And I just don't know what to do.
Dss is 9yrs old. His mum and dad split up 6yrs ago. Dp and I have been together for 3yrs and have 2 sons together.
Dp saw his son every other weekend and school holidays when he and his wife divorced but she stopped all contact when she found out about me.
Through lots of mediation, cafcass reports and court hearings, dp finally got his access back.
We had already decided that dp would continue seeing his ds without me for 6months so Dss could get used of the fact that I was around with his dp talking about me etc so by the time I met Dss he was fully aware of who I was etc.
The ex is a nightmare to say the least. She will stop access at the drop of the hat for reasons such as we won't pay her gas bill or some such. Due to this it was a lot longer than 6months before I met Dss and by that time my ds1 was 15months old and I was 7months pregnant with ds2.
Anyway, Dss came to stay the first time for a whole week. I wanted him to feel comfortable here and has we only have a two bed flat (at the moment) I moved ds1 out of his room into our's so Dss could have his own space. Also as well as getting him used to the new set up with his dad's new family, we made sure that dp got to take Dss out on his own for boys day out etc at least twice whilst he is here.
Now due to Dss being an only child for 8yrs, I knew it would take him time to adjust to the situation and I was willing to give him all the time he needed and to make him feel as comfortable as possible whilst he was here.
That was the first mistake. We let him watch whatever on tv, play the xbox whenever he wanted, let him go to bed when he wanted etc etc.
But now, because of this first visit, he thinks the xbox belongs to him and when he gets told that it's a family console he sulks. He hates letting ds1 into ds1's own room to play with ds1's own toys during the day even though we have explained that this situation is only for a while and we will soon have a 3bed house where Dss will have his completely own room but he sulks about letting ds1 into play. If we are not doing something he wants to do he whines and complains he's bored all the time even though the day before he and his dad went on a boys day out doing zip wires and quad biking etc. He will never eat what I've cooked because "it's not the way his mum does it" which then means we are wasting money we haven't got on take-sways the whole time he is here. He completely refuses to touch/use anything that is ds1's. For instance he ran out of shower gel and when I told him to use ds1's he pulled a face and complained until we found him something else to use, won't use our toothpaste because ds1 uses it (his dad has a different toothpaste to ds1 and me) When I propped my 5month old ds2 on the sofa for 2 seconds this weekend, he decided to roll over and briefly touched Dss and Dss jumped up quicker than I've ever seen and went "ewww" like he was going to catch something.
After playing xbox all day yesterday, I asked if I could watch a programme at 10pm. We got into a conversation about how it was my turn to have the remote now and he replied with "you can have it when I go home"
I have tried to be patient, really I have. I know he gets bored with two babies around so I even got my younger brother who is an xbox fan as well to spend the weekend here so Dss would have someone to play xbox with, I try to get him involved with stuff, asking if he wants to bake a cake with me or make dinner for us (he likes cooking apparently) but I get met with a grunt and not even a sideways glance.
This week ds1 had an awful ear infection so as you can imagine as been particularly grumpy. When dp was taking Dss home today he told his dad that "he doesn't want to stay with us anymore because he can't stand ds1's crying"
Dp is of course very hurt, I just don't know what else I can do to make Dss feel comfortable here and get used to the fact that his dad has two other children now and he won't get the individual attention he got before even though we do try to make time for that with boys day out as described above.
Dss really is a lovely boy just not to me or my son's and as much as I love dp I just don't see how I can carry on if Dss isn't going to at least make a bit of effort to get to know me or his half brothers.
What do I do? I'm just so confused now.
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I'm not sure I can do this anymore! :(
7 replies
aPixieMomma · 27/02/2011 20:20
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