Am I being unreasonable??

[lovenotwar321]

Me and my partner have been together for 7 years he has 2 children from a previous relationship that we have every other night. 5 months ago i gave birth to our child and obviously things in our household just got a whole lot busier. My partner doesnt finish work until 6pm every night and then every other night collects his children after work and by time they get home our child is in bed and i have cooked them all dinner. One of my partners children plays football and goes training once a week and plays a football match every weekend. I cook and clean for all the children even though they are teenagers and old enough to help out although it would be me making them do this as my partner always forgets and wants an easy life but i dont want to be the bad guy. My partner has started going to the pub every friday night after work now and he works hard so i understand he needs to let off steam but it means that most of the week he doesnt see our child apart from he gets up for an hour every morning whilst i sleep. He then takes his child football training every other week after work when it lands on our night and football matches again every other weekend. The childrens mother does not take the child either training or football on her nights my partner has to arrange lifts.

So my question is this am i being un reasonable to ask my partner to stop taking his child football training every other week and to stop going to the pub every friday. I never want to get in the way of a relationship with his children but its just too much at the moment our child is still up 3 or 4 times a night and i do it all but he helps on the weekend. The football matches means hes normally gone most of the day on the weekend and training means he doesnt get home until 9pm and he says his child is missing out if he doesnt take them and its not fair to keep relying on other people to take them. With him now going to the pub i feel like ive had enough of constantly being alone and raising our child and cleaning up after every one but dont see a solution to changing things. Ive gone mad at him tonight a build up of emotions and he says im over reacting and its mot fair to ask him to do that. I just want to know if i am being unreasonable or if im not the only one who thinks hes got to make changes and he cant always take his child football as he now has 3 and a partner to share his time with.

@ColaFreezePop I’m fully aware of how courts view half siblings vs step siblings. I’m confused as to why you think I need clarification on that? I’ve never mentioned court. And re read my post. I Stated that a half sibling is their dads flesh and blood also-so I think it’s pretty clear that I understand that half siblings are blood relations. WhAt has any of that got to do with the fact that half siblings/ step siblings etc can cause the older children to feel upset and destabilised? Half siblings more so (precisely because they are blood relations) but that blood relation gets to live with their daddy but they don’t.

As I have said, every set up is different, and each one will have their own complexities based on a myriad of different factors.

@aSofaNearYou where does it say that this man is prioritising his elder children over his baby? He is up every morning with the baby letting the OP sleep and also prioritising his baby. When he isn’t collecting his children, he is back by 6pm to no doubt help with bedtime and again prioritise his baby. Then on the EOW he doesn’t have his eldest children, I presume he is then also prioritising his baby. There is no part of this post where the baby is losing out.

If I’m perfectly blunt. The op is actually expecting the baby to be prioritised over and above the eldest children. From the explanation, this baby gets 50% of their fathers time (aside from the Friday that he was going to the pub).

Yes another child has come, and he already had children. So maybe people in this situation need to give up the luxury of thinking their child needs to be prioritised. Because from what I can see, this guy is doing the best he can to treat all his children equally and is a stand up dad.

@sassbott it is because your post went on about step-siblings when the OP was posting about half-siblings. The OP doesn't have any other children so her situation isn't similar to yours.

@sassbott my comment wasn't about this thread, but about the responses you always get saying it's fine for the dad to focus all his energy on the older kids and expect the slack to be picked up by the mother of the new baby, because the baby won't be as bothered who is looking after them and therefore their needs are lesser.

It's a very annoying shifting of responsibility for the extra effort required when you have more than one child from the person that actually has more than one, to the step parent. It's not just about what the children want, it's about the responsibility to the other parent of the baby you have just agreed to have.

Ah ok cola. My posts were in response to a question I got. Either way, I think all these situations can be challenging and need dealing with based on what is happening.

@aSofaNearYou I completely agree with you re the responsibility a person has towards the person they’ve decided to have another baby with. If you make the decision to bring another child into the world, when you already have children, then the right thing is to ensure that you have enough time, emotional energy and bandwidth to meet everyone’s needs. Otherwise it’s essentially a very selfish decision to make.

I don’t think people in these situations have enough conversations about money, priorities, holidays, logistics, compromise before making these decisions. My partner went on about having a baby with me for well over a year. And when I would ask him; well who looks after the baby when you have your children. Who collects/ takes the child to school when you have yours to take to school? Who is going to take parental leave after the birth of the baby? Will you take yours? Well how will you afford to pay maintenance / spousal support and also then contribute equally to this new child? He simple response was ‘we’ll make it work somehow, plenty of people do.’ And I simply responded with ‘no, that’s not good enough.’ Because with an answer like that you’re making it clear to me that you haven’t even thought about the demands a new baby will make on your time. And how you will fulfil those given what you already have on your plate. It was clear to me that the assumption he had made was that it would fall to me to step up and I wasn’t prepared to be put in that situation. It’s intensely selfish and I absolutely agree, the partners / wives need support and their needs to be met also.

It’s why (as I said before), these situations and dynamics are so complex.