Showing affection in front of OH's children

[SaffronStrands]

I'm in a hellish situation with a new OH (9 months, living together) and his 3 children, which I have asked advice about elsewhere.

The eldest child (20) and I had our first, good talk last night and I invited him to tell me what was bothering them all. The first thing, and seemingly biggest thing, he said was that all 3 sons couldn't bear seeing his Dad and I showing affection to each other in front of them, and this has had a big effect on their attitude to me and might explain why one child in particular has been so nasty to me.

I am stunned, OH and I had no idea. He said they can't bear it when they walk into the kitchen and OH and I might be cooking with our arms round each other, or sometimes they've even seen us giving each other a kiss as we pass each other. He went on and said they found it deeply inappropriate that when we're in the car his Dad and I hold hands, "I mean, you do realise you are doing in front of us, do you?", and then "OK, OK, you're forcing me to get really personal now, but once we even saw you rest your hand on his thigh as he was driving! That's not on!"

I am speechless. I should point out resting my hand on his thigh is just that, not feeling him up or anything. We do nothing more than occasionally hug if we're both standing over the cooker stirring pots, or we're chatting and he puts his arms round me. If the boys come in the room, sometimes we'll stay like that and chat to them and have a laugh, but obviously if they come in and we're kissing we stop.

I've always thought this was natural and a nice thing to be, and also a nice thing to show OH's children. OH has wanted (perhaps too desperately, I know) to create a nice family atmosphere for his children, and I think we always presumed being affectionate and warm like this in front of them was a nice way of showing we're together and happy and the room is filled with warmth. I'm aghast to think for all these months it's been viewed in a completely different other way.

This son said last night that we need to understand it's inappropriate and we need to stop, they're the children and if anything makes them uncomfortable then we need to stop it now.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

I agree with curry . Lots of couples don't have much private time without kids around. Or, if you do, it's because you build it in, like you find babysitters so you can go out for dinner, or farm the kids out for sleepovers so you can have loud sex.
I would have thought that either parent's house would be a home that they can come to whoever they want to?
A 20 year old is an adult so I agree that they should be able to rationalise the pda, but the younger one/s are not, and their fathers home is not a timeshare or a hotel, it's their home too.

With regard to the fact that your dp had previous relationship. ..maybe they just don't really like you?

What does your OH think?
If he's always appeasing the kids (and likely to continue this) , then you continuing with the affection is painting you as the bad guy coming between the dad and kids. If he's not on board with the idea that all kids feel 🤢 about parental physical affection but at 20 years old he should be more understanding, then you will become the resented bad guy.
I'm the xw and my 16 year old has created problems with the he relationship between his dad and gf by manipulating the "I'm-your-kid-so-your-number-one-priority-over-girlfriends" like a pro. It doesn't work with me but ex does whatever ds1 says even when it's super unreasonable.

I didn't manage not to! I blurted out a laugh, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I rested my hand on his thigh??? He was saying this as if it were the most sexually explicit act he'd ever seen. Then "We saw you holding hands.. I mean, you do realise we can see you? We can't understand how you think that's acceptable!

This speaks volumes. So really, you invited him to be honest about how he might be feeling, he told you, and you laughed in his face? It is perfectly acceptable for anyone to be uncomfortable with public displays of affection. Do you generally laugh at people who have different opinions or feelings to you?

If you actually weren't prepared to hear what he had to say, why ask?

It's hard work when one of your parents has several new partners/relationships after divorce. It doesn't make it easier because they have done it before. Every new relationship, there parents bends in some way, the rules they live by alter wether it's a little or a small amount depending on the new partner.

It's not fun being the kids that life alters at the foundation to the whims of whatever relationship the parents are in at the time.

This is there home, you moved into it and now they are uncomfortable. It wouldn't hurt to keep the PDA to a minimum. But to be honest everything sounds rushed, you were quick to move in and now your empathy had run out already. Can you really see this lasting more than a year?

It honestly sounds like you boyfriend is quick to move people in and out of their lives and needs to show his children a little more consideration. There is no way the children should have to adhere to a rigid schedule to visit their home if that's never been the case before you came along.

CurryInAHurry
For a new partner it is surely a 'perk' if the DSC are regularly at the other parents, but surely it is not an entitlement?
Surely children of split parents have two homes, not two places they are allowed in on a timed schedule like a B&B?

I have never said I believe it's an entitlement.

We do not have a timed schedule like a B&B. OH's kids know they are welcome any time at ours, and do drop round throughout the week and weekends, no matter which day it is.

From your comments CurryInAHurry, are you saying that my OH and I should never display any affection to each other in any part of the house other than our locked bedroom, just in case one of OH's kids walks in or past the garden and is appalled by what they regard as wrong and inappropriate behaviour between adults?

Vermillionrouge The vast differences being I am not the OW and this is not recently after their parents split, this is 10 years later.

OP, no I did not say that.
And I was replying to a PP Banana.

I'll leave you to it.

How long were you actually together before you moved in?

Janeismymiddlename You've gone and made a huge jump from what I've written to some very peculiar conclusion again.

No, as you well know, the totality of two hours conversation cannot be summed up in "so you invited him to be honest and then laughed in his face.". I'm not entirely sure why you'd like to believe this is the case.

If you are interested, after telling me how "disgusting" and "unacceptable" he found it to see us holding hands once (ONCE), he then said "OK, ok, there's more.. I can't believe I'm going to have to say this.. but you are forcing me to get really personal and tell you what I saw..." - I was bracing myself for some serious sexual stuff and wondering if he had overhead us once (in our bedroom).. or somehow, somewhere (I had no idea how or where, because we are really are low level) he had seen or heard something... I was really, really bracing myself to hear something deeply personal and painful for this 20 year old young man to say.... and then he said that he'd seen me rest my hand on his Dad's thigh once.

So yes, I laughed at that. More as a release of tension after bracing myself as well as the ludicrousness of the whole build up and grossness. It was like something out of Life of Brian.

Do I generally laugh at people who have different opinions or feelings to me, you no doubt very helpfully ask. Funnily enough, no I don't. But I do laugh when a 20 year old young man uses the sight of my hand resting on top of his Dad's thigh when we are sitting next to each other as the most extreme example he builds up to of disgusting behaviour from me and OH and then uses this as a key reason why they all have treated me like something on the bottom of their shoes for months. And you know what? As I'm writing this, I simply have to laugh at the ridiculousness of that again.

lunar1 There is no way the children should have to adhere to a rigid schedule to visit their home if that's never been the case before you came along.

I completely agree. A few posters have mentioned something about a schedule. I have absolutely no idea where anyone got that idea from because that's not what we have in any shape or form.

I think it was brave and honest to start the conversation and to explore what it is that the children feel. I think it was brave too of the boy to tell you how he feels.

I wish that my OH's children would express their feelings, because it's clear they are unhappy, and that might be for a number of reasons that pre-date my relationship with their dad. But it could be that they have a problem with me/their dad. I just don't know, because they just don't say.

I would welcome some openness and honesty, And I hope that, if they did express concerns, I would listen. To me, asking them to abide by rules which make living together more pleasant for everyone (e.g. Tidying up after themselves) is very different: you asked, he told you. It's up to you and your OH how you now choose to behave, but if it was me, i would be more respectful of their views. And I think I'd want a conversation in which all of you get to air concerns so that the atmosphere in the house is the happy one you want it to be, and that would include clearing up after themselves.

Well if they feel uncomfortable they'll vote with their feet. Is that what you want?

Your relationship has been quite sudden and intense and they feel how they feel. Are you younger than your partner by any chance?

I think you and your DH need to remind them whose home it is and who's in charge. If they don't like it, they don't have to come round.

Utterly ridiculous to think they can dictate how you behave. Stop bending over backwards and tell them to grow up - and to start tidying up after themselves, you aren't their servant.

Theoscargoesto
I agree with your post. Of course, if I have any relationship left after the months of hell we have been through, we would cut back on the displays of affection.

I do however think being told how disgusting it is and how abhorrent we are as adults to even think it's ever acceptable to do that is too far, and being dictated to that we must never ever do anything like that again, is out of order. What he said and the manner in which he said it, was too too much, and also too reminiscent of the dictatorial manner that he and the middle son have been in these past months of terror.

This has been the very first time any of them have expressed what they think or feel. We have asked them frequently before and they have said everything's fine. It has taken the eldest son being back from uni and seeing the devastation that the middle son has caused to ask me what really happened in that incident as he didn't know and he said all he knew was that his brother had said x,y and z and was expecting an apology from me. When we realised the lies he has been spreading, and all the rather important bits about what he did that he has left out, the eldest son was shocked, and said the only apology required was from his brother. Before we delved into that we had sat down, I answered his questions and I invited him to tell me anything that concerned him.

During this conversation, I was shocked and saddened to hear that their continued mess-leaving was not some forgetfulness, not just a bit of habitual this-is-what-they've-always-done-so-it-takes-time, it was deliberate (he admitted it) to show OH and I that they believe leaving stinking dirty plates everywhere for days on end has nothing to do with respect and "it's just plates, it's not big deal". I was also shocked and really upset to hear that when I talked about making living together more pleasant for us all, cooperation, working together to create a nice home environment that we can all enjoy just as you say, he looked at me as if I was speaking another tongue. He said they didn't care whether we lived in a pigsty or not as "you are in OUR house, we don't care", and "we don't care about what makes a family work better, we just want to eat and go".

'I think you and your DP need to remind them whose home it is'

So now that the OP has been living there for 5 whole minutes it isn't the kid's home anymore?

'If they don't like it, they don't have to come round'

Hopefully the OP's DP is a better parent than that, and won't give his children ultimatums that could destroy his relationship with them just because they shared some feelings about his new girlfriend.

'I think you and your DP need to remind them whose home it is

yeah, not theirs, clearly. Which is the problem, isn't it?

Months of hell already when you have been together 9 months. It sounds like there was zero effort made to introduce the new relationship gradually or with a sensible time frame. And then you get annoyed because there is hostility and the kids aren't willing to play along happily.

hairymaryquitecontrary how isn't our home their home, exactly?

you moved in 5 minutes ago and slobber all over each other in it, and complain about everything they do or say. They don't feel at home there anymore, they have told you that.

stitchglitched quickly, yes, but as I said not unheard of. But zero effort? That is unfair and untrue. OH had many talks with them before hand. We invited them numerous times down to where I lived to meet me and see where I lived (it was a rather especially lovely place and had some unusually interesting things going on at the time), they said they couldn't be bothered to sit in the car for a few hours, or had better things to do and didn't want to waste a weekend day or the whole weekend away from their PS/4 and their friends. I went up, met them and spent time with them.

hairymaryquitecontrary I see, yes, as I thought.. And no, they have never said they don't feel at home here, you have.

I said zero effort to do it gradually or sensibly. You posted a thread a month ago where you had already been living together for 'a few months'. That is a shockingly irresponsible thing for a parent to do, and then you seem surprised there are problems.

And no, they have never said they don't feel at home here, you have

Oh I think it's pretty clear that they have, in many different ways. You have said so yourself.
But you are determined to see it as their problem and fault rather than yours, so you will deny it all.

stitchglitched You seem to believe children/young men can do no wrong. You also seem to assume hostility is a natural consequence of a parent introducing a partner to their children outside a timescale you approve of. I do take on board your concerns about speed, and I felt that too actually (of course, I am not stupid), but DP assured me the groundwork was laid, everything was good and to trust him on this. I did. Then I must say though that I think the hostility is less about the timescale and more that finally they are being called out on the very rude, selfish and problem-making behaviour which they had been doing long before I came along. It appears in the past when they do it at their BM's, they flee to their Dad's and complain about their BM having a fit. Now they are being called out on it in our home, and have two options: either go their BM's where they will be disciplined and richochet back to ours, or start behaving like decent young men. They are choosing to object to being the latter and can't see the point, and are doing the former.

You clearly put all the blame at our feet. I have to wonder why you put no blame at the feet of two young men in any of this?

Are you the one who was on the awful holiday with your dp and 3 teen "step sons" (who aren't step sons)?
If so, I think the general consensus on that one was to stop trying to make "this family work", accept that you are Dad's girlfriend not their step mum and move back out so you can have a nice relationship without any of the awfulness of teenagers.
Apologies if that wasn't you...