Just venting a bit
Hi, am partnered with a man who has 3 daughters (10, 12 and 13) We went to his exes house this weekend to tidy up and reset up a bedroom as she had to go with someone to the hospital, it was an emergency.
We spent 10 hours in total over two days cleaning the place up. Wiping walls, doing ten loads of laundry, cleaning up various litter boxes...it was so full of STUFF.
Cat litter on floor next to sheets in a bedroom on the carpet. No bags in any trash cans. Kitchen table totally covered in stuff. Laundry heaped on beds while cats walk on it. Opened drawers in various chests of drawers to put away clean clothes, the drawers are full of random junk, so no room for socks etc. We spent 10 hours on it and didn't even finish it. Dust and hair everywhere.
His ex has health problems that make it hard for her to do things, and I get that. But her kids do bupkis to help, she asks her ex or parents. It made me realize why her kids are such a disorganized mess. It bummed me out and I felt bad. Now her relative cannot cut the grass anymore, she kind of wants my bf to do it. I told him to get a self propelled mower and show the older kids how to use it. We/he cannot run over there every five minutes to do stuff. I don't care if it's an emergency, we will pitch in, but I wish she had more of a support/neighbor network, seeing a show she has lived there ten years now.
Good grief.
You all are setting a
You all are setting a precedent/expectation by doing all of this for her. Yes, the kids can pitch in. Your SO can teach them if she won't (and it appears she won't). There are limits and boundaries. Some people don't recognize that when they divorce, they are no longer married--their roles have changed! What does your SO say about all of this? And how are you if he's fine with it?
It honestly took him time to
It honestly took him time to get over it. He's used to being Mr Fixit, and she just has never tried to get another network going. I told him she needs to get on Nextdoor/Facebook something ANYTHING to build up more of a network of mutual help. He has slowly come around to this, but I think he used the fact she wasn't there to also tidy up the home for the kids, not her.
We are getting the kids to do more tasks around the house, showing them how to cook and do laundry etc.
its going ok, but it gets undone the minute they get back to their moms house.
She lives there all of the
She lives there all of the time. She ran to the hospital for a short duration. Your SO is making excuses for his waste of skin X and that shit needs to end pronto. Her home is a shithole not from a short term visit to a hospital. She lives like a pig. That... is not on anyone but her and her alone.
Yeah, sorry, but his ex is
Yeah, sorry, but his ex is going to have to figure something out. She cannot just depend on your SO, they are not a couple, anymore. Just because they have kids together does not make her home and lawn maintenance his responsibility.
Now that you all have cleaned her house, he needs to instill in his kids the importance of helping to keep it clean.
She will not get a support network if she knows that you and your SO will do for her.
Youre right! I told him to
Youre right! I told him to have her ask a neighbor kid to cut grass and slide him a $20 or whatever, and then show their kids how to cut grass. I had no idea she was this disorganized and chaotic until I moved in with him, they don't fight when they communicate and they communicate well about the kids events etc, but I feel she is chock full of excuses. If I criticize her, I'm a meanie because of her health problems, so I'm stuck just trying to tell my partner she needs to build up a better support system. We are content here right now, but down the road when the kids are grown up we may travel more or even move, so she needs some kind of plan. He has not gone over to take care of her grass, so I'm guessing he told her to find a neighbor kid to help.
Also it just grosses me out
Also it just grosses me out that her house is such a state. She claims the kids are really helpful, but looking at the house I'm gonna say no.
What!?
There is no way in h#ll that I would spend 10seconds cleaning my partner's ex-partner's home, let alone 10 hours.
He clearly has manipulated you to the point that this is somehow in the realm of normal. This is so unbelievably not normal.
If she has such health problems that she can't maintain a home to a reasonable standard, then perhaps a custody change is in order.
Put her in a nursing home if
Put her in a nursing home if she can't take care of herself.
Someone just poured acid in my ears or more accurately, my eyes!
I swear you said that you and your SO went to his X's house and cleaned a nasty, stanky shithole and you advised your SO to buy his X a riding lawnmower for HER lawn?
Really? That can't possibly be right. Not just no but F-NO!
Please tell me you and SO were drunk or stoned when this genious idea came to fruition.
She can Google Angie or some local boards to get her house cleaned, yard mowed, and whatever else needs done around HER house. Again, HER house.
The XW owns the condition of her home, she owns parenting the kids in her home on her time. You and SO owe each other to make your marriage and each other your priority. Kids are not the priority. They are the top adult and marital responsibility. Parenting them in your home within your family and the equity life partnership that you have that also makes you equity parents to the kids in your marriage regardless of kid biology. The X has zero standing and should get zero consideration and zero priority from you and your mate and for damned sure she is in no way your responsibility. Nothing about her, her home, her life, her health, are your responsibility or your problem. Your being the two of you in your marriage.
Yes, she is the mother of your SO's children. Beyond that, she became his past and irrelevant as soon as the divorce was final. All she has of your DH is is past. You are his present and his future. She has no place in either.
Keep her in her place. Period. Dot. Keep your DH focused. Period. Dot.
With a very strong caveate that BM/XW has to own her own life, her own home, and her own parenting on her time. Her wants, needs, demands, and begging has no place beyond her own ability to make stuff happen.
My assumption is that your SO pays CS. If that is the case, rather than be her beck-and-call boy he needs to demand return for his CS $. She houses, she parents, she trains them to participate in the keeping of the home... on her time. The key part of htis is participate in heeping their home, not being her beck and call maid girls, yard girls, etc. Basic kid stuff. Keeping their rooms clean, doing their laundry, keeping their bathroom clean, running a vacuum cleaner, doing dishes. Chores, not indentured servitude. BM needs to adult. She does not need to take advantage of your SDs. It is a balance.
Your and DH seem to be parenting and building a family in your relationship effectively. Keep up that great work. The girls need to see confident adult partners successfully making a life together, caring for their home, their future, and setting and enforcing standards of behavior and standards of performance for the girls. It will take a notable focus and commitment to counter the trainwreck that BM is living and demonstrating on her end of the blended family equation.
No more being BM/XW's beck and call bitches which alarmingly is what you and your SO both appear to be.
Don't do that.
IMHO of course.
I did not tell him to get her
I did not tell him to get her a ride on lawn mower. He has been doing too much out of guilt!
i told him to tell her to buy a self propelled as opposed to just push so the kids can learn to use it, because they need to learn to do more tasks.
i helped him because his kids live there, yes it was bananas!
I totally agree that his kids don't do anything and it's her fault. When I moved in with him, they were worse. I put my foot down and said our house is not their personal litter box, and it improved drastically. It's slow going, as you said we try to model good behavior and she undoes it. BM only just stopped trying to drag him into more of her business, as she finally realized he wasn't going to get back together with her.
There is so much more, and I've been really holding it alll in. The reason I stay is that he IS changing, and the fact we went over and spent 10 hours (!) on her damn house has actually made some more bitter relatives shut the hell up about her being a poor, hard done by saint.
She is also a liar, which is a whole other post. She has been riding along on everyone else's guilt for ages now, and I'm done. I'm just so mad that it was all made to seem so serene and congenial, when in reality she is just doing as little as possible and coming up with all of the excuses. Yes she has health issues, and they are serious, and I have sympathy, but they're also being used as ammo and it sucks.
thanks for your reply and the hard facts!
The reason I stay is that
Wouldn't it be nice to get/be involved with someone who didn't need changing? I say that to you, anyone else it applies to, and my former self. Why do we feel we need to fix people or guide their goofy asses along?
Just make sure to put
Just make sure to put yourself first and take care of you.
I do not envy you at all.
Question. He is changing, but is he growing into an actual independent confident adult rather than a guilt driven disney dad?
He must put his failed family in their place and keep them there. Not one deviation from that criteria IMHO. His ailing XW is truly irrelevant and her life is hers to live and her problems are hers to resolve. They are not his and they sure as shit are not yours.
Stop playing facade theater for the nepharious bitter relatives.
If they are bitter, they don't matter. Give them zero standing or consideration. Not one molecule of either. If they make the mistake of blathering their bitter bullshit, shove it right back in their faces with the facts rather than tenderly maintaining the facade of XW as some Saintly martyr. Cleaning her home is painting the facade. They need to see her as the shit that she is and you and DH polishing that turd is not helping. Rather than cleaning, take a ton of pics of her nasty home and send them to the bitter relatives highlighting the shit that she is and the damage she is doing to the SKids.
IMHO of course.
Take care of you.
Just my opinion.. It
Just my opinion.. It is really inappropriate for him to be cleaning her house. It's ok to have boundaries in life. This should be one of them.
Just when you think you heard it all
Going to clean up the ex's house.? That was disrespectful by your BF to you. If he really wants [is ready] for a new relationship with you. He must cut off this craziness with the ex. I could never see myself cleaning up after tge ex. The one he had three kids with. This must stop. Or you really are not in a relationship but just a bed warmer . And care giver .
old relationship must end before a new one starts. It's may be seen as cruel. But I really would like to know how many SP would do this? I one will not and will not be in a relationship where this happens
Fully agree he needs to push
Fully agree he needs to push his ex away from leaning on him. It's too much boundary stomping, and she needs to get more support from other sources.
He has improved massively since I've been here, there was a point in the beginning when he tried to be an ass about his codependent ex, and I told him I'd walk if he didn't make changes, so he did.
He is close-ish because of the kids, and does stuff because it touches their lives directly, but I don't think he saw how little she was doing until it was right in his face. He doesn't want to go do more stuff for her, he wants her to get the kids to do some chores and for her to figure out problems on her own. He's a rescuer kind of person, but I think this has made him realize he has to say no and make other step up.
I'm not going to leave over helping him on a weekend. But I'm done handing out sympathy to someone who doesn't try and just makes excuses to not even reach out in the community and make connections. BM lives in a. Small town, but not so small it's uninhabited, and she needs to make efforts.
Incredible brilliance!
old relationship must end before a new one starts
Simple, elegant, brilliant.
Wow. Thanks for that incredible wisdom Harry.
I spend millions of key strokes trying to articulate what you said in 9 words.
Who was hospitalized? Was it
Who was hospitalized? Was it BM or was BM taking someone else to the hospital?
If BM can take someone else to the hospital, she can clean her own cats' litterboxes. If she can't do that, she shouldn't have pets. Is BM really truly disabled, or does she sit home on disability for something that isn't as bad as she tells the govt?
If she truly can't care for herself, and your SO wants to be her primary caregiver, it's really crappy of him to start a relationship with you and crappier of him to expect or even allow you to waste 10 hours of your weekend doing the same. Do you have a job, or even kids or hobbies or family of your own? Even if you don't have any responsibilities except to yourself, it's shitty of him to have you working for his ex.
I don't know if she drove or
I don't know if she drove or not, and yes she can clean out litter boxes for sure. The madness ensues because she stuck the boxes in the kids bedroom, there's litter that gets on the carpet and in their stuff. It's gross.
I do have plenty of stuff and a job and life going on, this was a one-off event, we do not clean her house on the reg at all. The only reason I care is because his kids live there, and he also wanted to see exactly what the deal was. One relative is always huffy because they feel he comes down on her over a messy house, and he broke it down thoroughly for them after that weekend, and they agreed and shut up.
It sucks. She pulls the guilt and sympathy cards out of the pack all the time, and we are both sick of it. I had only been there. A few times before, and I'm not going back. He asked me to help so I did, and I'm thoroughly done with her rn.
It's not ok to live like a raccoon, and we push being tidy and clean in our home and model it for the kids, and don't let them pull the crap here that they do at the BMs house. That's why I said they need to get a mower and have the kids do it, or they'll end up just sitting around and doing zip like their mom. I do not talk bad about her in front of them, but I don't care if they get mad or whine about me, they are not bad kids and I want them to have life skills and to have pride in their surroundings and themselves.
Thank you for listening to me rant!!