I don’t want to do another holiday with DSS

[Penelopevoncleef]

Simple as what the title says. Whether I get bull dozed for this or not but I’m at the end of my tether

quick background, me & dh share two toddlers age 3 & 2 and he has DSS age 9 who is with us EOW. We love our holidays abroad and work very hard to save up for them. DSS has always been on every holiday with us and never missed school as we make sure it’s not term time when we book. In all the years I’ve known him, he has never once been abroad with his mum or even anywhere in the UK. So all his holidays abroad and UK have been with us.

so the last couple of years our holidays have been tricky with DSS and to be honest I find him ungrateful. Last year over the Christmas holidays we were very kindly treated to Disneyland Paris off my parents who’d had a pay out. It was what they wanted to spend the money on and they booked and paid for the whole thing, including our spends (we provided the children’s spends for things like toys/ keepsakes).
anyway DSS behaviour was diabolical, the first kick off was when we arrived at our hotel to find my parents had booked us to stay at the Cheyenne and not the marvel hotel. I just want to add he hasn’t shown interest in Spider-Man for 2 years now. They booked the Cheyenne because it was all they could afford given the amount of people they were paying for, not the theming. I felt really sad for my parents for this. Then following that it was 3 days of complaining and moaning about being bored, wanting to go on all the big rides but there were huge queues and didn’t want to wait, constantly demanding food and drinks. Just blatantly ungrateful. So after day 1 I had to say to dh, for all our sake, that we would separate and I would go off and do all the ‘baby stuff’ with the little ones so DSS wasn’t bored. We managed to salvage the trip and my toddlers loved it, but they kept asking where daddy was and dh was upset he missed them meeting Woody and going on the rides with them. In those circumstances I didn’t know what to do for best, I didn’t want the trip to be ruined and I wanted everyone to enjoy it as much as possible. My toddlers can’t go on the big rides and DSS hasn’t got the patience or tolerance for jointing in the smaller rides or meeting characters and watching parades.

anyway this brings me to our Easter holiday - this year we went to Tenerife and honestly I was dreading it. And I wasn’t wrong to feel like that. I basically spent 10 days with my toddlers by myself - one of which still had a nap so I had to co ordinate that too whilst still entertaining the older one in the baby pool. DSS was in a constant sulk, it was too hot, air con was too cold, food wasn’t nice, pool was boring, Wi-Fi wasn’t good enough, wanted to sit in the hotel room a lot, in the end it honestly wasn’t work the sulking or the kick off when trying to be strict with him. dh ended up following him around and I was with our toddler on my own which was bloody hard work. Also he was very unkind to my 3 year old who was ‘getting on his nerves’ and flung all of his toy fish into the pool when he was playing at the side.

im honestly don’t work working really hard and paying half towards these holidays and not enjoying it. I don’t think I’m selfish in feeling like that. My dh has said he now feels the same and starting to resent DSS coming away with us. He feels like he never gets to spend time with his other children. We just feel it’s not right to take our other two children away and leave him at home with his mum who never has and probably never will take him anywhere.

has anyone else ever been in this situation? What did you do?

Is the OP not entitled to a holiday because she's a step parent?

They could easily do a caravan holiday for the toddlers. They wouldn't care either way but presumably the OP would like something for her too, which I think is okay.

And I say that as someone still doing caravan holidays with a 12 year old who absolutely loves them and doesn't want to go abroad as he doesn't like the heat.

Plus the OP will also be left doing all the parenting while her husband is away with his son on whatever type of holiday it is. I really don't see why she should miss out twice over by having to take the toddlers on a caravan holiday on her own.

Unfortunately the fact exists that holidays are much more expensive in the school holidays and it limits choices more so than term time.

No, of course not. But why is that relevant?

Of course it's relevant. This child only sees his father 52 days in the year plus holidays. Do you really not understand the boy might like to spend some time with his father on his own, doing things not aimed at toddlers when on holiday? Yet this prince amongst men is complaining about that.

Yes, I totally do. I asked why your question was relevant to my post because I don’t think anything I said was unsympathetic to the child’s needs and wants?

You can really see how the eldest is being scapegoated. When the OP met up with her husband, no doubt she sadly told him that the younger two "kept asking where Daddy was" - though in a non-blended family with an age gap, no one would bat an eyelid. Her husband responded in kind, getting misty-eyed that he missed going on the kiddie rides with them and seeing them meet Woody - because obviously he'd rather spend time with them than with the eldest, whom he only sees every other weekend as it is. Basically, he had to spend time looking after a child without a woman around, which he views as a hardship.

They later had a chat about how he resents the tiny amount of time he spends with his eldest, because it reduces his time with the children he already lives with full-time. It makes zero sense. The only "logic" I can picture behind this is that he doesn't think he should have to look after a child without their mother around.

This happens so often in blended families - the child is blamed for the fact that their parent and their new partner don't have a neat little nuclear family, when ironically they're the only person who had no say in this set-up. They didn't choose for their parents to split up, and they didn't choose for their step-parent to marry someone with a child. I really think separated parents need to postpone live-in relationships until their children have left home.

Spot on. Poor Dad, he missed out on being a Disney Dad with his new family. He misses out on over 300 days a year with his son.

Your post is basically irrelevant to the situation here.

Is the OP not entitled to a holiday because she's a step parent?

I was responding to the claim that the price tag doesn't affect the specialness of the holiday. By that logic, the OP should be happy with a cheap holiday. But it never applies that way round on these threads, does it?

I think step parenting where your stepchildren are older than your own children is particularly prone to this as you can perceive all the challenging behaviour that kids exhibit as they are growing up as directed at you or specific to them. And you don’t have that bedrock of parental love and the years of building a relationship with them to see you through the days when they drive you mad.

The OP wants her dream family holiday with toddlers doing cute toddler things and can’t have it with a nine year old in the mix in the way she’d like it, and that feels like his fault. The stroppiness then becomes the focus of her unhappiness, not the whole situation, which is not of her stepson’s making.

No, it isn’t. It’s talking about how to understand and parent a nine year old better than appears to be the case. And I’m a stepparent who has done it myself.

It is much harder to offer boundaries to a step child if you’re nervous about the relationship. But even a step parent should be looking to understand and care for a step child’s feelings.

She’s the one paying though!! The step child is not.

I wouldn’t take him again, he clearly doesn’t enjoy it and makes it miserable for everyone else. But I would make sure that his dad takes him away for some time together.

Take your children on holiday during term when it’s cheaper, and then your DH should take his son away for a couple of long weekends.

I can totally understand him kicking off about the hotel. He doesn’t really understand the value of money - to him there’s a marvel hotel and a Toy Story hotel that the toddlers would prefer. Which one are you in?! Of course the Toy Story one for the toddlers. Just another reminder to him that he’s second place in everyone’s minds.

I might be wrong but it reads like you plan a toddler holiday and are annoyed the9 year old doesn’t fit in. The Disney holiday obviously needed planning with both age groups inmind,your toddlers aren’t going to queue for an hour and your 9 year old doesn’t want Togo on the baby rides. It should be a mix, some stuff aimed at the little ones and some at the older child and a bit of tag teaming where you split off. So with Disney, you take littlies to baby area., your dh takes older one on big rides then you meet for lunch/parade/rfamily rides/meet n greets. At the beach you do some pool time, go to beach , go to a water park , an arcade.
And if he’s rude you discipline him. So a warning followed by a consequence if the warning doesn’t work.

Bear inmindits tough for him to go from short stays with you to whole weeks . It’s not easy being the spare part inthe family.

You could include him on your main holiday and do something smaller in termtime with younger ones.

Why is the son only allowed weekends away when the toddlers get holidays?

100% this. He sounds very ungrateful.

Do all the posters advocating that 9yo doesn't get an invite next time, would you advocate this for your own 9yo?

DS was a lovely easy going child until he hit 7 - 9yo, then he got grumpy! He wasn't awful but there was a marked difference in his behaviour. OP needs to be wary that the same may happen to her lovely toddlers!

The young lad wanted to go on the large rides, instead he was expected to hang around the baby rides! No-one likes queuing at DLP, even the adults get grumpy. As OP and her DH got a free holiday, maybe they could have invested some money into the system whereby you can jump the queues.

On the beach holiday was he expected to hang around the baby pool as OP didn't want to be left on her own with the toddlers?

With the advent of the internet, gaming many parents are finding that WIFI is important on holiday, and it is probably getting an issue from quite a young age.

OP hasn't come back to confirm whether EOW does mean every other weekend, but if it does this 9yo is getting a shit deal from his dad. No wonder he comes across as ungrateful. Instead of pushing him away they need to be including him more. I bet he probably has to fit in with the toddlers when he has his limited weekends with dad.

Yes, some of his behaviour needs addressing, but it also needs to be acknowledged that his life has probably been turned upside down with the advent of 2 baby siblings, in quick succession, and even more limited time with his dad

The toddlers aren't paying either.

No, their mum is ….

I remember when DS was about this age we instigated a system where each of us got to choose the activities for 2 of the days ( no other siblings) it was actually DH who got grumpy because he didn’t want to “waste” a day of holiday going to the mini golf and sitting by the pool, but rules apply to all of us.

I wonder here if DS might have been more amenable if he had been given a little bit of control or choice at the outset. So Day 1 is focused on the toddlers, but Day 2 he and his DF go off and do the big rides etc.

It's family money, surely? If the husband were the breadwinner and his wife had a child from a previous relationship, nobody would expect her to leave her eldest child with their dad while she went on holiday.

And fundamentally, when you marry/enter a committed relationship with someone with a child, that child is part of the package. Or at least, they should be, shouldn't they?

Entirely depends on circumstances, not everything is as black & white as that

It does not matter who is paying for these shitty holidays. The man is his dad he should be paying for his son the child who was there first way before this miserable woman.

How lovely for that child/children.

Family money is much less of a thing in blended families. It’s not my husbands responsibility to pay for my kids just like it’s not mine to pay for his. This is perfectly fine.