SD living with us and I can’t cope.

[User38271438373]

I have been with DP for 8 years. SD (9) came to live with us 6 months ago. I have 3 DC from previous marriage and we have 2 DC together.

Life was fairly stressful before SD came to live with with us but it now feels unbearable and like the straw that broke the camels back. I like and care about SD, she’s a pleasant and fairly well behaved child. The dynamic of the household has changed though and things are now much more full on.

I’m a SAHM so collect SD DC from
school and look after them until DP gets home at 6. DP does morning school run so realistically I’m only looking after her alone for two hours a day.

I’ve DP says I’m being ridiculous (and a big part of me feels like I am too) and that he’s lived with my DC for years. I just can’t cope with an extra child in the house and it’s making me miserable. DP has been more stressed and we now argue a lot more.

is separating the only solution? I feel like a horrible person and a failure and wish I could just get on with it.

It’s a pretty good illustration of how much lower the bar is for men in any family situation.

His living with the OP’s children (in the house she owns outright) involved little actual work. Her living with his child has her doing lots of childcare. But he sees that as directly equivalent.

of course an additional child FT could be the straw that broke the overburdened camel’s back. The issue is a father who is not pulling his weight here.

But OP doesn’t work full time, or even really part time.

If she was working FT and her husband refuses to look after one of her kids for 2 hours a day (along with her own, and their shared kids) everyone on here would be calling him lazy or a piss taker.

So?

The OP houses everyone. They share household costs and the DP isn’t financially supporting her older children. She freelances as required.

Just because she isn’t working, doesn’t mean she’s duty bound to be her partner’s childcare so he can change completely change his contact pattern with his daughter without making changes to his own life. It’s not taking the piss to say: I’m already supporting 5 children, one (shared child) with SN and another with MH issues, I cannot do the same for another. You need to do more.

But when women move into a house a man owns on here, everyone tells her she owes no rent as it’s his asset that he’s building. She owns it outright and isn’t making mortgage payments. So no outgoings there. If he’s paying half the utilities and bills, despite 3 of her kids living there, then he’s paying towards her kids, is he not?

I don't see what the OP's working arrangements have to do with the parenting of her step child. Fuck all to do with her! Not her child, not her responsibility.

So what should happen to the stepdaughter? While her dad is at work? What do you propose they do?

Bollocks. Its her step child and she lives in her house. You can't move a child, any child, into your house, and the say they are nothing to do with you and you have no responsibility.
Only a sociopath would suggest such a thing.

So... if OP became unwell/was in an accident and couldn't care for any of the kids for a significant period of time, her partner would have zero obligation to look after her 3 eldest because "not his kids, not his responsability", right?

I'm not saying that DP shouldn't step up and be more involved in childcare, but to say OP has no responsibility to her SD is callous and wrong. And let's not pretend that the fact that only one person holds a full time job is irrelevant here.

She’s saving him enormous amounts in rent by housing them. Let’s not pretend that isn’t the case.

It would be the case for anyone moving into someone else’s house rent-free. If we are going to be pedantic, him and his child living there increases the wear on everything, so that affects her asset and the need to maintain it.

Yes, she has an asset. But he presumably has considerably more disposable income for that. He may well be investing the money he is saving there, so building up his assets because of hers.

i would have loads of money if I had no mortgage (or rent) to pay!

He could change his working arrangements to fit his family responsibilities, like millions of other parents do. Or pay for childcare.

The OP is not his nanny.

@HeckyPeck but if looking after 5 kids alone rather than 6 in a couple is easier, then she has a DP problem not a SD problem. That's on her and her partner not her SD and she needs to stop saying her SD is too much. I really can't believe there isn't more empathy for a child who doesn't even have any of her own full siblings and is being thought of like this.

Given OP is being deliberately coy about the details it’s very hard to say (including why the poor kid is living with them in the first place).

But, as with PP just now, I find this ‘shes fuck all to do with you’ to be cold, hypocritical and downright nasty.

And I DO think the fact OP chose to have 5 children is relevant. When you have that many children, you accept their problems may not always pop up consecutively - it’s entirely possible that more than 1 goes through a needy phase at any 1 time. If she isn’t up to the job, she should’ve reconsidered - factoring in the stepdaughter and potential scenarios there, before getting pregnant with number 5.

Posters are taking out their grievances at crap men by suggesting OP acts in a similar fashion.

She said the addition of the SD is too much. It’s not a rejection of the child but a reflection of the increased load that has fallen on the OP.

At no point has she blamed the SD here. A sixth child in the mix FT with no additional support is an issue. And her DP thinks she should just suck it up, despite never having looked after her children for her.

And I agree the DH needs to step up to help OP, and if he could fork out for cleaners/after school clubs/anything else that could lighten the load, he should. I’m not totally unsympathetic there, but I find the callous way in which posters are talking about a very possibly bereaved 9 year old to be truly shocking.

There can be very few posters here who've had the responsibility for full-time care of 6 children. Add to that one with mental health issues, one with SEN and a DSD starting life with a new family while saying goodbye to her mother. I would hope you would all be withholding judgement and simply empathising with both the OP and the young DSD.

Judgement here is useless. It doesn't solve the problems, it only makes them worse.

DSD needs an adult nearby with lots of time to dedicate to her needs. A grandmother/aunt/godmother on tap would be a godsend. OP clearly cannot be that person - her resources are already stretched to breaking point. DSD's own father is opting out of being that person, by taking himself off to work for extended hours. I'd be looking for local charities that support parents. A lady I knew spent time with an overstretched family every week, taking some of the load.

So she should have planned for no support from her partner if his daughter came to live with him.

It’s not ok to go on about how she shouldn’t have ‘popped out’ her youngest child. Absolutely not.

DSD needs an adult nearby with lots of time to dedicate to her needs.

that she does (and more besides)

but given that isn’t remotely on the cards, what’s the alternative?

There can be very few posters here who've had the responsibility for full-time care of 6 children

Probably because there are very few people who would have had kids 5 and 6 when there were already 4 children of the couple in existence?

Well if she’s not working and who is, who would you expect to be doing the majority of the household and child related tasks? I would expect the same of him if he wasn’t working and she was - including pitching in with OP’s children from previous relationship.

Again, what do you suggest they do now? Put the 9 year old in care?

but given that isn’t remotely on the cards, what’s the alternative?

Keep on reading.... As I stated above, look for local charities. An exhanced DBS check and a nearby address are both needed for this, but these charities do exist in some areas.

It's not like she's telling her SD to her face that she's too much, though. She's venting to her partner and on this forum, and she has a perfect right to do that.

What kind of charity would help in this scenario? Genuinely curious.

What charities? To do what with her? Take her off from her siblings when she gets home from school and make her feel like she isn’t a part of the family?

I wish OP would stop being so coy about her ex, whether he’s involved with her kids & could pitch in a bit more. Plus there must be other family members?