Am I Really Being Unreasonable?

[SadSam]

Im sorry, but after yet another argument with DP last night I felt that I had to ask your opinion on whether I am being unreasonable as my DP seems to think.

We have had a horrible time recently with BM, Solicitors etc. We have just had eldest ss stay with us for a week and one of my grouses is that I dont even get asked if he can stay with us. I just get told by DP that he is coming to stay and I have no say in the matter. If I have anything planned then I have to cancel it! On top of this we have been told by BM that we have to have ss and sd for 2 weeks during the summer holidays and take them away for at least 1 week. We also have been told we have to have the children from Boxing Day to January 3rd!

My issues is that as some of you may be aware, my DPs children and parents live nearly 200 miles away and my only family (parents) live over 160 miles away in the opposite direction. When we had his eldest son I had already arranged for us to visit my parents for the weekend, but had to cancel it as we couldn't possibly cancel his son.

The same again for Christmas, when am I supposed to visit my parents at Christmas? I am working Christmas Eve so all I have is Christmas day before the kids come and it is expected that if I want to see my family that I drive 160 miles on Christmas Eve evening just to come back Christmas Day evening! Again, it is just assumed that I will accept Christmas as I have for the last 3 years, I dont get asked it is just expected of me! I know that a father should be with his children at Christmas, but I have even suggested that he has the kids and I see my family this year, but he starts whinging that he wants me to be with him and the kids.

We already have the children once a month and although we would love to have them more, it is just not possible with the travelling, petrol costs etc. We are having them for 2 weeks in the summer holidays aswell and this means that we have no holiday left for me and DP to have a holiday on our own! Dp says that we will still be spending time together albeit with the kids and that's all that matters, but he doesn't seem to understand that when they are not your kids and you receive no respect from them its not that easy or enjoyable!

Please please somebody tell me am I being unreasonable? All I want is occasionally to be asked rather than told what I am doing! I have over the last 2 years cancelled visits to my parents 5 times all for his children. I have never asked him to cancel his plans for my family and to be honest he never would even if I did! If he says we are having the children and I say but you know we are going to see my parents, then it is just expected that I have to cancel my arrangements as he cant let his kids down!

Sorry to ramble on, but please help!

SadSam, I so relate to what you're saying .... are you sure you're not me ??!!

My DP & his ex have been separated now for more than 6 years, yet the sense of bitterness, hatred, spite, malevolence, lying, emotional blackmail, hysterics etc. (not to mention using the skids as weapons) seems to progressively get worse, not better, with time, as you might expect. Theirs was an agreed separation - no affairs, no alcohol, no violence or anything else which you might just be able to understand leading to lasting bitterness. Within weeks of separation, ex was out with new b/f (a "friend" from work) and introducing him to skids. She's had several b/f's since then, including, the married father of her kids' friends ! However, when me & DP got together more than 2 years after the split, WW3 broke out ("how dare you introduce that woman to my(!!) children" was the least of it) ....

.... seems to be a classic case of "having her cake and eating it". Despite having a b/f now, she seems consumed by bitterness and determination to ruin the skids' relationship with their dad - and if she can cause trouble between me and DP at the same time, that will be a bonus. I've said before that I feel haunted by DP's ex .... some of the stuff she says, though usually it is assumptive nonsense, is just so personal and way beyond the boundaries of what an ex should be remarking upon (so far as I'm concerned her only topic of conversation with DP should be the skids, nothing else).

Like you, I just can't get my head around it .... DP & I have spent what probably amounts to days going round and round in circles about her bizarre and damaging behaviour but getting nowhere obviously as we cannot see inside her head. However, we suspect from everything she's said that it is a case of very extreme envy because DP has moved on, got engaged, bought new house with new partner, had another child .... in other words he seems pretty settled. But, of course, there's nothing stopping her doing any of this if she wants to and circumstances allow, and DP wouldn't dream of commenting on how she organises her life now. You know, it seems incredibly childish, but all her tantrum like actions almost seem to point to a fury that DP did it "first" .... like, "how dare he?"

"Your" ex sounds like "ours" .... she doesn't want him but doesn't want anyone else to have him either. "Our" ex wanted the freedom of being a single woman, to come and go as she pleased, see who she wanted etc., but also all the advantages of being married, i.e. in her eyes, to have DP still at her beck and call and still to be the most important woman in his life even if they were separated. This may sound fanciful and even perhaps paranoid but without citing numerous examples of what she's said, I can assure you that those comments I've just made are based on stuff she's actually said. Ex is a very very selfish woman and I think she thought she could "have it all" for as long as it suited her ..... when the reality of separation & divorce hit home, she didn't like it one bit .... hence 6+ years on, and we feel like we live in a war zone.

Heaven knows what the answer is ... we used to believe that time would be the healer, that, and new b/f (s) but goodness knows how long we will have to wait as those factors don't seem to be working. I am scared now that this is how it's going to be until youngest skid is 18 (in 10 years time) and she can no longer use them quite as effectively as weapons.

I really really hope you get somewhere with the letter you've written. But if she doesn't agree to be fair and reasonable, I still think it very unfair of your DP to jump to her demands as and when without discussing it with you. Maybe ex might get a bit of a wakeup call if your DP tells her he won't be dictated to .... e.g. he tells her that suggested dates are NOT convenient, but suggests his own instead.

Good Luck ... and sorry for hijacking your post a bit with my rant against BM.

Hi Catsmother. Thank you for your reply, it does appear that we are in very similar situations.

Jelousy is the main factor I am sure. We both have good jobs and work very hard (50 hours a week each). She chooses not to work (or should I say she works without declaring it as she is claiming benefits!). We work hard for everything we have and yet are made to feel guilty for buying something new or going on holiday. The kids are programmed to ask us how much everything costs and we have had to get into the habit of saying "cant remember" now. The eldest boy (16) has even resorted (at her request) to looking through our paperwork drawer and reporting things back to her! I was furious and very upset about this as I feel my privacy is being invaded!

Im adamant BM didnt expect DP to get with someone so soon after they split and that is why she is so bitter. She is incapable of having a "normal" relationship with guys due to her drinking and attitude. She just gets with men that she can use for money purposes or a meal ticket! She has not had a proper relationship in the 6 years since they split.

I really want to marry DP mainly because obviously I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but also because it will get one over on BM as they were engaged but never married.
With regards to us having a baby, if you've read my other posts you will see that she has dictated that if we had a kid she would stop DP seeing his kids as "he wont have enough love for his other kids if he has another baby!" This has caused problems in our relationship, but fortunately I know that DP does want a baby with me and nothing she can say will change that!

I too feel that my life has been invaded by this bi**h and feel that I have at least another 10-12 years of it to come! We are just awaiting a reply from her solicitor to see what she has not agreed to now, but I wont give in, I will make her solicitor so fed up with receiving letters every week (as she is not paying for it the state is) that he will advise her to agree with us in the end im sure.

I refuse anymore to have my life and future ruined by a selfish woman who is full of regret for giving up a lovely man.

i must be mad, but i can't help feeling sorry for my partner's ex. i think of how happy i am, and just can't understand why anyone would give up on a lovely guy like mine. i try my best to get on with her, to the point where i have moved from essex to surrey to be just streets away from her and my step daughters. i would even admit that on a good day, i love my partner's ex. we really don't compete, and i even visit with my little one without my other half. life is so much better when u get on. it's really really hard in the beginning, but IT CAN WORK!! we all gain cos our kids get on, and we don't have argue. i always try to pretend that we could just be colleagues at work or something other than women who are/were with the same man. also, i would feel like a hypocrite if i didn't set my children an example by gettting on with someone we're not meant to. people are always curious about how we do it, but after 5 years, it's easy, and we all gain. my daughter has wardrobes in her bedroom, which were bought by my partner and his ex when they were married. and her 2 new kids have the same surname as ours ( she never changed back to her maiden name after the divorce ) . believe me, life is too short to be enemies with anyone.

You are my doppleganger I'm sure ! ( ...though I pity anyone with that particular claim to fame)

We too get the "programmed" kids "spying" on us and reporting back home to mummy. To be fair, the kids are being placed in a terrible position and effectively their loyalty is being divided by spiteful BM, and I'm not sure how much info is willingly and/or, in the natural course of converstaion passed on, and how much is revealed through "interrogation" but I do know that literally within a couple of hours of them being returned home, DP gets snide text messages and/or spitting rants on the answerohone 9 times out of ten going on - very often with completely the wrong end of the stick - about some "evidence" of our great wealth. I'd wager a very large bet that that sort of info does not come out naturally within such a short space of time.

The irony is that money wise we are very very close to the wall. Not that we should ever have to justify or explain that in any way to BM. However, the latest rant we have had to endure is a diatribe about my teenage son and how DP "spends all his money" on him ..... "because he has xx, yy, zzz etc." and skids don't !!!! The items in question have all been gathered over the years (my son is more than 4 years older than oldest skid) and none of them were bought by me, let alone DP, they were presents from other relatives, or things ds had saved up for. Yet BM had done nothing to put right the skid's misconception of how these things were obtained and instead is revelling in the "proof" she's uncovered about how DP is apparently neglecting his own kids.

I am sick, sick, sick of walking on eggshells whenever the skids are here. I wouldn't dream of discussing finances, or anything else of an adult nature in front of any of my own children, let alone the skids, but because of BM's probable reaction, I find myself checking what I say about even the most innocuous stuff. If, for example, we're watching a travel programme on Australia, it'd be natural for me to say "I've been there" but not now ..... 'cos it almost certainly would come back at me (even though it was 18 years ago!) DP was quizzed by older skid re: his iPod - which was a birthday present from MIL and BIL ..... "why have you got an iPod, they're expensive?" ..... DP told him it was a gift, yet still, later that weekend BM had a go at him for having one !!! Either skid didn't believe his dad, or BM ignored that bit of detail.

But FFS, it feels like Big Brother is watching us. Anything new is picked up and commented on by skids - especially the older one. This is 'cos they have it drummed into them by BM that daddy has lots of money but doesn't want to spend it on them - which is bl**dy nonsense - as he doesn't have lots of money at all and is in fact giving BM more than CSA rates. The skids have often repeated to DP that he "stole mummy's money in the divorce" and other such gems - all lies, and the truth is completely the other way round. But suppose she says this stuff to them to alienate them from their dad.

catsmother...if u are cheesed off, u should just call the shots when the kids are there. u have a right to be happy. just let them know who the boss is. they are only kids for god's sake, not the gastapo!!! be brave u can do it.

catsmother... ps don't worry about dad's feelings, a happier u, will make a happier him, believe me.

also, don't join in with their way of doing things . stick to your ways, why lower yourself to their standards. just imagine u r a teacher, and the kids are in your class then give them answers... something like..'do u ask that sort of question at home??'

polly2 - I wish that my step mum had been as nice as you!

Polly, I think it's great for all concerned that you & the ex are able to be civil, and even friendly. Obviously it's best for the kids where they don't feel pulled in different directions.

My ex, my son's father and I, whilst not the best of friends, and whilst we do sometimes disagree, are at least civil to one another and our son has never felt torn, and seems well adjusted to our split. Admittedly this was more than 10 years ago now, but he's never appeared to have any problems. Personally, I always felt it best to keep him totally out of any grievances I had with his dad, no matter what I actually thought of ex.

In my case, unfortunately, there will now never be any way I will even attempt to be friends with DPs ex. He feels the same way too, because, any effort at being "friends" would be completely on her terms. That's just the sort of person she is. My situation isn't just a simple bit of regrettable name calling but a whole catalogue of relentless spite and bitterness deliberately designed to cause trouble between DP & me, DP & his kids, me & the skids .... I have worried that at times DP has come close to a breakdown through the stress of it all ..... I sometimes feel like having one myself !

don't be afraid to tell it like it is to the kids either. they need to understand that games are not how you gain respect in life, but by explaining frankly what the truth is. it won't do them any harm if said in the right way.

catsmother, dont u dare have a nervous breakdown. that's just wot his ex would love, never show your enemy that u can be defeated, and be strong. u don't have to live with the woman, so just remember to try and spend as little time as poss' thinking about her if she is a cow. it's a habit, thinking of ex's, that's all. she is winning if u spend more than 5 mins a day thinking about her, that's wot she wants. just stand your ground, and make sure u have your own way more often this will make u feel better!!!

emily05, sorry to hear that your step mum wasn't as nice as me. i just cry with joy at thought of having my 2 stepdaughters, life is great with them, and my little one is just sooooo lucky!! it is hard, but i believe with all my heart that my life continues to be good, just because i try to be good too. it is hard, cos they are always their mum's kids, and have her ways. they are really fab, but a bit smelly at times... teee heee.

Polly, I agree in principle with you re: when the skids are here and they ask inappropriate questions. TBH, I actually consider a child - any child - questionning an adult's finances to be quite insolent. I know that as a child myself, that sort of thing would have been beyond the pale and I'd have likely got a smacked bum too!

However, I have to step carefully because of all the contact problems we have had. I leave the discipling to DP, luckily we have the same ideas & standards, because anything I do is completely misinterpreted and used as an excuse for contact to be obstructed. I have never told the skids off, except when they are pulling their baby sister about and she is in danger of being hurt .... even then, I don't raise my voice, it's more of a stern warning than an out and out telling off. Still, I have recently been accused by older skid of "telling them off all the time" and "always shouting" (see an earlier post of mine) so whatever i do is twisted.

Obviously, it's very difficult because I don't want to be responsible, even indirectly (and it would be indirectly) for DP not seeing his kids for ages. Therefore, I do feel like I have no choice but to keep schtum on occasion ... this of course makes you feel like your home isn't your own, but unfortunately, I just can't ignore the wider implications and have to be ultra careful. Luckily, DP & me can talk about this and he is supportive of my stance and feelings.

polly .. for real?

catsmother. i totally understand why u don't stick up for yourself, i would do the same in the same situation. all u can do then is love your step kids as much as u can, in the hope that one day they will realise for themselves who is in the wrong. children are so innocent, it's not them talking when they are dissing u. they only say wot they are taught. hang on in there, only good can come out of your wonderful patience and perserverance. kids are like animals they sense who is good and who is bad.

You know .... even a couple of years ago, I'd have said that I had a good relationship with both skids, that they rubbed along well enough with my son and that we generally had fun together. This despite BM always hovering like a bloddy great vampire in the background, seizing every opportunity to cause problems.

However, since we had our daughter, and worse, since DP bought our first home together, BM's bitterness has gone to new extremes. She has always tried to adversely influence the skids, and now it seems that at last at least one of them is starting to respond as she wants.

I hope so ..... me & DP keep repeating this like a mantra. Problem is, what happens in the meantime, DP is so scared he'll end up seeing his kids a handful of times a year.

catsmother, then this child will never be yours. it's unfortunatley the way it goes. your partner would be upset to hear this, but when they start taking sides, then there's nothing u can do. u need to look at all the possible scenarios. would it be a bad thing for this child to fade out of your lives as it got older?

Now this is going to sound so dreadful, but in reply to your question Polly, and speaking purely from a selfish, hurt and personal point of view, if I never set eyes on skid1 again at the moment, I wouldn't be unduly upset. I feel as if I've been the "whipping girl" in a lot of what's gone on in the past few weeks and am caught up in the middle of something which isn't anything to do with me. FFS, all I did was commit the terrible crime of getting together with someone's ex more than two years after they split !

However - if this did happen, I know that DP would be devastated. I know that his resulting sadness, maybe even depression, would have knock-on effects itself and I also know I would feel terribly guilty for even thinking something like I've just written above.

catsmother, without being in his situation (whcih both of us are not, ie we have our kids) it is hard to understand. but all u can do is support him, and reassure him that everything will work out, u have to be stronger for both of u. be the happy one if u can, he will thrive on this, and your household will be a happier one. remember u must focus and make him focus on wot u've got rather than the wot u haven't. remind him factually of how lucky he is, cos it seems to be that he has forgotten. make light of bad situations to get out of the rut of a viscious cycle of rows and hurt. get out the bad habits, show him that his home life, which he has chosen has be seen as good regardless of his past. don't forget to see the funny side of things!!!

catsmother, ps he has chosen this life, so he has to be reminded of the fact that he has chosen to be with u, and have more kids. he has a responsibility to his old and new families. missing his kids wont' bring them back he has to see what's in front of him. u sound lovely, and he is lucky to have u. there's not many of us who love someone , even though their past gives us grief, which they are partly to blame for stuffing up in the first place.

catsmother, will have to go now. hang on in there will try to keep an eye on this topic. and no u r not a wicked step mum. wicked step mums don't give a hoot about the kids, the partner or anything else, and u do. good luck. speak 2 u later.