AIBU to not do club runs?

[OiOiMikey]

My husband has a habit of trying to push or 'hint' for me to do more than I'm comfortable doing with DSC.

The latest thing is clubs. DSC have recently started a particular hobby which is on multiple days a week, often when they are with us.

DH hates coming home from work and having to go back out for hours to do this and the hints have started about me maybe taking them sometimes.

AIBU to say no? Probably sounds awful but I've zero interest in spending my evenings driving to and then staying to watch this and think between the two (Mum and Dad) they should be able to arrange it themselves if they are happy for their DC to do these things.

I help out with things when needed but I have. DC of my own and I have no desire to sacrifice time spent with them running around to various clubs in the evening.

Does he do anything with your shared children on days you do the clubs?

And no I don't think he'd expect me to take baby, he'd stay home with them.

When I responded that it's not how I wanted to spend my evenings I got a jokey 'what about if X (our DCs name) wanted to do it'. As if that's the same

Presumably when your kids want to do clubs, whether you can facilitate that will be the main concern. Currently you get no say on when these clubs are/where etc. Yet are expected to assist.

There are clubs my DC dont do because they do not fit in with our lives. That's life. The clubs the do do are the ones we can commit to doing weekly on set days and times.

YANBU

YANBU.
Him and their bio mother will have to sort it out between them.
Being a stepmum is thankless job, if you ask me.
Most of the time, the men are just looking for another female to palm their kids off on.

When I responded that it's not how I wanted to spend my evenings I got a jokey 'what about if X (our DCs name) wanted to do it'. As if that's the same.

I would respond with “X is my child, so of course I would take him. Just like Y is your child so you need to take them.”

Why does he think his child is more your responsibility than his?

Well he didn’t have to agree to it. But he did. And it’s on him to facilitate it on his time.

You’re right to hold firm.

And of course it’s not the same

Unless there are multiple children with large age gaps I highly doubt he or his ex had to either miss out on time with a small baby or drag it out with them to accommodate an older child’s activity. Why should you?

He has multiple children, his choice. That brings with it hassle, tiredness, cost and inconvenience. You have one baby, that baby is your priority.

I’d be wary of “emergencies” as the start of the slippery slope. This child has two capable parents who are unlikely to experience coordinating “emergencies” and in the unlikely event that they do I’m sure the child can skip one session.

You’ll have to watch this like a hawk because he sounds like a piss taker.

If it comes up again and laughing doesn’t cut him off, ask why he’s trying to buy his own leisure with your labour. If he can’t be bothered he’s got a fucking nerve thinking you should.

As a step parent, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is caring more than the parent. It’s the start of becoming a resentful doormat who’s shown no appreciation and your effort will never be repaid.

@FishyFriday

He needs to recognise that anything you do for his children is really a favour to him. You have no obligation to be the cricket club taxi service (or whatever it is). I bet you'd be more willing to help him out if it weren't positioned as an obligation.

OTOH my H does nothing to help me with my son's sporting hobby. Between us my ex and I organise getting him to and from all 6 training sessions a week, and to events. I don't expect or ask my H to do it.

That would all be fine, but my H tends to be obstructive about the sport. He wants to try to force me to stop DS doing it and make him drop down to a fitness squad instead of the high level competitive squad he currently trains with. So he refuses to 'help' me by looking after the baby (his son!) so I can take DS to training.

Yet, he's annoyed that I won't do school runs for the SC, or look after SS so he can take SD to the club he's signed her up to. He's got no legs to stand on given how absolutely unreasonable he is about not looking after his own child because that is somehow asking him to do something for DS and his sport.

The sport is bloody swimming (which isn't outing because there are 7 million swimming clubs in this country) so this manifests as (I'm not joking) me having to take the baby out at 5am because his father won't look after him in case he wakes up while I spend 15 minutes taking my son to the local pool. It infuriates me because he cannot see that he is responsible for the baby. I'm not asking a favour of him in expecting him to look after his own child!

The point of all this is really that I can totally understand the monotony and arduousness of club sport activities for kids. And I really do understand the issues in a blended family. In your situation I totally agree that you don't have to do it. It's the parents' responsibility. If you agree to help your husband out sometimes, he needs to recognise that it is not an obligation but you being kind to him. And he should be grateful.

I think the notion of what is a responsibility and what is a favour often gets very confused in some blended families. And that leads to resentment in all sorts of ways. So it might be useful to discuss and clarify this with your husband.

Your husband needs chucked. What an absolute dickhead.

He's never outwardly said it but I suspect he is of the belief that all of the children are "our children" and so it shouldn't make a difference. There's certainly been things in the past he's said that have made me about what he thinks my responsibilities are.

@OiOiMikey

It wasn't actually DH who signed them up but they like going so he obviously doesn't want to say they can't.

He isn't asking about every time but sometimes. But I'm reluctant to set off a trend. Emergency fine but yeah I don't want to get into a habit for any other reason.

When I responded that it's not how I wanted to spend my evenings I got a jokey 'what about if X (our DCs name) wanted to do it'. As if that's the same.

You need to have a word to him about all this.

No one enjoys sitting in viewing galleries waiting for kids doing activities. Or standing in the pissing rain for the same reason. You do it for your own children because you have decided to support them doing whatever it is you're hanging around waiting for.

Your SC have two parents who are welcome to knock themselves out with this aspect of parenting. The odd pick up as a favour is fine but the subtext here is that you realise it quickly stops being that and somehow becomes your job. 🙄

Tbh, I'd really resent my H's ex unilaterally deciding that we'll take the SC to whatever she signs them up to during contact, especially if it were going to be me having to change my plans to accommodate club runs. She needs to negotiate that properly with my husband, whose contact time it is. And none of it is my problem, so neither of them should see me as the default taxi.

My DS swam when I met my husband. He knew that swim training was part of the deal, and that it just gets more time consuming the bigger they get. If DS wanted to take up another activity though, I'd discuss it with my husband as well as with DS's dad. It's a decision that affects everyone's time and what we can do on any given night.

@OiOiMikey

And no I don't think he'd expect me to take baby, he'd stay home with them.

I'd like to be able to say obviously to this. Because it should be obvious. But as I've found, my husband manages to be amazingly unreasonable.

Do you get a say in their activities, go to school plays and parents evenings, get to bug them about homework? Would you have any rights to see them again if you split up or he died? Do you have parental responsibility for them and could make life and death decisions for them? Do they call you mum?

I doubt it. They’re not your children. They’ll never be your children unless their mum dies and you adopt them. They’re your step children and hopefully get on with them when they’re at yours. That’s plenty.

They have TWO parents and you’re not either.

He’s being ridiculous.

@OiOiMikey

He's never outwardly said it but I suspect he is of the belief that all of the children are "our children" and so it shouldn't make a difference. There's certainly been things in the past he's said that have made me about what he thinks my responsibilities are.

Of course he is. When it suits him.

He isn't of that belief when it comes to deciding what clubs they do though. Just in the hard work bits. That's pretty typical.

YANBU

He shouldn't be expecting you to do this. My DH did a lot of clubs with my eldest (his stepson), but really he did it because it was a sport he enjoyed watching - not because it's his role to do the running about

You need to set him straight OP. All the DC are not both of your DC. He has some he parents with his ex and if he can’t be arsed to do something he has committed to then he needs to face his ex, tell her that, and ask her to pick up his slack. see how that goes down. Please don’t let this become the norm for you. Stay firm.

It won't be happening don't worry. I'm quite good at saying no and to be fair to him he usually doesn't push it much further once I have. We don't row about it. But it does leave you wondering sometimes if you're being reasonable or not.

@FishyFriday Your "D"H sounds like an absolute bell-end I'm afraid.

OP - it sounds like you are barely involved with DSC and I don't think it's unreasonable for him to want more. BUT it also sounds like he wants you to play Mummy to them and that he'd quite happily abdicate responsibility to you, which would make me very nervous.

As it is, if you're home with the baby while he's doing stuff for the SC, you're already facilitating him as that's time he's not helping you/spending with the baby.

@MiddleParking the amazing thing is that he actually thinks he's in the right with all this. He genuinely thinks that your average person on the street would agree that he is right and I am wrong.

But he's totally deluded. There's a huge difference between your children and stepchildren. Having to look after and do stuff for your own children is the default position - even if you have a Y chromosome.

That’s his job - not yours.
Voice of experience here. Helped out initially with one club and before I knew it I was doing loads (yes, I was a mug).
In my experience the more you do, the more is expected of you.

Stand firm and keep saying no Op - he's being unreasonable even asking you (or hinting at it!) as you didn't get a say in them being signed up to the clubs in the first instance so to expect you to do something that he should be doing is very unfair.

Helping in an emergency is one thing but not as anything regular and he shouldn't have even asked you.

[quote Triffid1]@FishyFriday Your "D"H sounds like an absolute bell-end I'm afraid.

OP - it sounds like you are barely involved with DSC and I don't think it's unreasonable for him to want more. BUT it also sounds like he wants you to play Mummy to them and that he'd quite happily abdicate responsibility to you, which would make me very nervous.

As it is, if you're home with the baby while he's doing stuff for the SC, you're already facilitating him as that's time he's not helping you/spending with the baby.[/quote]
Yes. He's currently trying for one of the new 'dick of the year' awards (coming soon to a tv station near you 😂). He's going to take some beating. 😩

Sometimes I think he makes a brilliant illustration of what unreasonable actually looks like. So people like @OiOiMikey can recognise that they are most definitely not being unreasonable. Not in the slightest.

Because it is so easy as a SM to assume that you are being selfish or horrible or something.

Plus the bit about how, by looking after the baby (his baby), you are facilitating him in spending time with the SC is important.

It's the bit that my H thinks makes him reasonable. Except that he forgets all the time I spend looking after the baby while he takes his children out or to allow him to do school runs (and all the early starts and late nights at work to accommodate this). And the bits where he gets to go to the gym or on bike rides or out to the pub. Instead he gets angry that I now refuse to look after the SC so he can do this.

Sometimes people need to really be made to understand all the work your going (invisibly) that allows them to do things. Maybe then they'll think twice about complaining that you won't do more for them when they're so tired from work (the work they're able to do because you are looking after the baby).

OP - it sounds like you are barely involved with DSC and I don't think it's unreasonable for him to want more. BUT it also sounds like he wants you to play Mummy to them and that he'd quite happily abdicate responsibility to you, which would make me very nervous

I'm involved plenty in ways that I think are right (personally) for me to be involved in. I am friendly and have a great relationship with them but I'm not their Mum and no I don't feel any need to get involved in things their parents are capable of doing themselves. I don't see why I need to do this in order to have a good relationship with the kids personally and I feel it would be a slippery slope into situations I've seen plenty of times on here.

Don't get me wrong, if my husband broke his leg and literally couldn't go (as an example) I'd do it. But not just because he cba. I can't be arsed either and fortunately for me, it's not my responsibility

@OiOiMikey

And no I don't think he'd expect me to take baby, he'd stay home with them.

OMG so he's available to do it but just can't be arsed. YANBU in the slightest. His kids, his responsibility. Do not even entertain the idea of bringing them while he probably thinks he can get to sit on his lazy ass watching tv.

Lord. Some of the comments on here make me so glad my ex and I get on so well and both agree that while the children are under 13/14 there wont be anyone in the "step parent" role.

To me what you're describing as an expected level of involvement with children of your current partners comes nowhere near close to anything I would describe as parent in any sense. Not even as a "step parent".

Your set ups sound as though you are just adults that happen to live in one of their parents homes.

It would break my heart of my boys suffered the disinterest that is being condoned here. Its almost as though their existance is being tolerated and you're drawing lines anywhere ans everywhere you can to iterate that.

Imagine your children being the "step children" in your situations being discussed this way .. Do you not have any interest in their interests? Could you not go once or twice a month a show them some encouragement? They're children for goodness sake is it so outside your realms of thought that just because they didnt exit your crotch they aren't worth some form of nurturing from the person they see happily loving their half siblings???