.

I'm sorry I use the word transferred a lot at work so it's kind of there in my mind at all times. And no one actually asked what I mean by transferred, u can't honestly believe that we'd be lifting an 11yo surely?
If u actually read all of my posts u will see that I have elaborated on each part as/when someone has mentioned something about it. I've tried to answer questions as they have come up and I've been extremely honest.
Unreasonable is when people jump to conclusions without even reading the explanation I have given.
My "story" hasn't changed at all I have simply elaborated on things eg the house move. By the council won't move us, I mean they haven't in the 6yrs we have been on waiting list offered us anywhere new, because we, before I was pregnant, only had 1 resident child. With ss only staying once a fortnight they were never going to move us. The only reason we have this house coming up is because the current tenants are buying a place. Who in there right mind would leave a 3 bed house or even a 2 bed house for a 2 bed, tiny, first floor flat?