Just ended it because I don’t like his kids

[toobusytothink]

Feeling really sad. Been with my bf for nearly 3 years. Don’t live together but he is here 9 nights out of 14 and with his kids the other 5 nights. Took it very slowly and only met his kids for first time last summer. Just back from holiday with his 2 kids (7 and 5) and my 2 kids who are teenagers. I just hated it. Just got back and he asked why I disliked his kids so much. I didn’t deny that I do and told him if that’s how he felt he should be ending things… so he has ended it. Says I’m horrible to feel that way about 2 young kids. Think that’s what I secretly hoped for. But I’m so so so so sad … and a horrible horrible person. I genuinely wanted it to work but know it can’t

@toobusytothink

Problem is that his kids mum always takes them to her bf’s on “her” weekends so they can’t understand why their daddy doesn’t take them to mine on “his” weekends. I come up with excuse after excuse but sometimes it just feels mean

And does she park them in front of the tv with a family sized pack of haribos and skip mealtimes? Otherwise how can the bf put up with the dreadful behaviour? Is he stone deaf?

I don’t know the answer but the impression I get is that her bf is a bit of a walkover and just agrees to anything she says

Also the bf is primary carer of a young child too so I think it suits him too

How did I explain it and how did he take it? Hmmm. Probably not as well as I could have done and not well. As I said, we have called time out numerous times in our relationship for both sides to think about what they really want.

I have some added complications / background in my situation (the exwife is exceptionally high conflict and as such the children have historically suffered with emotional issues and engaged in behaviours such as ignoring my children and I in our own home).

Tbh since we have put these boundaries in, I think it’s been better for him and his children. Their mother is not accepting of any other women in their lives, so it has removed a huge loyalty bind. They get to enjoy their time with their dad without another woman / children present. It is very hard for young children to understand why their dad doesn’t live with them but lives with other children. I think that can always set up problems / jealousy on them (and I’d understand why). So for me I have simply presented it as being best for all the children. For example, his are still in the phase of getting up early and crawling into bed for cuddles at stupid o clock. As you well know that those early mornings are long gone with teens! So I have zero inclination of wanting to be woken every morning of contact by young children, I work hard and need my rest on weekends. Whereas for him and his children it’s very important bonding time.

I know that sounds small but I actually think it’s huge. I explained that his children have their needs. Mine now are older and they also have theirs! They don’t want to share their weekends with me and younger / hectic children. It’s our family time.

My relationship with his children has also improved immeasurably. As when we see one another, we are happy and it’s giving the time and space for our relationships to grow completely organically. I’m not a replacement mum.

Re what the children are told. They are told that my children and I have plans (which a lot of the time we do). My DC also have their friends over and tbh for those of us who live with teens, we know how borderline the language/ banter can get. I am firm and moderate it but I don’t think it’s remotely appropriate for his DC to be in exposed to formative teens testing their boundaries. My DC’s home is a safe environment for them to do that. And I don’t want to start worrying about what would happen if one of his kids picked up a phrase and repeated a phrase at their mums. My eldest would also hate my partners children being around if he invited his friends over. They are just dynamics that I have no need or wish to moderate and I want my childrens home to be just that. Their home. Not a home that they are being forced to share with kids that are not their siblings. That falls to me to manage and frankly it’s stressful.

So to summarise, the way I explain it is to bluntly tell him that it’s not his children’s needs that get to dominate everything. My children have needs to and due to the age gap, he should both respect and understand that. It is not remotely personal to any of the children - but based on the fact that teenagers vs young primary school children have very different wants and needs. As parents we respectively have a duty to fulfil our respective children’s.

And that’s where the misalignment happens. Your children neither need or want to see his, so in you keeping them separate (as I am doing), we are fulfilling their needs.
His children (and my partners children) on the other hand want to see your / my children/ us and probably ask a fair bit. So in their eyes, their children’s needs are not being met.

So our children get our needs met. Theirs dont.

I don’t know, I think this happens in all families. My nieces and nephews used to spend lots of time in my home/ with my DC when they were younger. Once they hit about 16, it stopped. Initially my children were upset/ asked for them. And all I would explain is that they were older, and growing up and that they were loved, but it’s what happened when children got a bit older. They wanted more independence, not go to their aunts house to play with their little cousins. Accompanied by lots of jokes about smelly/ grumpy teenagers. My kids were absolutely fine! Now some of my nieces, nephews are early twenties and visit occasionally, but that’s about it. I predict that once mine are young adults, relationships may once again pick up with them.

It’s part and parcel of growing up, it’s good for children to understand they are not the center of everyone’s world! And that others have wants and needs also, that they need to respect. Gives them a healthy dose of reality and humility.

I’ll add. More men than women seem to be desperate to play family following a divorce/ separation. I happily parent my children 60% of the time.

Bang on....this is because by and large, women do majority of the parenting even when the two both worked.

For most mums, 50/50 is a break from parenting. For most dads, it's more than they ever did before, so they're keen to set up that family type unit with a new partner.

Having said that, I don't think the OPs BF is quite like that...it's been 3 years and that's not rushing things.

He really needs to be creative with the time he has them, so they're not asking to come to your house all the time.

Sometimes it really is a case of being at different stages of life. A lot of posters are saying he's all kinds of everything bad and I disagree. I don't get thst impression at all and feel his response was as a result of poor communication and articulating yourself.

It's also infering you're such a poor judge of character and they know him better than you.

@sassbott that’s so helpful! Thank you. I need to explain to him how it affects my kids. They are so polite that they always pretend to enjoy playing with them so he thinks everyone is having a great time. Term time is easy because my 2 have Saturday school and matches so we’re genuinely not around. But he thinks if we are both free we may as well be together. I’ve been messaging him all afternoon and he seems to understand a bit more. He admits he overreacted because he got defensive over his kids. We are talking at least. I said we need to talk about what we both need from the relationship to be happy and then it is up to both of us to individually decide if we think it can work. He also admitted he needs to look at his parenting technique. And we both know we can never go on a joint holiday again so I need to think about whether I can accept not having holidays with him. I’m happy just being me and my 2, I’d just like to be able to go away with him - just the 2 of us - too. My only concern is he is talking about stopping his fight for 50:50 and I know that is because of me so I need to make sure he does the right thing for his boys there (it may actually be better for them to be with their mum more as she is very bitter and fighting him and it’s exhausting). Again we are similar in that she is toxic and we have split a few times over here but he has put in excellent boundaries with her to make it work.

I’m hoping that when term starts his kids will be busy doing swimming and clubs and parties etc that they won’t want to come to mine

I think everything was working really well until these holidays. We just lucked up by blurring the boundaries we had put in. And no joint holidays ever ever again!!!

Hold on, he’s talking about stopping his fight for 50/50? Why? Either he wants to have shared residency or he doesn’t!
Sorry but it suddenly feels like being faced with the cold hard reality of doing 50/50 (on his own) is making him rethink it! Either that or he’s using that line as a ploy to get you back engaged to some degree. That’s a red flag to me.

Take a firm step back out of that situation. Let him figure that out and fight for it. He’s not backing off because of you and him, he doesn’t want to do it on his own!

Oh and you can do some joint holidays.

A long weekend. Two nights once in a while is a good compromise (for your children also). They can put their best foot forward two weekends a year.
You can also holiday but keep things like accommodations separate. You and your DC have your space, they have theirs. Then some shared time. Perhaps an occasional shared meal.
The problem happens when suddenly everyone is thrown together 24/7.

My only concern is he is talking about stopping his fight for 50:50

Wow. I didn't think he sounded quite as awful as others were making out, but if this is true, he actually is a crap dad.

@sassbott is giving some really good advice here.

I think what is important to remember is you do not have to blend families and love their kids like your own. Reading this board will make you feel that that just be the case.

It sounds like you're both starting an open and honest dialogue here. Just be truthful and see how it goes.

@toobusytothink

Problem is that his kids mum always takes them to her bf’s on “her” weekends so they can’t understand why their daddy doesn’t take them to mine on “his” weekends. I come up with excuse after excuse but sometimes it just feels mean

Why is it your job to come up with excuses? If the two of you stay together, you both need to come up with an agreed line and stick with it. This again is about boundaries. From the way you word this, I get the impression the conversation goes ‘oh, you’d like to spend the weekend with toobusy, ok daddy will ask her if she’s free’. Cue you scrabbling round for a plausible excuse for 2 little boys.

This is manipulative. He knows you don’t want this. However, I do agree that longer term it isn’t fair to the kids to not have you ever involved with them even 10 years down the line. I get why you don’t want to go backwards. I would be the same. However, I would probably look for some kind of compromise. For example to have a regular mini meet up at a local cafe for cake and a drink on some of his weekends… not a meal for obvious reasons. Not saying you should, am just looking at it as an oiling the wheels scenario.

Stopping the fight for 50:50 think it’s because he’s tired of fighting with his ex but I need to ensure he doesn’t think we have a better chance of working if he has them less. As long as he’s doing it for the right reasons

@Mummyoflittledragon pretty much. More like “boys keep asking if they can come over” and I tell him to tell them they can’t because my 2 have school on Saturday …

@Mummyoflittledragon why is it unfair? The OP isn’t saying that she doesn’t want to be involved, just not all the time on every contact! Contact is for the father and the children and he needs to come up with ways to engage his children.

I don’t understand this notion of if you’re in a relationship with someone with children, it’s unfair to them if another ‘family’ of sorts isn’t formed. My kids couldn’t care less if they see/ don’t see my partner. Why? Because they have two parents respectively meeting their needs. They’re not looking / needing to attach to other people.

When my nieces/ nephews got to the age that they no longer wanted to come and visit it really upset my kids. But gently, over time, I repeated why. Yes they were disappointed but they got over it! I certainly wasn’t about to force them to all spend time together. Now they look back and laugh when I remind them. They tell me ‘yeah we were really sad.’ And I reply ‘yes, but it’s ok to be sad and get over not getting everything you want.’ They agree.

Relationships cannot be forced. I cannot fathom why so many simply cannot parent their own children. I think @SandyY2K post is spot on actually!

I don't believe you love him as you say. If you did genuinely love him you would accept his children. Love doesn't have barriers like that !

[quote toobusytothink]@Mummyoflittledragon pretty much. More like “boys keep asking if they can come over” and I tell him to tell them they can’t because my 2 have school on Saturday …[/quote]
I agree, that is manipulative of him.

It sounds like he wants you to share the parenting with him.

OP, if you truly love each other,why can't you stay together but live apart until his children are older. I think you could spend time together without involving any of your children. Certainly your time together would be less but a little less of something wonderful is to me better than all of something mediocre or mundane.

@Tiredoftattler I’m hoping that’s what we can do. I’d rather have 50% of him than none of him I guess. We’re going to meet up tomorrow and have a long chat about our needs/wants from the relationship and see if we can both be happy

@MissMaple82

I don't believe you love him as you say. If you did genuinely love him you would accept his children. Love doesn't have barriers like that !

Oh give your head a wobble. This isn't about love the BF. She's actually doing what's best for both sets of children.

@sassbott

How did I explain it and how did he take it? Hmmm. Probably not as well as I could have done and not well. As I said, we have called time out numerous times in our relationship for both sides to think about what they really want.

I have some added complications / background in my situation (the exwife is exceptionally high conflict and as such the children have historically suffered with emotional issues and engaged in behaviours such as ignoring my children and I in our own home).

Tbh since we have put these boundaries in, I think it’s been better for him and his children. Their mother is not accepting of any other women in their lives, so it has removed a huge loyalty bind. They get to enjoy their time with their dad without another woman / children present. It is very hard for young children to understand why their dad doesn’t live with them but lives with other children. I think that can always set up problems / jealousy on them (and I’d understand why). So for me I have simply presented it as being best for all the children. For example, his are still in the phase of getting up early and crawling into bed for cuddles at stupid o clock. As you well know that those early mornings are long gone with teens! So I have zero inclination of wanting to be woken every morning of contact by young children, I work hard and need my rest on weekends. Whereas for him and his children it’s very important bonding time.

I know that sounds small but I actually think it’s huge. I explained that his children have their needs. Mine now are older and they also have theirs! They don’t want to share their weekends with me and younger / hectic children. It’s our family time.

My relationship with his children has also improved immeasurably. As when we see one another, we are happy and it’s giving the time and space for our relationships to grow completely organically. I’m not a replacement mum.

Re what the children are told. They are told that my children and I have plans (which a lot of the time we do). My DC also have their friends over and tbh for those of us who live with teens, we know how borderline the language/ banter can get. I am firm and moderate it but I don’t think it’s remotely appropriate for his DC to be in exposed to formative teens testing their boundaries. My DC’s home is a safe environment for them to do that. And I don’t want to start worrying about what would happen if one of his kids picked up a phrase and repeated a phrase at their mums. My eldest would also hate my partners children being around if he invited his friends over. They are just dynamics that I have no need or wish to moderate and I want my childrens home to be just that. Their home. Not a home that they are being forced to share with kids that are not their siblings. That falls to me to manage and frankly it’s stressful.

Can I just say that you sound like a brilliant mum (and partner!) - respectful of and in tune with of everyone's needs, realistic and full of common sense. They are all lucky to have you.

If he noticed the children did. They would've always known and it would haunt them for years that you didn't like them. Best to split now and traumatise them for life. Yes that's experience with ex and my DSx2.

Not traumatise them!