step children

FBaby

! The whole week was about them and what they wanted - my kids didn't get a look in.

Granted we have took mine away every year, but they live with us

Just to comment on this. Surely it is taken out of context and you don't really mean it? If so, I'm afraid it makes you sound like a very wicked step-mother. Ok for your children to enjoy a family holiday every year with a man who isn't their dad, whilst his own children don't get to go more than once in their childhood because your children didn't get attention from the man who isn't their dad during that time.....

Surely it is the fact that they are not living with their dad that justifies even more that they should get to enjoy going on holiday with their dad.

I'm starting to wonder if your children don't have a relationship with their own dad and you are leaving in a fantasy world where your husband is their own father and his own children don't exist.

balletshoes

FBaby wrote: »

Yep, let hubby take his kids away on a fab holiday whilst you stay home with baby. Why should they be deprived from a fun holiday with their dad because you don't enjoy yourself?

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I strongly believe in the above. I've been with my husband for 5 years, my kids and hubby get along great, but still every year, I take my kids away on their own so we can really enjoy some quality time together. My hubby totally understand why I do it and has no issue at all with it.

If you can't join them, let them go alone.

while i totally agree with this, i also think the OP needs to discuss with her husband why she doesn't feel she can get involved, or even tell him, when his kids are with them all and the whole family can't get along, for a short period of time. That seems to be more of an ongoing issue, compared to the kids getting to go on holiday with their dad every couple of years.

FatVonD

piggied wrote: »

The whole week was about them and what they wanted - my kids didn't get a look in.

I agree with all the 'get a grip' comments but do have some sympathy with this line. If your children are being overruled in all joint decisions then you need to stand up for them.

fluffnutter

Oh Jeez, what did the kids think (all of them) at mum/step-mum sobbing all day, every day? I bet that was a fun holiday

Being a step-parent is hard, of course it is. But crying all day? Sounds like emotional blackmail to me.

This isn't an issue about holidays - it's much bigger than that. The whole family should be trying to work together, all the time not just for one poxy week every few years. There should be none of this 'his kids' and 'I can't tell them off' rubbish. You're a family. You agree on an approach that is broadly fair for all the children and get on with it.

GwylimT

So if your children didn't live with you, you wouldn't make a family holiday about them?

nightsky224

If you have just come back from the holiday and things didn't go well then now is the time to work on it. You need to be able to dicipline them but you need to be able to enjoy spending time with them too. Is doesn't really sound like you have accepted them as part of your family.

paddy's_mum

The trouble with all the 'ought' and 'should' responses is that if the OP genuinely doesn't much like the step-children, it must be one of the hardest things in the world to spend a whole week being nice and keeping a lid on it!

I'm sure we've all met people who, for no good reason that we can identify, instantly put our backs up, make us irritable and crotchety, or seem to invite being put in their place.

We would hope that a stepmother would treat the children fairly and decently on a day to day basis but I suggest that a holiday with them may be one step more than the OP can comfortably handle and all the telling oneself to get a grip won't alter that.

Perhaps a way forward is for the OP to explain her feelings to her husband and ask that she be allowed to bow out. Perhaps the children could come and stay the weekend before their departure for the holiday and for a day after so that they can all tell her all about it - that way, they get to share their pleasure in the holiday but the adults avoid a potentially unhappy situation.

I'm pretty sure it can't be much fun for the husband or the stepchildren to feel under a cloud of deep dismay or hidden dislike. I also suggest that compelling a person to spend valuable free time with someone they can't warm to is likely at some point to explode and cause great damage to the relationships.

It could be said that the OP is, in fact, trying to protect the family.

Good luck.

Person_one

What I have to ask, why do you think your children are more important and deserving than his?

That's basically what you're saying here, after all.

sweetme

piggied wrote: »

We took them away this year and I hated every moment of it - I cried every day! The whole week was about them and what they wanted - my kids didn't get a look in.

!

piggied wrote: »

They used to come round every weekend but now they don't because "they get bored" and I feel guilty about that but when im working a weekend and hubby has baby they cant go out all the time.

At our wedding his lad was caught stealing and his daughter spent 2 hours crying because she "had a headache" even though they had quite big roles in the wedding so I don't think it was a attention thing.

Maybe, because he is left holding the baby at the weekend then he is taking the opportunity on holiday to spend quality time with his kids, which any decent father would do. If you feel like yours don't get a look in why don't you take the opportunity to smother yours in your attention and let him enjoy his time with his kids?

I don't see how highlighting that his kids behaved badly at your wedding has to do with the holiday at all? You seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder about his children, children can sense when someone doesn't like them and you certainly don't seem to like them.

Like someone said, paint your smile on and get on with it. You married someone you KNEW had kids. You really have no option but to accept them. I feel sorry for your husband and his kids. You seem extremely selfish.

Morglin

piggied wrote: »

Hi all,

This might make me sound awful, but hubby has just said he wants us to take his 2 children on holiday again in the next couple of years and I am filled with dread!

How do I say no without a big argument???

We took them away this year and I hated every moment of it - I cried every day! The whole week was about them and what they wanted - my kids didn't get a look in.

Granted we have took mine away every year, but they live with us, I don't feel like I can tell his kids off when they misbehave but if I tell him I feel like a snitch!

The whole thought of another week away with them I feel sick over and I have tried telling him to take them on his own for some quality 1-1 time with them but he says he wants me to be there...

Any ideas how to get out of it plz!

If you take on a partner with kids, you take on the whole package, and you should have considered this before getting wed.

What you should be doing is to try to make it all ONE big family, so that adults and kids all feel happy and comfortable with each other.

His kids don't see as much of their Dad as your kids do - of course they are going to feel left out and attention seek!

Instead of sitting around crying, you should work out, before you go, some nice things to do on holiday, for ALL the kids.

To be honest, I feel sorry for these kids and your husband, who naturally wants to spend time with his own children

Lin