Sweets before dinner

[user1473756940]

I am a mum of a 12 year old, been with my partner 4 years he has 2 children with his ex age 5 & 8. He has a pretty much 50/50 care arrangement with the children and due to this I am quite hands on with them when they are with us and have a good relationship. His relationship with his ex is on good terms 90% of the time. I have a reasonable relationship with her, although she does grate on me somewhat because I don't think she does as much as she can for the children when they are with her in some respects, but I try not to judge and keep this to myself as it is hard being a single mum to young children (been there myself).

My partner is having a few family issues at the moment with ill relatives and on there usual weekday night that they stay with us he needed to be elsewhere visiting hospital, so I said not to worry I will pick them up and take them home and then when he gets home he can spend a bit of time with them before bed. I have done this before, as it is easier to keep arrangements in place than start swapping days etc. I work full time, so text the ex during the day to say I will pick them up on the way through back from work. She replied to say can I feed them tea please because she's got 'nothing in'. I said ok, was a bit disgruntled, she doesn't work, so it probably wouldn't be too difficult to get to the shops and whip up a spag bol, but I agree as I will be making dinner for us anyway.

When I arrive to pick them up, they both sat in the living room each munching their way through a large bag of sweets. I said 'oh have they had dinner then?' she said no. I said 'oh because they're eating sweets, they might not want their dinner' she said 'yer but they said they were hungry and were asking for them'. I said nothing more on the matter, shoes and coated up the kids and took them home. I was seething a bit, because they were hungry because they hadn't been made dinner by their mum and had to wait for me to pick them up (5.30pm) and take them home and make them dinner. Which they didn't eat much of in the end, maybe because they'd been munching sweets.

My partner then gets in from hospital visit and asks what did I say to ex to upset her when I picked them up because she's been on the phone to him kicking off about it. She's given him the 'that woman can't come in my house and tell me how to look after my kids' speech! I don't think that I did a thing to provoke that reaction to be honest, or should I have totally kept my mouth shut??

[user1473756940]

Generally I do dinner, its the way the household works, largely because I'm half decent at cooking and he is pretty rubbish. I cook, he cleans up. Its just working as a team.

His mother is also severely ill in hospital at the moment so I am trying to help him out as best I can, so I'm not even making him do the washing up this week!

[Graphista]

You're very clearly being disingenuous and the drip feed that it's been an issue raised before means you KNEW it was the completely wrong thing to say.

NOT your kids (no I don't care how "involved" you are they're not) and she'd already been getting nagged by your partner about this.

I'm inclined to think too that the drip feed has backfired - you hoped it would paint her as a complacent mother. Even IF she is that's for your partner to deal with.

It actually sounds like you were glad to get an opportunity to have a dig about this.

"OP - I would say from many of the posts today, there’s lots of EW’s on here but not many SM’s!" Not an excuse - op still out of order - and I'd wager still all mothers and not all criticising aren't SM's

[user1473756940]

Graphista

Crikey, is everything in your universe so contrived?

I have drip fed some info because it was relevant really to some of the responses.

What I said whilst in her house was not a dig or a cloaked stab in the back, it wasn't even thought through, it literally just came out my mouth. Maybe I should have thought it through more, but I was tired at the tail end of a long day at work.

I don't think this then warranted a torrent of abuse from her some of it very personally aimed at me.

Under your mentality we are all better off not trying to do things for people for fear of being shut down. So next time a similar situation crops up, should I tell my partner 'no I won't pick up your kids for you to do you a favour during a tough time' and when their mother asks me to feed them dinner because she's got no food in I should just say 'No sorry, I guess you'll have to go shopping'.

[Brakebackcyclebot]

The sweets issue has been brought up by their dad before with her, as it seems whenever he picks them up they are munching sweets, if we bump into them when out and about on days we don't have them, they're munching sweets, and eldest ended up needing dental work a little while ago so it has been discussed, and amicably, before

To give a different perspective, it is possible of course that you are falling into a trap. The sweets thing has been brought up before, she knows this, and is deliberately giving sweets before pick up, to wind you and your DP up, so that you say something, so that she can then "kick off".

Another reason to stay completely silent! You could have just asked the children in the car if they'd had tea, rather than make a bit of a passive aggressive comment in her house.

I find if I ignore stuff like this, it stops happening, because it doesn't get the result that was being provoked.

In answer to your last question, do exactly as you did this time, but without any comment about sweets!

[Graphista]

If it WERE so relevant you'd have inc in op.

Her response to your comment has nothing to do with why you were there, neither did the comment - to collect the DC.

So if you used it as an excuse not to help out in future that would be pretty immature.

"In answer to your last question, do exactly as you did this time, but without any comment about sweets!"

Agree with this.

As for your comment re my perspective it's borne from experience. Not as an exw thankfully. Dds stepmum is lovely

But as a friend who's seen other friends either on the receiving end of such comments or who've made such comments as SM's and then realised they were out of order and apologised.

[ohreallyohreallyoh]

5:30 is a tough time. If you’re cooking, you don’tnecessarily have enough time to fit it in, and end up with children eating when dad arrives, if you give just a sandwich you run the risk of being told it’s not good enough (my ex told me children it was illegal for me to give them a sausage sandwich!) and if you do nothing you’re judged regardless. I am not sure she could have won this one.

I reject the notion that if you don’t work there’s no excuse. You can have no possible idea of what a person does or doesn’t do during a day when you don’t live with them or follow them round. Some of my non- working time is far busier than being at work.

[user1473756940]

Of course I am not going to stop picking them up or cooking them dinner because of this, I will carry on as usual.

I am under no illusions that I shouldn't have said what I said, and next time I will surely think before I open my mouth. Because contrary to some of the conclusions that have been drawn on here it was a comment made to dig at anyone.

I have tried to put myself in her shoes and think how I might have handled it from the other end. And in none of the scenarios I run in my head does it result in me calling up my ex to have a go about it and calling the SM a b**ch from hell. IF I had took it as badly as she has then I may have grumbled about it to myself after she left but that's about it.

I don't think what I said warranted at any point a need to react and throw abuse at someone who she had asked to pick up her kids and asked them to feed them dinner. I have apologised to her for what I said, she has not.

[Bananasinpyjamas11]

Most people, a Granny or sister or friend would have commented on kids being fed sweets right before you are doing them a favour and cooking them dinner. So why do SMs have to shut up and just childmind?!

Honestly, she was doing the Mum (and Dad) a big favour. She should have thanked you OP, so should your DP!

[user1493413286]

What you said is completely true but my DSDs mum would also kick off over it which I think is the over sensitivity of having another woman look after and be involved in your children’s life. It’s ridiculous of her as she should have just fed the kids and I suspect she gave them the sweets because she didn’t have to them deal with the consequences ie. hyper behaviour, not eating tea etc.
I think she probably knew she was acting a bit poorly and went on the massive defensive to avoid confronting those feelings.
Next time I’d say sorry we don’t have any food in/will be eating too late for the kids/have had a big lunch so won’t be cooking dinner etc and let her sort their meal out.