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?

He probably wants some one to one time with his dad, he's displaying this feeling by misbehaving. Give him the option of a long weekend camping with his dad with something he really wants to do locally or a holiday appropriate for the little ones (not abroad) with everyone, he will probably choose the camping with dad, but it's his choice. Not much extra money to find, not many days extra holiday, but he gets one to one time with his dad that he wants and complete attention without small children. My kids who are not step children need some one to one time.
Good luck

YABU. Will you leave one of your own kids at home when they start playing up? Because that’s what kids do.

Maybe he misses his dad a d resents the fact that the little ones spend all their time with dad, and only gets EOW and a holiday here and there?

Your husband needs to step up and start seeing more of his son.

its a given that a boy of that age won’t want to do the same things as much younger siblings. That is a struggle for a lot of parents - most don’t have the option to ditch the older child.

what you do have is a badly behaved boy. Why does his dad see him so little? EOW feels a bit 1950s Don Draper.

So parenting, patience and suck it up I am afraid.

and you are unreasonable for saying ‘spends’.

Honestly, you have a large age gap. You should be planning holidays suitable for both, and working out how you’re going to manage both age groups. Which will inevitably mean you take the little ones and your dh takes the big one. That’s just how holidays, life in fact, has to work. It’s sad that your dh felt more sad missing your toddlers seeing a character than he did happy at being able to spend quality time with his son.

You either accept dss is part of your family, or you don’t, in which case maybe your dh can take him away just the two of them. You can’t punish him for behaving like a 9 year old on a holiday that his parents hadn’t adequately planned.

They get their dad full time, the step child gets twice a month.

I hope you don’t have step kids.

I don't and I never would. It's not OP's fault. For all you know, the mother pushed for EOW.

I was going to say something like this. It’s a bit weird that the husband is starting to resent his son coming on holiday.

Is this meant to be a holiday for all the children or has the step son being invited to join the family on a holiday which is focused on them? It’s quite an important difference.

I have a brother who is 6/7 years younger than me (full sibling) and it meant that pretty much all activities were useless for one of us.

So if your DSS were your child would you leave him at home?

Exactly.

Make it work. This is what you signed up for and it’s pretty poor you think exclusion is an option.

Your kids get their dad all the time - your DSS onky a couple days a week.

Your views and attitude and completely skewed to the happiness of your two youngest and not of your step son. You don’t see it from his point at all.

On the other side act like a parent and call out bad behaviour instead of passively accepting it. Your children at that age won’t be angels all the time. You need to reshape your thinking here.

What's your husband blathering on about- barely seeing his newest kids? He lives with them full time, and only sees his eldest a pathetic 4 days a month? That must be so upsetting for his son.
Why hasn't he sorted 50/50 parenting?

At this stage I would chat to your husband and say that due to the kids ages it not working out brining all together on holidays. You both have had to deal with his son kicking off about the hotel, WiFi ect. Then he has no interest in doing things suitable for toddlers and it hard for you been left with toddlers when him and his father go off.

I would suggest that you go somewhere in term time as a family but that your husband beings his son away for a few days on a holiday more suitable for both of them.
Tell his son we think you like to go to say a football match and stay that night in a hotel but this will only happen if you behave better and are nice to his siblings.

At 9 he needs to learn he can't get his own way also and kicking off will mean no WiFi, mobile phone or treat's. This is not been mean to him but it teaching him how to behave. You don't want him growing up to be a horrible teenager making everyone life hard.

Also why does his own mother never bring him away? Also when your husband has him does he get some alone time with his dad as that might help a bit also.

One of my friends recently took a mobile phone off her 14 year old son because of his behaviour. She told me he is far better without it. He gets the phone if he is going on school outings or if his parents need to change plans regarding who is collecting him after school. He can ask to use it if he needs to contact a friend about school work also. He is not Snapchat or on tic tock for hours and nor is he getting messages that can be bullying in nature. My friend said his behaviour is improving and he is getting a proper night's sleep as the phone is not in his room either.

There’s always the option of court to get more contact if mum is refusing.

This is the best plan.

Your toddlers get to live with their father full time. Your SS gets to see his dad EOW. @Penelopevoncleefsurely you can see what is going on here for your SS.

Book a week away while SS is at home with his mum. It will be far cheaper than school holidays. DH then books something appropriate for him and his DS during the school holidays. Win win.

And you have no idea whether that is the case or not. But as it goes, the SS is being treated to lovely holidays and ruining them. So he doesn't get to go anymore.

That is why I used the term ‘if’, because you are right, we don’t know if that is the case. I think it’s more complicated than just saying he doesn’t get to go anymore.

I think that the suggestion up the thread of trying separate holidays is a good one. You and the toddlers go on a term time holiday while you can, then your husband takes DSS on another holiday (maybe a mini break) and they hang out and do some age appropriate activities together. See what his behaviour is like with just the two of them. He might still be annoying or he may flourish with the special one to one time.

I also wondered about what is going on at his Mum’s house. Is she ok? Is she struggling on a very tight budget? I wondered if there was a reason why she didn’t take him anywhere, even if it was just to stay with relatives in the UK.

Well, it's not.

If he was her child, and kicking off on days out, he'd be left at home. OP needs to put her foot down.

book holidays abroad that have kids clubs you can send him to eg tui holiday villages, then he makes friends, isn't bored, you can get some time with the other kids or even have them in clubs for their ages too. We found the holiday villages to be a life saver. Swimming academies, football academies, kids clubs, kids discos, some of the hotels have slides and poolside activities.

Clearly, DSS is manipulating to ensure he gets his dad all to himself. He needs to share, so next time maybe you take him off for thd day and leave your littlies with their dad. That should bring DSS into line - he’s deliberately competing, which you bothneed to stamp on

What if his behaviour is a way of getting one to one time with dad? Perhaps dad should sit down with his son and have a talk. Try to get to the bottom of what is going on.

The joy of having a large age gap, unfortunately it likely means you’ll never cater for both age groups at the same time - and that isn’t the older lads problem, it’s for you and DH to deal with. It doesn’t feel remotely fair to leave him behind because your DH wants to not miss out on stuff with the toddlers - unless he then arranged a “grown up” trip for him and DS1 separately.

Thats what we did with DS1, there’s a 5 year age gap and so we used to take little DS away when DS1 was at his Dads, then we’d arrange something more aimed at his age group and have DS2 looked after.

Your SS is being a little sod, but I’ll be honest that can be a little sod age so be prepared that your cute little toddlers might be there at some point too

@mummytoonetryingfortwo with who??? If he was her bio child he would have to go. Or she wouldn’t go. As a single parent I don’t get to say to my primary school aged children ‘I want to go backpacking but you two will ruin it so I’m leaving you at home’. You’re bonkers

’i’ve rejected my child and barely see him but have a brand new family and he’s ruining it by being a normal whiny 9 year old who, bizarrely, doesn’t want to on toddler rides and now I’d like to see him even less’. What a fantastic Dad.

Family. Friends. A babysitter.

Children aren’t entitled to holidays, and if you act like a brat, you don’t go. It’s that simple.

Split the holidays. Alternate between taking him and not taking him. You could even alternate who pays. When your husband pays, stepson comes. On the ones where you pay, he doesn't.