Family Forum / Parenting / Step Parents / November 2004

Okay, two problems here, interconnected.  One is that he gets leisure time
(playing golf) childfree, while you do not.  (Attending religious classes
and cooking meals doesn't count as time off from kids.)  Second problem is
it sounds like he's popped you neatly into the "takes care of children"
category for all the kids, even the ones that aren't yours.

Questions:

If he offered you regular time childfree, where he cared for *all* of the
children present at the time, would you feel able and good about taking on
the bulk of the childcare duties?

How would you feel about putting the stepchildren into daycare during the
summer - when you were home with your children?  Would that work for your
family?

How old are the kids?  Could all of them attend a summer day camp together
when the steps are visiting?

If you feel the only workable solution is for you to watch the steps during
the visit (and how long is it anyway?), what specifically would your husband
have to do in return to make it okay for you?

rebecca

Well, I'm gonna go with the standard answer and say you're feelings
aren't right or wrong, they just are. What needs to be done is to
figure out how you're going to act/react out of those feelings.

I am also married to an active duty military member and I, too,
have went through the stepchildren in our house for long periods
of time thing. We're a little different in that my husband has
always been perfectly willing to stay with our own children when
he has a day off and I want to do something and I haven't held an
outside job since we married. But we still had problems dealing
with the situation when my stepchildren would be with us.

The first couple of years, I didn't object much to having my step-
children with us. Well, I *did*, but it had nothing to do with the
fact that they were *there*, it was what happened when they were
there. In our situation, though, I noticed a few things that led
me to the point that we are now. I noticed that, 95% of the time,
when any of the kids were with us, I was the one who did the com-
promising on what I wanted to do, I was the one who did the work
to make them being there happen, I was the one who planned any
outings, I was the one who dealt with the daily stuff, etc. My
husband, whose child<ren> these were, went ahead and did what he
always did (worked, did his 'things', etc.,) and, life for him,
went on as it always did. Another thing I noticed was that the
child<ren> would end up spending the majority of their time *with
me* when, quite honestly, that is not what they wanted. And yet
another thing I noticed was that, while I'm sure that my husband
liked seeing them and having them around, he didn't *do* much of
anything to insure that they had a good time beyond making a sug-
gestion like 'We could go to Disneyland', he didn't alter his life
so that he could spend a lot of time with them, he didn't make them
a priority. If he ever did anything one-on-one with them, it was
at my insistence.

Now, I'm not sure how long I would have continued with this if there
hadn't been another factor thrown in there that just made any time
that my stepchildren spent with us almost a total living Hell for
me, but, eventually, I said 'No more.' I left it all totally up to
him to make arrangements and to make sure that he took leave so that
it wasn't me doing all the daily stuff and to make sure that, if I
had made plans, that I didn't have to change them, etc. And the up-
shot of that ended up being that, for a very long time, we didn't
have our stepchildren visit us.

I'm not suggesting that you go this route. I have no idea what kind
of relationship you have with your stepdaughters and I don't know
how that would impact that relationship. I didn't have much of a
relationship at all with them, at least nothing more than you would
have with a great-aunt that lived on the west coast if you lived
on the east coast. IIWY, I would try and discuss with my husband
what exactly is he trying to accomplish with bringing his children
to stay with you all for a month and then working the entire time,
leaving them with you. You've been married for a year, you're living
overseas, and, I'm going to guess that you don't know your step-
daughters very well and they don't know you very well. I'm doubt-
ful that, to them, a month to live with you all elicited a 'Yay!
I'm going to spend a month with Jenny!' reaction from them.

Tracey