Noooo.... that would piss me off beyond belief. It isn't that I think DH needs to "ask my permission" to do things with his son. It's more a matter of making decisions TOGETHER that affect the household. I completely understand where you are coming from, and would be livid in all of these situations.

Wow, I wish I had words of encouragement but I am pissed off for you. :jawdrop:

Totally understand, I had my bs on Monday, went home on a wednesday night and fdh thought it was ok for sd to come on friday!! They just dont get it! I DO NOT CARE if she wants to see her baby brother.. This is MY first and I do not want to share the first week home.

I feel your pain. Happens to me all the time, merely an after thought when it comes to his children and then its oh sorry I forgot to tell you, you dont mind do you? AHHHHH!

You have every right to be upset.

Well I'd say your anger is fully justified given that he had already had 2 warnings. Is it not possible for him to go back to BM and say that 4 weeks full time is too much and he needs some time to focus on BS - can she organise childcare for 1 or 2 days a week? It was his error in judgement so he ought to do something to put it right, especially given he already acknowledged he finds it hard to balance the demands of your newborn vs his older children. I empathise with your frustration, my DH is hopeless at managing the planning and communication around access arrangements and is much more accomodating with BM than she is with him. Unfortunately good Dads who treasure the time with their children seem to find it difficult to understand that their new partner is unlikely to feel the same way, and tend to live in the unrealistic delusion that their partner will also be delighted at every additional opportunity to have the children around.

Are all these men just stupid? They say they will change this behavior over and over and it never changes then they wonder why we get mad at them. I feel for you though, my SS came to our house for the whole summer 5 days after I came home from the hospital with my daughter, I didn't even get a full week with my first child alone before he was there all day every day for 3 mths. I stay at home and that was also the first time I had ever been alone with SS for longer then an hour, so I come home with my first kid and on top of being a new mother to my child I am a full time mom to a 6 almost 7 yr old who didn't really know or respect me yet, and my husband didn't think this may be difficult for me? BM couldn't have kept him atleast a couple extra weeks while I got used to everything? These men are idiots and worse yet there our idiots.

Funny thing when I read this, because my DH just crossed the same damned line he crossed a year ago, and I was pissed! I had the opportunity to think about it since last night and proceeded to run thru different scenarios in my head, finally coming up with a good statement (at least I think it was) to let him know how I'm feeling and it goes like this:

"I have realized that because I am not a member of the "first family" I am not privvy to many decisions that are made within that inner circle made up of you, your ex-wife, and your children.

This is not by my chcoie. However, I feel helpless in the ability to change this behavior, regardless of how important it is for us to communicate about issues when they have the potential to impact this house emotionally, financially, or otherwise. But because this is not the first time this has happened, you are making it very clear to me that I am not a priority"

That's what my calm, rationale self said. My pissed off, over-the-top, about ready to blow an artery self wasn't so nice and used a lot of words I wouldn't be caught using in public. And if I'm not a priority when it comes to those kinds of things, let see what priority I give him...

I'm a bm and i agree those first weeks home are special. i've had family members care for my older kids, to have time to focus on bonding with new baby that first week!

Ok-I do get where you are coming from. I do. He shouldnt be making all sorts of decisions about schedules and such without discussing it with you. I agree.

BUT-if your baby is 14 weeks old and your skids arent there all the time hasnt he already been bonding with the baby? I am just thinking that i have 3 kids and one ss. When I had my 2nd and 3rd babies I didnt get 4 weeks to sit at home with just that baby and bond with them when someone else watched my other two. When I had my last dd-dh went and got ss at bm's and we all drove home from the hospital together. Of course we were custodial-but my dh didnt have 5 minutes just to bond with our daughter much less 4 weeks. My youngest daughter has 3 older siblings. It's reality. Having siblings around is something she has experienced all her life. She seems no worse for wear for it. I took whatever opportunities that I had to spend special one on one time with her as did my dh. I didnt have to ban the rest of my kids or ss from the house for 4 weeks in order to bond with her nor did my dh.

I dont mean this offensively-I really dont-but just maybe to get you to thinking that kids in intact families also deal with this to and yet still manage to bond with your child.

I do think your dh has been insensitive in consistently making arrangements without clearing them with you. I do think since you and he already discussed him taking time off to be with the baby-then he needs to do some of that-but I think you have to be a little flexible as well. Are you ok with him going off somewhere and spending 4 weeks just with his other two kids and not your baby? My guess is no. Perhaps he can have them only half that time, or as someone else suggested maybe 3 days a week. Or they could go back to bm's every weekend.

Wow, your DH totally enables the BM and confirms his message to her that she does not need boundaries with him! "Thank you, DH, for putting our family second."

We went through the same thing years ago, and I enabled it, thinking that I was doing something good for my DH and the skids. The BM got so used to getting her way and dumping her kids on us at will that I ended up chnaging my own wedding date for shit like that pulled on me!!! I learned my lesson the hard way

Even if you get the message across someday, you may also go through a period where DH will ask you what you think right in front of the skids or the BM, putting you on the spot! Nip it in the bud immediately and discuss your full expectations using different scenarios.

I've told my DH that he does not need my permission or advice to say "no", just fricken say it! If he's happy to consider something, then he needs to tell the BM or skids "I'll get back to you". He should only discuss matters with me in private, and never in front of the skids or the BM. If he does, no matter what you feel or your opinion is, you end up looking like the bad guy as it's easier to blame the SM...

I've had to cancel many a week-end activity with the skids cuz BM and DH said "yes" to a skid party and no one told me. DH even yelled at me ONCE (not twice) that the skids need to have their social life!!! WTF? Social life? So I told him it sounds like BM still runs the show and that he should go back that so that they can accommodate their kids social life together.

My DH has made leaps and bounds, and unfortunately it took the recent birth of our BD and seeing how aggressively one of his kids started treating me and th ee baby that he finally moved into protecting our marriage and new baby mode.

Good luck, I'm with you! It's a long road to work out the Guilty Dad thing.

Wow! I don't think you are selfish or wrong here. He should have broached the subject with you first. The result likely would have been the same, but the effect of him considering you in the decision would have gone far, I think.

It's stressful enough going back to work and leaving your little bundle without being blindsided with the extra (very young) children. You should have had time to adjust to the scenario. Then you and DH could have worked out a schedule for all involved ie breakfast time, play time, skid rest time (opposite baby nap time), allowing DH to still have alone bonding time with baby.

My SO staying home a month longer than I did. I was blessed to know that while baby was adjusting to mom being gone, he was still in his normal routine environment. YOU DIDNT GET THAT PIECE OF MIND AND IT WAS SELFISH OF DH!

Recently, SO and I made a date night (we haven't had one since baby was born a year ago). Both of our own BS's would be with there other families. The morning of our scheduled romantic evening, SO (in passing) states that BM told him SS would be coming over a day early and he agreed! I was furious. We NEEDED an evening to reconnect.

He didn't see the problem with it - stating we would just pay babysitter extra for the extra child. I not so calmly told him that yes, babysitter could cover things while we went out to dinner, but what about when we got home? Baby would be down for the night and our date could have continued with a movie by candlelight, quiet music and wine, and so on but he ruined that because now 11 yr old ss would be underfoot.

I further advised SO that I would be changing our date night to a girls night and he should NOT expect me for dinner. He called me 30 minutes later. He had called BM, told her she did not run our house and that SS would have to wait until Saturday morning to come over. Game Point !

EXTREMELY maddening, yet OH SO common! RIGHT LADIES???

DH unilaterally decides with the BM that they will switch weekends or biodad will take an extra weekend or weeknight without consulting with SM first.

Happens ALL the TIME!!

So what is going on here?
We've already explained to biodad that we would like to get a heads up BEFORE and not after the fact. They placate us at the time and say "ok."

Then it happens AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.

Here is what may be going on:

1. Biodad is scared crapless when it comes to the BM; he's afraid he'll "loose his children" (TM) if he doesn't go along with everything the BM says.

2. Biodad is afraid that if he doesn't agree with the BM on everything, it will somehow "affect the children." Perhaps you've heard THIS one before. Yes he WILL lose the children MUCH faster if he teaches them that Mommy rules and Daddy drools. He's also teaching them that the world revolves around his spawn and the BM; which in turn teaches BM and skids to disrespect him and mostly SM.

3. Biodad is doing the "180." That is agreeing to everything YOU say but then doing the opposite when the "heat is on" and he's being pressured by the BM or the skids.

4. Biodad knows how you REALLY feel about his clingy, whiny, disrespectful children and doesn't want to tell you any sooner than he has to; he'd rather "beg forgiveness than ask permission."

Ok and WHY are the children so clingy? I commented about this on Unlucky Lady's blog.

Odds are they are being TAUGHT to act this way at your house. BM most likely is subtley PASing skids out by making them feel that biodad is family and SM and the new baby are NOT! Therefore, cling to biodad the whole time you are at biodad's house or the "evil wicked SM" will "get" you.

Biodad is in the "child adoration/worship" phase. SO what you can do if possible is the next time he agrees to something with the BM that you weren't consulted on, let's say extra weekends, you make arrangements to be ELSEWHERE. "Sorry, I had plans" and stick to your guns. Start disengaging. If you are doing anything "motherly" for skids, stop it now.

Taking your leave is good ONLY if you can trust him not to spend like a drunken sailor on the skids (guilty daddy spending to "counteract" the BM's PAS); perhaps you'll also need to put a limit on his spending as well; if he's anything like GG, he'll spend his last meager penny after MASSIVE CS is taken out.