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?

ok well all our lives are different, which is just as well really

It sounds like he got his way because he was moaning so much. He's not going to learn to behave if he knows he can just moan and then get to do exactly as he pleases.

How many 9 year olds do you know that wouldn’t moan about having to spend there holidays in the toddler section.

She didn't say they were spending it in the toddler section, she said he wanted to go on big rides but didn't want to queue, had a strop about where they were staying and moaned about food, drink etc all the time.

My eldest is 6 years older than my middle child and didn't behave like this. We did a mix of something for everyone.

Can you afford for DH to take him away for a few days (just the two of them) and then you can have a more toddler-time holiday without him?

We did the same holiday in split groups for some time and it was completely pointless. I felt as if I'd just transported my life and responsibilities to a different location while DH was off kayaking and playing tennis in the sun.

No sign of OP since post 2 a few mins after post one... just in case anyone waa invested of hoping for some discussion on it!

That must mean she’s taken heed of all the shaming she’s had & decided MN knows best…or decided she couldn’t give AF & lived her life anyway

Step children may not be considered family to the new wife but they are family to their DH. The child should be given the same respect love & devotion as subsequent children created within the new family unit, albeit in most cases not living with the father. I don't have stepchildren. If I did I would treat them as my own. I would never expect my DH to separate their child from our family life. That would be like saying our children together are far important and deserving of consideration than your child with your first wife. No child should be made to feel less important to their father than their siblings, despite not all living together.

Oh - thanks for the heads up - does this mean it's a fake post?

Not necessarily. It may be that the OP decided her thread wasn’t adding to her life so won’t return to it.

You really need to calm down

OMFG yeah

@Penelopevoncleef Hi OP.... Sorry if this has already been answered but do you have enough money to do a holiday term time with the 4 of you and then for SS and Dad to do something in the school holidays?

I mean this respectfully but it's very easy to say "If I had stepchildren I would....." but being a stepmother is almost always a lot harder than people expect.

The "treating them as your own" is usually only approved of when it's in ways like buying things, making things, mental load, activities, not when it's rules/discipline/enforcing veg or other things.

Being a stepmum is the hardest role in the family set up

I think that if it's been the last couple of years that 9yr old dss has been more difficult on holidays, and you happen to have a 2 and 3 year old now, then it could very easily be that you are less tolerant of him since you have your own babies, and are expecting him to slot in more without his own wants or needs, like he's a guest and not one of the kids.

Also, I think this pre puberty age is really annoying even when it's your own kids.

It's also unrealistic to expect older kids to just want to do the toddler parts of Disney.

I think that dss should have been told and shown the accommodation and hotel before you went. I would have thought that was quite important for him to be able to see where he was going to be staying?

I think that with better planning and understanding of managing different ages and stages, you would have had a better holiday.

I think that a lot of people manage to fuck up blending families by putting unrealistic expectations on people.

You DH is starting to resent his own kid that he only sees basically 4 days a month because he plays up a bit on holiday and doesn't want to play with toddlers or stand in long queues and is struggling in the heat?

That is all perfectly normal and understandable at his age so really he needs to grow up and be a good parent to his child. He can't just bin him off because he's got a shiny new family and a wife who isn't interested in his child.

OP, I will surely get slated for this, but I think you have every right to occasional holidays with YOUR children, DSS doesn’t have to come to everything, surely?

But doesn't her husband every right to also want his children on holiday??

Yes, he does - but could a compromise be reached, where some holidays include DSS, and some don’t?

But why would the dad deliberately leave one of his children out of a holiday? Obvs if his older child was busy and couldn't go, that would be different.
It's not really a compromise and op won't leave one of her dc at home I presume..

The OP is entitled to devote some time to her own family unit. I realise that as a step parent you obviously have your step child(ren) to consider but you should be allowed some time with just your DH and your own children. Not every holiday, but just sometimes.

I think that someone is entitled to want only their own children on holiday with them, but not to dictate that their partner has to leave one child out. If that's what he wants, then that needs to be navigated sensitively so the stepchild doesn't feel sidelined or abandoned.
Of course that's a difficult one in blended families.
In our family, dh hasn't always taken ds1 when he's visited his family, and we have gone there both with and without ds1.
I think that if we had gone on a big family holiday and excluded him, that would have been really hurtful for him.
I think that a lot of step kids have a real insecurity about their place in the family and people stopping loving each other and being replaced.
I think that the emotional ramifications of deciding that you want to leave a step child behind and go on family holidays without them could be quite big. Even if the step kid is being a pain in the arse.

Some sensible suggestions but why is the default position in every blended family to dump the step child because they are not happy with the situation. Have seen this happen with my two and it has irreparably damaged their relationship with their DF. They can name every single holiday their half sib has been on and in the 11 yrs of his life it is over 20, my two are 15 and 17, it amounts to 5 - all of which their sibling was there for. It hurts for ever for them and they love their sibling but totally get they were not wanted on the holidays they did have, resented it being youngest one focussed and if they asked to do anything age appropriate got shut down.

Not taking him on holiday after years of taking him would be so destructive and prove he is not part of his dads family

You say you have taken him on loads of holidays so what was he like pre new siblings.

LEt him be part of the planning, allow him to choose some activities and do them without moaning it is unfair on two children who see their Dad 365 days of the year versus their brother who sees him may 65 days per year