Ohhhhh I'm totally a bitch! I can't help it. My BF is that it's Monday and I'm fu--ing tired AF. The weeks are so long and the weekends too short. I wanna retire already.
Everyone at work has been calling off and we are super busy right now! All the patients at my office are being crazy. They keep trying to touch my stomach and I just scoot away in my rolly chair before they can!
@cwell2016 umm woa! That is not okay! Especially at a clinic and if the patients are sick.
ETA: This past Saturday I had to take my MIL to her gyne for a f/u. Husband had to work so I had to take DD with us, too. The doctor was running more than an hour late and if course DD can't sit in the stroller for that long in one room. So I ended up taking her out and people would just randomly touch her face or her hair. It made me SO angry! But I also felt uncomfortable saying anything to them. It had me in such an awkward position. I wish I said something but part of me didn't feel comfortable because they were showing her love. I should have been stronger. Why do people think it's okay to touch children without permission? You wouldn't dare touch an adult like that! Does anyone have any "gentle" ways of telling people not to touch their toddler? It was easy to avoid this situation when DD was an infant in her car seat because I got one of those "Before you touch please wash your hands" signs to put on her carseat.
I'm seriously losing my mind. H is bringing DS to therapy this morning. But he's supposed to be there at 8:15 and it takes 20 minutes to get there, which means H was supposed to leave at 755. I woke up at 756 to them still here and I just heard H at 0804 coming in for whatever reason and leaving again. Wtf. 🙄
@cwell2016 that was my least favorite part of pregnancy last time. Just because I'm sharing my body at the moment with a tiny human doesn't mean I'm still not my own person. People would never touch a non pregnant person that why so why is it acceptable to do so to pregnant people? It got to the point last time I started touching people back 🤷🏻♀️ Let's all get nice and uncomfortable lol.
@expandcontract that is my biggest pet peeve and my favorite part of babywearing. You can't touch my kiddo as easily when he's strapped to me. I do gently tell people who try "I would prefer you don't touch my child. It is flu season" --that maybe isn't as gentle as I thought it was but I also don't really care lol. Those people don't have to deal with the sick kiddo if they happen to pass a cold off.
@fuscok88 Go you! I can be a bitch but I don't know why in situations like this I don't speak up more....I shouldn't care about hurting others' feelings.
@expandcontract honestly, it's never really bothered me enough to do anything about it. But on the other hand, I don't think I've ever had really excessive touching of my kids by random strangers. @k2k2tog do strangers try and touch your kids a lot? Maybe its a Canadian thing and we just don't do it?
I only ever had one really strange experience, and oddly (see above about Canadian vs American) it was at the main clubhouse of my parents' gated community in Arizona. DD1 was around 9 months old and I was sitting on the patio with her waiting for my parents and their friends to come out with drinks. A random lady came and literally scooped her right out of my arms. I was completely taken aback. At first I was trying to place the woman, assuming she was a person I had been introduced to in previous weeks, but I couldn't. DD started bawling and I took her back just as my mom came out and asked me who the lady was. No one knew her, she was literally just a stranger who decided she had to hold my baby.
@mcewen3 Woooow. That's basically baby snatching. What a freaking weirdo! WTF.
Right? If we had been in a different setting I don't think she would have gotten DD out of my arms. But we were in kind of a "safe space" if you know what I mean. It was a social happy hour gathering within the community. We are from Canada but my parents bought in the same gated community as a huge number of their friends from home so all of my neighbours from my childhood basically live there now through the winter. And then they've all gotten to know a lot more people who winter there. My guard was definitely down, but the whole thing was just bizarre. Like where is it ever ok to pick up and walk away with a child you don't know? Because thats what she did. I got up and went with her, as I was trying to not be rude and figure out how I knew her, but she literally took my kid and walked to another group of tables.
@expandcontract my pediatrician told us when our kids were infants to just say THEY (the kids) were sick. It gets the “back the F off” message across while seeming like your concern is actually the old person even though it’s not. I don’t know if your daughter is old enough to be like “no I’m not!” but that trick used to work for us.
So my husband annoys me to much with buying me a gift at Christmas time. I give him a list of suggestions and he rarely takes them. I know he just wants me to be surprised but it's still frustrating. Last year he got me a book on witches because at the the time I was watching reruns of the TV show Charmed lol. This year we actually went to the mall and I picked out some ideas but he shot them down each time. I know Christmas is more about gifts but it would be nice to just get something for once that I would actually use or want since I do all the shopping for both of our families every year and he only has me to do. I know this sounds selfish of me but I spend so much time and thought on his own gifts and for our families and never feel the same from him.
@kaitcrystalline I have the EXACT same issue with my husband. AND he waits til the last minute too so half the time he doesn't even have a gift to give me at Xmas. This year, I sent him a link to the exact pair of ugg slippers that I wanted. I asked him 4times if that is what we were going to get me and then he said "I ordered them and they won't be here until after Xmas." HELL NO. I made him cancel the order and find a place that would expedite them. If I would not have given him ideas, he would have gotten me a mixture of Xmas ornaments and random spices and candy again. I don't get it- it's NOT that hard to buy me a gift. He knows the stores I like. He knows the brands I like.
And yes, just like you- I do ALL the shopping for the family, including my ILs who are impossible to shop for. Their Xmas gift came yesterday in the mail and he was complaining to me about how chinsy it felt and I was like"ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME?!" I would leave it to him to buy their gift, but I did that the first couple years I was invited to his family Xmas and I realized that everyone assumed I was the one who had bought and put no thouginto to their gifts.
@kaitcrystalline you are not being selfish. My guess is that it's not actually the present that gets you upset, but the lack of time or thought. My husband tends to be the worst gift buyer when it's for a specific event (bday, Christmas, anniversary) but does get little things unexpectedly througout the year. Now we tend to do one family present at anniversary or Christmas and get something we both want for us both to use (we just got a multicooker for us this Christmas). I've somewhat let him off the hook for some of these events, but mostly because he does thoughtful gifts at other times. It is the thought behind it that counts!
@anonellis that is a great idea! Although im terrible at lying, I will def try this next time.
Also, guys seem to suck in general at gift giving. Last couple years my husband bought me stuffed animals for Mother's Day. Seriously, WTF am I going to do with those? I actually really don't like stuffed animals as an adult anymore. They just take up space and collect dust.
Thanks ladies! It's nice to have someone I'm able to relate.
@chloe97 I'm glad you told your H to cancel the boots and go get them somewhere else where there was stock! Like come on! My H is also a procrastinator so I feel your pain. I also do all the IL shopping...are our H's long lost twins ha?
@knarlytaurus a gift for the family is a really good idea. My H biggest issue is spending money. He sees gift giving as pointless (he's a Grinch lol) so I still don't know if that would work. We actually don't do birthdays or anniversary gifts- we usually end up going for dinner which I'm totally fine with -but for some reason Christmas is different for me. Next year I should try the family gift though and see if that goes over better!
@expandcontract yes a stuffed animal is not ideal. I would feel the same way! Why are men terrible at gifts ha? My friend, due A19, told me she asked her H for a "push" gift. I was like yeah I'm not even going to go there.
I know it’s not Monday but I really need to have the most horrible of bitches. I feel like the most inhumane person ever.
My partner has a step son that thinks he is his biological father. I think I’d be ok with that if he was in his life from very early on, but my partner only met him when he was 4. His ex is just so hell bent on my partner being his dad and she forced him to call him “dad” much to the disgust of her family.
Fast forward to now, my partner and I have been together for 10 months and we’re 16 weeks pregnant. Sounds crazy but we planned the pregnancy. We wanted to make a social media announcement so to do the right thing and tell her first. She literally started crying and kept going on saying “but you haven’t even been together for a year yet” over and over.
Anyway, my issue is not really with her anymore but her son. I am so over baby sitting him. He’s nearly 9 and he has the mental capacity of a 2 year old and seems to be going backwards. All he does at hers is watch Netflix and play MA15+ Xbox games which I think is appalling. My partner forgot the Xbox controller one time at my place and this child literally threw a tantrum and tried to kick a hole in my wall. Screamed until a new Xbox controller was purchased. Since that incident I’ve put my foot down and started limited Xbox time and he now knows it’s a reward for good behaviour, but my partner still lets him play even though there’s been no good behaviour which really shits me.
Anyway, apart from this the list of things this child doesn’t know how to do include; cutting food and using utensils, sitting at the dinner table, putting his clothes on, doing buttons up, brushing his teeth, turning the taps on, having a shower, using a towel, putting socks on, putting his shoes on, tying his shoe laces, and others. He doesn’t listen to anything we say and will actually deliberately do the exact opposite of what we ask. Today for example, we asked him to stop pulling on the door handle and as soon as we finished telling him that he rattled the door handled, I asked him to pick up a container on the floor and he looked directly at it and told me he couldn’t see it and walked away, we had multiple conversations about how the doors need to be closed because we have the air conditioner on and he leaves the door open, if you ask him how the door is supposed to be he just gives you a blank stare. Same thing for every conversation we have with him. He literally has zero comprehension of what we’re asking him to do. He will argue with us over everything; food, the answer to a question he just asked us, etc.
I hate myself for not being able to even like this child but I am at my wits end with his inability to do anything a child at his age should be able to do. If we try to broach the topic with his mum she just says “I’m a single mum with no support, this isn’t easy for me”. I understand having two houses is confusing for him but his development has literally gone backwards. He used to be able to put his clothes and shoes on, but lately every time he gets dressed everything is inside out or back to front and his shoes are on the wrong feet. The other day he came out with a shirt on upside down?? I just don’t understand and I am struggling so much.
Has anybody experienced this with children before and know how I can cope? I know my feelings aren’t justified but I can’t help them. It’s causing so much tension between my partner and I. He continually makes excuses for the child instead of trying to help him improve.
ETA - I think I’d be more supportive if we didn’t pay his ex a significant amount of money to keep her happy. Like, we pay all of this child’s school and after school care fees because his mum always says “I thought I paid it but I just got this bill and I can’t afford to pay it right now and if I don’t pay then he can’t go to after school care and I can’t work”. My partner is currently on a partner visa with her that we’re working hard to get him off, but until he’s granted a new visa (could be years with current processing times) we have to keep her happy or she could get him deported. Ugh I’m just so emotionally and physically drained from the whole situation.
@wiseh sounds like a very complicated dynamic, especially with the visa/immigration issue on top of everything else. If your partner sees the kid as his son (which I'm guessing he does...), and plans to continue as the dad in this kid's life, it sounds like he needs to step up his parenting game. Kids pretty quickly figure out expectations, and I feel like a nine-year-old should be able to adjust to expectations at your house vs his mom's provided you all are loving but firm and consistent. I imagine the behavior problems are part of him reacting to his parents no longer being together and you all having a new baby on the way.
Is there a consistent custody / child support agreement in place? Were your partner and his ex married and now divorced or what? Like I said, sounds complicated.
@brie_and_almonds they weren’t married, they were together for just over 2 years and have now been separated for about 18 months, though my partner was still trying to get back with her until he met me so I guess that was pretty confusing. My partner works in construction so it’s very inconsistent but for the last 6 months we’ve had him every 2nd weekend from Friday night until Sunday arvo, and my partner sees him throughout the week whenever he has spare afternoons. His ex is very narcissistic and manipulative, and my partner could never see it but is slowly realising that he’s now just a glorified baby sitting cash cow. The whole time they were together he wasn’t allowed to discipline him and continued that when they separated. Since I’ve come along I’m not standing for a child with no rules that treats everybody like shit, so I’ve started setting rules and my partner follows them for the most part (we are getting better at communicating our rules before we implement them) but it’s still very trial and error for what works and what doesn’t. But the child has obviously been telling his mum how we’re strict - one weekend he needed to eat 4 mouthfuls of meat and two sticks of broccoli or he would have no TV for the rest of the weekend and he chose not to eat that small amount of food, so he went hungry and had no TV for 2 days. His mum went off her rails and said that I’m not allowed to tell her child what to do and “how dare you not let him watch TV for a whole weekend!”, so I have a feeling she plays a part in him defying us so much.
My partner’s ex refuses to let us tell the kid that we’re having a baby, so we’re constantly stepping on eggshells. I’ve said stuff that and when my parents get here next weekend we’ll be discussing it openly. We’ve had baby stuff through the house and he hasn’t picked up on anything - literally have several ultrasounds stuck on the fridge and he’s never even looked at them. What they don’t know is that we’re moving 4000km away (~2500 miles) in March and we don’t intend on coming back (though we will tell them it’s only temporary). I’ve checked over and over that my partner is OK with the potential of not seeing the kid ever again and he’s ok with that - like I said before, he’s realised he’s just becoming more and more of a glorified baby sitting cash cow. We are, to his mum, an endless supply of shoes, clothes, toys, books, money and free childcare. She often calls my partner in the middle of the day demanding he leave work and pick her kid up from school because she’s running late, which he’s getting better at saying no to because obviously he doesn’t get paid if he’s not at work. Another example, he’s with us for 10 days and he came with not a single change of clothes. This happens every weekend so I’ve started sending him back to her house in his school clothes cause we’ve lost hundreds of dollars worth of clothes to her house, yet “I haven’t got any clothes for him”.
Ughhhh I’m just so over it and counting down the days to March, as horrible as that sounds 😞
@brie_and_almonds they weren’t married, they were together for just over 2 years and have now been separated for about 18 months, though my partner was still trying to get back with her until he met me so I guess that was pretty confusing. My partner works in construction so it’s very inconsistent but for the last 6 months we’ve had him every 2nd weekend from Friday night until Sunday arvo, and my partner sees him throughout the week whenever he has spare afternoons. His ex is very narcissistic and manipulative, and my partner could never see it but is slowly realising that he’s now just a glorified baby sitting cash cow. The whole time they were together he wasn’t allowed to discipline him and continued that when they separated. Since I’ve come along I’m not standing for a child with no rules that treats everybody like shit, so I’ve started setting rules and my partner follows them for the most part (we are getting better at communicating our rules before we implement them) but it’s still very trial and error for what works and what doesn’t. But the child has obviously been telling his mum how we’re strict - one weekend he needed to eat 4 mouthfuls of meat and two sticks of broccoli or he would have no TV for the rest of the weekend and he chose not to eat that small amount of food, so he went hungry and had no TV for 2 days. His mum went off her rails and said that I’m not allowed to tell her child what to do and “how dare you not let him watch TV for a whole weekend!”, so I have a feeling she plays a part in him defying us so much.
Sounds shitty, but I feel for the kid whose mom is apparently a borderline neglectful narcissist, and whose dad is getting ready to ghost him.
@wiseh it sounds like this kid knows how to do things, but is likely acting that way as a response to you 's dating the guy he calls dad, even if your partner was only with the son's mom for 2 years. My DH has a friend who's ex sounds similar to your partner's ex, and their son was able to do pretty much whatever he wanted when he was with the mother. So it compounded issues when the son went to his father and stepmom's house and there were pretty strict rules. If your partner's step son is going to continue to be in your life, it may help to have an honest conversation with the ss about what's going on, and for you to also come to terms with him being a part of what comes with your partner. If you really are moving and won't be seeing him as much or at all, then you should make sure that you and your partner are in the same page when it comes to discipline and consequences while your still there. Because if you are the only one to enforce consequences for his actions and decisions, then in the son's view the rules and consequences are only there because of you. You and your partner have to be on the same page. If you're partner isn't enforcing the consequences with you then you have to talk to him to sort that out. It's hard enough without having to negotiate between stepson's behavior and your partner's lack of enforcing the rules. If you both set the rules out clearly with the stepson, then you both need to stand by them as long as they're fair rules.
@brie_and_almonds reading that back I probably could have worded it better. I guess the more I talk about it the more frustrated I get at the situation.
We’re moving as neither of us have any family where we live. Mine live on the east coast of Australia and my partner is from Ireland. My partner works 4 weeks away and then has one week at home, and I have no friends where we live as I only moved here about a year ago for work. Would you stay with a newborn if this were your situation?
That being said, we’re not moving with the intention to “ghost” this child. Our doors will always be open for him, but we know his mother and she will either choose to cut us out of his life, move to where we are (because she is desperate for my partner to be her son’s “dad”), or do nothing and let the child come visit us during school holidays. We have made a photo book of memories the two have shared over the years that we plan to give him before we move in the hopes that if she does decide to stop contact that he will one day find it and reach out. I should also note that this child does indeed have a biological father who very much wants to be in his life but isn’t allowed to be, because his mother doesn’t like him and has found a “better” father. I have this in writing, by the way, with her signature on it in a statutory declaration.
I’m not sure why you bolded that part about the not watching TV for a whole weekend because he wouldn’t eat a few mouthfuls of food. Are you highlighting that I’m neglectful? It’s not like we shut him in a room with nothing to do. It was one weekend (he learned a valuable lesson I assume because he hasn’t done it since) we played board games, went to the beach, went to a playground and paid to go to a bounce place. I don’t think it’s very healthy for kids to be glued to TV 24/7 when they can be outside playing or learning by interacting with other people, so TV is still limited to one movie a night and we spend as much time as we can doing things with him.
Anyway, I’ve had my bitch and got what I needed to off my chest. I guess maybe I was hoping that someone may have been in a similar situation and could shed some light on how I could try to love this child because I know it’s not his fault and I know most of why I can’t like him has to do with his mother and the financial and emotional strain she puts on us. I know how much he just wants and needs to be loved. We’ve also sought legal advice about the neglect we see but unfortunately because my partner isn’t his biological father and he was never married to his mum, there’s nothing we can do that would have him be with us full time unless his mum willingly signed him over, which would never happen.
@wiseh it sounds to me like there is more going on with this child mentally and developmentally and he needs to see a doctor. He's not learning or developing typically. Is he in school? Many of the things you listed he can't do are actually required at some schools (at least in the US) in kindergarten.
You need to get on the same page with his mother, but at the very least, your partner. Her single mother excuse is shit if she has the two of you helping.
As far as the food, honestly the punishment did not fit the crime. A whole weekend of no TV because he didn't eat one meal is too much. Regardless of what you did with him during that time, it's an entire weekend of being punished for one meal. I'm glad he learned his lesson but I'd probably be upset as his mother, too. The punishment should fit the crime and it didn't.
Coparenting with someone mentally ill (or extremely difficult), like your husband’s ex, sounds really hard.
Coparenting with someone who doesn’t care if he ever sees his son again (biology is not an important distinction here), and who blames a kid for what sounds like developmental/psychological issues — which is the situation you’re going to be in in a few months —also sounds really hard.
Have you guys tried counseling? Not with the ex, but for how to deal with the ex and the upcoming move, and for all your upcoming life changes?
@wiseh sorry, bit of a misunderstanding. I bolded the part about his mom being horrified by the no tv because that's what I was rolling my eyes so hard at. I do think that your punishment seemed harsh for refusing to eat whatever (and really not logically connected to the food in any way...), but it's not going to even remotely harm a kid to go a weekend without TV.
@eatinwatermelonseeds and @brie_and_almonds it probably didn’t fit the crime, but nothing else has worked. He has a points reward system at school so we’ve tried that but it doesn’t work, we’ve tried him getting to choose his own food and he still won’t eat it, we’ve tried sooo many things and they’ve all resulted in tears because he doesn’t want to miss out on anything but then still takes 3 or 4 hours to eat a meal. At the time we thought the threat of not having TV for an entire weekend would make him eat his food and didn’t think he would not eat because he is obsessed with the TV, but he sat there for 4 hours and didn’t eat a bite so we were forced to not turn the TV on the whole weekend. We have friend that is children’s counsellor and her advice to us is if you set a punishment it has to be followed through because if we don’t then he learns that even if he doesn’t do what we say he will still get what he wants. This has also lead to leaving the house with only one shoe on because it took him over an hour to put one shoe on and refused to even attempt to put the second one on. I took it with me of course. He complained that his foot was sore and I offered the shoe to him to put on but he just said “no thanks” and just kept walking. He eventually asked for the shoe about 50m down the road.
@anonellis I should clarify that my partner definitely cares about him and doesn’t want the relationship to end (and for everything I’ve said, I definitely don’t either), but at the end of the day he has zero rights to the child and if she stops us seeing him when we move then there’s nothing we can legally do. His mum is very difficult to deal with. Right from the very start she has pitted me against her child, forcing my partner to choose between the two of us, and when he split his time 25/75 (he used to work 12 days on, 2 days off so we only spent one afternoon after 3pm together and he spent the rest of the time with the kid, I was ok with this because I knew it was important to him) she would constantly harass him when he was with me and if he didn’t answer his phone send him constant messages saying “X thinks you don’t want to spend time with him anymore” and other messages to a similar effect. The kid even refused to be around me at the start saying “my mummy doesn’t like you” and crying if I was in the same room as him. My partner told his ex that if she doesn’t like me that’s fine but she can’t tell her kid, to which she replied “I wasn’t talking about your new gf I was talking about someone else”. I should also note that I’ve only met her once and it was well after that encounter. I’ve gone out of my way to meet her three times so she can at least meet the person that’s going to be spending time with her son (we live a 2.5hr drive away from her) and every time I’ve got there she’s just never shown up then messaged me an hour later saying “sorry, lovely, got held up. Next time? Xx”. My partner has only recently started 4:1 and when he worked locally we used to drive the 5 hour round trip every second Friday and Sunday because she won’t meet us half way (she did once and said “don’t make a habit of this” and has refused to ever again). She’s only ever answered her door once and only after we knocked for over half an hour. Now she just sends a text message to my partner to say she’s “sick in bed” or that she’s showering or any number of excuses, and the door is open so just to let the kid in and go.
Neither of us blame the kid for the way he is, we know he is the way he is because of how he has been raised and I’m sure there’s some identity issues too, like - why do I have a different last name to my mum and my dad for one? But his mum won’t take him to see any doctors because she’s in denial that there’s anything wrong with his behaviour. The school even tried to give him a full time helper at school and she said no. It’s really, really hard to get one in Australia and if you are offered one without asking for it then the school recognises that your child needs some serious help.
We’re going to see a counsellor when my partner is home next swing to discuss how we broach the topic of our move. I know we need to make a game plan for it, and how to respond to her reaction, because we know it’s not going to go down well.
Thanks for letting me vent here. Putting it all down in writing has made me realise I don’t actually have an issue with the kid or how my partner and I “parent” him. It was rocky at the start but we’ve worked really hard over the last couple of months to get better at communicating our expectations with each other and coming up with a plan to tackle them. I’ve not ever had a place to write it where people can give feedback before as I’ve had to lock down all of my social media accounts and leave a lot of the female support groups I was in on Facebook because if I posted anything in there asking for advice about how to handle situations it would always be used against us. My issue is very clearly with the ex and how she interacts with us and is just something I’m going to have to get over. So thanks again.
@wiseh I totally get sticking to your threats. My son is 5, and autistic and he's in behavioral therapy. I find I have to be super careful with what I threaten in the heat of the moment because I HAVE to stick to it. It can be hard because you know when you're really frustrated you try to jump to the most extreme thing to get them to comply. And then when they don't you're like "well fuck.... Now I have to actually do that." I get it. It's hard. With dinner, we have started telling him what he needs to eat and bringing cookies to the table. He's in a feeding program at behavioral therapy and this is the method they use. As he eats what we told him to, he gets small pieces of cookie as reinforcement. If he just flat out refuses to eat, we will let him do whatever he wants, but the cookies get taken away, dinner goes in the fridge and for the rest of the night if he's hungry that's all he eats. He can't snack, and I won't make anything else. It's slow going, but it has worked a couple times already.
@wiseh one of my kids is a very peckish eater, and one of the pieces of advice we have been given is to set a time limit to eat, have a clock in full view, and when the time runs out, the meal is over. I try not to make it a battle of number of bites or whatever, just provide the opportunity to eat meals and snacks regularly, and if that opportunity is not taken advantage of during that time, I have to let her live with the consequences. It really sucks sometimes at bedtime when she cries that she is hungry, but she knows that if dinner is ending in 10 minutes, this will be her last chance to eat until breakfast.
ETA: I absolutely agree with your friend that if you set a limit, consequence, etc, you have to follow through, because not following through just teaches the kid that nothing you say really matters.
@wiseh For some reason your post has been gnawing on me. I’m just having a hard time feeling sorry for you and instead feeling sorry for your partners stepson. First of all-you’ve admitted that your partner is the only father he’s known, so at that point-the stepson vs bio father is moot in my opinion in terms of his fatherly responsibilities, even if the law doesn’t require it. Second of all-the kid was first. Unless your partner has completely hidden the kid from you before you started dating and decided to become pregnant-you knew the kid was part of the deal. Unfortunately, that’s what parenting is-dealing with problems that aren’t always fun or comfortable or easy. As the defacto step parent to the child, the child will be a part of your life whether you like it or not.
It sounds like your issues are more so with your partner-his work schedule and the fact that he has a child that is hard to deal with. Blaming the kid isn’t really going to get you anywhere. From what I’m reading you basically have 2 choices-stay with your partner and learn how to be a step parent to a child who seems to have special needs and emotional problems or leave your partner. Ghosting the child and requiring your partner to ghost the child is horrendous and awful thing to do to any kid, much less one that has special needs. I don’t care about what your desires to be close to family are-you are an adult and you admittedly chose to get pregnant by a man who has other responsibilities. You need to encourage him to honor those responsibilities. And as much as you would hate to think this- if your partner is willing to ghost his son, what’s not to say he wouldn’t ghost your child in the future?
I agree with @brie_and_almonds suggestion for setting a clock. My oldest is 8 and she really struggles with listening and doing what we have asked her to do. We set a timer each night, an hour and half, for her to do her homework. If it’s not done when the alarm goes off she has to pack it up. If it’s not complete school makes her stay in for recess and finish it, which she hates. We also set a timer in the mornings for each thing they need to do to get ready. 5 min to get dressed, 5 min to brush their teeth and so on.
This is an extremely hard age to parent and my kids don’t have any developmental delays or behavior issues. Everyone I have talked to says when it comes to punishments for not listening or disobeying, is to take away what’s most important to them and if it’s the tv, then that’s what you got to do. We have taken the tv away for much longer than an a weekend before.
Ivy: July 2010 | Stella: Dec 2012 | BFP#3: MMC at 11Wk's, July 2017 | Wyatt: April 2019 | BFP#5: Twin Girls due Sept 2020
@robyn2201 I really need to start doing the timers more to regulate tv time. DS actually responds REALLY well to timers. They use them in behavioral therapy all the time.
keighty80
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Re: Monday Bitch Fest 12/17
ETA: This past Saturday I had to take my MIL to her gyne for a f/u. Husband had to work so I had to take DD with us, too. The doctor was running more than an hour late and if course DD can't sit in the stroller for that long in one room. So I ended up taking her out and people would just randomly touch her face or her hair. It made me SO angry! But I also felt uncomfortable saying anything to them. It had me in such an awkward position. I wish I said something but part of me didn't feel comfortable because they were showing her love. I should have been stronger. Why do people think it's okay to touch children without permission? You wouldn't dare touch an adult like that! Does anyone have any "gentle" ways of telling people not to touch their toddler? It was easy to avoid this situation when DD was an infant in her car seat because I got one of those "Before you touch please wash your hands" signs to put on her carseat.
@keighty80 That is literally me 20 times a day now!
@expandcontract that is my biggest pet peeve and my favorite part of babywearing. You can't touch my kiddo as easily when he's strapped to me. I do gently tell people who try "I would prefer you don't touch my child. It is flu season" --that maybe isn't as gentle as I thought it was but I also don't really care lol. Those people don't have to deal with the sick kiddo if they happen to pass a cold off.
I only ever had one really strange experience, and oddly (see above about Canadian vs American) it was at the main clubhouse of my parents' gated community in Arizona. DD1 was around 9 months old and I was sitting on the patio with her waiting for my parents and their friends to come out with drinks. A random lady came and literally scooped her right out of my arms. I was completely taken aback. At first I was trying to place the woman, assuming she was a person I had been introduced to in previous weeks, but I couldn't. DD started bawling and I took her back just as my mom came out and asked me who the lady was. No one knew her, she was literally just a stranger who decided she had to hold my baby.
@anonellis that's a great idea!
And yes, just like you- I do ALL the shopping for the family, including my ILs who are impossible to shop for. Their Xmas gift came yesterday in the mail and he was complaining to me about how chinsy it felt and I was like"ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME?!" I would leave it to him to buy their gift, but I did that the first couple years I was invited to his family Xmas and I realized that everyone assumed I was the one who had bought and put no thouginto to their gifts.
Also, guys seem to suck in general at gift giving. Last couple years my husband bought me stuffed animals for Mother's Day. Seriously, WTF am I going to do with those? I actually really don't like stuffed animals as an adult anymore. They just take up space and collect dust.
Thanks ladies! It's nice to have someone I'm able to relate.
@chloe97 I'm glad you told your H to cancel the boots and go get them somewhere else where there was stock! Like come on! My H is also a procrastinator so I feel your pain. I also do all the IL shopping...are our H's long lost twins ha?
@knarlytaurus a gift for the family is a really good idea. My H biggest issue is spending money. He sees gift giving as pointless (he's a Grinch lol) so I still don't know if that would work. We actually don't do birthdays or anniversary gifts- we usually end up going for dinner which I'm totally fine with -but for some reason Christmas is different for me. Next year I should try the family gift though and see if that goes over better!
@expandcontract yes a stuffed animal is not ideal. I would feel the same way! Why are men terrible at gifts ha? My friend, due A19, told me she asked her H for a "push" gift. I was like yeah I'm not even going to go there.
My partner has a step son that thinks he is his biological father. I think I’d be ok with that if he was in his life from very early on, but my partner only met him when he was 4. His ex is just so hell bent on my partner being his dad and she forced him to call him “dad” much to the disgust of her family.
Fast forward to now, my partner and I have been together for 10 months and we’re 16 weeks pregnant. Sounds crazy but we planned the pregnancy. We wanted to make a social media announcement so to do the right thing and tell her first. She literally started crying and kept going on saying “but you haven’t even been together for a year yet” over and over.
Anyway, my issue is not really with her anymore but her son. I am so over baby sitting him. He’s nearly 9 and he has the mental capacity of a 2 year old and seems to be going backwards. All he does at hers is watch Netflix and play MA15+ Xbox games which I think is appalling. My partner forgot the Xbox controller one time at my place and this child literally threw a tantrum and tried to kick a hole in my wall. Screamed until a new Xbox controller was purchased. Since that incident I’ve put my foot down and started limited Xbox time and he now knows it’s a reward for good behaviour, but my partner still lets him play even though there’s been no good behaviour which really shits me.
Anyway, apart from this the list of things this child doesn’t know how to do include; cutting food and using utensils, sitting at the dinner table, putting his clothes on, doing buttons up, brushing his teeth, turning the taps on, having a shower, using a towel, putting socks on, putting his shoes on, tying his shoe laces, and others. He doesn’t listen to anything we say and will actually deliberately do the exact opposite of what we ask. Today for example, we asked him to stop pulling on the door handle and as soon as we finished telling him that he rattled the door handled, I asked him to pick up a container on the floor and he looked directly at it and told me he couldn’t see it and walked away, we had multiple conversations about how the doors need to be closed because we have the air conditioner on and he leaves the door open, if you ask him how the door is supposed to be he just gives you a blank stare. Same thing for every conversation we have with him. He literally has zero comprehension of what we’re asking him to do. He will argue with us over everything; food, the answer to a question he just asked us, etc.
I hate myself for not being able to even like this child but I am at my wits end with his inability to do anything a child at his age should be able to do. If we try to broach the topic with his mum she just says “I’m a single mum with no support, this isn’t easy for me”. I understand having two houses is confusing for him but his development has literally gone backwards. He used to be able to put his clothes and shoes on, but lately every time he gets dressed everything is inside out or back to front and his shoes are on the wrong feet. The other day he came out with a shirt on upside down?? I just don’t understand and I am struggling so much.
Has anybody experienced this with children before and know how I can cope? I know my feelings aren’t justified but I can’t help them. It’s causing so much tension between my partner and I. He continually makes excuses for the child instead of trying to help him improve.
ETA - I think I’d be more supportive if we didn’t pay his ex a significant amount of money to keep her happy. Like, we pay all of this child’s school and after school care fees because his mum always says “I thought I paid it but I just got this bill and I can’t afford to pay it right now and if I don’t pay then he can’t go to after school care and I can’t work”. My partner is currently on a partner visa with her that we’re working hard to get him off, but until he’s granted a new visa (could be years with current processing times) we have to keep her happy or she could get him deported. Ugh I’m just so emotionally and physically drained from the whole situation.
Is there a consistent custody / child support agreement in place? Were your partner and his ex married and now divorced or what? Like I said, sounds complicated.
My partner’s ex refuses to let us tell the kid that we’re having a baby, so we’re constantly stepping on eggshells. I’ve said stuff that and when my parents get here next weekend we’ll be discussing it openly. We’ve had baby stuff through the house and he hasn’t picked up on anything - literally have several ultrasounds stuck on the fridge and he’s never even looked at them. What they don’t know is that we’re moving 4000km away (~2500 miles) in March and we don’t intend on coming back (though we will tell them it’s only temporary). I’ve checked over and over that my partner is OK with the potential of not seeing the kid ever again and he’s ok with that - like I said before, he’s realised he’s just becoming more and more of a glorified baby sitting cash cow. We are, to his mum, an endless supply of shoes, clothes, toys, books, money and free childcare. She often calls my partner in the middle of the day demanding he leave work and pick her kid up from school because she’s running late, which he’s getting better at saying no to because obviously he doesn’t get paid if he’s not at work. Another example, he’s with us for 10 days and he came with not a single change of clothes. This happens every weekend so I’ve started sending him back to her house in his school clothes cause we’ve lost hundreds of dollars worth of clothes to her house, yet “I haven’t got any clothes for him”.
Ughhhh I’m just so over it and counting down the days to March, as horrible as that sounds 😞
Sounds shitty, but I feel for the kid whose mom is apparently a borderline neglectful narcissist, and whose dad is getting ready to ghost him.
If your partner's step son is going to continue to be in your life, it may help to have an honest conversation with the ss about what's going on, and for you to also come to terms with him being a part of what comes with your partner. If you really are moving and won't be seeing him as much or at all, then you should make sure that you and your partner are in the same page when it comes to discipline and consequences while your still there. Because if you are the only one to enforce consequences for his actions and decisions, then in the son's view the rules and consequences are only there because of you. You and your partner have to be on the same page. If you're partner isn't enforcing the consequences with you then you have to talk to him to sort that out. It's hard enough without having to negotiate between stepson's behavior and your partner's lack of enforcing the rules. If you both set the rules out clearly with the stepson, then you both need to stand by them as long as they're fair rules.
We’re moving as neither of us have any family where we live. Mine live on the east coast of Australia and my partner is from Ireland. My partner works 4 weeks away and then has one week at home, and I have no friends where we live as I only moved here about a year ago for work. Would you stay with a newborn if this were your situation?
That being said, we’re not moving with the intention to “ghost” this child. Our doors will always be open for him, but we know his mother and she will either choose to cut us out of his life, move to where we are (because she is desperate for my partner to be her son’s “dad”), or do nothing and let the child come visit us during school holidays. We have made a photo book of memories the two have shared over the years that we plan to give him before we move in the hopes that if she does decide to stop contact that he will one day find it and reach out. I should also note that this child does indeed have a biological father who very much wants to be in his life but isn’t allowed to be, because his mother doesn’t like him and has found a “better” father. I have this in writing, by the way, with her signature on it in a statutory declaration.
I’m not sure why you bolded that part about the not watching TV for a whole weekend because he wouldn’t eat a few mouthfuls of food. Are you highlighting that I’m neglectful? It’s not like we shut him in a room with nothing to do. It was one weekend (he learned a valuable lesson I assume because he hasn’t done it since) we played board games, went to the beach, went to a playground and paid to go to a bounce place. I don’t think it’s very healthy for kids to be glued to TV 24/7 when they can be outside playing or learning by interacting with other people, so TV is still limited to one movie a night and we spend as much time as we can doing things with him.
Anyway, I’ve had my bitch and got what I needed to off my chest. I guess maybe I was hoping that someone may have been in a similar situation and could shed some light on how I could try to love this child because I know it’s not his fault and I know most of why I can’t like him has to do with his mother and the financial and emotional strain she puts on us. I know how much he just wants and needs to be loved. We’ve also sought legal advice about the neglect we see but unfortunately because my partner isn’t his biological father and he was never married to his mum, there’s nothing we can do that would have him be with us full time unless his mum willingly signed him over, which would never happen.
You need to get on the same page with his mother, but at the very least, your partner. Her single mother excuse is shit if she has the two of you helping.
As far as the food, honestly the punishment did not fit the crime. A whole weekend of no TV because he didn't eat one meal is too much. Regardless of what you did with him during that time, it's an entire weekend of being punished for one meal. I'm glad he learned his lesson but I'd probably be upset as his mother, too. The punishment should fit the crime and it didn't.
Coparenting with someone who doesn’t care if he ever sees his son again (biology is not an important distinction here), and who blames a kid for what sounds like developmental/psychological issues — which is the situation you’re going to be in in a few months —also sounds really hard.
Have you guys tried counseling? Not with the ex, but for how to deal with the ex and the upcoming move, and for all your upcoming life changes?
@anonellis I should clarify that my partner definitely cares about him and doesn’t want the relationship to end (and for everything I’ve said, I definitely don’t either), but at the end of the day he has zero rights to the child and if she stops us seeing him when we move then there’s nothing we can legally do. His mum is very difficult to deal with. Right from the very start she has pitted me against her child, forcing my partner to choose between the two of us, and when he split his time 25/75 (he used to work 12 days on, 2 days off so we only spent one afternoon after 3pm together and he spent the rest of the time with the kid, I was ok with this because I knew it was important to him) she would constantly harass him when he was with me and if he didn’t answer his phone send him constant messages saying “X thinks you don’t want to spend time with him anymore” and other messages to a similar effect. The kid even refused to be around me at the start saying “my mummy doesn’t like you” and crying if I was in the same room as him. My partner told his ex that if she doesn’t like me that’s fine but she can’t tell her kid, to which she replied “I wasn’t talking about your new gf I was talking about someone else”. I should also note that I’ve only met her once and it was well after that encounter. I’ve gone out of my way to meet her three times so she can at least meet the person that’s going to be spending time with her son (we live a 2.5hr drive away from her) and every time I’ve got there she’s just never shown up then messaged me an hour later saying “sorry, lovely, got held up. Next time? Xx”. My partner has only recently started 4:1 and when he worked locally we used to drive the 5 hour round trip every second Friday and Sunday because she won’t meet us half way (she did once and said “don’t make a habit of this” and has refused to ever again). She’s only ever answered her door once and only after we knocked for over half an hour. Now she just sends a text message to my partner to say she’s “sick in bed” or that she’s showering or any number of excuses, and the door is open so just to let the kid in and go.
Neither of us blame the kid for the way he is, we know he is the way he is because of how he has been raised and I’m sure there’s some identity issues too, like - why do I have a different last name to my mum and my dad for one? But his mum won’t take him to see any doctors because she’s in denial that there’s anything wrong with his behaviour. The school even tried to give him a full time helper at school and she said no. It’s really, really hard to get one in Australia and if you are offered one without asking for it then the school recognises that your child needs some serious help.
We’re going to see a counsellor when my partner is home next swing to discuss how we broach the topic of our move. I know we need to make a game plan for it, and how to respond to her reaction, because we know it’s not going to go down well.
Thanks for letting me vent here. Putting it all down in writing has made me realise I don’t actually have an issue with the kid or how my partner and I “parent” him. It was rocky at the start but we’ve worked really hard over the last couple of months to get better at communicating our expectations with each other and coming up with a plan to tackle them. I’ve not ever had a place to write it where people can give feedback before as I’ve had to lock down all of my social media accounts and leave a lot of the female support groups I was in on Facebook because if I posted anything in there asking for advice about how to handle situations it would always be used against us. My issue is very clearly with the ex and how she interacts with us and is just something I’m going to have to get over. So thanks again.
ETA: I absolutely agree with your friend that if you set a limit, consequence, etc, you have to follow through, because not following through just teaches the kid that nothing you say really matters.
It sounds like your issues are more so with your partner-his work schedule and the fact that he has a child that is hard to deal with. Blaming the kid isn’t really going to get you anywhere. From what I’m reading you basically have 2 choices-stay with your partner and learn how to be a step parent to a child who seems to have special needs and emotional problems or leave your partner. Ghosting the child and requiring your partner to ghost the child is horrendous and awful thing to do to any kid, much less one that has special needs. I don’t care about what your desires to be close to family are-you are an adult and you admittedly chose to get pregnant by a man who has other responsibilities. You need to encourage him to honor those responsibilities. And as much as you would hate to think this- if your partner is willing to ghost his son, what’s not to say he wouldn’t ghost your child in the future?
This is an extremely hard age to parent and my kids don’t have any developmental delays or behavior issues. Everyone I have talked to says when it comes to punishments for not listening or disobeying, is to take away what’s most important to them and if it’s the tv, then that’s what you got to do. We have taken the tv away for much longer than an a weekend before.