SD and visitation with DH....
Is pretty much non-existant. He never interacts with her when he gets home from work and works at least 12 hour days 6-7 days a week. No joke. As many of you remember, the new 50/50 arrangement isn't COed and probably never will be. He still owes BM $450/ month but refuses to go back to court because he can almost guarantee that she'll fight it because she loves and needs the control.
My thing is: I only work three 10 hour shifts a week so I'm only "part time". After this baby comes in January or February, I will take some bonding time off then probably only work two 10s. I have read on this site multiple times that men expect their new mother wives to cart skids around because they're "home all the time", but most of you also know the resentment I have been harboring toward this whole situation.
I made a (backhanded) comment to DH a few days ago that when baby is here, SD probably won't want to be here half the time anymore because she doesn't like babies, let alone a newborn, and detests BM's 2nd kid. He told me to stop being negative and thinks that our baby will be soooo different. I think not.
If/ when this time comes, is it ok to tell him that I don't want the responsibility of picking up a bratty, self centered kid, especially during my bonding time, and that if he wants SD to have a relationship with baby that that should only happen on HIS watch? I know I am thinking about things that haven't happened but I don't foresee it's going to be pretty. Of course, I want him to have relationships with his kids, but with his demanding schedule, I don't feel obligated to facilitate that for a kid that's not mine and treats me like a means to an end.
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I wouldn't make this about
I wouldn't make this about "picking SD up" aka transportation. I'd go straight to the actual issue. You having SD when he isn't home.
He can still have his older kid move on his off time. IIRC the shop, BM's and your house is all right there same area and close to each other. When it's his parenting time and he is going to be home, he can pick up SD on his way home from work and return SD to BM on his way back to work in the morning. He can have her the one entire day he is off.
Between work, caring for an infant and your normal routine activities (tending the home, the dogs, the groceries , laundry blah blah blah plus a bit of 'me' time if he isn't home to be available to SD and help with what else he does to do (around the house and for the infant and you), he has no business having her over. Visitation/parenting time is just that, time for this father to be with, care for and parent his child.
What needs to be made clear to him is he will be responsible for the oldest child. All this time you've been doing the parenting/child tending up until now has been a choice and a 'gift' to him and SD. You are under no obligation to pick-up, watch, supervise, or parent your SD. He should be appreciative of all the time and effort you have chosen to donate to the effort so far, and prepare himself to take it on as his own responsibility from here on out.
I think it's safe to say to
I think it's safe to say to DH that you don't want to be spending your time with your child carting around his child, since they're so little only for a short time.
Make it about you and your child - and if he pushes back, tell him that while you've been gracious enough to help him with his own parenting responsibilities, you now have some of your own, and he'll need to learn to balance his time and energy between his TWO kids.
I still think you are having
I still think you are having some issues that you need to talk to someone about. I can just feel your hatred for this child in mot your post now. And she really is just acting like a normal tween and not actin ANY different than she was 2-3 months ago when you though she was the bees knees and you just HAD to have her live with you and not BM.
I still don’t understand how your DH went from being father of the year just a few months ago and now he is a crappy dad. ??? Even though he is doing the SAME thing he was back then…
You pushed and pushed your DH to go for 50/50 or MORE and now that he has it, you hate the kid? And for nothing…she did not tell you happy mother’s day. Big deal. And now that you pushed your DH into getting more time…you don’t want to help him? I really feel like you pushed him to do this just to stick it to BM. And now you regret it since it did not bother BM to go 50/50
Again…I am not downing you, but you have done such a 180 over the last few weeks you are bound to be giving your SD and DH whiplash. You really need to talk to someone to find out what is going on.
Just a thought. It's possible
Just a thought. It's possible that it's part of everything dawning on her with the pregnency. I think as people we tend to overthink things sometimes, so it may just be overwhelming right now? I thought for about 2 weeks I might possibly be pregnant (late period, my breasts grew a little, not tons, but enough that I noticed, still don't have an explination, my body fat actually went down a bit, I didn't even think of it until DH said something, then I had this oh s***, I can't be) and it was seriously a wave of confusion and anxiety. Wasnt' sure where I'd put a kid, still living with in-laws, that totally kills my shot at my dream job (that's also a long story, lol), a mortgage payment going to BM's debt, I'm terrified of the thought of being pregnant (been like that since I was a kid, not that I don't want one eventually, it's just scary for me), etc., it was a wave of them. I wasn't even pregnant and I WAY over-thought things. So I can imagine that knowing you're pregnant probably increases all that anxiety
And I can imagine the resentment of her DH not getting things done through the courts... I have those issues too.... We're working on serving her, but I can't even express all the hurt and frustration when we had the girls full time, she never did anything for them, yet according to a piece of paper she still had control. It built up a lot of emotion. So the anger may not even be towards SD, it's possible it's just some misplaced aggression because of her frustration. We don't pay CS (long story, the lawyer says it's fine, so we'll continue not to), BUT we are paying on a lot of her s*** she took out in his name. And money heading out the door to stuff a woman caused when we're doing the financial burden and still funding everything for the kids really sets some complex emotions turning.
Just a thought, I really don't know for sure, and it's possible the emotion is a bit misplaced towards SD, but I can see why she would have some aggression and emotional built up right now.
Just make sure you take a bit to sort through everything going on right now I love dogs. If you do need to talk to someone then you should, you have a lot going on, and you may need to figure it all out yourself too. I'm here if you need
I'm not reading hatred.
I'm not reading hatred. Resentment? Yes. And she isn't the first SM who loved her young skid with all her heart for years and years just to be dismissed and rejected the second puberty hits. BTDT, got the therapy bills to prove it!
Absolutely you should talk
Absolutely you should talk about how your role with sd will change with the new addition. I told my DH that I was not going to pack a newborn/infant up every time the skids wanted a ride. That would be a pain in the ovaries and he completely understood.
Congratulations, btw, I don't think I've said that yet. ;)