Does your DP like your kids?

[peekaboob]

Having a rough time anyway at the moment with DP and me so I'm trying to work out if this issue is just an extension of our issues or a separate wider issue.
Sometimes I get the impression that DP doesn't actually like my kids. He can be an arse at times and isn't good at hiding emotions (unless it's happiness - seems to be hiding that one quite well at the moment ) We share a toddler DD as well as me having 3 kids, preteens to teens and he has a preteen who he sees EOW.
Tonight one of the preteens was doing something that does annoy me, he'll recreate noisy battle scenes with figures and I do tell him to keep it down a lot however this is how the conversation went tonight:
Child: pow pow psssh uuugh
Me: can you just tone it down a bit?
Child: but I'm playing!
Me: I get that but just be quiet....
DP: yeah just be quieter
Me: or you can play upstairs in your room and be as noisy as you want.
DP: yeah you can go upstairs.
Child: there's nowhere to play
Me: you can play on the Flo...
DP: you've got the carpet, play on that.
Me to DP: errr alright!

DP didn't say a word to him prior to this or after.
Took toddler for bath, hasn't said a word to teen who came down as we were going up.
DP shouts down to teen: just had to shut your door to stop toddler going in there!

Now won't see either of them until tomorrow evening as they're all upstairs reading and he's putting toddler to bed. I had to stop him reading to toddler as she was listening but not paying full attention so he started reading in the most bored voice as fast as he could.

He's getting crankier as he gets older (mid 40s) if you've read other stuff I've posted his dad is an absolute wanker and DP is still scared of him. And he's under a lot of pressure as it's only him working in his company at the moment so his day is packed then straight to me for toddler, gets home 10ish then has to shower and walk dog so I get he is tired.
We don't live together, been together 6 years. Both houses currently otm to buy together.

Is your DP ok with your kids 100% of the time? Or has lockdown thrown it all out the window too?

we would be unable to live together, toddler or not, until both houses are sold.

Yes, but I don't understand why you actively planned to have a baby before selling both houses and seeing how you all got on living together 24/7?

But what's done is done.

I'd be taking my house off the market if it was you. I think your instincts are right and this isn't the life he envisaged.

I'm going purely on what day about your feelings though. The instance with your pre-teen isn't really a big deal in itself. Although if that's regularly the only kind of interaction, that's obviously another story.

@aSofaNearYou I didn't stop him reading because the toddler wasn't listening. It was what he was doing because she wasn't listening. Big booming bored monotonous voice, trying to rush through the story. His tone was awful, I've said to him he sees her for 30 minutes a day. He's like it with his other child now - if he doesn't get the right feedback he switches off and refuses to interact pleasantly until they do. He called his son the other night and because his son didn't say he loved him back he said he wasn't going to phone him again and he can make the effort from now on. He's 10.
Writing this all down is helping me see stuff in a collective way. Might chuck it in down in a notebook.

@peekaboob can i ask why you chose to have a baby with a man you'd never lived with before?

@theproblemwitheyes because on paper it worked out. When did I start to regret doing it this way round? When she was less than a week old.

Ok, well only you can know how bad his behaviour comes across, but I will say from an outsiders POV it sounds like he may be depressed, and you do sound very dismissive of him. There's a lot of "he's always in a mood, his tone is awful" etc. It sounds like you view him as a problem that needs to be managed. I sympathise because my partner's depression has got a lot worse during lockdown and sometimes it's like there's a black cloud over the whole household, but me being on his case whenever he acted grumpy certainly wouldn't help anything. I would consider trying to be more caring and understanding towards him, talk to him about the fact he seems to be in a bad place and be open to the idea that it's not just because he's a bastard.

@aSofaNearYou I literally couldn't be any more caring. I cook his dinner, daily, ready for when he gets to me. I've taken over the bits of his business that he doesn't like doing, he has every other weekend completely to himself now to do "his jobs" at home or hobby and catch up on sleep (usually until midday). I am alone with the toddler all weekend whilst the others are with their dad.
Meanwhile I have done every minute of every day with the toddler, I am homeschooling 3 other fighting kids, I haven't slept for longer than 2 hours for over 2 years now. I never get a lie in, never get meals cooked for me.
If I raise any of this with him I've made him feel bad. I have asked him to step up many times so I don't think him being nice to the kids, including his own, for up to an hour a day is a big ask.
He is on antidepressants and it's a condition of our relationship that he stays on them as he is violent without them.
Maybe we all just have miserable DPs with or without lockdown then

@peekaboob - how has he eow to himself? Sorry if I missed something but does he not have his dc that weekend?

@Magda72 no, we have all kids the same weekend. Obviously toddler is around 24/7. So when my kids are with their dad and his son is with his ex then he has the weekend to himself. On the weekend when we have all the kids he take his son to his hobby all day on the Saturday then to his mums for dinner on the Sunday.

I just want to know if other people's DPs are nice to their kids or not without getting into the ins and outs of my relationship. I just need a benchmark.

@Magda72 so the weekend that we would have had as a couple, pre-toddler, he has to himself other than coming to me for dinner at night.

@peekaboob you need to start dropping the toddler at his one weekend a month and making him do his fair share.

He's a parent. It's not optional. Regardless of how he treats your kids, the way he's treating his own daughter is appalling and i can't quite believe you're letting him get away with it.

He is an extremely part time df to his own dc. Not sure why you expected more effort with your dc?
Flogging a dead horse imo.

Please don't think I'm being horrible OP, but do you think he'd do the nightly visits to his toddler if you weren't doing his meals and business admin?

but do you think he'd do the nightly visits to his toddler if you weren't doing his meals and business admin?

Really good question from @excelledyourself there

@theproblemwitheyes she's still breastfeeding and coalescing through the night so stays with him are out at the moment. In any case the way he can be with her I'm not sure whether him going from just being in the same room to parenting her would be a good idea given his moodiness at the moment.

I've asked him to stay for a complete week so that I can wean her and he can settle her during the night but he's said no because of the dog. Dog can't come to me as one of mine is allergic to it (didn't find out until toddler was born). It's an old dog and we both thought he'd have passed away by now.

@theproblemwitheyes he did used to come anyway regardless of me feeding him every day. That's only started during lockdown.

@Sunnydayshereatlast yes I agree. I push for him to call his son. He'd be happy with just EOW contact and none in between and he lives 45 mins away. My ex calls everyday to speak to the kids, sees the kids midweek and lives 5 mins away.

@peekaboob the way you're describing your situation makes it clear that he isn't actually interested in being a parent to any of these children. He finds them irritating and boring, and doesn't particularly care about any of them.

I think you'd be much better off telling him to fuck off, weaning your daughter yourself, applying for CMS and organising 50/50 custody til she goes to school.

My exh had dc. He didn't really make much effort with them. I coaxed and cajoled him into spending more time /effort in them. He cba and ended up resenting the relationships I had with my dc.
Imo ending the relationship won't make him step up for your joint dc but it will make your own dc feel less of an inconvenience in what is their own home..
That's the road to seriously consider op..

Sorry for derailing. Your situation does sound very familiar, and I can recognise that a lot of your tone that I read as potentially overly critical is probably coming from a place of built up frustration. I've suffered with bad mental health in the past and am well aware that people with depression can be very hard to live with, but I do think there comes a point where it can just be asking too much. It sounds like it's crossed that line for you and you're constantly tolerating. His behaviour sounds considerably worse than my partner's (who is not on antidepressants), and it's very worrying that he is violent without them and this is his "best" as it were.

To answer your initial question, from what you've said it doesn't sound like there is a particular problem with his attitude towards your children, it sounds like part of a wider issue of his attitude towards everything, including his own children. I'd be more concerned about his lack of input into your joint child, if anything.

@peekaboob - sorry if you think I'm being nosey I just think it says a lot that he doesn't spend his 'free' weekends with you and your joint dc. As @aSofaNearYou pointed out his attitude to everyone & everything seems off & no, that's not normal - I think his annoyance with your dc is only the tip of the problem. Now, all this could be down to his depression which is very hard to live with - both for the sufferer & those that live with/love them - but whether it's his depression or just a general dissatisfaction with life, or him just not being a particularly caringpatient person, he does seem like he is (maybe only atm & due to depression) overwhelmed by & disinterested in such a busy life with so many kids.
As you've said yourself I think you need a good frank conversation with him so you yourself can determine if it's his depression affecting his behaviour or disinterest & selfishness.

Wow you've got a father of the year and partner of the year all rolled into one! What in the world does he bring to your life? You're excluded from regularly scheduled family meals with his parents and he has a history of violence,neglectful to your toddler for entire weekends???!!!

@aSofaNearYou you're right. It is frustration. I don't understand how he can't just be nice and take over from me for an hour a day. I'd rather he didn't come than the kids have to modify their behaviour everyday.

If one parent is telling a child to stop something like making noise...it doesn't need the other to join in. It can seem overbearing to the child, like they're being ganged up on.

Imagine if your child did this and your other child joins them in...or if a colleague says tapping your foot is irritating and another colleague echoes...it's not necessary.

He called his son the other night and because his son didn't say he loved him back he said he wasn't going to phone him again and he can make the effort from now on. He's 10.

He's like a sulky child.

I push for him to call his son.

He's one of those dads the child won't even bother with as they grow older.

He doesn't sound that interested in being a parent to me.

@Magda72 and his Sunday hobby hasn't restarted yet so when that does he'll spend one of the sundays doing that and the other Sunday practising for it. But by then his cleaner will be able to restart so he won't need to do his jobs on a Sunday.

@EKGEMS well you're not wrong. We do have good times though and had so many prior to DD. Either it's been getting worse since lockdown or I've started noticing more.