Alone time with my family sans steps
I'm so tired of never being able to spend time with my boyfriend and our bio daughter alone. Boyfriend has his kids EOW, every Sunday and every Tuesday. He works Monday through Friday full time, and goes to school Monday and Wednesday evenings. He's always exhausted during the week so we mostly just cook dinner lounge around on the couch and watch TV shows or movies.
I just wish I could have him to myself for a full weekend. If I enjoyed being around his kids having them around wouldn't bother me but I don't. His kids also don't like to do the things we like to do and want to do with our daughter. I just want the three of us to bond as our own little family unit for more than just 1 Saturday every other week, especially because most of these Saturdays my boyfriend usually just wants to rest so it's rare when we actually get a chance to go out and do something (oh yeah forgot to mention he coaches his sons basketball on Saturday mornings too). This has been going on since my daughter was born and even when she was a newborn his kids were always there and we never got any extended alone time as a family.
Would I be wrong to ask him if he could go back to only having them every other Sunday?
Yes, wrong to ask your BF to
Yes, wrong to ask your BF to dump his older kids.
You aren't married nor even live together. His older kids are as entitled to their father as your baby is. Why should your baby get to knock these other kids out of their father's parenting time with them?
You would also be setting the older kids up to resent their new sibling.
I wasn't saying
I wasn't saying I want him to pick our daughter over his kids at all, and his kids already love their new sibling. I'm saying it would be nice if every once in a while the three of us could do spend a weekend alone bonding. He wants this too, but it's hard for him. He loves spending time with his kids but he also wants to spend alone time with us, especially because she's a baby and he'd like to have a strong bond with her because if we live together in the future she'll be the one that's there every single day. He'll actually be able to have a say in what he wants her to do as far as extracurricular activities goes and he'll be an equal parent in her life instead of just doing whatever BM says. He doesn't have that with his kids and honestly the BM has done her best to PAS them.
His actions are not
His actions are not reflecting he wants his older children less.
His CO gives hm EOW. The he chooses. He has two Sundays, he chooses to take them the other two. He has two Tuesdays, he chooses to go over to his mother's who is babysitting and hang with his kids the other two. He has two Saturdays, he chooses to coach an go to his kids sports on the other two.
You said below the man did not want you and the baby Christmas Eve and sent you home. Another choice. He wanted you and baby gone and to just be with his older kids New Year's Day and sent you and baby home.
The man has no trouble nor is it hard for him to simply tell you he wants alone time as a parent. If he wanted off every other Sunday he is quite capable of telling the other children's mother. If he wanted to not go hang with his older kids every other Tuesday at grandma's he's quite capable of not going and staying home instead. No matter what excuse he is telling you about wanting to spend time alone with just you and the baby as a separate little family, his actions are saying something very different.
You have not mentioned how things are on the weeks he doesn't have the older children. The Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Does he spend time with the baby or you and the baby? The EO Saturday after the sport coaching?
I’m confused…
Does he spend time with his other kids, without you & your daughter? Because if he can manage that, he should be able to spend time with you & your daughter alone. That’s only fair, in my mind. If he plays the, don’t want to exclude my kids card…he is excluding a child, yours while he’s spending time with the other 2 alone.
I think it’s normal & healthy for him to do things alone with his other children on occasion. I also think it’s normal & healthy for him to do the same, with you & your baby girl. The daughter you share together, will eventually wonder why he wants to spend time with the other children alone, but not her & you, as in why is it okay to leave the 2 of you behind, but not them. It isn’t.
If he doesn’t spend time alone with his other children, I don’t feel it’s okay for him to spend time with the 2 of you alone either. Perhaps suggest he start spending a day a month with the other kids so they get special Dad time & then ask for the same for your daughter, that he spends a day with her alone doing something, then a date day for the two of you? Perhaps that’s the way to start it out? Because it’s not very often & he’s spending time alone with all his kids, then just you. Basically it’s not a 3 person family unit leaving his kids out, it’s just him spending time with his baby as he does with his other kids, then the 2 of you prioritizing your relationship. If that goes well & he’s into it, ask if once in a while one of the days could be the three of you. I find it strange he doesn’t want to spend barely ANY time alone with you & the baby. That would bug me too.
He's constantly spending
He's constantly spending alone time with his kids, and every now and then the 5 of us will spend time together. He definitely plays the "don't want to exclude my kids" card but I constantly feel excluded, and thank goodness she's a baby so she doesn't even know this is happening.
We didn't even get to spend Christmas Eve together because his kids were at his place and he didn't want my daughter and I to stay over with them and ruin anything for his kids. He also asked me to leave his house with our daughter on New year's day because he wanted to spend it with his kids. That was Seriously upsetting and I couldn't believe he basically kicked us out like that. He later felt bad and invited us back over, but I was like eff that!!! I'm not going back after you threw us out.
You hit the nail on the head! Like I do feel left behind. Like he's trying to be this family with us, yet is still always putting his kids before us. I don't expect us to always come first but it would be nice if we did more often.
Thank you so much! I love your ideas! I'm definitely going to discuss these with him. Yes, I find it strange that he barely makes an effort to spend alone time with us too. I haven't said anything because I didn't know if it would be unreasonable to ask him to set time aside now and then for just us 3, but now I know it's not.
Then there's the flipside...
He sometimes has his kids away from the house so you don't have to deal with the SKids. That sounds AWESOME. DW and her ex seem to plot against me to make my life a living Hell LOL.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.
My question to you is would
My question to you is would you allow your BF to spend time with your mutual child without you, or have you packaged yourselves as a package deal?
You two were broken up before you found out you were pregnant. When he told you that he wanted you to put the child up for adoption and you refused (which, I think, is fine for both of you to express your wants), he stepped up and is giving it a go with you.
You're the one who doesn't want to move in with him, which is fine, but that is going to make you a low priority. You are his GF, likely out of convenience/honor. You are not his wife. Having his child does not give you wifely status. You, specifically, are going to fall to the bottom of his priority list under job, school, and kids.
If he feels like you have made it clear that he ONLY gets to see your mutual child if you are included, then he is likely trying to not rock the boat *too* much for fear that you'll take his kid and run. Or that you'll make life difficult for him to see your infant. You said in your blog that he has stepped up, but you keep raising the bar and not giving him much of a reward for doing as you wish.
If this is TRULY about your child having a relationship with her father, then you need to work up a visitation schedule with him. It will likely mimic the schedule be has with his older kids, who are also your child's siblings. That is your BF's family, and it sounds like he is trying to make it work.
Your decision to stay with him is separate from him having a relationship with his child. Yes, you're not going to be his top priority, though again, it sounds like he is trying. Your want for his kids to go away, or for him to parent differently, likely won't happen. He either is or isn't boyfriend material. Either way, you STILL need to protect your child's rights to have both parents in their life even if you two aren't together.
So, talk to him. Set up a CO. Figure out CS. Get your child set up to spend time with her Dad, THEN worry about the kind of relationship you two will have.
Honestly - you had a baby
Honestly - you had a baby with this man knowing he had older kids. There will never be just an "our family" to him, they are ALL his family. He's always going to want as much time with his older kids as he can get, and he's always going to want them to be involved in things.
That doesn't mean that he can never spend time alone with you and your daughter, but it's never going to be "all the time", or maybe even "enough time". That's part of having another child with a man who has kids.
Yes, I knew he had kids but I
Yes, I knew he had kids but I never planned on having kids, which was why it was nice that he already had kids when I met him. However, my daughter surprised us and thus here we are trying to raise her together as a couple. I totally get what you're saying, and I'm not saying I want him to spend less time with his kids, it would just be nice if the amount of time he spends with us was equal to the amount of time he spends with them.
Did I understand that right,
Did I understand that right, he has his kids something like 8 or 9 days a week, and you think that's too much?