am I being taken advantage of?

[MaggieMay99]

Hi all, my other half has 2 daughters who live in another city an hour away, he moved down south to be with me, so I get that they miss him, but he visits them often on his own as I like to give him his time with them ( they both have children so are grown ups now) last time one of them came to us though with the kids to visit a few days , she wanted to go out for dinner with dad on his own leaving me at home with the kids , not a chore as they are lovely kids , BUT I did take offence as I spent time driving everyone around and cooking all the time they were here, I feel like even though we've been together nearly 10 years Im still not part of the family , am I being unreasonable? He goes to them about 6 times a year but they only visit us rarely due to kids commitments ( apparently)

When he goes up to see his daughter, they can have alone time while her partner looks after the kids.
When she comes down to visit her father and you, please don’t take time off, it’s a family visit. Not a free babysitting and taxi service. Do stuff together like a normal family and any mention of you running yourself ragged comes with a firm no.
You have to put your foot down. OH also needs a wake up conversation on how to do a family weekend visit.
Be less of a doormat please, it’s bad for everybody.

I think you need to look to build your relationship with his daughters. Sound to me like they may think you not going with him to visit them is you saying you have no interest in them.
I suggest next time they stay with you ask her out for a coffee/lunch and leave grandad to mind the kids. Or pretend you'd love her opinion on a dress you are thinking of buying?

I think it’s nice that you promote their time together as it’s really important regardless of age.

But expecting (not asking and thanking) you to babysit and excluding you from dinner when they visit is so rude. On top of all the taxi driving.

I think you have a DH problem. Definitely tell him how you feel and that you’d like things to be different next time they come to you. His reaction will tell you a lot. His response should be “Sorry - I didn’t realise- let’s all go out next time”.

Sounds like the problem lies in your relationship with your DH. He doesn't seem to recognise you are making sacrifices for him and didn't seem to appreciate what you at doing for him and his children, so I'd stop going out of my way to do it.

It reads very much like you are the help, and decent people have the manners to thank the help, but she couldn't rise even that.

Very rude IMO.
Very much up to you how you move forward.
I would head off when she nexts visits and leave them to it.

Her fathers a right prize, retired and you running around after his grandchildren all weekend after a weeks work????

We teach people how to treat us and it's clear how they both think they can treat you.

The only petson who can change this is you.

I'd be long gone for future visits.

As someone else pointed out it’s rude. It’s the expectation that you’ll just do it. I don’t know why manners go out the window when it comes to close relationships (and especially step parenting) and they’re replaced with expectations. The polite thing to do in almost all situations in life is to ask and thank, and to respect a ‘no’ . It solves so much. We breed resentment when it could be avoided by simple manners and respect for each other.

That attitude would be a problem for me.

He can.

You have a DH problem