Family vacation with 1/2 the family.

Planning summer vacation. Another year the step kids ARE NOT GOING. Why? 1. They are not well behaved in a. the car b. eating out c. at friends/family's homes, etc. 2. They are ungrateful. 3. Stepson12 destroys our car every time he gets in it. (ie: twists knobs till they break, writes on it with sharpie!!!!! (no longer gets pens, markers or any writing tools) puts shoes on everything, pulls vent covers off, derailed sunroof cover, licks finger & draws on windows!!!!! open drinks & dumps them in cup holds (no longer gets to have drinks) etc) btw we have a $45k car!!! 4. DH cannot be consistent enough to get these behaviors to stop. 5. I can hardly handle 2 hours in the car with them.

Little improvements here & there with behaviors, but I will not take a vacation with them when this is how they act & DH won't ACTIVELY END THIS. I mean require this to STOP & confront & attack it head on with direct communication. No pussy footing around. My kids have not spit drawn on the damn car window since they were three!!! I made them windex it & wear mittens in July the next time we were in the car! No way Jose! That's gross! Take some damn action. They aren't even made to clean it.

Well that's fine with me. No family vacation. 1,000 miles across country, I'd wanna chew my own ears off 200 miles in.

I do feel bad but what can I do. A year ago when we were talking family vacation I asked him to set some boundaries in the car, to be able to work toward better behavior, so they could go with, staring I WOULD NOT GO WITH THEM. He wouldn't even have a conversation about it. Then we come back, he tells them some bs about how they didn't come bc he gets them on Saturdays & we left on a Friday!!! I said um no... That's NOT WHY. We could have left a day later. Tell them why & he did. He told them they are so poorly behaved in the car & in public that we could not bring them & have an enjoyable time & next year if things were different, they would come.

Almost a year later. Nothing has changed.

Last year was just a few days. This year is gunna be a big one tho. I do feel bad. It's not my deal tho. My kids behave!!! DH hasn't even discussed bringing them. Not even a hint of it. He knows it's not a thought. We are trading cars to go... To a 5 seater that gets better gas milage. So it's crystal clear. Wow. Guess he's given up.

Bradymom's blog
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I'm still bitter about last

I'm still bitter about last year's vacation with skids. The date of the trip was a special time for DH and I but it also overlapped with skid visitation. Instead of going through the hassle of trading time with his nasty ex, I suggested we bring them with us.

I was paying for most of the trip and it was a special occasion that I was willing to include his kids on. I don't know what I expected for my act of sacrifice and goodwill, but at the very least a thank you would have sufficed. Instead, DH acted like it was just normal that we would take skids with us on vacation. Isn't that just what parents do? Yeah, except I'm not a parent and they were intruders. Don't get me wrong, he was excited and grateful we were going and appreciative of my financial contributions. It was just the sense of normalcy he had that the kids were automatically welcome. I don't think he really understood that this wasn't my "normal". This was compromise and sacrifice.

Anyway, the kids were horrible. Every time we went out to eat, they ordered huge adult portions rather than ordering from the kid's menu. This would have been fine if they actually ate the fiod they ordered. Instead, more than half would get thrown away every single time. They never said "thank you" before, during, or after the trip.

Never again. If I'm going to take 2 extra people on a trip I'm paying for, it will be people I like. People who will appreciate it and people who appreciate me.