Step kids at weekend

[Bananarama77]

I’m really unhappy about this situation but not sure if I’m overreacting.
My DH is due to have his kids this weekend & he usually picks them up from school on Fridays but this weekend he has commitments to work so he has asked me to collect them from school which usually wouldn’t be a problem however I have plans to meet friends & I was hoping to get a few hours to sort myself out, get ready etc. I’m fed up with having kids here constantly & I rarely get a day to myself. Nice kids but not my responsibility. AIBU?

This most definitely is a stepchild issue.

I’m fed up with having kids here constantly

They just seem to always be here & honestly I find it annoying

I’ve got grown up kids I don’t need this crap honestly

It seems like you're taking it out on the kids because the mum and dad can't sort it between them.

Tell your husband the kids will have to go to after school club or whatever until he can collect if it's that much of a problem but I don't feel like that's very fair on them.

You married someone with young kids and it doesn't sound like you like them very much. My ex's partner didn't like my son visiting and now he never goes there. Don't be that person.

YANBU at all imo, you need to start saying no, these aren't your children, you aren't childcare.

I do mean parents too. Especially the parents. If your marriage fails then the children should always be first priority.

I agree, and he’d be putting them first if he picks them up from school. Lots of parents have had to leave work early for their kids.

Why are his commitments more important than yours? It's fine to ask you to help out but this shouldn't be expected and you shouldn't have to cancel your plans because he hasn't planned around his kids properly.

There's no reason why you can't go off and do your own thing at the weekends. You don't have to stick around at home just because the kids are there. If you're not getting any time with your partner at the weekend I can get how that would be annoying. You're his partner and deserve some attention and time as well so he needs to be able to manage that better. Whether that be arranging a babysitter or asking their mum to have them one weekend a month and maybe he could have them a day through the week to make up.

When I met him it wasn’t 50% it’s slowly become that & it isn’t court ordered so think we’re going to have to review it to be honest. DS (9) is very hard work, he can’t be left unsupervised for long & doesn’t seem to understand boundaries which is so frustrating as I sometimes run out of patience with it as he’s not mine I don’t have that deeper level of emotional attachment that a mother has so I find him intolerable sometimes. Usually on Friday my DH takes them out after school for dinner somewhere but he now wants me to collect them. Anyway I have said no & that either him or their mum will have to collect them. I think this whole situation needs evaluation anyway as thinking about it I have let them use me as a childminder for too long & what started as occasional pick ups/drop offs etc has become far too regular

I don't refuse to do something because my DSC's parents are capable adults and don't have to ask me to do something. I think there's been once or twice I've watched them for an afternoon but if I'd said no they wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

I agree. My comment was more to the OP. They shouldn't have married a man with children if they find them annoying being there.

Yes I do think to an extent parents who get divorced to need to think through all the consequences. The relationship will only extend to the kids the parents won't owe each other shit

That their parents would looks after their own children and not expect OP to jump in any time they couldn't.

Yeah i mean 2 parents should be enough

She clearly does muck in but that doesn't mean she has to be available all day every day in case one of their parents isn't able to parent. By the sounds of it, she does all the grunt work at home, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes etc. DH needs to step up and stop treating her as a nanny and maid. The issue is, she is mucking in but not being appreciated and being taken for granted.

Her DH needs to have better boundaries with his ex and not allow her just to palm the kids off. Constantly saying yes to tje ex is like saying "my exs time is more important than yours". He needs to prioritise his wife as well as his kids.

My DH has 50% custody. Him and his ex have a parenting plan in place. Should either parent require a change then they can request it but it's up to the other parent whether they accept or decline. My DH will always ask me before he agrees to a change. If we have plans then he says no. His ex requests changes a lot and generally we are fine with having the DSC extra nights. The only time we have requested a change was for holidays and our wedding. We try and plan anything around the schedule and arrange our own childcare rather than ask the ex.

I don't think she find the kids annoying, it's probably the last minute changes to the schedule, his exs time being prioritised over hers, not being able to make plans without DH expecting her to drop them, doing all the cooking and wahsing for the kids. I think she just resents being taken for granted.

DH should not have married her if he wasn't able to make her a priority as well as his kids.

Why are his commitments more important than yours?
This for a start.
I get the impression that the OP has been pretty accommodating of helping out with the kids but is running out of patience with a Mum who changes plans and a DH who increasingly is taking the piss...
Go out with your friends OP sounds like you need a break.

As family, yes. But not as your own children. Because they aren't your children. It would also be weird for the DSCs for an adult who isn't their parent to suddenly start acting like their parent - it's a bit of a violation of the kids' boundaries. I always think adults who get very upset at the notion that step parents don't consider step children 'as their own', have a lot of work to do on boundaries. I doubt veery much that children who already have two present and engaged parents want another adult to claim them 'as their own'.

Anyway, the situation here is that all three adults have prior arrangements and only one of those adults - the children's father - made those arrangements in the knowledge that he was supposed to be responsible for the children at the same time.

The OP and his ex made their own plans in good faith, knowing they were free from the obligations of childcare to do so. He didn't. He deliberately double booked himself and was relying on one of the other two women (because it's a woman's job, obvs) changing their plans so that he could crack on and do his far more important man job.

Fuck that.

You have kids so you arent green to parenting, so you know what comes with having kids in a household. What did you think was going to happen day to day with the daily crap that comes with kids in your house? I'm actually asking this as a genuine question, not to snark as others are. You say you obviously signed up for the 50/50 but you're coming across like you have some weird idea you'd never see them, hear them, etc.

Gotta love those non step-parents telling us step-parents what they should be doing! You think you know what it's like to be a SP but you quite clearly have no idea.

I am well aware what being a step parent is. It doesnt mean I have to agree with You.

The more I read this thread the more I see the OP’s frustration. She’s a mum of grown up children, so no big commitments to their upbringing anymore. And yet she’s still school pick ups for parents of the dsc more often than she’s comfortable with. It’s not fair. She can still be with a man with children without devoting her Friday afternoons to his kids.

She’s made her own plans for tonight (which a mum of grown up children is very entitled to do). And upon knowing her plans, her husband should have ruled OP out helping him.

I'm adding that I don't think a step parent should have to be a parent or step in if that's not what they are comfortable with but you sound like you don't even want them in your home. You said it didn't used to be 50/50 sowas easier but it's as if you didn't consider that it could be more or what if something happens to the mother and you have them all the time. You clearly didn't think through marrying someone with dependant kids

I am one.

Well their mum is now picking them up (very begrudgingly). This is part of the problem tbh when he initially asked her she flatly refused and said too bad it’s your pick up day even knowing that she could do it. My ex & I co-parented for many years and never ever would I have refused to collect my own kids to be spiteful or awkward nor would he have, we understood that these things sometimes happen & likely we’d need the same help ourselves sometimes so it was easy. Her response was that I shouldn’t be arranging to go out when I know I’ve got the kids!! It’s not her problem & why do I need hours alone to get ready..it’s ridiculous apparently. Anyway DH said well if you don’t get them nobody will be there to get them so she had no choice. He did only tell her that after she confirmed that she could do it but just wouldn’t, if she genuinely had plans then he would likely ask his Mum or sister but they don’t live particularly close so would have inconvenienced them.

Spot on! But according to some people, getting married was essentially signing away all of her freedoms.

How inconvenient for her that she has to parent her own children because you refused to do it instead, OP.

And also how very dare you make plans that don't revolve around her children, which prevents her and your DH from making plans that don't revolve around her children!