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!!

I think the contact arrangement is no longer working for you.

Your DSS needs to spend more quality time with his DM and you would likely benefit greatly from some time to do things without DSS present. What does your DH think to revising this?

I would try this before splitting up. And get some therapy, I agree that the trauma around the birth and illness of your DS in NiCU has now been linked to your DSS. The fact his dad chose to be DSS (when MIL was available) and not with his very ill new baby is appalling. I would find that incredibly hard to forgive that, it set an appalling tone for the relationship and that's going to take some help to reset.

Quite

Surely the ones whose step parent successfully hid their dislike won't reply as they were unaware due to that success?

This can be true. I was a step mum once for about 4 years and I had to call it a day in the end because of this issue. And I fully blame my ex partner for letting her control our lives, it was awful. My son has a step mum who isn't a very nice person but I don't try and control anything or cause conflict I just want my child to be happy.

Spot on.

Surely the ones whose step parent successfully hid their dislike won't reply as they were unaware due to that success?

Can you think of a time in your life where you felt happy in the company of someone who hated you?

Children are not stupid.

Who is being prioritised in that scenario?

Literally none of the great list of grievances you have are the fault of your poor step son. They are all the fault of his mum, his dad, or you. Redirect your ire towards the adults in the situation, and seek therapy to find out how you have gone from loving a child at two to hating him at eight. There is something very, very wrong with the way you are feeling, and you need to take responsibility and fix it.

The mother of DSS as everyone else has to put up with her bullshit and pussyfoot around her, while DSS, OP and her child suffer.

The mother of DSS

Thank you, that's the answer.

Edit: Misread, my apologies. But no, that prioritises OP. And the person who should be prioritised is the child.

Haha. You think people hide ongoing loathing for children for years and they're too stupid to notice? Would you be that stupid?

Both children should be priorities, but OP's children is not- for anyone but her, including the actual father, so OP has to prioritise her own because the DDS mother is batshit and sadly this affect OPs attitude to DSS.
Her partner is clearly incompetent and should not have had any children at all, and I think it's very human, although sad, that OP is put in this situation and her child is missing out on lovely thing (DDS is not as they went on holiday another time just with his mum).
The only way out of this situation for OP is to leave the man and try to get as much custody as possible and be able to do nice things with her child, independent of a toxic ex-wife that is calling all the shots.

Some people suggested another woman will call along and be a better step mum, but youd have to be a bloody martyr to put up with all this BS the ex is serving them. So there wont be another lovely step mum, just two broken homes because the husband cannot say no to a crazy ex.

Well regarding the holiday, I think the answer, rather than directly slagging off a little boy's mother to his face to satisfy the spite of one of the grownups, is to tell him they want him to come but obviously they need to ask his mum. Then if she says no, she will have to explain why. If she has a good reason it will sound better coming from her and if she hasn't, that will be her responsibility to explain to him. It's between him and her, so keep it that way.

Wow there is so much for me to elaborate on here.

ex wife wasn’t a dick head originally. She was ok with me and congratulated us on our engagement/ wedding etc. so never saw it coming she ramped up the pain in the arse behaviour when we told her about my pregnancy.

ex wife says that because my DS gets his dad during the week (3 hours in the evenings max) that the weekends should be for DSS. DSS says this himself as this is what he’s told off his mum.

DSS genuinely believes he is more important than DS as he ‘came first’ (he says this a lot).

my MIL is an interfering fucker.

for those saying my son will be an annoying 8 year old one day…guess what. I love my son unconditionally. I believe we have far more tolerance for our own bio kids.

yes i do try and put my own son first in every situation , because who else is going to?? Doesn’t he deserve to come first to his own mum? DSS should come first to his mum but whether he does or not is up to her and not my fault.

The NICU situation - it just so happened that my DS was born near the weekend and the following 72 hours were touch and go with him - that’s why it was an issue with the ex because it would potentially affect her free weekend.
We were told by doctors that we could be in NICU 24/7 to be by his incubator and get any updates and just be with him. so yes I (rightly or wrongly) admit, I wanted me and DH to be by my sons bedside every single minute. I wanted to be there for every update, test, ECG, etc etc. I wanted us to hold his tiny hands through the incubator window so he wasn’t alone in the first 3 days of his life or potentially the last moments of his life. I was a mess at the thought of my baby dying and so what I wanted my husband to be with me in those 3 days?? Is that wrong? Meanwhile his older DS is very much alive and kicking and safe with his mum? So yeah I admit i hate the ex wife for not having any empathy for us and being a twat during that time. And yeah I do resent my DSS for barging into our home and being loud and annoying and obnoxious and all other pain in the backside behaviour when I had just brought my tiny vulnerable baby home.

Also can I just say, I’ve had quite a few private messages on here off people secretly agreeing with me or saying they’re in/have been in my situation.

are there a lot of ex wives/step daughters on this thread?

Step children are practically inlaws and look how many threads we have from people moaning about their MIL/SIL. Let people vent. Regardless of age, you can't like everyone and yes that includes children.

Having to base your whole life around somebody else's schedule is tiresome, hard and often thankless. Some resentment is perfectly natural in these circumstances, so long as OP isn't being outwardly unkind to the boy then she's doing absolutely nothing wrong here.

People like to trumpet "you knew this man had children" and yes, step mothers do, but you can never foresee how things will pan out in the future. Most of us go into these things with the best of intentions and open arms. As OP said, BM was absolutely fine with her until she got pregnant.

Don't worry about some of the harsh posts OP. Plenty of us understand. There will be even more of us quietly nodding along but reluctant to post because they know how it goes down.

I have a significantly disabled child. DSS who was more than double his age picked him up by the scruff of his neck and went to punch him in the head. Mumsnetters managed to blame everyone but DSS for it. It was the disabled kids fault for having a meltdown and throwing a small toy (at absolutely nobody), then it was my fault for not getting there quickly enough. There are some complete morons on these boards.

Solidarity 👊

Also before anyone says it because i know someone will 🙄yes I do believe that both me AND dh needed to be present in NICU at all times during those crucial 72 hours. We were being told a lot of updates/ results of tests etc and I was exhausted and in pain and in a wheelchair from a horrible delivery. I was on a lot of pain meds. My head was all over the place and I couldn’t take it all in at times and couldn’t remember or understand everything we were being told. It was during covid so visiting was strictly parents so it’s not like I could have asked my mum to support me. Some will say ‘what if there was no one else to look after DSS?’ Well there was. His own mum for a start, MIL, SIL, plus maternal grandparents. I admit I didn’t give two hoots about DSS and where he went and who picked him up at that time

Yes they come on here to target stepparents even though its the section FOR stepparents

On here people are irrational about first children. Holidays for example. Most will never accept that if you always take your ds and dss but dss goes with his mum as well he'll get more holidays overall. They'll just scream about how unfair it is his dad dared to have more children and should always put the new family second.

I would never have got with someone with a child partly because of this.

Disgusting.

I think you need to start telling your DH how you feel about his son. I would be horrified to know someone in my home thought this way about my child

i have had a few kind replies and private messages and this is one of them - thank you so much. Your last paragraph made me so sad and emotional. That’s exactly the way it does - it can never be the step child’s fault even when some of their behaviour is chosen or mean or inappropriate

it appears so! Are they the ex wives of the men who have remarried and had more children? Meaning their own DSC aren’t sole priority anymore? God forbid 🥶

I have a five-year-old, and an older child as well. Kids that age are able to understand, “The baby is very sick in hospital, so Daddy needs to be with him now. Just like Daddy would come to be with you if you were very sick in hospital.”

Honestly, what if OP’s baby had died without his father there, all because no one wanted to risk a five-year-old feeling he wasn’t the urgent priority over a seriously ill baby?!

This all over!!!!

so basically it made DSS feel superior and like he was more important than a very poorly baby. For what it’s worth I can’t remember if I finished the end of that story, but MIL did go and collect DSS and he kicked off at the front door. Then DH got a phone call of the ex wife calling him this that and the other. Our sons NICU nurse advised him to turn his phone off.