AIBU to just think FUCK OFF and let me enjoy my child?!

[Flainling]

My husband is always making me (or trying at least) feel guilty for just doing basic things with my child. Even accusing me of "pushing SC out" when I've done nothing of the sort.

He is only 10 months old. He's my first and my last.

Things have included:

• Making a photo album of DS. Not some big extravagant family craft activity where DSC are forced to glue pictures of their younger sibling into an album on a Saturday. Just me, doing it myself in the evening.

• taking my son out to little places with my family / to visit family and not taking everyone with me all the time. There have been a few unexpected days recently where DSC stayed with us when they wouldn't normally and I had plans with family. I didn't immediately change these to also take along DSC so I'm awful and "making it obvious I only want to spend time with my son".

• ordering a few pictures for our bedroom of DS for a photo frame my Mum got me for my birthday and putting it up on my dressing table. There are pictures of DSC up in the house as well but apparently there are more of DS and this is terrible (it's in our bedroom which none of the kids come in ).

• apparently just generally a bit obsessive with DS and I make it "obvious" I care more about him. Fucking yes I'm a bit obsessive. He's my first baby. Am I not allowed?!

• setting up a savings account (from my own personal money) which me and my family pay into for DS when DSC don't have one, as if that's up to me?!

There are more but I can't think right now.

AIBU to just think or even say FUCK OFF now and just let me enjoy my baby in peace ffs. It's like I'm not allowed to consider this my first child at all without "pushing DSC out". I don't even know what be means by that. I'm as kind as I always have been to DSC, who absolutely adore their brother too. But I'm not their mum and don't act like it nor do I wish to (or ever have?!).

It's really starting to piss me off. It's like I can't just do anything for my son without always thinking like this.

I think all of the children should be treated the same by both if you. Anything else iscruel and divisive.

@Joystir59

I think all of the children should be treated the same by both if you. Anything else iscruel and divisive.

So acting like you are someone's mum when you're not, and they already have one is the answer? It's really not.

I find it mind boggling that anyone thinks my son should spend his life switching and changing plans on the whim of his father and his exes ever changing schedule as well to be honest.

It's not his fault plans changed in regards to his siblings. Should he miss out on prearranged things with his family because of it? Okay so you can argue a 10 month old won't care but when does it end? At 1? 3? 5 years old and still having to change what he's doing at the last minute because now contact day has changed again and we can't possibly leave the house without DSC?

Also you can't insist your family treat SC the same as their grandchildren/niece/nephew. The DSC have never thought of my parents or my siblings as grandparents or aunties. It would be weird to now start insisting they were.

@Joystir59

I think all of the children should be treated the same by both if you. Anything else iscruel and divisive.

The children are treated the same by their mother and father. It just happens our son and DSC have different mothers. DH is exactly the same with all the children and their mother is like me with them.

If I started treating them like my children now they'd think I'd grown two heads. It's never been the way we've been together.

You cannot treat children who are not yours the same as if they were when they have a mother in their lives.

It is a recipe for disaster and resentment. Children do not want their step-parent to act like their mother, it is massively over-stepping. Not to even mention how their mother would presumably feel, or how their dad would feel if OP over-rode his decisions or refused to do what he wanted in terms of parenting his children in the way that she might if she were there mother.

My DP would be pissed off with me if I started wading in and taking over when it comes to my SCs.

@Helloise

I would be interested to hear his side of this - I bet it looks quite different. I VERY strongly believe that no one should ever join a blended family unless they are willing to treat their stepchild exactly as they treat their own child, and to advocate and even insist that step-grandparents/step-aunties and uncles do the same.

You seem to be approaching this from what YOU want - bonding time with YOUR baby. Your stepchild is your baby's sibling. You need to HONESTLY ask yourself, whenever you are tempted to "leave out" your stepchild, would you do that if they were your biological child? If the answer is no, then you are being unreasonable. Your stepchild didn't ask to be part of a blended family and the very least he deserves is to fill every bit as loved and welcomed in his home as his sibling. If you can't make this happen then you should get help, perhaps therapy, to learn how.

You can VERY strongly believe that all you like, but it doesn't make it any more valid than the many people with experience who VERY strongly believe that that's nonsense. Not to mention extremely rude and entitled, when it comes to grandparents and aunties/uncles.

I VERY strongly believe that people with kids should not get into a relationship with someone after splitting with their children's other parent, if they aren't prepared to be realistic about the fact that they are making the choice to invite someone into their kid's life who will not view them as their own child, and be ok with that.

I get on with their mother actually, really well. She's very strong minded though and doesn't mind saying what she thinks. I imagine I'd get a right mouthful if I treated the DSC like my own children.

You’ve done nothing wrong @Flainling it sounds like you have a good relationship with your step kids. Enjoy your baby.

I’m a stepchild and I’d think it was fucking insane if my step mother made a photo album of me. I had no problem with my step mother doing things like that for her baby. They know you’re the baby’s mum. They know they have their own mum. Kids aren’t stupid! Your DH is being weird.

@Flainling it's because your having not just step parents commenting but also people who have never ever been a step parent but have ideals issues of what "should happen" usually the lines are first families come first second families are just what secondary. Then you have the whole I wouldn't ever be in a blended family crew who by that very statement out themselves as not having a clue.

Your doing fine, your DH is a ass 🎩.

Also, unless they are tiny children which I'm guessing they're not, OP's SCs are old enough to understand that their unexpected presence means they don't have a ticket to go to X with OP and their baby sibling. Would they actually rather be with OP's family than with their dad doing something else? Doubt it.

It's not like OP, baby and dad are all decamping for a day out and leaving them home alone.

@Joystir59

I think all of the children should be treated the same by both if you. Anything else iscruel and divisive.

Practically, how do you achieve this.

The SC have a completely different life for at least 50% of the time. They have a different mum and a whole extended family. And you’ve got no input into this at all.

How do you ensure everything is equal? How do you make it equal if mum, for example, takes the SC on holiday to disneyworld?

What if the SC don’t have bedtimes because that’s how it is at their mum’s house? Are you supposed to just defer to that and not have bedtimes for your children?

It’s so easy to Wade in and say things like ‘everything should always be equal’ with no thought at all to the realities.

@tcjotm

You’ve done nothing wrong *@Flainling* it sounds like you have a good relationship with your step kids. Enjoy your baby.

I’m a stepchild and I’d think it was fucking insane if my step mother made a photo album of me. I had no problem with my step mother doing things like that for her baby. They know you’re the baby’s mum. They know they have their own mum. Kids aren’t stupid! Your DH is being weird.

The funniest part is they are actually IN the bloody photo album. There's all sorts of pictures in there of DS with X family member, including DSC.

I find the suggestion that I should be sat of an evening also making a photo album dedicated to each DSC very odd. I'm sure there mother has similar at her home, I'd bet my house on it (we are very similarly obsessed with our DC )

It sounds to me like he realises that the things you are doing for the baby are reflecting poorly on him in his care and attention of his children. There’s nothing to stop him doing any of the thing you do for the baby for the DSC.

Also, if he thinks his children are being disadvantaged in some way (and I genuinely see no evidence of that from what you’ve posted), it’s up to him to do more for/with them, not to get you to do less for/with the baby.

Totally agree with you. I treat my children separately to my step children. I have plans when they are here to see my family etc and they stay with my partner (their dad). If I didn't have things planned when they were here then we wouldn't ever be able to do anything as they are here most weekends.
They are here to spend time with their dad, not me and my family.
As for photo albums, I'd of thought you'd be stepping on their mothers toes. Photos in the house is reasonable etc, but you don't need to make photo albums of his children.
Maybe make a separate album of you as a family including the children.
Step children have their own homes, with their mothers and a different and separate life to the one they spend with their dad especially if it's contact 3-4 times a month. My house isn't my step Children's home, they have a home with bedrooms and their personally belongings in. They pack a bag and come to stay once a week. You don't need to feel like you should have to take them places, or even save money for them. That's their mum and dads job.

Also like the PP who said how crazy it is to never be able to do the simplest of thing without first checking with this person or that person first. Like can I not just go to the park with my Mum on a whim ffs? 🤦‍♀️

@Rainbowqueeen

I think it’s a combination of him being embarrassed that he hasn’t done any of these things for his DC and anger that he can’t fob them off on you whenever it suits him. Definitely ignore him.

This.

The problem is that he doesn't like the fact that you are a better parent to your one child than he is his three children and he wants you to take over that role for the other two as well rather than do it himself.

My Mum got me a photo frame as one of my birthday presents a few months ago and I put a few photos of DS in it and put it on my dressing table in our bedroom which DSC have been inside about twice since we've lived here.

Mehhhhh if it's one of those frames where you can put multiple photos in I'm surprised you didn't at least have one of maybe all the children together.... I'm a step mum and I would've done that naturally - not out of a sense of duty but because I actually would want to have them in the frame too.

Also, have you answered the Q regarding ages?

Exactly @BadlyFormedQuestion unless they are all roughly the same age and living 100% in the same home, you can’t make things equal. As a step child I was respectful of my step mother’s home and her way of doing things - it’s amazing how everyone’s household deals with the most basic tasks differently - but she wasn’t my mother. I had a life away from her home too. I went to Catholic school because it was important to my parents. Step mother is an atheist and over her dead body would her kids go to Catholic school. But I’m not her kid and she kept her mouth shut (mostly haha).

(Obviously of you’d taken them full time because their mother had died, I would say they should be treated as equally as possible, but even then both parents would have to acknowledge the older children’s loss so it wouldn’t be entirely equal)

@Joystir59

I think all of the children should be treated the same by both if you. Anything else iscruel and divisive.

I'm sure the OP is looking forward to her DSCs' DM contributing to the baby savings account.

After all anything else would be cruel and divisive wouldn't it?

Or possibly both women should be able to expect the DSCs' father to step up and do his bloody job as a father to all the children.

Step children have their own homes, with their mothers and a different and separate life to the one they spend with their dad especially if it's contact 3-4 times a month. My house isn't my step Children's home, they have a home with bedrooms and their personally belongings in. They pack a bag and come to stay once a week

I hope you’ve got protective clothing on. You’re probably going to castigated by the ‘oh you evil stepmother’ brigade for anything less that a stance of ‘this is the SC’s home, I’m just eternally grateful I’m allowed to live in it (and pay for it)’.

I agree with you though. In many stepfamilies, the SC are visiting. My SC never lived in our house. They visited and were treated like visiting dignitaries. If they’d lived in the house, their father would have treated them like residents but he didn’t. And they didn’t behave like they lived here because their father treated them as exceptions at all times.

The only thing pretending that they didn’t live with their mother (and visit their father) did was assuage his divorced dad guilt.

YANBU . Not at all. I agree with everything you've said 100% and think you sound like a really good Mum and Step-Mum

@hawtpot

My Mum got me a photo frame as one of my birthday presents a few months ago and I put a few photos of DS in it and put it on my dressing table in our bedroom which DSC have been inside about twice since we've lived here.

Mehhhhh if it's one of those frames where you can put multiple photos in I'm surprised you didn't at least have one of maybe all the children together.... I'm a step mum and I would've done that naturally - not out of a sense of duty but because I actually would want to have them in the frame too.

Also, have you answered the Q regarding ages?

The photo frame is a multi photo one yes (it has 4 photos) it has a quote on it about being mother to a son and is about being their Mum, so no I didn't put any pics of my DSC in it. There is a bump photo and then some of me with DS in it.

Why hasn't he set up a bank account for his children?

Why hasn't he made a photo album? Why hadn't he ordered photos etc?

You could say he doesn't care about any of them as he hasnt done that!

There was identical post to this yesterday to....

@Flainling Totally, yes, general family pictures with step kids in the allbum: very nice. Those pictures happen naturally. But I think I speak for most step kids when I agree, yes, a photo album dedicated to each of us would be really odd and you’re welcome to dedicate your crafting time to your baby. Our mothers have already done those photo albums 😂