Holidays with or without DSD

[terracottasaucer]

How do you manage holidays with step children? I feel like I’m not allowed a holiday with my own children, and made to feel evil for even wanting to.

Need more detail. Where do they live, what % of time do you see them. Are you holidaying alone, with the other parent. Who is paying for the holidays etc?

We try and make sure we all go together especially foreign holidays

we have a child each from previous relationship and one together

we have both said if our children are away with the other parent on the only time we could go for example , we would go with our child on her own but ideally I wouldn't want to

. The time may come though as my sd is 13 so at some point she prob won't want to come away with us and neither will my son .

We have an every other weekend arrangement, and don’t see them in between. I would like to holiday with my husband and our two children ideally but I could take mine on my own. I just don’t see why I should have to. I’m likely to pay for the holiday as the main earner.

You want to exclude your husband's child?
Wow.

Are your children also his children?

Yes.

i think I get it now. You want him and the children you share together to go and not the children that are his from another relationship? That is pretty off imo. Turn the tables, would you be ok with your children being left out like that?

Are you a step parent? How do you manage your holidays?

Why don't you want her there? That's the crucial question. Because while you say you just want to be allowed to go on holiday with your children, that's not the point, is it? Nobody is stopping you from going on holiday with your children. What you want specifically is to go on holiday with your children without their sister.

Maybe your DH just wants to go on holiday with his children as well? You need a good reason for excluding one in particular, imo.

I grew up in a step family and everyone went together. If my DS’s dad said he was going with partner and their kids (hypothetical) I’d think he was a a* hole, pretty sure DS would too. Do you not want him to be a good dad to all his children??

So should step children go on every holiday? Not intended in an argumentative way, I just wanted to know what arrangements other families have. I really struggle to relax around my stepchild and I know I’ll get flamed for that comment!

Yeah I think they should. Unless there is a practical reason they can’t. They already don’t live with their dad so likely feel left out, you don’t want to make that worse. However, once the teenage years hit they may not want to. Does he go on his own with his child?

We do holidays separately. We take our dc together and dh dc go on holidays with his ex. Otherwise SC get double the amount of holidays .

So your SC don't get to enjoy family holidays with their father and siblings. Lovely.

What are the ages of your children and your step children?
Ive been away with just our shared children myself, but they are pre-school and my DSC are school-aged so I went during term-time or once during the holidays, but it was during their mum's half of the holidays and my partner was working so I just went myself. My partner and I have been away once with our oldest shared child (youngest wasn't born yet) without DSC, because it was Christmas and they were at their mum's but DH and I had had a rough year and needed a break so we just went last minute. We have also had a good number of holidays with DSC (which have generally been harder although they've gotten easier each time, the first one was the worst!). My DH would generally always want us to go away together but he's good in that he doesn't want our lives to stop when DSC visit their mum so if we're able to get away somewhere and it happens to be at a time when they can't come, he would never say that we shouldn't go.

How come you only see them EOW, that seems quite short time nowadays? Are they in school, what happens with school holidays, do you share that time?

They had a lot of holidays when dh and his ex were together so they had been to Disney and Spain and US etc already so we then wanted to take our dc on holidays that they’d already done . Dh pays towards their holidays with his ex each year as well and we are all happy with the arrangement as it makes it fair and equal

SD is 17, our shared children are 6 and 3. If we go together I assume I can find somewhere she can have her own space if wanted but I’ve not researched too much yet!

At that age I’d suggest DH asks her about something age appropriate just for them, city break etc. She may well not want to come with you all given age gap. That would feel inclusive

It isn’t fair or equal.

They never holiday with their father or siblings. Their father already isn’t living with them. They have much less of his time and focus. To also miss family excursions is cruel. Holidays are one of the intensive ways to bond as a family unit. You are excluding part of your family! Awful.

So his kids never get a holiday with their Dad?

They have 2 parents , if it's affordable they should get 2 holidays.

She's 17 - she's not going to want the same things on holiday as a 6 and 3 year old!

Surely as an almost adult she can understand there's things families go to separately, that her dad can go on holiday with her step mum and step siblings and she doesn't always have to go?

Given the age, I would think there is definitely reasonable solutions, such as DH takes her somewhere of her choice on holiday and you go in term time on a holiday aimed at younger children.

When ours were growing up, we would take them all on a UK break each year (until the teens no longer wanted to come) and occasionally take our two abroad, DHs ex would not allow the step kids to go abroad so them coming was out of the question. With no amount of asking changing that.

I think it is reasonable to want to go away just the four of you but unreasonable to think you can do this without causing unacceptable hurt to your DS. I would compromise by explaining to her that it's a holiday geared for little kids and have her dad take her on a city break to somewhere she'd like to visit.