Long post guys sorry
Trying to figure out if I'm being an idiot or if he's in the wrong?
I've had a really difficult journey with step parenting and right now I feel like I'm at breaking point so I may just be feeling extra stressed right now than usual!
So the story is, I have 2 children & my OH has 2 children who spend 50% of their time with us. All 4 are very close in age.
In an evening, often I like to snuggle up on the sofa to watch tv or read with my 2 children for an hour or so before bedtime. Fairly normal I imagine for most families? His 2 children are autistic so they have no interest in doing these things at all. Again, normal and accepted.
However, often when my children and I are trying to read / watch tv, his children are generally being loud and bouncing around in the living room. This makes it impossible for us to concentrate on what we're doing so I started to take my children upstairs to sit on the big bed to read where it's quiet.
OH always had an issue with me doing this. He would get stroppy because I had gone to sit on our bed. I asked him why this was and he said he didn't like my children being in our bed. He said he didn't mind the fact that I had left the room to read in a quiet place but not to use our bed.
Now I totally understand that he wouldn't feel comfortable with my children sleeping in our bed at the same time as him, that's fine. But is allowing them just to sit on the bed to read when he's not in it such a problem?
I've explained to him that there isn't really anywhere else in the house where we could sit together to read. After a discussion, he said he understood and he was overreacting.
So onto last night, same thing happened and his 2 we're bouncing around the living room, screaming and dancing so I left them to it and assumed it would be ok to go sit on our bed after we discussed it.
Myself and my 2 had just got into our pjs and snuggled up on the bed when he came upstairs. He told my daughter to move and he removed the pillows from behind her leaving her without any, then left the room.
I didn't say anything infront of the children, we all just budged up onto my pillows and she went to fetch her cushion.
Once they were in bed, I asked him why he did that. He said "I didn't want my pilllows to be messed out of shape" he said this as he was fluffing his pillow to put it back on the bed after throwing it on the floor. He said "I've got a right to choose what happens on my side of the bed and with my pillows".
It caused a bit of an argument and today I haven't said anything further about it but I cant stop thinking about it.
Am I being totally unreasonable and an idiot for making a deal out of it? Do I just need to chill out and find somewhere else to sit?
I'm really struggling and I know seems like such a silly issue to fall out over when we could argue about much bigger things but this is just one of many little things that happen that I just can't get my head around and I feel like I'm going insane always wondering if I'm doing the right thing or not.
Big hugs everyone.