Blended Family questions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, when your kids are with you, do you disengage from your marriage? Asking because I have an old friend dealing with this very issue. He went into the marriage with the very best intentions, but whenever her kids stay with them, he becomes invisible, and he's on the verge of ending it because the kids are there most of the time. I honestly feel like their marriage could have been saved if she just carved out time for him and involved him in parenting the children. Second marriages with children are impossibly hard for most people.

Yeah, my husband focuses on his teens almost completely when they are here. He won’t have sex with me when they are in the house. He says it does not feel right to have sex when they are in the house. This only works because they are at her house fifty percent of the time.

It’s different if they aren’t your biological kids, or kids you raised from when they are little. It’s not the same feeling when they are steps. I welcome the kids anytime, but It just creates a different atmosphere in the house. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells when they are in the house, trying to be nice and perfect, making sure I’m always dressed appropriately, etc. They can be loud, and if they were my kids, I could tell them to turn down their video games, but since they aren’t, I can’t. They do zero chores and leave dishes everywhere. If they were my kids, I’d say, “hey kids, help me clean up before you go back to your rooms!” after dinner. Since I’m the step, I can’t do that. So I have to bite my tongue and either live in a pigpen or clean up after them. Or try to get my husband to get them to clean up after themselves, which creates tension.

So I need those days off to relax and feel comfortable in my own house.

Then you shouldn’t have married a man with kids, ffs! It sounds bad to me too but yet also entirely predictable. The answer is don’t get married if you can’t be gracious to the kids till they’re grown.

I’m very gracious to them. Perhaps that’s part of the problem, why it would be hard to have them there 24-7. They have the run of the house, I don’t ask them to do anything, etc. What I am saying is if you are the mom, you can boss them around and hopefully have them be less annoying. For ex, kid gets up from table and heads to room. Mom can say, “Don’t leave your dishes on the table! put them in the dishwasher.” Stepmom just has to smile and clean up after the kids. Another example, kid tracks in mud. Mom can say, “Honey, remember to take off your shoes!” Stepmom says nothing, smiles and says hello to kid, cleans up the mess, then goes to husband and asks him to remind kids to take off shoes if they are muddy. Husband likely does nothing.

I can do that fifty fifty, but not 100 hundred percent of the time.

It’s just nice to know the schedule. We actually don’t switch it much. Both the parents and the kids like sticking to the schedule. It lends a feeling of stability and predictability. I know a lot of divorced parents who don’t like to vary from the schedule. His feelings are not invalid. Plenty of bio parents feel the same way.

It sounds like you have a husband problem and you have married someone whose parenting you disagree with. Why did you do that?

This, you have a husband problem. Its not unreasonable to ask them to clear the table or clean up after themselves. You are not their maid. I'd stop cooking if they cannot contribute. And, I'd leave the mess for Dad to deal with. I'd tell any child - friend, step, my own to clean up or what needs to be done. This is a parenting issue, not stepmom issue. You need to step up and tell them and if Dad cannot deal with it, he needs to be a parent and not a friend to these kids.

[Anonymous]

The desire for predictability and for the original plan to be followed is totally understandable, but nonetheless there isn't a good way to do that without hurting the relationship with the kids. The DH here isn't understanding that.

[Anonymous]

Op, you and your husband likely get alone time. He is likely looking for intimate time. With teens in the house 100% of the time that is weird.

I think you are making the right decision. This is a blended family so your children have to come first. Also, things change. The kids are old enough to make a decision about where they want to be. I don't understand the inflexible people who say they need a schedule. Little kids have a need custody schedules but most of the time teens do as they would like.

Where is your mater bedroom in relationship to the kids rooms? Can you move the kids bedrooms or you and your husband's space to another level of the house? I've thought about this for my home with teens and both my husband and I are the biological parents. We just need privacy. I would also maybe encourage the kids to spend a little time with friends or my spouse and I would spend a little time together during the school day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, when your kids are with you, do you disengage from your marriage? Asking because I have an old friend dealing with this very issue. He went into the marriage with the very best intentions, but whenever her kids stay with them, he becomes invisible, and he's on the verge of ending it because the kids are there most of the time. I honestly feel like their marriage could have been saved if she just carved out time for him and involved him in parenting the children. Second marriages with children are impossibly hard for most people.

Yeah, my husband focuses on his teens almost completely when they are here. He won’t have sex with me when they are in the house. He says it does not feel right to have sex when they are in the house. This only works because they are at her house fifty percent of the time.

It’s different if they aren’t your biological kids, or kids you raised from when they are little. It’s not the same feeling when they are steps. I welcome the kids anytime, but It just creates a different atmosphere in the house. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells when they are in the house, trying to be nice and perfect, making sure I’m always dressed appropriately, etc. They can be loud, and if they were my kids, I could tell them to turn down their video games, but since they aren’t, I can’t. They do zero chores and leave dishes everywhere. If they were my kids, I’d say, “hey kids, help me clean up before you go back to your rooms!” after dinner. Since I’m the step, I can’t do that. So I have to bite my tongue and either live in a pigpen or clean up after them. Or try to get my husband to get them to clean up after themselves, which creates tension.

So I need those days off to relax and feel comfortable in my own house.

I wonder if my exh's fiance is going to think this about my 3 boys. She is an empty-nester.

If you raised your kids well, she won't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team DH. He signed up for a wife who had 50/50 custody of her kids. Being willing to be a full-time stepparent 50% of the time with every other week to be alone as a couple and enjoy downtime is an *entirely* different prospect than step-parenting full time, of 85-90% of the time but with no predictable schedule, which is even worse. It’s entirely redefining their relationship and their marriage. And it’s not okay to decide that unilaterally and then belittle his understandable frustration and concern.

This is not comparable to an unexpected emergency like their other parent dying. This is an entire change of lifestyle that he never signed up for and never agreed to.

When I got engaged to my DH, his daughter was going into her senior year in HS, and we had lived through a couple of years of upheaval with her mother’s volatile relationships which resulted in 50/50 custody being more like 12/14 custody. I coped with it by keeping my own place because I could not and would not sign up for my life to be so dictated by the whims of his ex. And when we made plans to officially move in together, I knew that the end was in sight and that my DSD would want her own place. I know myself enough to know that I needed my own privacy at least half the time, and I knew our relationship needed the recovery time when she was not with us.

If we had dated and gotten married when custody was consistently 50/50 and then suddenly, for no tangible reason, I was all of a sudden in a joke with full custody of 3 children with no input in the decision to change custody, I would have divorced.

If op’s husband couldn’t predict that teenagers can be flighty and needy at times that’s on him. You’re right they should get divorced though, if op wants to have a good relationship with her kids and grandkids in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Team DH. He signed up for a wife who had 50/50 custody of her kids. Being willing to be a full-time stepparent 50% of the time with every other week to be alone as a couple and enjoy downtime is an *entirely* different prospect than step-parenting full time, of 85-90% of the time but with no predictable schedule, which is even worse. It’s entirely redefining their relationship and their marriage. And it’s not okay to decide that unilaterally and then belittle his understandable frustration and concern.

This is not comparable to an unexpected emergency like their other parent dying. This is an entire change of lifestyle that he never signed up for and never agreed to.

When I got engaged to my DH, his daughter was going into her senior year in HS, and we had lived through a couple of years of upheaval with her mother’s volatile relationships which resulted in 50/50 custody being more like 12/14 custody. I coped with it by keeping my own place because I could not and would not sign up for my life to be so dictated by the whims of his ex. And when we made plans to officially move in together, I knew that the end was in sight and that my DSD would want her own place. I know myself enough to know that I needed my own privacy at least half the time, and I knew our relationship needed the recovery time when she was not with us.

If we had dated and gotten married when custody was consistently 50/50 and then suddenly, for no tangible reason, I was all of a sudden in a joke with full custody of 3 children with no input in the decision to change custody, I would have divorced.

If op’s husband couldn’t predict that teenagers can be flighty and needy at times that’s on him. You’re right they should get divorced though, if op wants to have a good relationship with her kids and grandkids in the future.

This. Wanting to be at the house more than planned is barely scratching the surface of what can go wrong with teenagers. And you have three of them FFS. If your DH did not expect problems and difficulty to come up at some point he is an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team DH. He signed up for a wife who had 50/50 custody of her kids. Being willing to be a full-time stepparent 50% of the time with every other week to be alone as a couple and enjoy downtime is an *entirely* different prospect than step-parenting full time, of 85-90% of the time but with no predictable schedule, which is even worse. It’s entirely redefining their relationship and their marriage. And it’s not okay to decide that unilaterally and then belittle his understandable frustration and concern.

This is not comparable to an unexpected emergency like their other parent dying. This is an entire change of lifestyle that he never signed up for and never agreed to.

When I got engaged to my DH, his daughter was going into her senior year in HS, and we had lived through a couple of years of upheaval with her mother’s volatile relationships which resulted in 50/50 custody being more like 12/14 custody. I coped with it by keeping my own place because I could not and would not sign up for my life to be so dictated by the whims of his ex. And when we made plans to officially move in together, I knew that the end was in sight and that my DSD would want her own place. I know myself enough to know that I needed my own privacy at least half the time, and I knew our relationship needed the recovery time when she was not with us.

If we had dated and gotten married when custody was consistently 50/50 and then suddenly, for no tangible reason, I was all of a sudden in a joke with full custody of 3 children with no input in the decision to change custody, I would have divorced.

You are utterly wrong! You don’t know what it is like having children or you are a bad parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team DH. He signed up for a wife who had 50/50 custody of her kids. Being willing to be a full-time stepparent 50% of the time with every other week to be alone as a couple and enjoy downtime is an *entirely* different prospect than step-parenting full time, of 85-90% of the time but with no predictable schedule, which is even worse. It’s entirely redefining their relationship and their marriage. And it’s not okay to decide that unilaterally and then belittle his understandable frustration and concern.

This is not comparable to an unexpected emergency like their other parent dying. This is an entire change of lifestyle that he never signed up for and never agreed to.

When I got engaged to my DH, his daughter was going into her senior year in HS, and we had lived through a couple of years of upheaval with her mother’s volatile relationships which resulted in 50/50 custody being more like 12/14 custody. I coped with it by keeping my own place because I could not and would not sign up for my life to be so dictated by the whims of his ex. And when we made plans to officially move in together, I knew that the end was in sight and that my DSD would want her own place. I know myself enough to know that I needed my own privacy at least half the time, and I knew our relationship needed the recovery time when she was not with us.

If we had dated and gotten married when custody was consistently 50/50 and then suddenly, for no tangible reason, I was all of a sudden in a joke with full custody of 3 children with no input in the decision to change custody, I would have divorced.

You have no children, so you should shut the hell up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m recently re-married (just under 2 years) and have 3 children, who I have 50/50 custody with. The arrangement has always been that I have the kids for 1 week, and then they go to their Dad’s house for 1 week. Now that the kids are getting older (middle and high school age) my ex and I haven’t been super strict about the schedule. So for about the past 6 months, we let them really stay with whoever they’d like. So sometimes I might have them for a couple weeks at a time, or I might have 1 of the kids and the other 2 go to their dads etc etc. My ex lives just a mile away, so the arrangement works well.

The problem is that my current husband has been irritated that my kids are now staying with us more often. He’ll ask “are they all going to their Dad’s today”, and if I say no, he’ll get upset saying that him and I need our “alone time”. I told him that my kids are already getting old and won’t be at home much longer, and that I’m not going to tell my own children that they have to leave. Current husband has 1 older child that doesn’t live at home.

Am I wrong for allowing my kiddos to stay with me when they ask???

I know that everyone will think "that's easy for you to *say*" but I 110% promise you that if my husband ever had the audacity to say this about my DS, I would kick his ass to the curb and never. look. back. ever.

And he never would say it because he loves my DS like his own (he also has two kids from a previous marriage).

Would you be OK with it if your DH's two kids decided to move into your house no matter what age they are?

What if they wind up incarcerated at some point and upon release desperately need a place to stay? What if they get divorced and show up with their kid(s) on your doorstep, have no plans to leave anytime soon, and expect both you and your DH's financial/child care support?

If you say no should your DH kick your ass to the curb and never. look. back. ever.?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, when your kids are with you, do you disengage from your marriage? Asking because I have an old friend dealing with this very issue. He went into the marriage with the very best intentions, but whenever her kids stay with them, he becomes invisible, and he's on the verge of ending it because the kids are there most of the time. I honestly feel like their marriage could have been saved if she just carved out time for him and involved him in parenting the children. Second marriages with children are impossibly hard for most people.

Yeah, my husband focuses on his teens almost completely when they are here. He won’t have sex with me when they are in the house. He says it does not feel right to have sex when they are in the house. This only works because they are at her house fifty percent of the time.

It’s different if they aren’t your biological kids, or kids you raised from when they are little. It’s not the same feeling when they are steps. I welcome the kids anytime, but It just creates a different atmosphere in the house. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells when they are in the house, trying to be nice and perfect, making sure I’m always dressed appropriately, etc. They can be loud, and if they were my kids, I could tell them to turn down their video games, but since they aren’t, I can’t. They do zero chores and leave dishes everywhere. If they were my kids, I’d say, “hey kids, help me clean up before you go back to your rooms!” after dinner. Since I’m the step, I can’t do that. So I have to bite my tongue and either live in a pigpen or clean up after them. Or try to get my husband to get them to clean up after themselves, which creates tension.

So I need those days off to relax and feel comfortable in my own house.

Then you shouldn’t have married a man with kids, ffs! It sounds bad to me too but yet also entirely predictable. The answer is don’t get married if you can’t be gracious to the kids till they’re grown.

I’m very gracious to them. Perhaps that’s part of the problem, why it would be hard to have them there 24-7. They have the run of the house, I don’t ask them to do anything, etc. What I am saying is if you are the mom, you can boss them around and hopefully have them be less annoying. For ex, kid gets up from table and heads to room. Mom can say, “Don’t leave your dishes on the table! put them in the dishwasher.” Stepmom just has to smile and clean up after the kids. Another example, kid tracks in mud. Mom can say, “Honey, remember to take off your shoes!” Stepmom says nothing, smiles and says hello to kid, cleans up the mess, then goes to husband and asks him to remind kids to take off shoes if they are muddy. Husband likely does nothing.

I can do that fifty fifty, but not 100 hundred percent of the time.

It’s just nice to know the schedule. We actually don’t switch it much. Both the parents and the kids like sticking to the schedule. It lends a feeling of stability and predictability. I know a lot of divorced parents who don’t like to vary from the schedule. His feelings are not invalid. Plenty of bio parents feel the same way.

Where did you get the idea you can’t ask them to turn down their video games or clear their dishes? You sound very passive-aggressive. Parenting kids takes work to figure out the balance between structure, discipline, and nurture. This is something you should be actively working on with your DH. You sound like you want to make zero effort so you can have zero responsibility and just say “the kids are awful but 🤷‍♀️“

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m recently re-married (just under 2 years) and have 3 children, who I have 50/50 custody with. The arrangement has always been that I have the kids for 1 week, and then they go to their Dad’s house for 1 week. Now that the kids are getting older (middle and high school age) my ex and I haven’t been super strict about the schedule. So for about the past 6 months, we let them really stay with whoever they’d like. So sometimes I might have them for a couple weeks at a time, or I might have 1 of the kids and the other 2 go to their dads etc etc. My ex lives just a mile away, so the arrangement works well.

The problem is that my current husband has been irritated that my kids are now staying with us more often. He’ll ask “are they all going to their Dad’s today”, and if I say no, he’ll get upset saying that him and I need our “alone time”. I told him that my kids are already getting old and won’t be at home much longer, and that I’m not going to tell my own children that they have to leave. Current husband has 1 older child that doesn’t live at home.

Am I wrong for allowing my kiddos to stay with me when they ask???

I know that everyone will think "that's easy for you to *say*" but I 110% promise you that if my husband ever had the audacity to say this about my DS, I would kick his ass to the curb and never. look. back. ever.

And he never would say it because he loves my DS like his own (he also has two kids from a previous marriage).

Would you be OK with it if your DH's two kids decided to move into your house no matter what age they are?

What if they wind up incarcerated at some point and upon release desperately need a place to stay? What if they get divorced and show up with their kid(s) on your doorstep, have no plans to leave anytime soon, and expect both you and your DH's financial/child care support?

If you say no should your DH kick your ass to the curb and never. look. back. ever.?

Her kids are teenagers you idiot!

[Anonymous]

My stepmother decided I could never stay at home again after I turned 18 (like, not even summers home from college.) This was one big step along the road to my permanent estrangement from him. OP this is the kind of decision that can have major ramifications on your relationship with your kids. I think every professional who advised on child custody issues would affirm that it is normal and healthy for teens to start exercising their own preferences for custody schedules. Please do the right thing!

[Anonymous]

This is probably why I will not get remarried while my kids are still living with me. Who needs this drama? I just want to enjoy my kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, when your kids are with you, do you disengage from your marriage? Asking because I have an old friend dealing with this very issue. He went into the marriage with the very best intentions, but whenever her kids stay with them, he becomes invisible, and he's on the verge of ending it because the kids are there most of the time. I honestly feel like their marriage could have been saved if she just carved out time for him and involved him in parenting the children. Second marriages with children are impossibly hard for most people.

Yeah, my husband focuses on his teens almost completely when they are here. He won’t have sex with me when they are in the house. He says it does not feel right to have sex when they are in the house. This only works because they are at her house fifty percent of the time.

It’s different if they aren’t your biological kids, or kids you raised from when they are little. It’s not the same feeling when they are steps. I welcome the kids anytime, but It just creates a different atmosphere in the house. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells when they are in the house, trying to be nice and perfect, making sure I’m always dressed appropriately, etc. They can be loud, and if they were my kids, I could tell them to turn down their video games, but since they aren’t, I can’t. They do zero chores and leave dishes everywhere. If they were my kids, I’d say, “hey kids, help me clean up before you go back to your rooms!” after dinner. Since I’m the step, I can’t do that. So I have to bite my tongue and either live in a pigpen or clean up after them. Or try to get my husband to get them to clean up after themselves, which creates tension.

So I need those days off to relax and feel comfortable in my own house.

NP. This was my experience as well. It didn't start out this way. We were in love and he treated me better than anyone I had ever met, so I overlooked all the risks of marrying him. When his kids stayed with us, he completely ignored me and we never had sex. He actually treated me like "the enemy" over time and he would say things like "you hate my kids" etc. It became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Anyway, I wasn't cut out to be a stepmom. In my opinion, there is no harder or more thankless role in life. I'm in a much better place since leaving. If I were to draw shouldn't draw overreaching conclusions based on my experience, it would be that blended families just don't work. Even the ones that appear to be working have so many challenges over time. You may think it'll get better as the kids get older, but it doesn't.

[Anonymous]

I'm a step mom and this situation is pretty much what my husband had with his ex. The only thing that bothered me was when it was last minute and I had planned for dinner for only two of us (easy fix...it became DH's job to deal with dinner when these situations arose) and I found it annoying because my husband never "parented" his children when they were over here and they left messes everywhere, wet towels on the floor, etc. Basically, all the normal things kids do but, as a parent, you can harass them about or make rules to fix but as a step parent, I had no control over.

So, I'd ask him if the REAL problem is the alone time issue (like you said, you can leave them home alone to go out to eat) or if it's something more.

I did struggle a lot with the kids just waltzing into my bedroom and taking my stuff. It's nice that they felt comfortable enough to do that but it felt very much like an invasion of privacy. I'd do more digging to get to the heart of the matter.

I agree with you, though, it's important the kids feel welcome. I always wanted my step kids to feel like they could come and go whenever they wanted since our home was their home too.