Hi, I live with my DS who is nearly 11 and have been dating my boyfriend for 2 and half years. We are planning (or had been) to move in together. We are both in our mid forties and very happy together apart from one major issue.
He has four children, the older two are 19 and 20 and he has twins who are nearly 14, all are girls. They are all lovely children, none of them are malicious but they don't interact with my son. The twins spend three nights a week with their dad so are around a lot but the older two are both at university. The twins are typical teenage girls, they are into facebook, boys, make up, music etc. and my son is basically just into messing about with his mates. There is no common ground. I don't expect them to be friends or have much or anything in common but they quite simply ignore him. I know this is partly because they are twins, they are totally in their own little world, interested only really in themselves (they even have their own language) but they leave him out of conversations and don't talk to him at all.
This is becoming more and more of an issue and I just don't know what to do to resolve it. He is miserable about it and feels very isolated in their company and now refuses to go to their house. I have brought this up over and over with my boyfriend and he basically (like most parents) can't see his children doing anything wrong. He says my son is difficult for them to communicate with and to be fair he does completely retreat into himself in their company. He is a quiet and modest boy anyway and they are extroverts which doesn't help. I have encouraged him to talk more, to ask questions etc. and he does try but they answer but don't give anything more back. We are supposed to all be going away camping in a couple of weeks and moving in together later in the year but I have told my boyfriend that none of this is happening unless this is resolved.
I just don't know what to do. I feel the onus is on them to see that they are leaving him out and for my boyfriend to a) notice the problem b) speak sternly to his girls about leaving him out rather than the onus being on my DS to try harder to get on with 2 older girls who are intimidating to him (because there are two of them, because they are twins and because they are older). I also feel the older two make no effort to talk to him so actually (although I haven't said this) I think he should speak to all of them about how it would feel if they were in this position.
At my wits end, we've just had a big row about it...please advise!
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Relationships
problems with partners children and mine - help!!
wantanewname · 24/07/2014 22:50
I can see this is a problem, but many full siblings would not interact much with the age/gender differences you have here, so I wonder if your expectations are a little high? I say this as someone who hated my sister (4 yrs younger) until she was about 40 
.
Maybe if they could be persuaded to just show a bit of interest in him? Might be some middle ground here.
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