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Partner's son holds all control

Going Mad's picture

I love the idea of somewhere to vent, I really, really need to. I have been with my partner for 9 months. He has a 10 year old son who has many issues. I have 2 sons 12 and 16 who are reasonably well adjusted. I love my partner very much, we have had so many problems in our relationship all stemming from his son and ex partner.

I was not allowed to see my partner on a weekend for the first 6 months as he has his son every weekend and his son didn't want to meet me and his ex didn't want me to meet him and was using his anxiety problems to keep this from happening. His son did want to meet my son however and they got along quite well, I was excluded. It got to the point where I said I wanted to be with someone I could spend my weekends with and if I couldn't meet him then it was over for us. He ended up making arrangements for us to meet and we got along great, his son really liked me.

So now that I am apart of their lives on the weekend now, I am finding it really hard as I hate the way his son disrespects him as a father and I hate the way my partner lets him make all the decisions and we are all trying to always keep his son happy or else he will go home to his mother and tell her that my partner did something he didn't like and she will start texting him and making our life difficult.

What also bothers me is after all the trouble his ex has caused us, he supports her 100% financially, she has never bothered to work. He even brought her a new car. Between the 2 of them they have brought up a spoilt, selfish child, who always gets what he wants and never thinks about anyone else. If he doesn't get what he wants from his father he refuses to see him and his mother allows this. He has no friends, other than the ones who clearly befriend him to use all of his cool toys etc.

This child has to be occupied 100% of the time. His father panics if he can see he is bored and is sulky, he will give him any option just to see him happy. His son is rude to my son and this is putting tension between them, which is making things even more difficult for me.

He sleeps with his father / mother in their beds. We are planning on moving in together in about 6 months so this is causing problems. My kids love this man and so do I and when we are all together with the exception of his son everything is great. I get so frustrated watching the interaction between to two of them. The 2 of them have swapped roles and the child has the authority and the father just does what he is told.

Does anyone else have this problem, is there any way I can teach myself to turn off and not let it get to me so much. I feel I may have to leave a man who I adore because of his demanding child and non existant parenting skills.

Vichychoisse's picture

Before teaching yourself to turn off, can you or have you talked to your SO about this?

If you are planning to live together, I feel you must address this with him before anything else. This will become a huge stress on you and one that will be very difficult to ignore when households are blended. Also, if this is really his parenting style and he participates in parenting YOUR kids, that could become a big problem as well.

OH... and WELCOME! Biggrin

Kilgore SMom's picture

Set ground rules now. Because what bothers you now will get 10 times worst once you are living together. Tell SO your concerns and ya'll figure out boundries and punishments now that you can agree on. One thing I see on this site is alot of Sm don't get the support they need from SO or Dh when it comes to descipline. Alot of the complaints about sk is their behavior or lack of. It is related to the DH or SO not taking responsbility and stepping up at their house. We have no control over BM so I won't even go their. I had to threaten to leave to get my DH to step up. Its been 2 months and everything is alot better. Once ss new what was going to happen if he did this or that his behavior has gotten alot better.

youngmama1b1g's picture

YES! At some point you'll stop hating how your SS walks over your SO, and instead how your SO LETS his son walk all over him without boundaries.

Rules need to be set immediately, and hole off any plans to move in until things are at a comfortable level for you. What's going to happen when you want to share your bed with your SO and hes inviting his son in or going into his sons bed to sleep: weird.
Kids will be bored, as teenagers it'll get even worse. Your SO needs to recognize that there's some things that can't be helped. We set aside an hour or two that SO would go out with just SS every weekend. Even if it was just to the grocery store, or me and my daughter would leave them alone in the house playing a video game together. Something so it was their "special time", otherwise the kid has plenty of toys to occupy himself with.

As far as disengaging, it's usually a last ditch effort to remain sane by those who SO's refuse to listen and compromise on anything. Basically it follows the "your kid, your issue" mantra and involves completely removing yourself from the child in every regard. You'd treat your SS as if he was that kid who lived on the floor beneath you in college...maybe you give him some left over cookies every once in awhile or invite him for dinner, but otherwise you let him and his 'roommate' (your SO, his dad) take care of themselves.

Hope this helps. Good luck in your talk!!

oneoffour's picture

I love my DH but I would never have moved in with him if he played guilty daddy and was still tied to his ex.

I think that is the crux of the matter, he still supports her 100%. And if she has his 100% attention and money, what is left for you?

Here is what I would do if my ex was blowing up my phone with texts. Turn the damned thing OFF> Ignore them. Her complaints are not important.

This will ot last because he panders to his sons every thought. And what happens if one day his son gets pissy at you and tells his mother you 'looked at him' when he was changing clothes and he felt creeped out?

Do not move in with this man until he no longer supports his ex wife. And extricate yourself quietly and gently from this relationship. Because as much as you love him, does he really love you more than he needs to support his ex?

Going Mad's picture

Thanks for all your comments, they are all appreciated. I have a huge problem with the support my partner gives the bm, he says he is supporting his child if he didn't pay her rent every month where would they live. He didn't think the car his ex was driving around in was safe so he brought her a new one so his son was safe. He says that he is going to reduce the amount of support he gives her soon, but I don't trust that this will happen. After the way she treats him, the minute she pretends to be supportive he has forgotten all the trouble she has previously caused.

If I comment about his son and not letting him make all of his decisions and to be stronger with him, he gets upset with me saying "he has problems, you are just lucky your kids are so good". It has nothing to do with luck, my kids have been brought up to respect their parents and others. My ex and I still parent our kids together, we agree on most things and our kids still see us as their parents who get along well enough just not married anymore. My kids have no problem with my partner.

I am losing respect for my partner, he is paralised by fear of his son and ex and I don't think I can deal with this, his son and ex have caused huge problems in an otherwise fantastic relationship. Things were much better before I met his son. Now I am just so frustrated, I don't want to be around them.

my.kids.mom's picture

Do NOT move in with this man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is absolutely nothing wrong with dating and spending as much time at each other's homes as possible, but you need a place to go when he has his son. It will not get better. He is already clueless and will defend what he's doing if you bring it up. The boy is 10 and if your partner did get a clue and change what he's doing, the boy will figure out why, and YOU will be the bad guy. I've been with my bf for a year, and have figured out that moving in is NOT the answer. And our situation is not nearly as bad as what yours is. I was a SM for 9 years and I'm NOT going back to that hell. Focus on your kids and date. Your kids can still see your bf, but trust me, if you move in together, their love for him will fade QUICKLY and then you will have those pieces to pick up in the end (because it WILL fall apart).

my.kids.mom's picture

Do NOT move in with this man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is absolutely nothing wrong with dating and spending as much time at each other's homes as possible, but you need a place to go when he has his son. It will not get better. He is already clueless and will defend what he's doing if you bring it up. The boy is 10 and if your partner did get a clue and change what he's doing, the boy will figure out why, and YOU will be the bad guy. I've been with my bf for a year, and have figured out that moving in is NOT the answer. And our situation is not nearly as bad as what yours is. I was a SM for 9 years and I'm NOT going back to that hell. Focus on your kids and date. Your kids can still see your bf, but trust me, if you move in together, their love for him will fade QUICKLY and then you will have those pieces to pick up in the end (because it WILL fall apart).

tbloanlady's picture

I agree with her. I wish that I would not have let him move in with me. We have a child together now, so it is much harder to make him move out. Now he has moved one of his kids in with us which is horrible. The other one is moving in this summer. I have no control over anything in the house. They make all the rules, even what temperature the a/c is set on. I am resentful toward all of them. There is no talking about the issue. I am the bad mean person who hates his kids.

my.kids.mom's picture

Do NOT move in with this man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is absolutely nothing wrong with dating and spending as much time at each other's homes as possible, but you need a place to go when he has his son. It will not get better. He is already clueless and will defend what he's doing if you bring it up. The boy is 10 and if your partner did get a clue and change what he's doing, the boy will figure out why, and YOU will be the bad guy. I've been with my bf for a year, and have figured out that moving in is NOT the answer. And our situation is not nearly as bad as what yours is. I was a SM for 9 years and I'm NOT going back to that hell. Focus on your kids and date. Your kids can still see your bf, but trust me, if you move in together, their love for him will fade QUICKLY and then you will have those pieces to pick up in the end (because it WILL fall apart).

jenlou's picture

My situation was very similar to yours 12 years ago. I wanted nothing more than to meet his kids. and things with his son were fine in the beginning with him and my daughter got along well with him he was 7 and my daughter was 5 at the time. His 15 year old daughter at the time was a different situation.
The ex-wife thing was the same, he gave her $2,000.00 in child support and somehow he agreed to indefinite alimony- she cheated on him..I was soooo mad when I found out about this, a 40 year old women should not be getting indefinite alimony, its almost never awarded, but my husband agreed to it. I am sort of angry right now, so sorry if this does not sound very nice, but it was like he was her dog rolling over for her and jumping for her every time she told him too. I know now looking back on all of it, it was the guilt he felt so badly inside for leaving his kids. As for his son, he always favored his son over his daughter, I could feel it, the daughter hated my guts but I always tried hard to have my husband see that he should treat both of his kids equally. (my daughter barely fit into any of this, as I was trying so hard to help him mend his relationship with both of his kids) Needless to say, what ended up happening was my husband devoted every minute of his time to his son when he was not working. His son was involved in sports when I met them and that is a good thing, but the next thing I know he is playing baseball, 24/7, whenever there was not a game, it was practice. my husband was at every game and every practice. this went on sometimes 7 days a week. Then my husband agreed to help coach the team, in the beginning I was at a lot of these games and practices, I would bring my daughter and it was ok for the first few years. But then I also started noticing that if he was not playing baseball with his dad, he had to have all of his fathers attention, it was like his dad had to be his entertainment all the time. My husband during this time moved us (my husband, my daughter and myself) about 12 houses down the street from his ex-wife. That was hell but its another story for a different time.. Before we moved there I would get a break from time to time from his son's constant demands of his father, because he was living at his mothers at the time. I am sure you can see the writing on the wall, once we moved, there was no longer any type of a break from this behavior..Then he decided that he wanted to live with daddy and not mommy anymore..He moved in with us and my husband never went to court for a year to get the child support stomped, so his ex-wife continued to get almost 650.00 for a child who was not living with her. During this year, my husband payed hundreds of dollars towards his son's activities and we struggled to pay our bills, it was always my fault because we had no money and he always got mad at me. It was horrible and it has not gotten better, my story is a long one, its in other posts, but my SS who is now 20 years old still lives with us to this day, he pays zero bills, almost hit my car on Tuesday head on because he was doing something on the phone. Friday he totaled our truck which we bought 7 months ago, because he hit a telephone pole. His father does nothing, he tells me to get out if I complain and tell him that what I think he is allowing his son to do is wrong. I am sorry this is so long, but I want you to understand that if I knew 12 years ago what I know now, I would have turned my head so quick it would not have been funny.. Because of the fact that he spent so much time with his son when he was younger, I was alone, my daughter was young and she had her friends, I would take care of all of these children and their friends, but I had no boyfriend, (he was my boyfriend at the time, hes now my husband) I ended up being completely alone. I made my own area where I could go and do what I wanted to do watch TV (because I could never sit down with my husband and watch tv, his son was ALWAYS there wanting his fathers attention) in that house and the house my husband bought 8 years ago. I have ended up 12 years later by myself and a very unhappy person. Please give your decisions a lot of thought, really think it over, if its bad now, it probably will not get any better. I love my husband very much and he is a very good man with a good heart, but when it comes to his son, its his way or the highway