Hi Everyone. I've been reading for about the last 6 months or so and am so glad to have found a place that I can get advice (and hopefully give some). A little background, I have been with my FDH for almost 5 years, engaged for 1. We currently live in separate houses, but are in the process of adding a bedroom and bathroom at his house and will rent out my house until it sells. I have a DD16 and a DS19 (he lives on his own). FDH has a son17 & a daughter 15 (he has every other week custody). We've had a lot of ups and downs, but we do the best we can.

We both work full time and FDH has been working alot of overtime. He finally has told his kids that they will start helping him out around the house (cleaning, dishes, laundry etc.). Ya know, the basic chores that most of us had to do when we were growing up! Anyway, today he called me and told me that his kids actually helped him do some things around the house - he threatened to take away his sons car and told his daughter that she wouldn't go to a friends house unless they helped. Then, he told me what his kids said....... Well why doesn't lost hope help you clean the house?? HUH?! Are you kidding me??? I said to him that I hope you set them straight, that I don't live there and have my own house to clean and I don't see them or him helping me. He then sat there and said well part of the mess is from the basement (from sanding, etc. - but in reality, the house hadn't been cleaned for a while even before this) and you could help. THEN.. he said other women clean their boyfriends/fiance's house. Really? They do, well do these men have two teenagers at home or are they alone?? And do the 'women' he's speaking of stay at the house often?? (he's talking about his sister & her boyfriend here) Well, no, he doesn't have kids. Well, then I can see 'helping out', but since you have two kids that do nothing for themselves, I think they can help you clean. I then asked him if he came over to my house to help clean up when my sump pump stopped working and I had to get all the water out and then disinfect it, and when the tornado went down my street and my yard had trees and branches all over the place, who came and helped me with that????? Ummm, not his kids OR him. Granted I didn't ask him to, because I look at it in the sense that it's my house, my problems. I don't expect anyone else to do it. Some more words were said and I looked at him and told him that his kids thought they were more entitled than I previously thought. And I also told him that if either him or his kids thought that when me and my DD moved in that they were going to have maids/slaves, that we need to rethink being together and that that was where he was pushing me to. That it would NOT work for me. I also reminded him that I work full time, my DD goes to school and has 2 part-time jobs (about 10 hours each)and her & I both work together to keep my house clean and his kids don't do anything BUT go to school so they CAN help him.

If we were living there, yes, I would help him, but I don't think that I should be required to clean his house, I'm not the one that got it dirty. I only stay there every other weekend (when his kids at gone and my DD is at her dads). I realize that FDH has been stressed out and exhausted from working (50 hours/week) and then coming home and doing things at the house, but.... his kids are capable of helping out they just want everyone to cater to them and not have to lift a finger.

Any advice or suggestions on how to deal with this? I left FDH's house early tonight (didn't even give him a kiss) because I was just so mad at him for not standing up for me and telling his kids how wrong they were to even THINK I should be cleaning up after them as well as for him thinking that I should be doing this too. If his kids actually helped him more, I wouldn't mind helping clean up because of the dust and everything from doing the bedroom in the basement, but they don't lift a finger hardly ever. Am I wrong in this?