Why in the world would you prevent him from spending time with his children alone- especially when you obviously think the one on one time is important regarding your own child.

"The beauty of life is, while we cannot undo what is done, we can see it, understand it, learn from it and change, So that every new moment is spent not in regret, guilt, fear or anger, but in wisdom, understanding, and love." -Jennifer Edwards

Do you mean you consciously keep this from happening? Why would you do that? Just let them hang out while you do other things, what's the harm in that?

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth." - Vladimir Lenin

Ok so obviously this is not a good thing but I want you to put yourself in the shoes of your skids. You could have a beautiful relationship with all of them.You and your Husband are raising all of these kids so why not love them all unconditionally.It may be difficult at times but later in life it will be quite rewarding. Especially if you do not get on well with the kids BM. Dont be the stereo type evil Step Monster!! What I am getting at is be a good mother to all of your children no matter what their origin.Children are not blind and they will sooner or later pick up on what you are doing and all this will bring is further aggrivation..So do your best to not play favorites and be so proud that you have a DH that is a good father because that is a true diamond in the ruff.

Loving your skids is easy they are part of the man you married.Treating your birth kids and step kids equally will only help keep your marriage strong.Your Husband will see that you love all that he is and all that is a part of him!
Best of luck to you

I have to be honest, I almost ignored this one because I didn't want to hurt your feelings. But you're the one that posted your confession. Which means you want to see the results, so here goes.

We obvisouly don't have the full story with your brief post. But if I had to base my reply simply by what you wrote (I'm probably going to get raked over the coals for this).........Excuse me? You don't ALLOW him to be alone with your step-kids? Where did you put your H's testicles after you married him? In the freezer? With all due respect I hope your H defrosts his stones and puts them back on. He should have never, ever allowed you to restrict his time with his children. If I ever took that stance with my H, he would have told me to blow it out my a**.

My question is why would you keep your H from spending one on one time with his kids? Are they horrible children? Are they rude or abusive towards your H, you or to your own child? Unless there is a problem with these kids, then you are showing a very ugly side of yourself. Those kids are part of your family. I'm in no way saying blended families are easy to deal with, or that all s-kids are easy to like.....but they are your H's kids for Godsakes. Grow up and show them all a little compassion.

If these are just your usual run of the mill s-kids, then not only are you very wrong to NOT ALLOW him to spend time alone with his kids, but you go a step further and insist that he have alone time with your child. And don't think for one minute this isn't noticed by the child you have together and your s-kids.

My SD13 can be a huge brat and there are many times I've wished she didn't live with us. However, despite my personal feelings, I have always encouraged H to spend time alone with her. Dinners, lunches or movies. Anything where they can have time to bond. The upside is I get time to myself when they are gone. Trust me, the shock on her face when I tell them to get the heck out of the house and go do something is also worth it.

I strongly urge you to get counseling and learn to stop this behavior. It's incredibly destructive and will bite you in the a** later on in life.You do not want to continue to do this to any of the kids, your H but mostly to yourself. You are robbing your family of valuable memories and keeping all of you from building relationships.

Good luck and I wish you the very best.

Never eat more than you can lift.
Miss Piggy

Do you really have to ask if your wrong? I can't beleive your husband is okay with that-mine would be gone yesterday if I tried that. I have to agree with summerflowers IS this a joke?

be more specific and add more details... It sounds like that statement was not a literal one, but rather what your husband "thinks", so provide more please, so we can understand better...

His kids are your Kids sibs. What message are you sending to your own kids?

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Each child should get some alone time occasionally with each of their parents regardless of how many kids are in the picture.

We have no joint children but if we did I would never ace my SS out of some alone time with his Mom. In fact I purposely will stay gone over a weekend on an occassional business trip so my wife and son (my SS) can have Mom and Kid time without me.

I will also occasionally load up the Skid and he and I will head out for a testosterone weekend without my wife/his Mom.

But, you knew you were wrong when you asked the question. I would for sure get this problem fixed if I was you before it costs you your marriage.

Best regards,

I think you are wrong to not allow DH to spend 1-on-1 time with each of his kids. Kids and parents spending 1-on-1 quality time together benefits both of them. I spent a lot of 1-on-1 time with my dad and we still have a very close relationship. This probably explains a lot about why you and your skids are having issues.

I do think you owe it to DH and the skids to apologize to them for not allowing them 1-on-1 time with each other, and promise to not do that again. Once you make your promise, stick to your word. It will be difficult, and you won't gain your skids' trust or forgiveness overnight. However, it is an important step in improving your relationship with them.

Not sure why you don't let DH spend alone time with his kids.....I WISH my DH would spend time with his kids so that I could get a break! If for nothing else just to get a break from them. Of course we have ss7 100% of the time and sd every 2 weeks but still a break from them would be nice. Also for me to be able to spend time alone with my bios .......can't imagine not letting him take them off my hands for awhile if he wanted to though he doesn't seem interested. Wouldn't you just LOVE to have a break from them or to be able to spend alone time with your kids?

You should let them spend time together. The question I wonder is what are you afraid of?

I have my SD and H go out every Wed night together (about 2 hrs.) on vist.as my idea, I had to force my H to do it--it took me months and a threat to leave him to do it.

The only thing I reget is that our BS2 does not get any alone time with my H. My H is very grumpy, even worse since getting on medication that causes him to be irritable. I wish my son was getting some alone time with him. But like with SD, H is refusing. I spend DAYS alone with my son, my H works 50 hours a week and just reads when he gets home. And with my next child I know he won't get any time alone with him.

I think that all kids should get a couple hours alone time with parents each week. It is important to the relationship and will help battle sibiling rivalry.

I have had that desire to keep Blabb away from DH. She has no appreciation for him whatsoever. DH could have given her the whole world, and she would want the universe. Granted, it's DH's fault for allowing her to grow up like that. But honestly... our lives would be so much better if we didn't have Blabb and BM around.

BUT.

I never EVER tell DH that he can't spend time with his daughter... because that's what it comes down to. Blabb is his daughter, and I would indeed be the evil stepmom if I told DH he could not see his own child.

I can see where you're coming from, kathruno.

You didn't provide us with any details... perhaps in the past DH would pay a lot more attention to your skids rather than the kids that you two have had together... or that he spoiled the skids right in front of the bio kids. We don't know what happened! But either way... it seems that you need a lot of guidance.

Try spending time together as a family...

or if you can't stand watching your DH become a servant to your skids like my DH does to Blabb... then let him spend alone time with the skids. Go out and have your alone time with the bio kids.

Both DH and I each try to spend time alone with each of our four children-doing what each individual kid likes. You can all go ut and do things togeteher, but chances are, each one likes to do different stuff. I take bioson to movies, SS16 to starbucks, ss17 wherever he like at the moment and SS11 to K-mart. They are all individuals who need attention from both of you alone. Whatever the situation is, please don't deny this to any of the kids or skids.

"A parents job is to eat as much sh*t as we have to so that the children do not."

It would not bother me one iota if DH spent time alone with the skids. I actually think that it is healthy for their and your relationship with DH. To have a healthy balance he needs time alone with just them, time alone with you, time together as a family UNIT and just time ALONE period.

I encourage DH to do things with the kids without me. Hell it gives me some quiet time to focus and enjoy the PEACE. In fact, the kids are on Spring Break and we have annual passes to the amusement parks about 3 hours away. DH is on vacation this week and he wants to take the kids to the park for the day. Problem is that he plans on doing it all in one day the drive up, do the park and drive back. I would love to go BUT we have two doggies that I have offered to stay back and watch. The reality is that the kids get to spend a fun-filled day with DH before he gets deployed in May sans SM. I get a day of peace and quiet. Win-win.

Maybe I am just missing something like everyone else has suggested about your post.

Anyone can take the easy way out and blame others. BUT it takes a a person of character to take a look at one's self and actions and own responsibility for their part. ~ ME ~ }:-P

What does around comes around.

Be kind, you owe it to yourself. Always, be kind. Encouraging alone time is paramount.

As I am sitting here on my computer, dh is spending a little alonetime with his 3. I know I enjoy it with my 3.

You teach people how to treat you. You will receive kindness if you give it. & I am not talking about giving so much that you'll be walked on. Allowing them alone time is good for everyone.

If my dh was asked for money during alone time-o----then I wouldn't have it unless my dh knew how to say no.

My DH never spends alone time with SS either...I can only think of one time that they did...I dropped them off at the bowling alley and my son was only 3 at the time and I didn't want to go, so me and my son went shopping. DH called me 35 min later to pick them up :puzzled: I guess because there's 2 other kids here (my son and our son together) so if he takes one, he takes the other (sometimes leaves our son since he's a baby) But generally, we do everything together. Every once in a while they'll watch a TV show in the living room while I'm doing something else, but my son will be there watching it too. No one's ever brought it up, so I never thought about it until I read this. hmmm...then again SS doesn't have any of the same interests as DH, so that may have something to do with it. In fact, its a miracle if he puts one of his video games down for more then 10 min!

"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy"

She doesn't mean that she doesn't "allow", as much as she doesn't present an opportunity? I have tried to get FH to take OSD on a father daughter date, and I will watch the other two. SS and FH have their male bonding over macho stuff. YSD is daddy's princess, so never lacks for attention. OSD is the only one who gets the shaft on Daddy Attention Time. We're still trying to work on that.

However, in the beginning, FH would make plans and expect me to pick the kids up from school and take care of everything for the night while he went to the casino. He would just call me before I got off work and TELL me what he was going to do, and when he would be home. Ummmm....NO!! I have made it known that I am not the babysitter. If he wants to do something for the night, he will ASK me if it's okay, and if I can take care of the kids for a few hours. Now, if the kids were not with us, HAVE FUN!! Thanks for the heads up, I can make my own friend time too. We always let each other know what we're doing, in a "Hey, is it okay if....." kind of way, but the only time I expect him to ask is if the kids are a factor.

So my point is, maybe OP meant to say that she makes it easier for her H to spend one on one with their child together? Maybe while the SK's are gone, her H and BC spend time together? Maybe her SK's are hellions, and she WOULD offer to watch one while the other goes out with daddy, but she is not allowed to discipline or correct? Who would want to subject themselves to hours alone with a child that has been told to disrespect their SM? This is what she can mean by "not allowing". If my FH's kids were brats who were PAS'ed against me, and were terrors, he can take them all out at the same time, or none. Either way, he'd have to be there, thus not allowing "one on one".

your situation. Do you not like for DH to spend time with his kids? Or does he feel that you don't?

I know for me, as others have mentioned, I love when he takes them to do something by themselves. It gives me time to clean the house and gives me downtime. Most of the time, If I want to get away from everyone, I have to leave, so when he goes to a movie with SD's I relish the few hours in the house alone.