I wish DH didn't already have children - there, I said it!

[ILikeYoYo]

Since having our DC I just wish it was only us, I'd be so much happier.

I know that makes me terrible but I can't stand living and planning our lives around his ex. There's always something going on, always a problem or some sort of drama, always chopping and changing contact and so on.

I'm aware it makes me sound horrible but whilst the kids are good kids, they don't make up for the huge PITA this all is.

I feel like his, mine and our DCs lives just revolve around the DSC.

@aSofaNearYou

My thoughts at the beginning of my relationship with DP mainly revolved around: whether his children would like and accept me; whether I'd be awkward around them as I had no experience with children; and how I'd deal with his ex being in the picture. So I focused a lot on the big topics and didn't really know enough to consider smaller things at that time.

This really resonates with me, I was much the same! It's hard to believe sometimes looking back on how little I was concerned about at the time, but the truth is when you're young and have no experience of children, let alone step families, you have no reason to anticipate what it's actually like.

Totally. I had no experience of step families at all, no divorces in my family and none of my friends even had separated parents so genuinely my only real worries were that the children would automatically hate me just because I was dating their dad or their mum would take against me.

That turned out not to be the case at all, but loads of other things I never even considered before have impacted me massively and would definitely inform my decisions on any possible future relationships if DP and I split. And I feel that I'm actually really fortunate because most if the issues I have are just the general impact of being with someone with children (money, holidays, where we can live etc), not specifically to do with the behaviour of my DP, his ex or the kids.

@Bibidy

I drew a parallel between people who have boundaries on what they think they won’t accept in a partner, but then struggle to leave when those boundaries are crossed. I didn’t make a comment on the moral differences.