That was my situation a few years ago but it has since changed to eowe which would be great except BF works when his kid isn't here and takes off when he is so we never get a weekend a lone anyway. I am so pissed at myself for getting involved in this and for staying...9 months left on our lease, hoping to save eniugh to leave in 6 though. I'll pay the last 3 months upfront.. my busy season is winter so i need make eniugh to do this without ruining my credit. Good luck, it does totally suck. I take lots of trips with my gf''s or alone. In fact now i prefer that.

Oops didn't mean to post twice getting used to a new tablet!

Disengagement might need to be your new best friend. DH wants her every weekend? Cool. She's his kid, she's his responsibility, you go do whatever you want. I don't know what your housing arrangement is like but why isn't he cleaning up after his kid? Cleaning after her in the bathroom isn't any less gross for you and you aren't the one that really wants her there so hand daddy the scrub brush.

Stop allowing Your time to be dictated by her. She wants to spend time with her friends? Go talk to dad, it's not your problem. You do. Not need to cart her around. You do not need to even be there for the weekend. Go out with your friends, go see a movie, go to a coffee shop. Whatever. But start making yourself unavailable to them. DH might be way less on board with having her Every weekend if he has to do it all himself. Don't make a big deal out of it, just suddenly start being busy or sick or whatever.

The housework on the other hand.... There should be a come to Jesus meeting. You both work, he needs to step his game up around the house. Particularly if it's His kid making the mess. If you can, ignore the messes she makes. If you can't, make him clean it up. I was the cleaner too. Then SD Trashed the bathroom in two days. I refused to clean it. DH had a total stupid moment - it must not have been all that clean when she came. I shrugged and said whatever, I'm not cleaning it again. We had friends over, DH hadn't cleaned it, they were Appalled, DH was embarrassed and I said sorry, I'm not cleaning up after someone else's teenage daughter. He Scrubbed it before her next visit. It was perfect. She trashed it again. He went ballistic. He apologized. Suddenly she had to start cleaning up after herself.

men are inherently lazy. She will continue to get away with this until you make it difficult for him.

I have mine every day.....every day. Meh. I feel your pain.

Is there a relative nearby that could keep SD overnight or for an evening so you and DH could have a date night? It's not normal or healthy to have a kid think that everything revolves around her, when she is there. That kind of thing is normal, and she should get used to it...this COD, Disney-Dad dynamic is not healthy for any of you.

People on here are so harsh lately!

I understand your pain. Having a child every weekend, all your down time, yet still seeing CS go out the window & having none of the perks of beng the CP is hard I'm sure.

I think the best advice is agree to getting a babysitter like once a month for a date night. It can be later in the evening, like from 8-10 so that your DH doesn't miss a lot of time with SD. Or you could try on a Sunday night if SD goes back to her BM Sunday night?

Even people with their own biokids find time for dates. They don't take all their dates during the week. They also don't have to deal with a part time kid that does no chores & thinks that the world revolves around them. That comparison is such a "I only know about nuclear families" thing to say. :sick:

BM's SO may gripe that dad doesn't have to do any of the hard parenting. While BM's household is stuck dealing with homework,projects, enforcing bed times, making sure kid is up and out of the house on time...... dad gets to kick back wnd just have fun with the kid.

I have to admit, I would have hated having my SD every weekend. Especially, if a lot of that weekend was spent running her around to her friends, BM can do that just as well. I mean, if she's not going to spend that time with her dad, what is the point?

If your DH doesn't want to go to every other weekend, he could at least not pick her up until Saturday on a weekend here and there so you can at least have a partial weekend together. Or, if she has plans with her friends for the weekend, she stays at BM's. I assume her friends live closer to BM's, anyway.

My SD did not have chores (although she would help DH with things sometimes) but we only had her EOWE, so as long as she cleaned up after herself, I was fine with that.

For the first 5 years of 50/50 custody and the kid's life my bf had his kid every single weekend, bm offered up 50% custody because she didn't want to be a full time single mom. At this point i actually spend more time with her child than she does so yes it happens. They divorced when he was 4 months old so even as an infant bf's son spent 2 days during the week and every fri sat sun til 9 am w my bf. When bf needed help if he couldn't find a sitter for work, it's pretty much all he does, bm would charge him for daycare. Yes when i moved in w him they still had that arrangement, i told he was crazy and should just hire a fulltime sitter. SO not every bm wants to have their kid around. In the last 3 years bm has gone to europe 3 times for 10 days each trip and several vacas in between of course without her kid and Honestly i totally get it, she really never wanted to be a mom and wants to have a life. So her parents have him a lot. She has her own studio apt in the city that she lives in when he is with us and stays w her parents on her days. I am not complaining it's not my business what she does w her kid, I am just saying it's highly possible that the bm doesn't want op's sd around on the weekends. It changed some when he started school for some reason and she offered to take eowe. Who knows why lol btw i don't do any cleaning of kid or bf's stuff, no laundry, no bedroom cleaning, and we all share bathroom so bf and take i turns cleaning that. I refuse to be anyone's maid.

OP, I get what you're saying--and I hope you won't let one important thing slip through the rest of this thread: it's not healthy for kids to be taught that the world revolves around them. I know you're disengaging (good choice) but it'd be good if someone could get through to Dad. That means that A. she cleans up after herself, and B. if she must go to a sitter because she's too scared to stay alone, that may just happen if the adults have things they need to do (like date night).

My SO was reluctant to ever get a sitter when he had SD. I mostly didn't ask him to except for the occasional event that fell on SD's time and couldn't be delayed until we were SD-less, like a friend's wedding or a Broadway show coming through town. People always talk about how if WE want to be with these men, we must make accommodations for them, but if THEY want to be with US, they should, too. They make these parenting plans before we come into the picture and rarely do they consider whether the plan works for US once we live with them. So I worked on convincing SO (thankfully, he took to it after not much struggle) that yeah, he's a dad, but he's also my PARTNER, and that means occasionally, I need him to accommodate me, too. There's a drop-in center a few miles away that's open nights and weekends and has a room full of technology for the older kids, so we bring her there occasionally. And you know what? She lives, and has fun.

Pick something--start slow if you must--like 1 date night per month, or 1 every other week. Explain to him how much more fulfilling it is to have a date night on the weekend when you haven't just gotten home from working all day and need to cook dinner and get to bed early. Find a way to communicate to him--through telling him or, if need be, making his life a wee difficult--that he can choose between shipping a kid off to do something fun for 2 hours and making his wife VERY happy or he can keep little princess close and expect problems in his relationship with you.

My SO decided it was important to show his kid what a good relationship looks like. Obviously he didn't have one with her mom, and her mom is single (we think), so he has an opportunity to model for her something she might not learn anywhere else. Taking his lady out for some alone time is sometimes part of that deal. Maybe your DH would also like his kid to see what a healthy, thriving, romantic relationship looks like--it's not healthy for her to think the kids are the center of the world (as a kid herself right now, and--possibly--as a future wife and mother--you bet she will want HER husband to take her out on the weekends sometime).

Just a question... There's been a lot of talk regarding SD's lack of chores. But.... what does DAD do around the house? Does he do any cleaning? Cooking? Laundry?

I understand your frustration OP, it's the same here. SO has every weekend. My 3 are here Sat night to Thurs after school. His are here Fri to Sun. We have kids every day without the benefits of being a nuclear family. Everything happens on weekends. Friends want to have dinner or grab a drink. If parents in a nuclear family wanted to get a a sitter and hit dinner and a movie on a sat night no one would judge. If we want to get a sitter for skids on a Sat night we suck because he only sees them on weekends. Can't win.

Usually the only time we don't have the weekend is for a major event, like a wedding. We have only Thurs nights free and most days SO gets home from work at 8. Not much opportunity for a "date night." Giving up every weekend for kids is hard. And I think BM giving up every weekend sucks honestly. We do homework here on weekends, help with homework over the phone during the week. She gets every fri and sat night to do whatever the heck adult stuff she wants kid free. Yes, it makes me angry. I won't apologize for that and you shouldn't either.

I feel your pain OP. We have skid every weekend. It is frustrating at times, and it's hard to say exactly why because he's a pretty good kid. In my situation, it's tough because skid lives an hour away from us. That means that every Friday evening revolves around picking him up, and every Sunday revolves around dropping him off (BM does absolutely NO transportation). Honestly I think that is where a lot of my resentment lies. DH is good about disciplining and making sure that weekends aren't like skid just visiting a hotel.

I also get frustrated because I don't understand why BM wouldn't want some weekend time with her child, especially now that he's in school (before he was in school, she had weekdays off and got her time in then).

In my perfect world, we would have week on/week off visitation. However, it won't work because as stated before, skid lives an hour away and is obviously not in the same school district.

No No, this will never do. You need your time too. If he can't take a weekend here and there off to treat you then treat yourself. Go out with friends, have a spa day. I would think he could at least compromise every other Friday being date night for yall and he could pick up SD on Sat. It's not very fair that you work all week then have to work all weekend on a job you never applied for.