I Hate Weekends - DH’s Life Revolves Around His Kids & We Don’t Have Any Time Together
I need to rant. This is the second straight weekend that I’ve barely seen my husband. More and more now his life is revolving his boys’ sports teams or flying up to see his daughter. His sons are becoming entitled brats who use guilt to manipulate him and infringe on his time.
DH & I have very little quality time together and it’s been months since we went out together and did something as a couple that didn’t involve his kids.
I’m fed up and I asked him to dedicate one weekend a month to our relationship and for it to be totally stepkid free - no traveling, no going to their stupid games - no stepkids at all. I told him he needs to put our marriage as the priority - not catering to his kids’ whims, letting them run his life and infringing on his time with his wife.
But he got all pissed off that I’m not being supportive and started blaming me for why his daughter is no longer living with us. He won’t even consider my feelings or discuss this. I so wish I could have got up and walked out on him!
To backtrack, with the boys, this all started about 3 months ago when his ex-wife got remarried, so now he’s ultra-competitive with the boys’ new stepdad and insanely jealous of the amount of time the new stepdad is spending with his sons. Right after that, completely out of the blue, DH volunteered to be an assistant coach for his younger son’s football team (in a town over an an hour away).
We have SS9 and SS7 every other weekend. I could deal with them four days a month, but they’re now creeping into the rest of my life.
With our work schedules, DH and I get to spend very little time together during the week. He leaves for work at 6am and I'm working in the afternoon/evening. We don't get that much quality time together after I get home. He’s often getting home at 10pm and going straight to bed.
He’s also having to work a lot of overtime (including many non-skid weekends) to pay for all the skid related costs, especially paying for SD15‘s therapy, medication and other expenses. So, I see him even less.
The only time we have to spend together is the weekends, and now that's all skids. Ugh! I’m so sick of them!
His sons both are heavily involved in sports and DH has decided he has to to be at every game or event - no matter if it's his weekend or not or in the middle of the week.
SS9 is on two soccer teams, including one that travels. SS7 plays football and does taekwando and Cub Scouts. They both also play baseball. I wish they'd just pick one sport. It's too big of a drain on DH’s time - especially since they live over an hour away from us and everything is a drive and he comes home exhausted. And DH gets absolutely nothing done around the house on weekends any more.
I have to either chose to go along to games to able to to spend time with DH (but his ex is usually there too) or stay home. I couldn’t care less about sports, so I don’t usually go.
On top of all of that, once a month DH has been flying to visit SD15 on Friday morning and coming back Sunday night. SD15 is living with her uncle and aunt and her attitude towards her dad has not changed. She still hates him (and me) and wants nothing to do with him.
But her therapist wants DH to make an effort to see SD15 (the therapist acts as if he completely abandoned SD15 and threw her out on the street for no reason), so he got roped into flying up there once a month so he can go to family therapy sessions. Those trips burn another weekend every month, hundreds of dollars and vacation time for my DH.
With all the money that DH is having to spend on SD15, he’s constantly telling me how money is tight when I suggest having an evening out or going to dinner - much less us going out and doing something fun. We used to go out to concerts or events on weekends, but we haven’t done that since last year when all the problems with SD15 started.
I asked him last night to not fly up to visit SD15 this month, since there’s so much else going on (SS9 has a soccer tournament coming up) and neither DH nor SD15 are getting anything out of the visits.
It’s absolutely ridiculous to expect him to fly every single month to see a brat like her who treated me and her father so badly. He’s already wasted enough time and money on her and she doesn’t deserve of it. The way she acted, she forfeited her right to see him and he should turn around and treat her the way that she treated him. She doesn’t want anything to do with him - why not give her what she wants? It would make our lives so much easier.
But he cares more about what SD15‘s therapist and her uncle are saying about him (and that they’re calling him a bad father despite everything he’s done) than he cares about how I feel or about our marriage!!!
He called me selfish and accused me of not wanting him to see his kids - just because I want to have quality time with my husband?!? I’m so angry I want to scream.
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Comments
You're in a very difficult
You're in a very difficult situation, f-m. It's not fair for your husband to accuse you of being selfish. I can't think of anything MORE selfish than for your husband to expect you to reserve space for an absentee partner so he can devote every second he's not working to his unresolved baggage from the past, but I certainly know what that feels like. I now live alone.
It would be nice if a cast iron frying pan to the head would make these boneheads see the light, but it doesn't often work that way. Can you live with things the way they are? If not, then you have to decide what you want/need and make that clear to your DH, along with the consequences of your not getting what you want. Take the emotionalism and guilt trips out of the equation. "This is what I need, DH, it doesn't matter what you think about me for needing it. Can you do that or not?" If not, then you need to implement your back up plan, f-m. Sounds as if it might need to be an escape plan.
Best wishes to you. Take care of yourself. That's your most important job in life.
I know exactly how you are
I know exactly how you are feeling. I am married to a Truck Driver. My hubsand is usually gone 2 weeks at a time give or take... Then when he comes in and we have the kids I am put on the back burner. I am only thought of to be doctor, chef, mommy, babysitter, mediator etc... all the things a mom normally does.
I was angery as well. But then I thought long and hard about my husband. When I met him, he came with baggage... When I met him, He was single. Yet, divorced. And It was a choice I made to accept his proposal. It was my choice to want him to be my husband. It was my choice to accept the baggage he came with.
No, my husband and I do not do anything "FUN or OUT" with eachother because the money is spent on his children. ALL 4... He and I do not have a life... Unless I make one at home for him and I...
My Lesson for ya... Pick and choose your battles. You accepted the marriage and everything that came with it... the road may be rough for a little while, but if you fight for what you want, it will get easier. YOu do not need to go out to have a good time...
I hear ya. Be careful what
I hear ya. Be careful what you ask for. FDH has 3 kids who live with us full time. Both boys are in sports at two different schools. I just told him last night that we need one on one quality time. He woke me up early this morning to go grocery shopping with him at Walmart..."you said we need time together...let's go." Ugh! Walmart doesn't count!!!! LOL
I was a relationship
I was a relationship counsellor for a number of years and I observed this phenomenon in a number of marriages and partnerships as well as my own first marriage ie. when one partner is unsatisfied and is getting absolutely NOTHING from the relationship, then sooner or later, they will leave. It may take years, as it did with me, but it is very predictable.
Your husband has a choice - either he starts listening to what you are saying about needing some quality time with him, or he will lose you, sooner or later. It is not really about the SKIDS getting all his time - it is about you getting none whatsoever, and him not even seeing this when you point it out to him.
I wish I could threaten to
I wish I could threaten to leave, but it's so financially impractical. Long term, I'm not sure how much longer I will be able to take this.
I know that he wants to move close to his boys so he could get 50/50 custody, but there's no way I can take that.
Yes, I married a man with "baggage" but when we got married, he had no desire to be a full-time dad. I didn't expect that to change.
Every time I try to discuss any of this with him, it turns into a big argument about how much I hate his kids and how he blames me for driving his daughter away. I don't know how to even have a discussion with him about any of this. He blames me and don't take any responsibility. And of course, his daughter is completely blameless.
these men want to be daddys
these men want to be daddys more than husbands. if a man will not make an effort to be BOTH, why stay with him? we weren't put on this earth to "serve" our men and their kids. we have to SHOW them this. if you aren't getting your needs met in the way things are, you have to get them met somehow. so if he finds himself losing you and he doesn't take steps to remedy this, you have your answer. keep walking. you were alone when you met him! i'd rather be alone than be stuck in a relationship that has nothing for me in it. but, i'm older now and experience has taught me. i'm so sorry all you ladies are going through this. you have a rough walk ahead of you, no matter what you chose to do. it makes me sad so many women have to go through all this. please, please, tell your daughters to stay away from men with children, and teach your sons to be very careful who they choose to have children with. life is ALWAYS harder.
"these men want to be daddys
"these men want to be daddys more than husbands"
********
Great point. It came up in the counseling with my ex-DH that his daughter made him feel needed and useful and I did not. He got more out of engaging with her than he did with me. So, he spent more time and effort with her than with his wife. Food for thought.
"these men want to be daddys
"these men want to be daddys more than husbands"
This sums it up perfectly. Being a husband to me is taking a back seat to everything going on with his kids.
He expects me to be as concerned as he is about him spending time with his boys, the competition he has going with the stepdad and what's going on with his kids.
Honestly, if his ex-wife told him tomorrow that her new husband wanted to adopt the boys and my husband would never see them again, I'd tell him to do it and walk away. He can't be a dad to his sons from 60 miles away. He's just causing problems for them.
I don't want to go his sons football and soccer games and he cannot understand why. He asked me to fly up with him to see his daughter and go to the family therapy session and there's no way in hell that I would do that. He's going to financially bankrupt himself trying to be superdad and it's impossible.
He's a NCP who sees his boys 4 days a month and his daughter refuses to talk to him. The sooner he accept that, then maybe he can save his marriage.
I hate the weekends
I hate the weekends too..especially the ones's when it's DH's weekend off. I dread them. SD11 is always around (usually 3 friends in tow) with the anticipation of getting some money spent on her and getting to play mini-wife with my DH when we all go out somewhere as his time revolves around her because he is made to feel guilty that he doesn't spend a lot of time with her....mind you he has her full time not EOW and there is no set visitation with BM so she is rarely there. He takes her to school and picks her up most days...she is with him laying all over him in the evenings....devotes all his off weekends to wants and needs...but still it isn't enough for her.
We don't have date nights because DH doesn't want to make SD11 mad because he is going out without her...My needs don't seem to matter.
I feel it is necessary to have time alone between husband and wife without children tagging along and then when they are along they pretend to be DH's mini wife while I have tage along behind the hand holding sweethearts...weekends truly suck...I wish I could work all weekend.
This weekend was like being trapped in a coffin with just enough air to breath. 4 loud, loud, obnoxious, overbearing, destructive 11-13 yr old girls running around all over the house and my car and getting into everything and making a mess that they don't clean up like a bunch of 6 year olds...I have absolutely no control over the situation because these are not my kids. They act like wild animals for the most part with no boundaries or discipline....all because Daddy is made to feel guilty that his poor little motherless girl (not true...BM lives 3 miles away and is still in her daughter's life...her daughter just don't give a rip about her mother so as I see it is DH and SD11 who abandon BM in a way) is so bewildered and misstreated that she should be constantly entertained and get to have a mob of people over in small house all weekend long 3 times a month while I get no rest AND STAY COMPLETELY stressed out after working all week.