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Can you be in a relationship when you can't stand his kids?

Peeves's picture

I live with my partner. We have his kids 50/50. When they are not there he isn't either. He workds away.

At first I was excited to be a stopmom and the kids were excited too. That quickly ended. My partner treated his kids like his wives and I was always pushed down to second teir. On top of that I just don't like them. They lie and steal and write notes calling me horrible names and dominate my house when the come over. I have become so resentful and I wish they would just stay with thier horrible mom who calls me terrible names and tries to find people to attack me. I don't even want to have a child of my own because I don't want my child to be anything like them and I know there mom would tell them to treat my child awfully. I am so resent by now. I know it is horrible to think and say but I just jate them and want to go away! So I can live a happy life. I feel trapped and in too deep. My partner has made a lot of changes to his behavior and parenting but I feel like it's almost too late. I love him but hate the kids. They just arrived at our house yestersay and we have already had like 3 fights..alll about the kids, of course. 

Is it even possible to maintain a relationship when you can't stand his kids? What do you do? Has anyone else been able to do?

juststressedbeyondbelief's picture

I mean....

I have to deal with one, but it's usually just 100% ignoring of eachother. I also keep my own kid away from bad influences.

BUT... if I had the choice, or if I possessed any kind of foresight, I'd be gone.

Your best bet if you want to stay with him is to ask him directly to start limiting visitation to much less than it is now. If he says yes, you got what you want. If he says no, you also get what you want (gone). It's win/win.

Aniki-Moderator's picture

Life is too short to be miserable and waste such negative emotions on people who do NOT have to be part of your life. You can walk away!

Consider this: at ANY time, those skids you hate can come to live with him full-time. The mother could become mentally/physically incapacitated or die. 

End it now and find someone without kids.

Peeves's picture

What you guys said really speaks to me. It also makes me feel 100% more normal to hear you saying things about stepkids that I think too.  My partner tells me "they are just kids" when I admit that the reason I am unhappy has to do with them and how he has treated me because of them. Whenever he says that I think "they aren't kids, they are evil blood sucker ruining my life". I know it's a bit immature to think that way but its how I feel! 

That might be good advice about the meltdown...He would never limit the visitation...Might be a way to have this hard decision made for me. I don't think I am ready for it yet, like you said. I might be close, though. 

Nothing in my life is mine and I feel territorial and my partner gets mad that I want things or room all to myself. Like, I have three bunnies. I initially had two, and I meant them to be pets for me, for my emotional wellbeing but NOOOO, they had to be "house pets" because we can't have rabbits and then the kids can't play with them. So my mom bought me 1 more bunny for my birthday so I could say she was just mine. So thats the only way I can have anything in my life.  I love kids. I teach. I love my students. I wanted to love these kids. I don't. They suck. 

OMG, That would be the worst thing in the world if they were with us full time. I wouldn't survive. The only reason I have made it this far is because I have two week alone everyone month just me and my rabbits. 

 

Aniki-Moderator's picture

There is NOTHING wrong with you having your own space or your own things. You do realize that these "evil blood suckers" are - in part - a result of your partner's crappy parenting, don't you? He obviously has little to no problem with their behavior and likely only changed things because you complained; NOT because he thought anything was really wrong.

Sweetie, you're literally spending HALF of your life MISERABLE. It's time to stop doing that and take your life and your HAPPINESS back.

strugglingSM's picture

Saying "they are just kids" implies that kids are innocent little angels who only add value to ones life. Kids can be complete and utter jerks. Also, unparented children are typically intolerable. Children who feel as if they should be making decisions for the household are intolerable. 

Even parents feel as if their children are intruding on their own space. I have a friend who saw something at the store that she loved. I told her, "you should buy that for yourself." She told me that she wasn't going to buy it because she knew if she did, her 2-year-old would just take it for her own, so it wasn't worth buying. However, parents through love or maybe just obligation sometimes, feel as though they need to put up with their kids being jerks. They also feel as if they are the only ones who can call their kids jerks, no one else is allowed to do that. 

I don't like one of my SSs and I've been honest with DH about that. He's a jerk and he's constantly causing drama in our house. He whines and complains and cries, despite being a teen. He is oftentimes unlikeable. I can only manage because he is only with us every other weekend and now he often skips weekends. If he was around all the time or even just 50% of the time, I would definitely not survive. 

tog redux's picture

There are people on here who have made a relationship work despite hating their partner's kids, and said partner being a poor parent.  I don't personally think I could do that - I would get much too resentful of him for not doing whatever he could to bring peace to our home.

Kes's picture

Sorry to hear you're so stressed.  This part of your post certainly applied to me and to a lot of other members:  "At first I was excited to be a stopmom and the kids were excited too. That quickly ended. My partner treated his kids like his wives and I was always pushed down to second teir. On top of that I just don't like them. They lie and steal and write notes calling me horrible names and dominate my house when the come over. I have become so resentful and I wish they would just stay with thier horrible mom who calls me terrible names"

Some of us have managed to get our partners to see how misguided it is to treat the SKIDs like mini wives and to refocus on their marriages - but this is not always possible.   Whenever I fight with my DH, which is not that often, it has nearly always been about the SDs.   He knows I don't care for his daughters, and accepts what they are like, and how they have been to me in the past, and I know he regrets not having my back more.  But in that I am lucky, not all partners see the light, as it were. 

ESMOD's picture

His kids are the way they are because of the way he treats and parents them.  Poor parenting.. gets you the result you see here.  

Your BF is the problem.. not the kids.  Their behavior is just a symptom of his issue.

But, suppose he isn't capable of parenting better?  Suppose their behavior is so ingrained it can't stop.. suppose he isn't capable of making you a priority.. for ALL these reasons and the fact that you have his kids 100% of the time he is with you.. I would pass on this relationship.

I am sure that the fact that he works away from home 50% of the time.. makes him want to make time up.. but it's leaving you in last place.

I would find a man that is more available.

anaxnicole's picture

Hi love, I just want you to know that nothing you have said is wrong in any way! It's perfectly normal to want to have your own personal space. It's completely okay to be upset that they have taken away your bunnies from you! I would be mortified too. 

I just wanted to comment on here and say I was going through the EXACT same thing as you. Bratty skids, shitty biological mom, shitty parenting from my boyfriend. I have been in this situation for almost two years now. I made a blog on here and I was soooo surprised by the amount of responses I got from people telling me to leave. It was NOT what I wanted to hear at all. I'm sure that's not what you want to hear either, but I'm here to tell you JUST LEAVE! I promise you'll be SO MUCH happier. You can spend all your money on yourself, you can have your bunnies all to yourself, you can spend all your free time with yourself. You deserve that! You can find somebody without all the baggage.

I understand how annoying the phrase "They're just kids," is. Something that has really helped me, is realizing that they actually ARE just kids, and while it's totally not okay for kids to be spoiled selfish brats, it's also not okay as a parent to ALLOW your child to be a spoiled selfish brat. Kids need to be TAUGHT how to behave, and when nobody's teaching them, it stops being their fault. It is their biological parents' faults. Realizing that your own partner is a BIG part of the problem is a real eye opener.

Anyways, I hope everything works out for you! & I hope whatever decision you choose to make, you're happy. <3