I can’t stand my DSC

[holywow]

I already know how this is going to go but i need to know how to unpick my feelings or change how I feel before it gets worse.
I will try not to harp on with myself but I just can’t bare my DSS any longer. He verging on probably the most irritating person I’ve ever met and I can’t work out how it’s come to this. It’s at the point where I am considering ending my marriage because I can’t bare to see him on a weekly basis any longer and I hate myself for feeling this way towards an 8 year old boy and worried about the damage that’s it’s going to do or already doing to him and the relationship between him and dh. The dread and anxiety that I feel as the weekend approaches is getting worse and worse. This started around the end of my pregnancy with my own DS (3yo) and has got gradually worse up till this point.

I’m so fed up of our home being chilled and calm during the week but then pandemonium every weekend when he arrives.
Im sick of the pity party for him off dh and his family.
Im sick of having to ask DSS mum permission every single time we want to book something like an abroad holiday or a few days break and then the arsing around choosing dates that she agrees to when I just simply want to book a holiday for my family and for my own ds to enjoy.
I hate hearing ‘daddy can I have can I have can I have’ all weekend.
I hate that I try my best to parent my 3 year old a certain way then all my hard work coming undone at the weekend when DSS arrives.
i hate that my 3 year old can’t play with his toys in peace instead of being teased and wound up by an older child who isn’t here during the week.
I can’t stand that every single Friday and Saturday night, without fail, we’re woken several times a night because DSS wants dh to get in his bed.
I resent how I want another baby so badly but they won’t get their own bedroom and will have to share with DS as DSS absolutely has to have his very own bedroom at our house even though he has his own bedroom at his mums.

I resent absolutely everything and I don’t know how to stop it. I never used to be like this before my own child was born!!

That child doesn't deserve what either of you are putting him through

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻.

It wasn't really controlled by anyone, more than he hadn't really got a social life and just carried on with the habit. Never learnt to drive so dad was essentially taxi-ing a grown adult around.

Same reason OP is, I guess.

Once you realise the adults are the ones who are in control of the situation, you have to look at yourself and your own choices in it.

Your dislike is really towards DSS’s mum. DSS himself has not done anything at all other than merely exist. It seems that you just don’t like him because he’s in the way.

Tbh, this is what happens when you get with someone who already has a child/children. I know I’d feel similar when it really isn’t the child’s fault. But because I know I’d feel like that, guess what? I don’t date men with children for that very reason. You either need to work on this or leave. It’s extremely unfair on DSS. God forbid he wants to get tucked in or lay in bed with his dad

Omg please get out of this relationship and spare that poor step child all this unjustified hatred.

If mum was getting on so well with them until OP got pregnant then yes mum is an arse and OP was not to forsee that someone who had previously got on so well they discussed childcare etc would turn into someone so bitter and resentful of the new sibling to her child. It's no wonder OP has struggled to bond with her stepchild as a result. It's all the mums fault.

@saltnvini that makes no sense. The OP knew her stepson from when he was 2

She hasn't had an issue with her step son from the start though. Mum wasn't an arse at the start. The issues only raised once OP had had her own child and mum started being jealous.

No normal adult starts taking things out on a child because of the way his mother is acting!

@saltnvini but why is the OP hating the 8yo?

I know. I just want to give that boy a hug.

I do t think you are awful OP, it sounds like you are struggling and I think you are very resentful of the situation you are in.

What does your DH say about your feelings??

How is your relationship with your DH aside from his oldest DS.?

How is he with your DS when his other DS arrives ?

Sounds like maybe you need to take a little step back and start again. The ex wasn't obviously very understanding in a very upsetting time for you, but your DH should have managed that properly and said he needed to be his poorly baby, the same as he would go to his older son if he was poorly.

You should have gone to Lanzarote anyway - DSS gets invited, if their mum refuses them to go, she is the one stopping access so it's not unreasonable to have a holiday. Just go.

Doesn't sound like his mum spends much time with him at all, if you have him every weekend.
Why is it every weekend, is this court ordered or choice of your husband - can he do 3 out of 4 weekends maybe?

Your DHs son does just sound like an 8 year old who would wind a sibling up and annoy them. I wouldn't have him shouting at my 3 year old though, no one shouts in our house, I don't care who you are, it's just not done and if it does, fun stuff is taken away.

You need to have no contact with DH ex wife, that's his job. It's his child and his ex wife, not for you to deal with organising. If DH is working their is no reason for his son to visit if you two are not close.
We know a family where they lied to the kids mum that the dad was at home when he was actually working all day, but the mum wouldn't let the kid come if he was only coming to spend most his time with the dads wife. I would (hypothetically) be livid if I was loosing out on time with my Dc to my ( hypothetical) husbands wife.

The basics are, if you can sort the issues you have with your DHs oldest son (and they are you and your issues with your DH, he's only 8), is your relationship worth saving or is it dead in the water anyway.

A lot of them do.

It's depressingly common, when a child is responding to a situation created by the adults, for the adults to respond by blaming the child and deciding the child is somehow faulty. The adults are great, the problem is that the child is insane/mentally ill/has a nasty personality/otherwise malfunctioning.

I can't even see what the kid is doing that's so terrible. Asks his dad for stuff a lot? Annoys his brother? That needs to be dealt with but it's hardly serious behavioural trouble in an 8 year old.

Every weekend IS a huge amount to see his Dad
My ex only saw DS for a few hours every other Saturday or Sunday
@holywow Sounds like his mother doesn’t like having him- and this poor kid will realise that.

She’s very unreasonable to sidestep every weekend- and a LONG weekend at that.

No wonder you and the stepson feel frustrated.

His mother is probably seeing less of him than you are at this rate.

No . She is getting a hard time because she hates her step son and the reason she has listed are pathetic and not her step sons fault

1. He stays at thier house every weekend (not his fault)

1. His dad looked after him when her son was born and in NICU (not his fault)

1. He wants to feel secure and wants to be close to his dad at night (not his fault)

1. She wasn't able to take her son on a plane apparently because other mum wouldn't allow step son to go (not his fault)

1. He teases younger brother - what sibling doesn't do this?

She doesn't see him as a bother to her precious first born, she sees him as burden. The problem is not with her step son, but how she resents his mum and she's projecting her hatred on this poor child. She deserves to get a hard time, her posts make me feel sick how she can feel such hatred for an innocent little boy.

I totally agree that's out of order but I think this is mums doing

There’s no evidence that @holywow is taking anything out on the dss. She’s just saying SHE has feelings she does not know how to deal with.

it will work itself out, but things have to change. The DH has to deal with this a lot better than what he is doing atm. OP probably does need some therapy for potential PTSD, but the key to this is to get some control back in their lives and get things much more formal.

the dad only seeing his ds at the weekend ISNT too much, ideally 50/50 week on week off would be fair, but as long as the DH pulls his weight, isn’t some kind of fun park hands off dad and one who is an active and responsible parent, one who says NO and pulls up on bad behaviour. Boundaries are the answer here, for the dss and his mother primarily

The posters whose stepparents hated them when they were children have come here to express that unfortunately they knew they were hated.

@oakleaffy maybe the dad wants to see his son, a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday like your ex did is not great parenting

Adults always say they're totally hiding their negative feelings from the kids. How many grown up children from these situations agree?

Not a representative sample. No one happy with their stepparents would seek out a thread like this on the stepparenting board

We had my SC's 50:50 but that wasn't just weekends. Every weekend at one parents house seems wrong - I find it actually quite sad that the kids Mum never wants a weekend with him.
I'm not having a go at the OP as enough people have already queued up edo that! But it is sad that there's a little kid in the middle of this that seems pushed away by Mum and then probably isn't behaving brilliantly at Dads because he's craving Dad's attention and security.

I think most people know when someone hates them, whether they say so or not.

@saltnvini surely it’s the same when parents think they are hiding the fact they are an alcoholic etc from their kids, the kids know

Maybe she should just be honest and say it's not you it's your mum she's an arse