Family Forum / Parenting / Step Parents / November 2006

Since the group is slow...I thought I'd brave a post. *LOL*

A bit of history:
My dh has 2 kids from 1st marriage. (17yo sd, 15yo ss)
I have 3 from my 1st marriage. (son 20, son, 17 & daughter 15)
We have 2 sons together, 8 & (almost) 4

My dh was a VERY involved dad w/ his 1st 2 kids. He did everything w/
his them...sports, school, Halloween, took them somewhere every
weekend. He had the majority of custody. (He had them 4 days a week &
bio had them 3)

This continued when we got married, but we did it together as a family.

My stepkids were very difficult & things were very rocky. My sd, wanted
very much to live w/ her mom. As my ss got older he also did, but my
husband would not allow it. Just a control issue cuz at this point bio
was a very responsible mom.

So 3 years into our marriage, (3 different marriage counselors), my mom
was diagnosed w/ a very rare breast cancer. She was 400 miles away from
us. This was her 2nd bout & the diagnosis was not good. I told my dh I
was moving to be closer to my mom. I didn't think he would go w/
me...leave his kids & his mutha.

He decided to move w/ me..as it got us away from his families VERY
negative influence on our marriage. (His mutha was the cause of most of
our marital problems.) Our marriage counselor thought it would be best
for the steps to live w/ their mom. Heck, even my sd's counselor
thought it was best.

By this time our 1st son was 2. So we relocated.

We had a ton of issues w/ his kids visiting. Most of the issues were
normal...some were not. My sd's visits became so bad that I refused to
let her in my home. This was 1 year ago.

On top of my stepkids visiting us, my husband would also go & visit
them a few times a year.

So....Now we add our 2nd son.

(Okay, maybe this is a lot of history! *LOL*)

My husband has barely anything to do w/ our sons. Doesn't go to our
oldest sons conferences, never missed 1 w/ his 1st kids, misses our
son's baseball games....Just really has nothing to do w/ them. So when
my stepson visits it's very hard to watch him take my stepson
everywhere....movies, amusement parks, golfing....

I told my husband that when his son visits it needs to be family
outings. When he visits his kids he can do lots of 1 on 1 w/ them. If
he never got the chance to visit them I would understand the alone
time.

Our 8yo is a sports addict. He wants to fish, golf....things my husband
has always done w/ his 1st son. Nope...My husband was just visiting his
kids last weekend & took his oldest son golfing twice & fishing.

When it comes to our kids? He tells me been there done that. Since this
is the 2nd set he is just not motivated to spend time w/ them. It
breaks my heart...& hurts our sons.

It has become a HUGE problem in our marriage. As our sons get older,
they notice more. I do not want them to be hurt or to feel like they
are not important to their dad.

A big issue was this past summer. When my stepson visited...my husband
spent so much money on him that there was no money left for our family
vacation. Something my 8yo (& the rest of us)looks forward to every
summer. We barely had any money for our son's b-day which was in Aug.

I could go on & on...but this is the basic of it. I'm just curious if
this is a common thing....If any of you deal w/ this kind of
behavior??? It is a very-very hard thing to deal w/.

~Carie