Do you tell your SO that you are disengaging?
I've basically had it with playing mommy to my 3 skids. My kids are grown and are independent, and I have 3 skids, sd4, sd6, and ss9. These kids are exhausting, they need constant attention and supervision. Like Sd6 (almost 7) cannot wipe her own ass, seriously she will call either her father or me when she is done to wipe her ass. I have never done this, I just tell her she is a big girl and can do it herself. He father of course runs to do their bidding and is at their beck and call always. Last weekend was the clincher for me, SD6 said in front of SO and myself that him and I are not in a relationship because he married their mom, and they had kids together. I waited for a response from SO, and he said nothing. I explained to SD6 that sometimes people change their mind about being in a relationship, and that is what happened with mommy and daddy. She said that it doesn't matter because mommy never changed her mind. SO had nothing to say again, which really irked me. When SO took Sd4 to the bathroom at a restaurant last weekend, SS9 was running around and acting bad, I told him to sit down and eat like 5 times and he said no and continued his behaviour. When SO got back from the bathroom, of course SS9 ran to sit before his father made it back to the table. I explained what happened and I was pissed, the only thing SO says to this kid is "how come you didn't want to listen" all in a sucky voice. The kid ignored him as well. I left the restaurant and went outside. When they finally came out to the truck SO is all like, "what's the matter? Is it something I did" I explained to him that it was something he didn't do like give SS9 shit for being rude and disobeying me. Once we got in the truck he says to all the kids, that if I say something it goes and they have to listen to me. Of course not a one of them even acknowledged that he had spoken. This is the kind of stuff I deal with continuely from these kids, and SO regarding his kids. I feel like for the sake of our relationship I need to disengage, I do not owe these kids anything, they have a stable mother, and I did not breed them. I just don't know if I explain to SO that I am doing this, or just slowly pull away and let him figure it out. BTW he doesn't perform parental duties for my kids ever, and will even complain when my DD18 asks him if she can catch a ride to a place that is on the way to where he is going.
I think it would make the
I think it would make the whole thing go a lot smoother if you tell him you are disengaging. I can't imagine how much good will come out of it if you're not communicating with him about your boundaries and expectations.
You don't want to blur the lines and make him think you're disengaging from him, or that you don't support/care/love him .. just explain to him in very clear terms what you're doing.
Best of luck to you!
Thanks, I'm just worried
Thanks, I'm just worried about how he will take it when I talk to him about it. He leaves a lot of the responsibility of the skids up to me when we have them, and I think he will take it very personal when I tell him I am done being the maid/cook/quasi mommy for his children. The one time he was supposed to have them when I was away on a girls get-a-way, he changed weekends with BM, because he couldn't do it on his own. Needless to say that is a whole other story, as I was super looking forward to 2 skid free weekends in a row. And he took them last weekend (not our weekend) without even asking me because BM has something to do.
Yeah, I hear ya. I don't
Yeah, I hear ya. I don't think it's going to be easy, but it's not fair for you to be stressed out and doing all the work for his kids just because he can't handle them.
They're his kids. His responsibility. His problem. If that means they spend less time with him, than so be it.
And if he's changing the custody arrangement without telling you, that's a problem.
In the past you've taken care of his kids and dealt with all that comes with them (maid/cook/quasi-mommy), and this is the expectation he currently has. It's only fair to give him a head's up that this is no longer working for you, or that it hasn't been working for a long time.
Thanks, I never thought of
Thanks, I never thought of not using the word disengage, I think he will take it much better if I just let him know that I am "stepping back" and letting him be the parent to his children when they are with us. Now hopefully I can ignore all of the inappropriate behviour that DH doesn't seem to ever notice. If not I'll have to lock myself in my room, or visit with friends when the skids are here.
Sure there is no reason to
Sure there is no reason to make him guess as to what's going on. Women are hard enough to figure out right?
Maybe he will have problems but there is nothing in disengaging that says you can't help behind the scenes, in an emergency, or just when you want to. You may find as time goes by the kids, no longer regarding you as a ogre or attempting to replace mommy, start to see you in a higher regard and you can even reengage.
Disengaging is primarily from discipline which is where most of the clashes take place with the kids and disagrement between the two adults. You may or may not wish to cook meals, or it can be sandwiches and cereal unless Daddy wants to take them out to eat in which case you can decide you're not hungry.
There are no hard and set rules and as I said they can change over time. Right now the idea is for you to pretty much let Daddy do the discipline and amusement as well as the chores connected with the kids.
If it becomes overwhelming for him you might suggest he just take them for one 24 hour day, or even just the daytime on a Sunday.
Whether or not to tell him,
Whether or not to tell him, or how you tell him, is a dilemma.
You need to be very, very careful that he doesn't turn it into "you just hate my kids".
I think first you need to talk to him about "house rules", so you both are in agreement about what is or isn't acceptable. Trust me, if you don't agree about this in the first place, disengagement becomes painful as you watch skids run rampant.
Whether you tell him specifically or not, one of the benefits that I have experienced, and have read others here experiencing, is that if given enough rope, these skids WILL hang themselves. In other words, when Dad is forced to take the responsibility there odds are in your favor that he will get a big, fat rude awakening as to his kids' behavior. In our case, just having SO acknowledge that there were problems was a big improvement for me- like we were on the same team.
Hell yes, your DH avoids having the kids by himself. Then he'd be forced to face the fact that his kids act the way they do. My SO does the same thing...makes me so mad because quality time with him is one of my sore spots, and then he DOESN'T wind up having SD when I'm not around.
That is exactly why I wasn't
That is exactly why I wasn't sure if I should tell him or not. I think he will pull the "you hate my kids" thing on me. That is not the case at all. The kids do get on my nerves and I think that they are all very immature for their ages, but the reason I want to disengage the most is because of his behaviour when it comes to his kids. He doesn't ever see them doing any wrong. Especially SS9 the "golden child" DH bought SS9 an IPOD touch just for passing school this year, just passing, not getting good grades, most of his grades were C's. He bought me the exact same thing for my 40th birthday, I am so happy that a huge milestone in my life, is as significant to him as his 9 year old passing grade 2. We did talk about house rules, and what the expectations for the children (age appropriate) are, but he never sees anything when it comes to them, they can tear my house apart, be rude, fight with each other, pretty much do anything and everything and he doesn't see it. And I know he's not blind because if one of my bio's so much as leaves a cup in the living room, I hear about it.
I know...my SO is continually
I know...my SO is continually blind as well. I'm mostly disengaged, but this doesn't mean that I don't tell him when he needs to fix something with SD. And I also do step in if she is doing something egregious enough, like hurting a pet and one really major incident when she was lying in a huge way to get my son and her brother in trouble.
This is why I mentioned the thing about house rules first. If there are no house rules and they are running rampant, then it's not so much disengagement as it is trying to ignore it...and you can only ignore it so long until you explode, or at least that's true in my case.
If you read here long enough, you'll see that while these skids are truly obnoxious children in most cases, it's really the DAD that is the biggest problem. When Dad is doing appropriate parenting, engagement is not so bad.
I did tell SO when I disengaged, and I think it was a mistake, or at least the way I approached it was. I don't remember if I used the exact word, but I think I'd steer away from using the name of it because unless you've read up about it, it's not going to make sense. He did turn it right around into "you hate my kid". Instead, I think I should have talked about him being the parent and what he was going to be doing as opposed to making it about what I was NOT going to be doing.
Ugh. That iPod incident stinks. I think I'd have had to get a sarcastic jab or two in there about that one...
It definitely is the DAD in
It definitely is the DAD in this case, yes the skids are manipulative, immature, and rude, but they are kids. It's mostly the fact that even though we do have house rules set in place he choses to ignore the bad behaviour and rule breaking to avoid punishing his children. He will give them dessert after them sitting at the table for almost an hour not even taking a bite of their food, that they have complained about continually since they sat down. The other day when the kids were sitting at the table having breakfast, DH and I were sitting on the back deck having our coffee, I saw SS9 hit SD4 right in the face, I was just about to tell DH when she started howling and he ran in. The first thing he did was yell at SD6 for it, even though the huge hand print on SD4's face was clearly bigger than SD6's tiny hand. I told him that I saw SS9 hit SD4, and he honestly said to me in a bewildered voice, "not SS9, he would never hit SD4" and continued scolding SD6 for it. I was completely shocked that he would not have listened to me. I repeated it to him, and he asked SS9 if it were true, which burned my ass, and SS9 casually says yes, but she called me dumb, ok she's 4, he's 9. DH completely dropped it there. SS9 did not get into any trouble what so ever. Not another word was said about it. So it definitely is the dad in this case, and the kids are the way they are mostly because of this.
"Not Skid, h/she would
"Not Skid, h/she would never..."
So. damned. aggravating.
Well, here's the thing. When you do disengage, he's going to be forced to recognize that his Golden Child(ren) absolutely would and do actually do these things. It will be hard to watch in the meantime, but hopefully the lightbulb will go off in his head.
This is sort of a side tangent, but I'd be willing to bet your DH says the same things:
"I can't help the way BM parents them"
"I don't have them long enough to undo what BM does"
"I don't have them long enough to make a difference"
"I can't help it- they've been through so much"
There are so many things with DH -Guilty Daddy, head in the sand, cluelessness- that you need to get to the bottom of before disengaging will get you anywhere, in my opinion. I think maybe you could steer him toward a book or two on parenting methods. It's not just divorced parents...millions of parents could use a primer on discipline or there wouldn't be so many books about it. Anyway, something like the book 1-2-3 Magic would help give him some tools to be consistent with his kids. Also, you might want to pick up the book Stepmonster for yourself. I promise, you'll be glad you read it.
Thanks MA I'll try to find
Thanks MA I'll try to find that book, and some books for DH. Funny thing DH hasn't even gotten to the point of saying any of those things yet, except in the case of SD6 when all she wants to eat is McDonalds. Otherwise he is completely blind to all the things the skids do. I'm sure once he has to deal with it instead of leaving it up to me, I will definitely hear these things come out of his mouth. I will have to have a talk with my BD18 about stepping back too, she is very engaged with the kids and the only time I've seen any of the skids corrected for any bad behaviour is when she speaks to them about it. She is also the one who tells DH that he needs to step up more when it comes to discipline of the skids. (she's a bit bossy).
Mine does this too MA, Thats
Mine does this too MA, Thats one of the main reasons I disengaged. Skids spend most of their parenting time with him at their grandparents. And it doesnt matter how many times I say I am not babysitting your kids, He will still ask If I will just for a little bit. Its like he thinks every weekend I have changed my mind......
I had one weekend a while
I had one weekend a while back where EVERYTHING went to hell.
SD12 and have not bonded from the beginning, in fact (our first meeting) she looked at me while asking Daaaaddddyyyyyy where his ex girlfriend was. Ex gf is not BM and they had split up 9 months before me. Should have seen my red flag right there..
Anyway, flash forward three years and it is no better. After one particularly hellish weekend I had with the 2 of them and DH's extended family, I snapped. I never said a word to him, but I very slowly became busy whenever she was around. I would spend token time with them, like an hour, then 'rush' off to do something. I did start a class and then weekly Starbucks with my bestie.
Then I started commenting how awesome it was he was spending so much quality time with her, and she really needed it since they only have EOW. He absolutely thinks it is his idea and every now and again when I am around? He treats me like the partner and wife he should in front of her.
Now- he still screws up- LOL! Lets her do stuff etc, but the last time she was disrespectful to me, I have NEVER seen fix it so quickly. SD and I will never bond- but there is less tension now.