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It just keeps getting harder and harder

Happycamper's picture

Y’all know I’ve been struggling. This weekend I was ready to throw in the towel. I still can’t get something off of my mind. This weekend was a skids weekend. Friday he gets the call...SD17 isn’t coming over at all. SD14 will come Saturday night instead of Friday. SD14 asks what will we do when I get there and she gets the typical response...whatever you would like to do. So long story short, when it’s a skid weekend they show up when it’s convenient to them. DH expects me to leave those weekends free just in case. Ok then. Well SD17 turns 18 in one month! Yes she graduates too! I’m not supposed to plan the rest of my life around her for a visitation schedule right? According to DH...wrong!!! He wants to keep it up as long as she will come! Both skids have several trips planned this summer that they talk about but of course no one will give us the schedule. Are we supposed to sit around till the last minute? Well here’s the real reason I’m pissed off. That’s just background. My son called me and asked if we were free a weekend certain weekend this summer for him and his girlfriend to come and visit. Well I was tickled pink and said yes!!! My son only came and stayed with us once last year. This will more than likely be his one visit this year. I tell DH how excited I was and the first thing he said was are we free? I said I don’t have anything planned that far out. Then I get the...am I free? Is it my weekend with my kids? How the heck do I know? They don’t keep to the schedule! Even when it’s not our weekend we can’t plan anything! The last time we were going to visit my son for a weekend he couldn’t go at the last minute because SD17 wanted him to come to her ball game. The same one we went to every single Friday night. She told DH she was sure I would understand him canceling his trip with me to see my son. The trip was purposefully planned on a non skid weekend. You see no matter when I plan something my kids and I get the shaft. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of me living in his world with his kids but he doesn’t step into my world with my kids but I’m rare occasion. We bend over backwards for his kids. The resentment is stacking up on my end. It’s getting harder and harder to be nicer. I just know whenever I bring up my kids coming to visit it’s a major ordeal. Everything we do is bigger and better for his kids. He treats them so differently and picks fights when it comes to my kids. He even gets upset avoid taking mine out to eat when we visit them. We pay CS and take his kids wherever they want every other weekend! Grrrrr!

Comments

Powerfamily's picture

Well I hope you put your foot down and told him your son and girlfriend are coming that weekend whether he likes it or not.  And you will not be putting your family off if they decide to visit at the last minute.

Stop putting your life on hold on the off chance his brats deem to visit him, if he want's to live like that then that's all on him.  And maybe if you stop doing what he demands and start living YOUR life how you want then just maybe he will change his mindset.

Veritas's picture

To stop the resentment from forming, plan the time with your son. Pick the date and keep it. I can't speak to the dynamics in your home but you are a grown woman who has the right to spend time with who you want. Stop wasting energy thinking on what may or may not happen and MAKE happen what is desireable to you.

TwoOfUs's picture

I don't have kids of my own...but I do have family who I care about, and I got this kind of treatment a lot in the early years when it came to them. We can't make Thanksgiving or Christmas plans and stick to them! We don't know what THE KIDS will want to do! I don't know if we can go out this weekend with your sister. What if THE KIDS have something they want to do?!?! 

WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?!?! was such a constant refrain and I really grew to resent it early in my marriage. Like you, I felt like I was expected to just put my life on hold while they took their sweet time deciding exactly what they wanted to do. 

Eventually, I did just start living my life...going out of town for Thanksgiving, scheduling time with my family...and if kids were there...oh well. Not my kids. DH wised up and started prioritizing our marriage when he realized I wasn't going to just wait around on his kids all the time. 

So....yes. Make the plan with your son. If y'all share a Google calendar or iCalendar (I recommend it!) put it on there as soon as you know the dates and don't budge. DH can move his visitation...or (gasp!) skip it just this one time a year. Or...he can take his brats to a hotel, perhaps. There are lots of solutions that don't involve you missing out on your time with your kid. 

DaizyDuke's picture

Have you told him all of this... I mean like every bit of this??  how could he not possibly see the double standard and if so what in the world is his basis for his blatent disrespect of you and your kids? 

Maybe you need to give him a dose of his own  medicine.  Start planning what the hell you want when you want, if he can't go because skids decide to grace you on an off weekend, then oh well, not your kids not your problem... ya know, kind of how he is treating you?