SS full time? I can't do it

[fizzingmum]

Sorry for the long post!
Background is my DP and I have been together two and a half years. We have a DD 9 weeks old together. I have 2 DD's and he has one DS. My DD's live with me 5 days a week. His DS lives with us Mon & Tue each week and then Fri-Sat for 2 weeks and Sat-Sun for 2 weeks. So he is with us most of each weekend. This has worked out well so far. The problem is I just don't get along with his son and following much advice on here about disengaging, this is what I have done. DP & SS have no idea how I feel. It just works that i keep busy and out of the way and spend minimal time in his company. They truly have no idea that I just don't like SS. He is very sneaky and demanding. He is 7 and does nothing for himself. Won't wash or brush his own teeth etc, and behaves like a toddler most of the time. When he is here he insists on it being one on one time with his Dad. This works for me but as baby gets older she will want time with her Dad. SS is absolutely not interested in his sister, despite attempts to engage them. He just wants Dad all to himself and has no interest in anyone or anything else.
Anyway, recently he has been refusing to return to his Mums (she isn't very involved with him) and my DP and his parents have been dropping hints that he may be happier living with us full time. This fills me with dread. It's hard enough keeping up the pretence for half the week. I couldn't live with it full time. I had hoped things would change over time but I just can't be around him for more than a few minutes. His Dad thinks the sun shines from him and excuses his behaviours. He doesn't fit in with the rest of the family (won't clear his plate from the table after dinner or even try to make his bed or any other chores that the other kids have to. He seems to think he is exempt as he is only with us half the time. But he still wants the biggest room as he has to share at his Mums (so do my two at their Dads). He is a very fussy eater so I am expected to make separate meals for him. The list is endless. It's so hard to not have access to my partner half the week (he doesn't go to bed until around ten most evenings) I couldn't do it all week. But what do I say? How do I tell my OH if/when he asks that there is no way I could do it. It would be the end of us and then he wouldnt be with his daughter full time. So it seems like he is having to choose and I don't want that. So how do I react? How do I word it that it's not right for the other members of the family, mainly me I admit, to have SS fulll time.
He only wants it because he thinks it would be all one on one time all week. Clearly this wouldn't be the same if he was full time anyway, but from a 7 year olds point of view he thinks he will have permanent treats, late nights and no chores. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. I dont see how things will ever change about my feelings towards him and I can manage to navigate it as it is. But 7 days a week is saying goodbye to my relationship. Please don't be too hard on me as I've said nobody knows how I feel and I keep it al in. I just want it to stay as it is. Any helpful advice gratefully received.

I think you need to make it very clear to your DH what he stands to lose if he doesn't start to make some changes - this life isn't healthy for any of you.

I also really think you need to keep trying with your relationship with DSS, you say you treat them all equally but you don't - it's clear from the way you write that you dislike him at the moment and he WILL be picking up on that. I'd also be very surprised if your DH doesn't have some inkling that things aren't right in the relationship between you and his son and if he doesn't then he needs this spelling out to him ASAP.

You aren't going to fix the relationship with DSS overnight, it's going to take sustained effort from you and your DH as a united front to fix things here. As I said before, this little boy is a part of your life now and as an adult you have a responsibility for making your interactions with him a position experience - as a stepmum myself I can't imagine how our family would work at all if I completely disengaged from my DSD - you need to work on your feelings towards him and relationship with him.

This little boy is being badly failed by the adults in his life, it sounds like his Dad is refusing to see what is happening and the impact it is having on everyone - perhaps you need to be the one to make him act by spelling out clearly the potential consequences of this situation continuing as it is?

ATM your feelings of resentment are because he comes in and takes your DP time up half the week. You say yourself mum doesn't give him much attention.

So when he comes to live with you FT (which he will if dad wants and you really cannot say no) he does so with a family meeting and list of ground rules.

Tell him as a FT member of the family he has the same responsibilities. Remain calm and consistent and make sure you and DP are both in board from the off.
If he expects your DDs in bed by 8 then he expects his DS in bed at the same time.

But I do think you need to realise his behaviour could be centered around the split nouse holds and therefore you can't judge what him being ft with you will be like.

I would be careful on that road for your girls if he were to live with you. Something needs to be done than allowing your ss to be treated more favourable. My sister and I had an older stepbrother and he could do no wrong in our stepdad's eyes. He knew it as well and would constantly get things we would not or we would get in trouble while he didn't. It created a lot of resentment for our stepbrother, step dad and ultimately our mum because we felt she allowed it to happen.

It's your dh that is the problem, he needs to stop being a Disney dad and give the same rules to his son he expects your girls to follow.

I don't think you should have had another child and blended families in a case where you really can't stand his son.

I'm not sure it's the OPs feelings towards her DSS that are most significant here; it's her DHs apparent inability to follow through on the parenting he acknowledges his DS needs, but is unwilling or unable to put in place.

OP - one of the dangers of threads like this is that it will clarify the role your DH is playing in all of this. This is a relationship issue. He is willing to tell you what you want to hear, in order to keep you happy, but not willing to change his behaviour in the way he says he will.
It may be that if your DSS does move in full time, you and your DH will no longer be compatible as a couple. There is no fault to attribute. You have different parenting styles, and the consequence of his parenting choices are unacceptable to you. You don't have to "put up and shut up" but neither does he have to parent in a way he is not comfortable with.

Time for you to have an honest and frank conversation with your partner. I'd try and explain that you don't like the child's behaviour rather than actually dislike him unless it really is him you can't stand. With the benefit of hindsight you shouldn't have had a baby with your partner when you knew you didn't like his child. This may well mean the end of your relationship unless you can both agree on equal co parenting rules for all four children.

Here we go again, a SM voicing her concerns and getting slashed as a result.

OP, as it seems to always be the case, it sounds like you've moved very fast in this relationship. I don't know at which stage you moved in with your DP, but it can't have been much before you became pregnant or you moved in very early in your relationship. Together, you already had three children who needed adjusting and now you have another child and they have to adjust to yet another change to their lives. Your children seem to be adjusting better but maybe they are older and/or their life might be more settled compared to that boy who seems to be in and out of one house than the other, trying to find his place between a mum who doesn't give him much attention and a dad who in a couple of years had to adjust to give attention to one person to suddenly 5.

However, you are where you are now and need to make it work. On one hand, you cannot change how you feel, so pretending is going to help no-one. You need to be honest with your OH. How he will react depends on how you voice things. If you make it clear that you are concerned about the impact of his son on the dynamism of the family, how it could only work if he totally blended in and for that, he would have to adjust to new rules, he is likely to be more receptive than if you even just hint that you think his child is spoilt, immature and unpleasant. It is totally reasonable that you should insist that you work through all this together before him moving in should even be considered. Also, how the child feels now (expressed a wish to move in with his dad and you) could be very different tomorrow, so again, I would think that rushing the decision could be wrong for you and your children as much as wrong for the child.

Saying all that, I do agree with the poster who said that you should consider how you would feel if your OH said that he could stand your children and think they should now go and live with their dad half of the week because it really is no different. Of course you think your children are wonderfully lovable compared to his, but your OH might not agree at all.

I get that you are worried about telling your OH how you feel if you've pretended that all was great for all this time, but if you don't, it is only going to be worse and his feelings will only be more hurt. You can work through this, find ways to compromise by which you can all avoid building resentment that will one day take over.

There are no other areas of MN where the advice would be to just get your dp to have a complete personality transplant and change how he does things.

This is the man he is and the way he parents. He may make noises about wanting to improve things but his actions do not support the words.

Do you want him, and his ds influencing your daughters lives? I'd also be wondering what they say to their dad about what happens in your home and how he may respond to the situation.

OP - I feel for you. I found EOW visits hard enough, and the thought of full time DSS horrified me. But with hindsight, it was DH's disney stance that caused the problem. Even when DSS was 18, he was infantilised to the point where he didn't have to flush the loo, empty the bath, lock the front door if he was the last one out etc etc. DH was terrified to ever say no, lay down ground rules or (heaven forbid) deploy any consequences.

I do suspect that if he'd been with us full time, DH would have been less terrified of losing contact and would therefore possibly (??) have been prepared to parent him.

It must be hard at times for you but put yourself in his shoes- his dad is living full time looking after someone else's children (your dds) and now has a new baby with you. I expect he probably feels very sidelined and his behaviour is probably a 7 year olds knee jerk reaction to this situation- IM HERE DAD I STILL EXIST!

There was a time when he didn't have to share his dad, and expecting a 7 year old to just slot into his dad's new life is really unfair. It's a massive adjustment.

Saying one to one is an absolute necessity, ? to compensate for an uncaring mother or whatever ??? , seems slightly crazy - this is bound to unstabilise family life. In a non step situation this wouldn't be even talked about. He needs some attention from his DF but it's not normal for days of one to one.

I think, OP, you are going to have to ignore and learn to live with nose picking, non toilet flushing - horrible though it is. Imv these are irritating habits that a DC will grow out of and not do when it suits them not to eg when with their pals (especially once teens).

Life for DH seems too easy whilst you deal with the behavior fall out of him and his DS. DH can cook on days that DS is there. Deal with the bedroom issue.

I would not let DS live there full time.
How often is he with DGPs? Are they picking up DH's parenting responsibilities too?

the one to one time ...... is bound to unstabilise family life

Totally agree. It's unrealistic and unhealthy. We hear of so many households, where the step child arrives for a visit, and life grounds to a halt, normality and common sense going out of the window. I think this is why so many of us struggle.

I know posters are bound to argue that he deserves some one to one timeout his dad, and of course he does, but not for days on end.

I can't understand the disengaging for me it seems like the complete opposite of what is natural and what I would do.

I actually think you need to sit and talk with your DH about everything you feel, honest is the only way forward - he needs to support you through this otherwise one of you will break and your family will not move forward. What you must not ever do is let that little boy know how you feel right now, ever. But if you don't discuss it with your husband you will break.

This child may be different from yours but I expect yours had a lot of love, support, structure and consistency with you. Poor little thing doesn't sound like he has ever had that from anybody - children need parents not best friends I just hope you can make your DH see this before that child ends up being pingponged about anymore.

I don't think you should have had another child and blended families in a case where you really can't stand his son. You chose to do so though, so now live with your decisions.

Posts like this are so rude and self righteous and unhelpful. If you haven't got anything nice (or helpful, or constructive) to say then don't say anything at all.

Hey op. I feel for you. My ss used to be and still sometimes is like this.

If I'm honest I think you'll probably find it easier if he moves in full time.

If he's with you full time then he has to follow the same rules as everyone else in the house. He would be with his dad full time and would have no need to monopolise his time because he is only with him x days a week.

Also I think if he lived with you full time you'd be well within your rights to discipline him just as you would your own children, obviously age appropriately.

Also - a 7 year old should be able to wash and brush his own teeth himself. It's not 'cute' to treat a child like a baby.

Like a lot of others have said I think your dp is part of the problem. Your ss needs to be treated like part of the family and not a guest, which means following family rules and being part of everything not just taking dads attention 24/7. Dad needs to enforce this initially.

You do need to engage with him though I think, and honestly I think you'll start to like him more once there are boundaries in place. He won't behave like a baby if daddy stops treating him like one.

I wouldn't leave now, but obviously if 6 months down the line nothing has changed and your dp doesn't see the issue, I wouldn't blame you for going if I'm honest.

I don't understand the advice to disengage - not when you are living together and have a child together. You are a blended family and you have to find a way to make this work together or it will completely fall apart. It was a mistake to move the relationship on so quickly when you didn't like his child, but it is done. It will have made the process more difficult, but it's not impossible to fix if you are both committed to addressing the problems.

This is a 7-year-old boy who is caught in the middle here - of course he wants his dad. His dad is his security.

So much of his behaviour is perfectly normal and if he was your own child, you wouldn't find it anywhere near as irritating.

You do need to have a conversation with your partner. House rules need to be agreed for everyone and bedtimes need sorting. But you need to be more considerate of what this young child is going through.

You are a blended family. There is no room for disengagement, or you will always be separate family units and your partner will never fill the role that you want from him. You disengaging from your SS means that his dad has to disengage from you at the same time.

There is not a quick fix here. It will take time and effort.

Totally agree. It's unrealistic and unhealthy.
I think this is very judgmental. Some kids grow as only child with two parents who give them tons of attention. Some kids grow up having to share one parent with many other siblings. There is no right or wrong.

The important matter is that the child had to go from the attention of two parents, to missing out on attention from mum but getting full attention from dad, to having to share the attention of dad with 4 other people within only a couple of years. It sounds like OP children gained in attention, at least since the birth, so inevitably will have adapted better.

Children in 'normal' families are known to act up when they suddenly have to share with a sibling, so it is not surprising that a child would feel a bit confused having to share with 4 other people.

And that's not taking into consideration that some children naturally need more attention than others. My kids have never needed much emotional attention, but have always needed a lot of stimulating attention, ie. both of them have little imagination and therefore always struggled to entertain themselves. What they have always liked is interaction and to learn new things, so were quite a pain in terms of wanting to constantly be entertained. It didn't make them bad kids though.

So you're suggesting that it's ok for the OP's DP to totally disengage from the rest of the family, including the baby, when DSS is in the building?

So you're suggesting that it's ok for the OP's DP to totally disengage from the rest of the family, including the baby, when DSS is in the building?

If that's what he continues to choose to do, at the expense of his relationship with his DD as well as with the OP, then there's nothing she can do to change it, anymore than a non resident dad can be forced to spend time with his DCs.

Personally, OP I think you deserve a lot better, but it's up to you whether you're willing to put up with it or not.
What you can't do, as a poster has said upthread, is demand he undergoes a personality transplant. This is him. He is showing you who he is. You've talked about it with him, he's made all the "right" noises to get you off his back but he has continued to do the same parenting as before. It's fair to say that you and he are not on the same page.

I think you have the perfect response if/when the issue of your SS coming to live with you full time is raised given what you've said about the changes DP promised to make and the shelf of unread parenting books. If DP is prepared to show that he can help integrate SS into your family with all the same rules, chores and expectations of behaviour as your other DC have then yes, of course you're willing to give it a try.

I agree with what's already been said that this is a DP problem rather than SS, he is responsible for the damage to your relationship with SS and it is up to him to fix it. I won't go into the psychology of the SM/SC relationship, suffice to say I've been a SM myself for over 15 years (SC are grown up now) so do understand the difficulties of parenting children you don't necessarily have immediate and instinctive love for. It's not always an easy road but it's worth putting the effort into building your relationship with SC, in my case I've ended up with a rock solid, loving and mutually respectful connection with two fantastic young people who couldn't be better older siblings to my DD who adores them both.

But it needs to start with DP, you and he need to be completely on the same page and if he won't get on board with parenting SS properly you really don't stand a chance. All your resentment of SS seems to stem from DP's refusal to put reasonable expectations on his behaviour and your relationship with SS may well improve massively if DP were to parent him properly and stop allowing the behaviour you describe. So that's your caveat, if DP can make the necessary changes then it could just work out well for everyone. I have to say I also feel sorry for SS, it really doesn't sound as though he 'fits' anywhere and it would be a wonderful thing if you and DP could give him the stable, loving home he needs and deserves. Please don't write him off OP, my SC were really young when me and DH got together, I had no DC of my own and, frankly, no idea how to deal with them. It was a learning curve to put it mildly and it took work but the end result is so worth it, I adore them both.

i think you need to have a frank conversation with your dp. He can't expect you to be the main carer of his ds and at the same time have no authority in the relationship.

Your dp needs to start parenting his own son - all the things you mentioned are things a 7 yr old should be doing.

If it were me i'd just say no if the conversation came up. if dp won't help his son feel like he's a part of the family then it isn't your job. I would speak up the next time dss doesn't do something he is meant to, treat him like you would your own kids. Stop disengaging and start treating him like you do your own children.

the reaction from ds and dp will make it clear whether this is a good idea right now or not.

I think it is very unhealthy when children are able to steer their parents, by insisting on total one to one time or by refusing to go to the other parents house. This boy is only 7, he should not be doing this and his parents shouldn't let him. It creates a lot of insecurity for him in the long term.

If his Mum is distant then it will not get better by giving them even more distance. I think that his Dad would be better off trying to foster a better relationship between the boys Mum and her son.

Another poster is right, the boys parents are the most crucial people. They are not doing that boy any favours. He needs normality, he needs some boundaries. He cannot always have his Dad to himself and needs to be given some loving guidance to grow up. Otherwise there will be one messed up, manipulative teenage boy who has totally lost his relationship completely with his Mum, and a Dad who won't know how to handle him at all by that stage.

I honestly don't know OP what you can do here. I don't understand on the one hand you say the current arrangement 'works well' and on the other that you really don't like the boy? Don't like his behaviour, fair enough, but he's only 7 and a big part of his Dad's life.

At that age it really isn't his fault that he doesn't brush his teeth, it is his parents. I would also find it hard to live with, but this boy has a lot of years to go. It could really help the boy to feel part of a household, a proper part, with you and DP working together on rules. But it sounds as if this may not happen.

"He's only a young kid and you seem massively hard on him for trivial things, don't kid yourself he picks up on your dislike of him which is maybe why he isn't interested until he baby and feels insecure about his dad."

I agree with this.

In defense for my choice of words. I have a DS and I would never of have had further DC with my DH if he didn't like my son it was an important factor in our relationship that he got on with my child hence why I don't understand people who don't try and develop a relationship with their DP child before having their own DC with their partner to me it's important. It's not the child's fault that his DF over compensates the issue is with the DP not the child.

I mean he's 7. He has no choice or power in this situation and the fact is, he has been sidelined for dad's new family. Your dds get more of his dad than he does and he's got yet another new sibling he must compete with. It must just seem his slice of dad pie gets smaller all the time. And then there's you...resentful, irritable you. He gets you into the bargain as well.

Your dh isn't helping matters either of course as he seeks to demonstrate and exercise his love for his son by letting him stay up late and insisting he should have separate meals to suit him. Obviously if ds comes to live with you full time, this problem would be eradicated by the laying down of ground rules. Remember...there are few family meals that suit everyone in the family all the time...it's ok for him to dislike certain things. It's just that he needs to do his share of having something he wouldn't choose himself.

I've got a 7 yr old...she's the youngest of three - forgetting to flush the toilet is normal. Chill out.

I think you really need to work on accepting your stepson is there to stay rather than considering him a cuckoo in your nest and putting the effort into mentally pushing him away. It's obvious you wish you didn't have to bother with him ...but the reality is, you do. You are the cuckoo in his nest.
Sort it out.

So you're suggesting that it's ok for the OP's DP to totally disengage from the rest of the family, including the baby, when DSS is in the building?
No, that's not what I'm suggesting. I would advise that he should say no to him coming to live with FT for the time being unless there is clear evidence of neglect. I would advice that PD does give more attention to his son when he is there, but that doesn't mean totally disengaging from everyone else.

I think that he should build in more time with everyone as a family, but that this should be gradual as the boy gets more reassured that his dad affection is not changing as the family dynamics continue to evolve.