My partner and I have been together 4 years and have a 19 month old son. He has SD5 and SS9 from first marriage.
I was new to step-parenting but like most people was so into my man and genuinely wanted everything to work with the kids too.

Anyway, fast forward 4 years later and we are living together, planning to renovate his house while I rent mine out and have even discussed our future together in more detail than ever before. My partner suffers from depression and when I met him he was coming off his depression meds because of the marriage break up, co-parenting issues and the fact that the relationship he left BM was a complete disaster.

He has recently slipped back into a depressive place. It started when things weren't going well at work and then he started feeling distant from his kids and started feeling bad about that. As part of CS he pays for the SKIDs to go on holiday to Europe every year with their mum as that's where she's from. Overly generous if you ask me but I wasn't in the picture when the agreement was made so we will work with it until SD5 turns 14. We've also had our relationship issues mainly driven by his bad behavior, office shenanigans with other women(we worked together for 5 years till last week).

Every year when the skids are on holiday there is some drama. He gets upset about something - be it that the kids were not showing enthusiasm on Skype or that they don't seem interested in him at all or that he feels they are entitled and spoilt and get these lovely summer holidays while the rest of us are working. BM complains about having to work now because he left her. So BM and skids are just used to getting their way on a silver platter.

So last Thursday he picked up the kids from school and just dropped them off at their mum's which he does every week. He came back to work after the pick-up/drop-off visibly upset and when I asked'him what was wrong he just said'those ungrateful little shits won't even talk to me". The Skids can be very distant , something I've experienced countless number of times so when he said that i wasn't surprised. I never really comment coz he goes through this often with the skids and i know he always bounces back. Even though I believe the skids are quite cold and ungrateful, I don't add fuel his negativity towards them. In fact I try to 'defend'them a lot as my way of supporting him. I don't see how it can help if we both bash the skids when he is feeling low about them. Besides, with the depression I now know he has low moments so I let it be. Just because i don't join in bashing the skids doesn't mean I particularly like them. That's what this place is here for..LOL.

Next morning was my last day at work and he wakes up feeling a bit throaty and I was slightly disappointed he couldn't be there for my farewell at work. Anyway, he then said, ïf I die now none of my kids will miss me and DD(19m) doesn't even like me anymore"". I just told him to stop talking like that. The previous 4 weeks or so had been the most positive we've had in our relationship even with the depression. The thought of him being suicidal did not cross my mind and every day I'm learning that with depression, people feel on top of the world today and suicidal tomorrow so I too am having to be careful and not dismiss some of his statement. Because skids can be very distant he has said that a few times about his kids not missing him especally SS8 who is quite emotionless at best.He has said these things when he was not depressed.

He drove me to work and i was very quiet and I told him I didn't think it was fair to put DD in that bracket of uncaring kids when at 19 months old she can only speak a few words. My daughter is very relational, mostly helped by daycare and unlike skids she is very friendly - when we have a visitor to the house skids never say hello - my skids just stare at the person blankly. Anyway so dad got mad that I was bringing up the "kids issue"again.

It was our weekend with the skids and to cut a long story short, it was a miserable weekend. He went into a depressive rage on Friday night, says I chose to go to work on a day he was having suicidal thoughts and i was called a dumb bit**c, freeloader and whole bunch of other things. I was exhausted by the time weekend rolled by, trying to wrap up at work proved to be more stressful than i expected. My DD has been very clingy lately and it can be tiring coming home after a long day to a hubby sitting on the couch while I cook with a little girl crying for me to pick her up.

she became a bit more distant from her dad when he had one of his rages and was throwing himself and stuff against the wall a few months ago. He accused me of not being enthusiastic about Father's day which to be honest I wasn't. I was tired more than anything. I actually spent a lot of money on his gifts but come Sunday morning i was just too tired to prepare his father's day breakfast in bed with the skids. I just did not feel like preparing anything with skids in our tiny little kitchen anyway. I was particularly on edge due to exhaustion and got annoyed by simple things like skids eat their meals cross legged on the couches and don;t bring their plates up to the kitchen. My daighter eatsat her table no matter what and as soon as shefinishes eating she puts her cup in her plate and brings it up to the kitchen, something she has been trained to do in daycare(that I've tried teaching skids for years!). Not only is it cute but I just think it's the right thing to do. I got very annoyed when DD came to the kitchen carrying SS8 and SD5 dirty dishes and when I asked shy they didn't do it themselves their response was it's because DD likes to do it. Well, that's because you've been sitting with your dirty dishes for the last 2 hours watching TV!
Skids hardly eat whatever I cook and in an effort to make life easy for us all I've asked my partner to ask BM for their meals they like which he doesn't want to and askig skids I get responses like we like to eat pizza, lollies and ice-cream which isn't much help. So they usually only eat chicken nuggets and chips and cheese toasties that dad makes them. My daughter helps me to pack and unpack the dishwasher - usually she's more trouble than anything but when we asked SD5 to put her spoon in the dishwasher she stared at us blankly and asked what is the dishwasher and where is it!!?? My daughter at 19 months old can feed herself, insists on feeding herself but as recently as last year SKIDS were still being spoon fed by dad and still have their bottoms wiped by dad. If dad has to go out and I watch them for the evening they don't do number 2s because they know there is no way in hell I would wipe their bottoms! I don't expect to be wiping my DD's bottom at 8 either!

On Saturday i made sausages and mash and as soon as dad announced that SM had made us all a decent dinner I knew by the looks the kids exchanged with each other that they weren't going to eat and for sure they didn't eat the food. SS8 only ate his sausages and within 5 minutes of us clearing the table SD5 started crying that she was hungry and dad told her to eat her leftover mash which she refused of course. When I mentioned that I find it disheartening that skids don't eat what I cook, dad got really angry and told me I was being harsh on skids and that they are only 5 and 8. Yet when he is calling them ungrateful little shits or going through low points in his depressive state driven by their coldness - they are no longer 5 and 8!

We've previously discussed treating SS8 and SD5 like sacred cows and how that makes the whole family set-up even more unnatural. He can be very harsh to our daughter and tells me to put the little b*tch to sleep - this about a 19 month old! The skids makes up a huge part of my partner's depression and rightly or wrongly I can't help resenting them and sometimes their dad. My daughter and i go through hell when he i upset with skids but as soon as they walk through the door he is an angel to make sure they have a fantastic weekend...then the cycle starts all over again.

Just a rant. My apologies for writing a novel.