Don’t want stepson all the time

[Sky1248]

I want to see if I’m being unreasonable at all and all comments are greatly welcomed!

I have been with my partner for nearly 7 years and when I first met my step son he was just turning 2! He was always very clingy to his dad and I always tried which sometimes I loved having him and sometimes I dreaded it!

we now have a 3 year old and 9 month old together and sometimes I appreciate the times it’s just me my husband and my kids however my husband is saying he wants our stepson included in everything and wants to invite him to absolutely everything! Even my 30th meal I said don’t worry about inviting him as he’s quite rude to my family that were coming but my husband was adamant he wanted him to come.

i have no person issue with my step son I do find him a bit spoilt and he has such a better life with his mum always doing nice things so I don’t know why my husband always wants him with us.

am I unreasonable to say I sometimes want to do things without him and just our kids?

OP, you were always going to get a hard time on here — but your DP sees his two youngest children every day. He sees his oldest twice a week for tea and then EOW. You get LOTS of time where it’s just the four of you. You have two DCs but your DP has three, and (rightly) wants his oldest to feel loved and included in his new family unit. Can you try to see it from his perspective?

From what you have posted, it sounds like your DH has created some resentment: Not because he is good to his oldest son, but because he appears less interested in his younger children.

He may be subconsciously thinking of it in terms of balancing time and quality: i.e. "I have son one for half the time, so I must be twice as nice to him. I have younger children all the time, so I only need to be half as nice"

But it doesn't work like that. A dad who sits on the sofa, doing little with his kids and not asking them about themselves and their day is a bit of a shit dad, who doesn't deserve a badge for just being there.

Your biological children will see the effusive interactions and fuss and lovely activities and wonder why dad is not so overjoyed by them. They won't think of it in terms of time, just the contrast in how he acts with them.

I understand that he feels guilty for leaving and wants a special relationship with his son, but needs to make more effort to make his own kids feel special too.

As for the meal, you step son should be included in all family activities and holidays. If you leave him out of them, he will feel left out, which as you know is not nice when your own kids have to put up with it.

Turn this around OP. 5 years from now you split with you DH, meet someone else, your ex-DH has your kids 50/50, your kids are now the step children. Your new partner doesn’t want your kids around, doesn’t want to invite them to a birthday meal and doesn’t want to include them in other family events, how do you feel about that? Would you let that happen?

So he sees him twice a week for a few hours and 2 days out of every 14? How many days with him do your children get? YABU

@Simonandhalfuncle Her DCs life on hold? He’s their brother. Their biological older brother and always will be. How is their brother being included in their family putting their life on hold? That’s just part of having siblings

How is OPs life being stopped or put on hold in any way?

She got with a man who had a child and knew before having kids with him herself, that he had other responsibilities that required his time.

She knew this but still decided to have a relationship and then have kids with him.

You’ve literally said yourself that you can’t treat all of the children the same - which is exactly what OP is complaining about.
Because she feels the DSS gets more attention which isn’t unfair, but the circumstances are completely different.

So your opinion doesn’t make sense.

I am going to say YABU because you knew when you met him he had a child and that child is part of his life forever. However I have a friend who was in a similar situation to you and had a stepchild who they had to stay with her and her DH most every other weekend (they also have 2 young children) - no issue at all - she knew this when she met him - but as time went on and the child got older her DH started to leave her with my friend (her stepmum) and his kids and slowly started to do his own thing ie pub on sat night and leave my friend with all 3 kids. Fast forward 3 years and the child is now living full time with friend and DH and she does all the parenting - looking back she said he was playing super dad in the early days wanting his DD including in everything so she would like to live with them (to get one up on his ex!!) now he expects his wife to do everything with her - and he does nothing. She treats her like her biological DD but she says she does feel that maybe he just uses her to bring up his child so he doesn't have to but whilst still looking like a great dad. He has no interest in her parents evenings, taking her to out of school activities or anything, he doesn't have to worry about being free at weekends to have her like in the early days as his wife parents her for him.

You are giving really bad advice with every post and validating someone for being completely petty and jealous. I don't know, is it projecting that is happening here?

I agree. The issue is probably that you had kids with him thinking he was a good father but it transpires he is not as good a father as you thought, he is able to have this level of interest in his older son because he doesn’t parent him all the time and so it’s only blocks of time making an effort whereas with your shared children it isn’t. Honestly, you need to tell him to step up for your shared children and stop the favouritism or you need to seriously consider staying.

P.s. YABU to exclude your SS though.

your husbands a shit dad to your children, and a disinterested husband to you and instead of tackling that you’re taking it out your step son because you’re immature and jealous.
I’m sure you’ll find lots of other step mums willing to agree with you here though.

He doesn’t even parent that kid 50/50 though I dunno why you thought he’d be offering a lot to yours. They’re still getting more though.

perhaps try to imagine yourself in the child’s shoes though. Sees the dad less, has half siblings that get to live with dad and be around dad more, has a step mum who clearly does not want him around and thinks he’s spoilt and poorly behaved. Or imagine he was one of yours, how would you feel then?

I imagine there is more to this set up and answers from responders are not coming up with a solution. You have two young children and are getting a 3rd one to look after on a regular basis. Even if Dad is about you care for the 3rd child in some way e.g. food, bedtime routine, outside or inside when he is playing. This little boys Mum has one child and probably good one to one time with Mum or Dad. His Mum does not have 3 children on a regular basis...but you do. If your partner takes a very a active role in caring for your two eg. Bedtimes, baths, food preparation, discipline then he might consider how often his son visits instead of bringing him only for " events". He cannot see your current workload.

OP, you still haven’t answered whether your DH is refusing to do things with the younger DC on the weekends DSS is not there. I think this question is quite important in determining whether he’s overinvolved with DSS / uninvolved with the younger DC.

Aside from that - DSS may have a home and do fun things with his DM - but he only has one DF. Even if there’s a stepdad at his DM, he still only has one DF.

If he’s only seeing his DF eow and two nights a week, he will feel like he’s excluded from his DF daily life, because he is. He’s only there some of the time. There has to be quality to compensate for quantity. That doesn’t mean I advocate for ”disneyparenting”, it means that for your DH and DSS to be able to have a close relationship, your DH does have to put in a little bit of extra effort… not least to compensate for the fact that you clearly don’t want your DSS around. Perhaps if you were capable of treating DSS like he’s got every right to be there, this would not be the case.

Full disclosure - I grew up as a stepchild in between two homes (both parent remarried and had DC with their new partners). As others upthread have explained, this did not mean I had double everything, but rather I had two ”homes and families” where I clearly did NOT belong. I am not sure how to get you to understand why that is not ok, but unlike an adult who can ”start again”, a child can not go out and find new parents.

Now that I’m an adult, my Stepmother has tried talking to me about how difficult it was to have a Stepchild. How stressful it was to have me turn up eow (also meant DF was out of the house Friday after work and Sunday PM as he had to ”ferry me around”)… or, most recently, how she’d gathered up some pictures of me as ”they have limited wallspace” and ”obviously want pictures of their own children” on the walls. It was clear she genuinely thought I’d commiserate, now that I’m an adult. The thing is, I still don’t understand. I never will.

Threads like this are actually validating, because it really brings home that for all the stepchildren out there feeling excluded, less-than and unwanted there are step-parents genuinely feeling this is how it should be.

FWIW, OP - my stepmother was determined to exclude me from ”her” (and my DF’s…) family. I was never allowed to have time alone with my DF, as that would’ve been unfair. When I had DC, it became important to make sure they also didn’t feel included. She has chipped away, demanding less and less contact and I guess after 30+ years, my DF finally gave up. He hasn’t been to see me or my DC for years, but he has been very involved in his step-daughter’s (my step-mother’s DC from her previous marriage, who lived with my DF and her full-time) life and has very much been a loving, doting stepgrandparent to her children.

So - if you really want to push your stepson out of your lives, despite your DHs best efforts it might take you some years of grinding, but if you play your cards right, you can probably make it happen. I guess the question I’d be asking myself is, can you be sure (deep down) your DH won’t end up resenting you for it?

Let's get rid of the problem altogether - if you choose to marry someone and choose to have children with them then you must accept that you have to do whatever it takes to stay together and be happy about it. No divorce = no stepchildren. Easy.

You must also do whatever your partner says the children want, whenever they want it. You're unhappy? Tough - swallow those feelings down and realise that only those innocent children matter.

You knew what you were getting into.

You decided to get with a man who had a child as a result your partner wanting to see his child as often as he likes goes with the territory. Step parenting isn't for everyone for this reason. I think you sound ridiculous.

If you did not want your Step son being involved in your life you should had dated a man with no children.

You got together with the father of a two year old. The time to think about whether you wanted that child to be an integral part of your family was then.

@Menomama This! I was 10 when my parents divorced. I am 50 today. Reading this thread and your post makes me feel raw and weepy. You never get over being neglected by a parent. I have spent a lifetime thinking I wasn’t good enough in all capacities (friend, girlfriend, partner, colleague, employee), that I was not worth loving and easily disposed off. Just because a woman such as OP (and my weak father) couldn’t face including me or treating me equally to their new kids

My step mum was the same as you op, she met my dad when I was two or three and though she was never horrible to me, I always knew I was intruding on their routine and family time. Eventually I stopped going and I don’t really have much of a relationship with my dad. Unfortunately for her though she still didn’t really get what she wanted because now my step and half siblings also don’t have much of a relationship with him either. It turns out, him not having much interest in them wasn’t because I was there, it was because he was a lazy parent.
With one less child around, that didn’t change.

Put yourself in dad's shoes and think how you would feel if you could only see your 3 year old as often as you expect him to see his step son. Then imagine being told no the 3 year old cannot come to this birthday outing, zoo trip, cinema or what ever. I think you know by now you are being unreasonable

YABU. If you didn't want an extra child always there you shouldn't have married a man with a kid.

If you only met the child when he was turning two, he must've been just 1 or less when you and your partner got together.

Actually, what I’m doing is not validation. It’s just not grabbing a pitchfork and burning the witch - as almost everyone else is desperate to do.

What I’m doing is looking at what she’s writing and wondering what is driving this. I suggested that the OP thinks about what is actually going on, and have said several
times the problem is unlikely to be the the SS. Are you just upset that I haven’t decided to kick her when she’s down?

Maybe if more people were curious about why she feels she and her children are second best (rather than calling her names), she’d actually get some usable advice. That’s not ‘validation’ - it’s just not rushing to judge.

Or is it that I’ve suggested that her husband doesn’t sound like some heroically great dad because he manages to take an interest in one of his children? I find sometimes on MN posters really don’t like it if you expect more than the most minimal standards for men.

This totally.

He has his own son every other weekend and takes him to football then but you feel like your children are missing out, how so? Your children have their father every single night and every other weekend. Have a good think about that.