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?

How would you feel if you could only see your DC EOW and two
Mealtimes a week?

He sounds like a great committed parent.

Also his son is older than your kids, it's obvious he'll have different conversations with his dad than your kids especially if he doesn't see his dad daily.

Sorry to break it to you but extracurricular activities are the norm on the weekend so you should've been prepared your husband will have the responsibility for taking his child to those.

That that is a problem. It likes stems from guilt he feels for not being with his son full time and feels he has to squeeze it in to fewer hours iyswim. Maybe talking from that angle would help. Acknowledging it's hard for him to have a child he doesn't live with but he needs to balance the needs of all his children and the ones he does live with need quality time with him too. Maybe suggest some ways he could have 1:1 with each child during a week or month.

I think it’s about your husband finding the right balance. Of course he’s right to invite his son from a previous relationship to things but also understand you don’t want it to be for absolutely everything.

How would you feel if you saw your children for 2 teatimes a week and EOW? Would that be too much? Also, the conversations you can have with a 9 year old and a toddler/ baby are actually different.

Yes, exactly

How many questions does your 9 month old answer about their day.
Can you really not see the big difference in ages might change the nature of a relationship with a child irrelevant of their status within the family?

But that's not true is it ? Because his half siblings see their Dad all the time. Every single day. How do you think the DSS feels, he's st the age where he adores his Dad .... and can't see his Dad all the time.

So you get plenty of non step son time. You don't have him every other weekend.

I think your DH is being a really lovely involved parent in his DSS life. Trying to make him feel part of the family. Of course if he's rude, then DH needs to address that. But otherwise why wouldn't he invite his kid for family events.

If your husband is only having dinner with you twice a week and spending time with your kids every other weekend then perhaps you are confused and actually you are the ex partner.

no wonder your step son is rude to you and your family he probably feels extremely unwanted

Because he lives with them. He sees them every day. He knows this stuff already and / or he misses his son and wants to know what’s going on in his life. How many times have you been asked on here how you’d feel if you didn’t get to see your kids every day? You haven answered yet.

Surely you can put aside your jealousy long enough to understand this?

You sound like the stereotypical wicked stepmother OP.

You married a man that was committed to being a decent dad to his child. Now you have your own children, you want him to drop that son so you can ride off and be a happy little family without him. Nasty.

I can’t believe you begrudge a child in this way. I’d also love to know some examples of his rude behaviour you talk about and also:

1. what the instigator is behind it
2. whether anyone else finds him rude
3. how you will feel about your own children when they are 9 and pushing boundaries.

My two pence:-

If it falls during normal contact time, then you can’t rearrange contact time to exclude him.

If it falls (or is arranged) during non contact time then it’s fine.

Hes 7 - he’s not going to be especially bothered about a sit down meal anyway. Your kids are quite young and so would be better for you (and them) to have Dad available for keeping them entertained/distracted/sat nicely.

I can’t comment on your OH but I find my DH just automatically defers our children and their care to me when he has DSS. Which then puts more pressure on me and would spoil an event like this - as basically I might aswell have turned up without DH and had the same level of support.

You're horrible and the very definition of the evil stepmother

That poor child

I have a DD from my first marriage and two DSs with my DH. He is amazing with my DD and treats her like one of his own whilst she is at ours but I completely appreciate he wants to spend time with just his DSs sometimes. Also she does things with her own Dad so she's not missing out. She spends a week at ours and a week at her dad's. When she's with us, she does stuff with us and when she's with her dad, she does stuff with her dad and we do stuff with the boys. It works out quite well because there's a bit of an age gap so when she's at her dad's we can do stuff age appropriate for the boys. If she did everything with her dad and then we waited to do everything we did when she's with us, she'd get double the amount of things and outings. I honestly think it's fine for you to want to do stuff just with your own children as long as your step son is not excluded when he's there. We also don't do all holidays with my DD. She comes on some and not on others but then she also goes away with her dad

I wouldn't particularly want stepchildren and can quite imagine feeling irritated by a child that wasn't mine.

So I didn't marry somebody who had children. Honestly you made your bed, this child is part of your life now

Your DH sounds like a lovely involved parent.

I agree with this. Surely it must be a natural feeling to sometimes just want to do things with the kids you have together?

However, to say your stepson does better things with his mum so you don’t know why your DH wants to have him so much is a bit odd.

Another day, another 'I had kids with a man who already had children and I can't shake them off'.

How often would you expect your DH to see your child together if you split up?

Yabu.

Put yourself on the other side of this.

Imagine you split with your dh, you remarried and your new husband didn't want your children around much. Called them spoilt, tried to exclude them from family gatherings.

What would you say? How would you feel?

probably shouldn’t have had children with a man who already had a child if you didn’t want said child to be involved. he is your children’s sibling - you know that right?

You’ve made some really good points. I wonder if her husband doesn’t do very much with his youngest and then suddenly springs to life when his eldest is there and focuses all of his attention on his eldest. Basically being the dad to his eldest that he should be towards his youngest but takes him for granted/feels guilty on his eldest/just gets on with the functional stuff and takes nothing in because his youngest there every day? And OP is picking up on all of this and starting to understandably feel resentful.

As you say, it’s not her stepson who is the problem but most likely her husband and his guilt complex. Yet another man who chose to have children with 2 different women and now can’t handle it.

And as for spending time doing things with just her own children and DH. If her husband is all the above that I mentioned, then it’s no wonder op is frustrated. He’s probably pulling down all suggestions from OP to go out to places on mum’s days. Eg if OP said, “It’s a lovely day tomorrow, shall we go to the zoo? The kids will love it.” He might be pulling his face because he can’t bring himself to do it without his eldest. Which must be really frustrating for OP! I don’t think she’s actually on a mission to go to these places without her dss, but she’s just trying to get on with life when he isn’t with them. Something her husband should also do if he chose to have more children and remarry!

Your complaining about your dh taking his child to football sessions on his contact days? He has every other week available to you and your dc. You sound awful.

He doesn't get that much time with his dad. He is 9 years old, many 9 year olds go to football practise and has matches at the weekend. Other parents have to manage this alongside looking after younger kids. One parent does the football while the other parent looks after siblings, your situation is no different. Or are you saying that when your children are older one sibling won't be doing extracurricular at the weekend because the other child doesn't want to? No you as parents will split the tasks. Look at it this way, you only have to do this every other weekend, that won't be the case when your children are older if one wants to do weekend extracurricular.

You are a proper gawp aren't you??