Help! Some of our children have luxury stuff and some don't. How do we make it fair?

[RainbowSetting]

Help!!!!
I feel really lost with this and want to talk to my SO about it but feel really sad as everytime we do it turns into an argument.
Hence being up at 2am and worrying about it.

I need some help working out what the right thing to do is. Feel like I've lost perspective of the whole situation.

At home there is me and SO, and 5 children between us. All spend approx half the week with us and the other with their mum/dad.
Co parenting is working well.
One side of the co parenting parent buys their children the latest iphones, ipads, earpods, xboxs etc..and they enjoy the use of these in both homes.
So far so good.
The other co parenting parent also buys great stuff for their children, but not to this scale. Which is also fine, and obviously we buy them nice stuff too. None of this is ever given outside of birthdays or Xmas by anyone.
The problem is the difference in what the children have is noticeable.
We make sure what is in our control, ie what we buy them is equal and fair. Same amount spent on them all.

Should we make any attempt to make sure what the children have overall is a bit more even?
We could afford it to make it a bit more even, probably not 100%.
But then as soon as we do, should we then spend the same on the other children to male it fair?Which makes things unfair again! It makes my head spin!

Obviously there are birthdays coming up and it's getting very stressful and tense at home.
Has anyone ever had a similar situation?
Or does anyone have any opinions?

I genuinely don't know what the right thing to do is, and it's causing big arguments. Any advice would be appreciated.

Many many thanks for any help or word of advice!

(Where is the praying emoji when you need it)

Also, the children are 9, 12, 12, 18, and 23.
The 23yo has moved out but we still buy presents for him.

The holiday think is awful. Go away with your mum and your kids!!!! Nothing wrong with that!

If you can afford to treat your kids without affecting your contributions to the household or meaning financially you aren’t personally too skint to do things with your partner or as a wider family group then go for it!

The only reason I mention the above is that I had the get my partner to agree to similar spending limits because he’d always come up short on the household contributions after spending ridiculous amounts on his kids which then meant either I was picking up his shortfall in household contributions or if we wanted to do anything fun then I had to pay for it which didn’t seem fair.
It was really limiting our lives with him constantly buying over the top presents he couldn’t afford for his kids.

For example my eldest SD wanted £600 trainers for her birthday, but there’s no way we could afford that and DP almost agreed to spending it.

I was no best pleased as when he does spend a lot on his kids then he ends up dipping into our joint account for his essential bills like petrol at the end of the month.

It sounds petty but it got on my nerves that we’re contributing 50:50 to the joint account and are supposed to pay for our personal bills out of our individual accounts and he was constantly taking a £100 here and £200 there for things for his kids because he’d overspent.

I never do that. It felt like I was subsidising them as well as paying for my own children (one of which I have 100% care for).
I budget much better than my DP and buy presents in the sales over maybe several months to be able to afford nice Christmas / birthday gifts for my children and other family members.

He’s not so savvy with money and got his kids really expensive phone contracts for example and always seems to come up short even though he earn slightly more than me.

So I said “this is the budget for the kids”... what my son gets from his dad or what his DDs get from their mum is irrelevant to our household budgeting.

If he could afford it however I’d have no issue.

She resents your children and they will know this, especially your daughter. Eventually it will occur to them that their father could have removed them from this situation. If you don't, don't expect much of a relationship with them when they're adults. Sorry if that sounds harsh but living with an adult who dislikes and resents you is immensely damaging to a child's self-esteem.

So it’s an issue for you and your oh but is it fort be kids?

My kids had more luxuries, with me than their step siblings had with their SM and dad. They also didn’t get much from their own dad.

There’s never been any resentment. Their step sibling accepted that they had another life with me. Similarly, my kids would never have resented that more money was spent on their step siblings than them by their dad/SM.

Not all kids are materialistic. Neither mine are. They wanted stuff but never craved the latest things. They didn’t care if friends or spare siblings had more expensive clothes than them, and same with their step siblings not feeling resentful that my kids got to go on nice holidays when they didn’t.

I wonder sometime,so how much as parents we impose our own principles onto our kids when they are not half fussed. I also find it sad how equality always come down to material things.

Raising kids in this environment is really not healthy. They will assume that happiness is driven from having exactly the same than their family, friends, than neighbours, colleagues etc... so much better to teach them not to compare themselves to others and instead focus on what they have or want to achieve.

Your partner sounds resentful of your DC and controlling of you.

It seems she's happy for the father of her children to spend what he likes on their children, but is trying to control your relationship and spending on your children.

I think you need to have a hard think about this and a clear conversation setting some boundaries.

Just as you do not control her children's gifts or holidays she has no right to control yours. If she cannot deal with that then you need to rethink the relationship.

Are you able to have a frank discussion with her about why she feels she needs to be controlling. Do you think she would accept support for this if counselling was an option? Needing to control comes from a place of insecurity, I'm not saying you have to put up with it, but is there something that has happened for this need to control of hers?

If you pander to her need to control, all what will happen is she will find more things that she needs to control in order to feel secure and be happy - but you won't be happy and neither will she in the long run.

How does she get on with your dc day to day? Does she show resentment? How was she when you first met? Did she feel that you cared about her equally to your dc and now feels bottom of the pile?

I wonder if a conversation around what priorities mean to you, how you see her - do you care about her needs and are the of equal importance to your dc and family needs? Step parenting can bring out ugly sides of people that they didn't realise they had, if there's unresolved childhood issues in your DPs past she may find that she's being unconsciously triggered by seeing you be a good dad, or feeling left out. Blending families is really hard on all sides, I'm sure if she heard what you're saying here she would feel that she's been unreasonable, but her defensiveness isn't going to let that happen.

For you, balancing your dc needs, dp needs and family needs is going to be hard, why don't you go in on an angle like - I feel like you're not very happy at the moment and you feel left out. I'm sorry if I havent been able to meet all of your needs, its been hard juggling you all, but I want you to know I'm committed to making this work and I want to grow old with you. I feel like we need to prioritise our relationship working and was thinking about a weekly date night/ daily check in for how our blending is working. I also feel a bit controlled in how I treat my dc, I want all the dc to feel loved and secure but not being able to buy my dc exactly what they want when your dc get a lot their other side makes me feel that my dc will end up feeling resentful- and all I want is all the dc to feel that we're a team when we're together. Do you think we need some couples counselling to work out what sort of family we'd all like to be and be happy in.

If she's really a lovely person who hasn't felt her needs are put in equal consideration she will likely feel heard and validated by you, and want to be on board with making it work for all of you. If she's not then unfortunately her need for control is too overwhelming and will spoil the relationship between you and your dc - eventually your dc will become resentful and you will be living in hell.

This is madness.

I have found with teens that the amount spent fluctuates widely. One year they might get a console worth a few hundred, other years they might get fancy trainers for £100.

Buying cheap means having to upgrade again soon. I would buy the iPad if that's what's best for her. As long as your partner isn't paying 100% of the cost yanbu to think that keeping things equal like this isn't really fair.

[quote RainbowSetting]@Ninkanink
It doesn't go down well when I say the children come first, been there and had that argument many many times. It never ends well[/quote]
@RainbowSetting

You need to have a really good think!

She's very controlling.

It hasn't been long and it doesn't sound very happy.

You moved in together very quickly because it was what she wanted to.

You're not buying your kids what you want to (&can afford) because she's telling you that you can't.

She's controlling your kids relationship with your mum.

You sound very downtrodden.

Personally think you're just going to keep shrinking in that relationship & your kids will suffer (they already are). I think you'd be much better off out if it!!

But if you can't see that... the very least you can do is change your finances so you keep your own income but Pat into a joint account for bills. Then you can spend YOUR money how you want to.

But honestly, have a really good think about she's controlling you, and stop letting her bully you because you're afraid of a row.

If you were a woman and your partner male, you'd be told that you should move out ASAP and be together but live apart.
Your children are losing out with the current dynamic. Her attitude about the Cornwall trip is outrageously manipulative. Of course you want to see your mum! If you can't stand up for your kids then living apart will mean less arguments because she won't see what you're buying for your kids. If you ex was the wealthy one I bet she wouldn't be so desperate to "punish" her kids.

I think this is a much broader issue. From experience (10 years in!) at the beginning many blended families, including my own, attempt to be equal, with the best of intentions. To jointly parent all the kids fairly, both financially and practically.

However, blended families don't come with rule books. I feel this very strongly! They tend to evolve over the years as the different dynamics affect the family.

It's not a "traditional" or nuclear family set-up, so the same rules cannot apply. We used to try to discipline all the children equally but quickly realised that our parenting styles were different. After a couple of problematic years (and huge rows!) we agreed to only discipline our own. This doesn't work for everyone! But it did for us and probably saved our relationship.

In your situation @RainbowSetting you are just 1 year in. Granted, in an ideal scenario equal amounts would be spent. But it's not a traditional family, you're a blended family. I think changes need to happen as you evolve and issues dealt with. For me, the issue seems to be that you aren't really able to discuss any changes - your partner seems to want to stick to "the rules" (unless her own children are impacted)

I would question the viability of a relationship where you can't discuss and make changes / be flexible. That way lies resentment - not least of all for your children.

Just to add - I feel that your OH is coming from a good place. I think her viewpoint is that in your household / family, everything should be equal (so I can see that from her viewpoint, your mum is included in that, hence her wanting your mum to take ALL of the kids - to make it equal, but her ex isn't included in that and can't therefore be factored in).

However, I don't think it should be assumed that everyone else suddenly sees all the children the same. Your mum hasn't had long, in the grand scheme of things to suddenly see your OH's children in the same way. And it's fine to take just her grandchildren away. No-one has the right to demand she sees things differently / does things differently. I make sure I spend time away each year just me and my kids. We do a few days away together just us. My partner does the same with his kids.

What does Jump out at me however, is her reluctance for you to go with them. I just don't get that.

I sympathise OP.

I do think that there isn't much to be done about what each child receives from their other parent - I don't believe it's in your control and think it's more unfair if you and your DP start spending varying amount in order to buy obviously more expensive things for some of the children at the expense of the others. I think it's fairer to just explain to the children that X got that gift from his mum/dad, not from you, and it's the same as how this set of children get different gifts from their own other parent.

^^That said though, I don't think fairness always amounts to the exact same spend. In your example of the tablet, I wouldn't buy a dirt cheap one just to stay within budget. I just meant I wouldn't be trying to compensate for other kids receiving expensive gifts.

Tbh I am always quite dubious of people allocating specific amounts to gifts as sometimes someone will want a one-off more expensive thing, and others might just want something cheaper but end up with loads of unnecessary tat just to make up the spend. The funds should be spread how they need to be spread, not split evenly no matter what.

Ok OP just caught up on all your posts here - I think your DP is being incredibly unfair. Particularly as it sounds like your household isn't short of money at all and you can afford to buy your children decent versions of what they want.

Tbh it sounds like your DP gets away with not spending a great deal on her kids' gifts because her ex is covering all the big ticket items. That's obviously not the case for you.

I am surprised that she is trying to control the spend so much considering you have separate accounts and she actually earns more than you plus gets CM. I would understand more if you had joint finances so spend has to be agreed between you, but you don't? You are free to spend your money as you choose and her kids aren't even losing out since they are the ones with all the great stuff.

Tbh I'd be wondering, if she earns more than you AND gets CM, where is all her money going if she's limiting birthday and Christmas spend to £100 each? Chances are she's stashing it away in savings or accounts for her children, which will again benefit hers and not yours.

I think the most diplomatic thing you can do, since it's affordable for you, is to suggest that you increase the budget this year in order to get this tablet for your daughter. It doesn't sound like you'd have any issue with her spending a comparable amount on her own kids in return.