I think my little boy is being pushed out :-(

[Diamondhalo]

What the title says really .. my ex moved on a year after we got divorced.. I divorced him because he was literally never at home always working, or said he was working when really he was out with mates and lying to me. I don’t think he cheated or anything but looking back it was obvious he didn’t want to be at home with me , didn’t see it at the time, and we never did anything together in all the years we were a couple apart from the odd weekend away. After our little boy was born he didn’t change then I had enough and we got divorced. He was single for a bit then he met the woman he’s with now and he’s changed so much he literally worships her and does everything for her and they’re always going on holiday and out for dinner and so on.. I’ve got a few mutual friends who tell me this and it’s plastered all over Facebook aswell..
anyway they had two kids very close together in age and since the first one was born my little boy has been left out I feel , they go on holiday a few times a year and sometimes they ask him then sometimes they go just the 4 of them and my ex misses contact and my little boy feels upset that he’s not included
also since the first baby was born his dad reduced contact from 2 nights a week to just 1
and my son always tells me every time he’s there they do activities aimed at the two toddlers which are boring for his age and he is going to lose his bedroom there too because dad’s girlfriend doesn’t think it’s fair her two kids share when my son doesn’t live there .. I don’t think this is fair I think the two toddlers should share and my son keep his space but can I say this to my ex ? Can i confront my ex on any of this ?
I feel like their 2 toddlers are living the family life that my little boy didn’t ever get and it makes me feel awful also I think his girlfriend is having the family life I never got cos he never really wanted it with me this was one of the things he said to me when our marriage ended :-( they will get married next and im already dreading people telling me and seeing it all on Facebook
please everyone tell me what your thoughts are ?
Also what’s peoples thoughts on this why do some men spend years with one woman , then marry them , then either leave or it turns out to be a lie ? Exact Same thing happened to my best friend they had their dream wedding then when it came to talking about having kids he left her and now he is married to a woman who already had kids and has had another with her?
Sorry for long post

@Theunamedcat
how is he making his first child feel unwanted?

He has to share a bedroom and share time with his siblings (while also getting some 1:1) - that is the real world for families.

DS is going to have a lot of feelings about the changes because 7yo do but that doesn’t mean dad has done anything wrong. He needs both parents on side to help him process these changes.

I think it's unreasonable to expect a bedroom in someone elses home, you are a guest when staying anywhere other than your family home, and that's a good thing.

@Westsussex i totally agree. Unless it’s a 50/50 arrangement, a child lives in one home and visits the other (and I’m sure that’s how the child sees it too) but so many people on MN pretend not to realise this and insist that a visiting step child will be harmed if they share!

Do you really need it answering why the short window of time between getting home from a day at school, and the 7yr olds bed time, during which a meal needs to be made and served, is not quality time compared to a whole Saturday/Sunday?

I mean I could dress up the time between my twins getting home from nursery and their bedtime as "quality time" if I wanted too. It's a short amount of time in which a pretty standard routine is followed by DC who are tired from a day of learning and running about with their friends. Most people know that to be the case.

He doesn't even have a proper bed anymore, he has reduced contact with his child since he had more children 🙄

Seriously how can people not see these things from a seven year old perspective?

A 7 year olds perspective is not the real world.

My 2 DSS's (1 being 7) think they should be allowed red bull, alcohol, unlimited sweets and chocolate, chicken nuggets and chips for every meal, unlimited screen time, not to have to get dressed, not go to school, not to have to brush their teeth, not to have to shower or bath, not have to follow rules and to only think of themselves etc. Whilst we take their feelings in to account, none of these things are realistic or aid in raising children into functioning adults.

Add on for OP's DS a mother that is enabling their negative feelings because of her own negative feelings.

If the bed is always made up/ out when DS is present, he will know no difference. Unless 1 is a camping bed with newspaper as a duvet and the other a 4 post with a luxurious duvet, which of course would be unfair. If this was a nuclear family who went on to have more children, the only difference is that they would have a bed in situ permanently. This takes up a lot of valuable space, space that 99% of us don't have to lose. So why should DS have a bed out constantly taking up space that is needed 7 days a week when he only needs that space 1 day a week?

DS now gets actual quality time with mum at weekends, which he didn't have before. But all the anti dad posters are failing to see that when mentioning the reduced contact.

Perhaps mum and dad should have been adult enough to say 'full weekends don't seem to be working, let's do an evening/ night in the week instead'.

So this child get roughly 24 hrs er week with his DF
1700 Friday - 1700 Saturday - 24 hrs / 10 asleep
or
1700 Saturday - 1700 Sunday - 24 hrs /10 asleep

That is shit whatever way you want to paint this and in no way does that constitute a full EOW which is usually 2 nights.

It is not OPs responsibility to explain the reduction in time and loss of his room - that is his DFs and his new family.

So often on the SM forum we see, SMs who went all out to befriend and care for the step child 9 which is fantastic) but the minute their own DC comes along - drop the step child like a stone and resent their presence.
I think we all get they have other priorities but as the child who was used to attention from both adults in their other home, to find they have lost that , but their lis little explanation to the child who will perceive it as rejection- it is hard to understand at aged 7.

What ever way you look at this, this child gets less Dad time than he did pre new DCs and it looks like this has not been handled well by his DF.

Whereas with mum, he gets home maybe 3.30pm from school, and goes to bed maybe 7.30pm. 4hrs, 5 nights a week (when dad does Saturday morning to Sunday evening). That's a whole 20hrs. Out of each you need to take mum preparing dinner, him changing out of school uniform, doing any prep for the following day at school, getting ready for bed. Mum was doing nothing with her own child until these new contact times were introduced, because DS was there two nights a weekend! And more because that still wasn't enough for mum's nights out.

At least mum can actually do something with her son now that isn't pick him up from school, give him tea and put him to bed.

Thankfully DS now gets quality time with mum though, which he didn't have before!

It isn't mum's responsibility to explain another households set up. It IS her responsibility to support her DS to express their emotions in the right way and help him work through those to help nurture him in to a well adjusted adult. I can't imagine, just from her posts, that she's doing that.

No one knows if this has been explained to DS. No one knows the conversations that have happened in dad's house. What is striking is that DS is expressing these feelings to the parent who also feels put out and hard done by. It leads me to think DS is probably having these thoughts reinforced at mums, leading to even more upset. Yes, DS probably feels safer to explain and express these feelings to mum. But mum should do everything in her power to ensure her own feelings aren't brought in to those conversations.

It doesn't look like any part of this has been handled well by mum either!

Just to add on your point RE SMs.

We also see a lot of SMs on these forums who went all out to care, love and nurture their DSC and were then met with hatred and resentment (sometimes worse!) from DM because she felt insecure and threatened by another woman having the capacity to care for a child who isn't theirs by birth, or because she couldn't get over that her ex moved on. That SM was then made out to be a villain and the DM made sure hell froze over before DSC would ever have a positive relationship with SM.

SM then steps back to protect her own sanity and well being and to stop the shit from DM continuing. DM rejoices that she was proved right and the kids are the only ones hurt.

It's pathetic.

Mum did nothing with her child of course - amazing how mums time gets denigrated because the child goes to school.
Reducing contact time is nothing to do with mum- it is the dfs responsibility to explain.

My comments about SMs spending time with DCs then dropping them like a stone was bout that scenario which is relevant here. The relationship that the SM develops with her SDC is their responsibility to maintain -how they want and ensure the comms are age appropriate. I suppose to put it in modern terms, = the SDC gets gaaslighted.

There is one simple fact if OP is to be believed - the child had 2 over nights per week with their DF. When new children arrived this dropped to one.

There is simply no justification for dropping contact time because you chose to have more children. 2 children get DF 7 days per week - they are sole focus for 6 days - 120 hrs of that time. 2 days per week . 48 hrs they have to share the time with another sibling but this was too much, so the simple solution was to allow one chid to have less time and up their time.

There is no way that can be described as fair.

The comments about whether or not “visiting” stepchildren should have their own bedrooms brought back memories for me. My parents divorced when I was three. Not long after, they both remarried. (On subsequent weekends, actually). My dad married a woman with two older children. My mother and stepfather had a baby literally nine months after their honeymoon. It was obviously a lot of change for me in a short time.

My dad moved into a new apartment with his girlfriend and the two step daughters. I didn’t have a bed or bedroom. I remember sleeping on an air mattress on the floor between their two decorated fancy canopy beds. That didn’t particularly bother me, but my stepmother was a horrible person who did a lot of really terrible things to lots of people. My strongest memory of her is the time she screamed at me for being a “spoiled brat “in front of my father, because I didn’t drink the icky milk left over in the bottom of my cereal bowl. I had no idea that people were supposed to do that! We didn’t do that at my moms house.

My dad and this woman were only married for about six months. Apparently he regretted letting her treat me like dirt, because when later, he moved in with another woman who had three kids, he made it a point that I had my own room at his house so I would always feel at home there. This caused resentment again with the new woman/kids because two of the other three kids, who actually lived there full time, had to share.

Looking back, I see that in either case, bed or no bed, room or no room, I was in the wrong with these women.

I didn’t like visiting my dad very much.

It’s madness that children who live there FT have to share, to enable someone who is only there a few nights per week to have their own room!!!

Mum, by her own admission, didn't. She expected and still expects ExH to provide DS with things that she won't provide herself. Time after school for a 7 year old is very limited after school run/ homework/ meal/ personal hygiene, bed time etc. That's also not including any housework mum has to do in that time. Mum didn't have weekend time previously between DS being at dad's and mum being on nights out/ working overtime. I don't know how that's difficult for so many people to understand?

Of course mum is responsible for ensuring DS is expressing their emotions in a healthy way. You're ridiculous for thinking this is only on dad. What about single parent families? Should the present parent just wait until absent parent comes along to teach the child to regulate their emotions? Again, ridiculous.

The scenario I have mentioned is also relevant here. Notice OP constantly sought to blame SM, even when it's blatantly ExH at fault. It isn't always up to SM how that relationship is maintained or progressed, mums have an awful lot of say in this. For you to say differently is, again, ridiculous.

Seriously how can people not see these things from a seven year old perspective?

Because the truth is, they really don't care about the stepchild. They'd feel differently if it was their child.

Too many women have low standards in their expectations. It's obvious from this thread. They are happy with a part time dad and think he's dad of the year for it. This is how the cycle continues in generations to come.

Their daughters so see our as normal. Such a low bar.

This reads an awful lot like you think women are responsible for men's poor parenting....

@SandyY2K
Yes, I’ve seen your posts on other threads…I’m not sure what you’re connection is to parenting but I find your views to be very one sided, and rarely considering anyone other than DSC.

A 7 years olds view cannot dictate how the household is ran. What about the younger children - or do their feelings not count because their parents are together?

Family life is all about compromise…even is DSC lived there full time, he might have to share a bedroom. It’s a drop on the ocean in the grand scheme of things.

I think the stuff about dad not doing stuff isn’t true given the football update. We don’t know the full reasoning behind them dropping a night, it could be logistical (I’ve said this before).

I think mum’s just pissed off her boy is not longer on a pedestal (which I don’t think would have been healthy anyway).

It is not difficult to understand that Mum does 86% of the caring and plannign for this child. How any one in their right mind, thinks Dad dropping his contact gives mum more quality time with her child for whom she does damn near everything is deluding themselves.

SandyY2k - the number of women on here who are justifying 1 day, 24 hours contact for a child with their parent and find every ridiculous excuse to justify this re deluded. The rights of the new family to go on holiday, leave a child behind - not a huge age gap here and live their lives separate form one of the childrens, are seen as more important than letting one child have even a quarter of what the new family have.

Seriously low expectations of the DF here and some very very unpleasant SMs showing wht they truly think of the previous children and where they sit in their family.

Yes i have been a single mum, with an EX who whilst with his first DP did exactly what th OP has described to the point there was no ONs. i get the damage that does -I deal with it and work to minimise the damge. Roll on, I have 3 SDCs and EX has a wonderful DP. 5 kids on holiday is ahrd work but it is all or nothign - they get a choice.

Sorry SandyY2K - totoally agree with your view on standaards - forgot to write that bit!

In your position, I’d be tempted to reduce contact further rather increase as your son is going to feel constant rejection every time he goes there. It’s better for his mental health to be with parents who are there for him primarily, and that’s you.

Why would anyone encourage alienation? Horrible

I think we need to separate reducing contact (bad) with sharing a bedroom with a sibling (normal).

If my parents took on board every moan and complaint I made about my siblings growing up, my 3 brothers would have been put up for adoption or simply dropped in the sea and I would have had a baby sister.

Of course we all want our kids to be happy but I don't think it's healthy for them to grow up thinking that every situation should be tailored to whatever they want.

Whilst I don't agree that the dad in this scenario is doing his best with a measly one night a week I also don't think OP is making the situation better by not reassuring her son that things like sharing a bedroom is completely normal, toddler going on days out when he's not there is totally reasonable. Both parents should be doing more to reassure their son and make sure he doesn't feel left out.

During the week isn't quality time though. Sure there are nice moments, like stories before bed, but you're not talking them to visit their cousins or to explore the farm park or spending a day in pjs chilling out with films and games on Tuesday night, are you?