Today I’m in a tricky situation with partner over his 3 DC from previous marriage and their feelings about living with their mother that got revealed today.
Ex-wife since the split has gone back to work and this results in weekends away working and unsociable hours. This of course has over the last few years has resulted accommodating this in his time schedule with them.
We found out today the younger DD confided in my DD and said that they are pretending to be happy about this situation but started crying and said that they feel the mother is not in their lives as much as she was and they are second best to the job. They are happy for her (it's a car racing related thing and DD’s very into it as well) but don’t want to upset her. According to DD this happened a few weeks ago, my DD has only spoken out today of all days. One of his DC mumbled that they had worries over her recent relationship problems but apart from that I was not privy to these other concerns. My partner has flipped and thinks it is time that they should be spending more time with him maybe on a permanent basis. I do not want to get directly involved in dialogue with his ex-partner as she is prone to drama.
The youngest DS has been moving more of his belongings on every visit and mentioned that he was saving time on moving which I took as a throwaway comment but maybe it wasn't.
We need to discuss how they feel, partner is already discussing stopping her maintenance and them living with us, but I’ve said not today. My problem is he really has not confided in me taking on an additional three DC which is a significant move to be explore from every angle, not just a knee jerk reaction, he is being very emotional stating that his kids are the most important thing in his life and now I feel I’m second best (sorry that sounds a bit selfish, I am a working mum myself and only have a limited amount of time to myself after everyone else) This led to a bit of a row between us over her selfishness with her job that he says doesn’t suit family life of a lone parent. I kept saying we need to discuss this before he starts discussing it with his DC/Ex. His older DD is in first year of GCSE so she doesn’t need the upset (they would not need to change schools). Advice needed on how to go forward. To boot my DD ended up getting upset as she kind of blurted it out, she is having some issues at school herself and now she thinks she has ruined the entire day. Partner ranted that our relationship is more stable then her casual flings. Do not need a custody/family court drama in my life how can we handle this with damage limitations in place?