To the women with step children and who have to deal with complicated baby mamas. How do you deal? We have a 2 year old together but My husband has a 10 year old son from a another women and they have a court set agreement/schedule that she is to have him during the week and he (my husband) gets him two weekends out of the month so because of that, he is to pay her child support 100$ a week. She often complains about having to take care of him and says how she cannot make sure that he gets to bed on time and has been letting him stay up all night playing video games and eating junk (even on school nights) so when he comes here on his weekends he displays the same behavior and does whatever he wants even after I told his father that this cannot be acceptable in our house that we need to have rules. My husband takes it as “you have a problem with my son” and pitches a fight with me every single time he is here. So while this has been consistently going on now recently I guess he spoke to his sons mom about keeping his son for a week at a time now, and I will make it clear the same that I made it clear to him that I think that is amazing for him to get so much time with his son but I also said that he needs to let the courts know so they can make her start paying child support to him. I think that is only right? When I told my husband this he once again pitched a fight about it and said I just have a problem with his son and I told him that he can flip it however he wants but if we are a team then he needs to make sure that his sons mom won’t be getting over on us by still receiving payments when we are taking care of him. This has became a serious argument every time it’s brought up almost like my opinion doesn’t matter and that I better not say anything or he will belittle me as much as he can in front of his son and call me names and tell me to shut the f*** up about it”. This has been really hard. What would you do?
Wow, this is obviously very stressful for you. While I agree that there should be rules in your home for your stepson, they have to be agreed to by both you and your husband and you need to develop those rules together… they can’t just be statements from you. Ask your husband what he thinks is appropriate and negotiate. I’d also suggest you lay off on the issue of child support, and instead be grateful that your husband will get to spend more time with his son and that you’re only paying $100/wk in support. I have 3 children and had ¾ physical custody and paid more than that for each one. Lastly, don’t make this such an issue that your husband has to choose between you and his son, you may not like the result. I will also say that I can understand your husbands feelings, from the way you wrote this, it comes across that you have a problem with his son and that you and your husband do not have good communication skills in your relationship. Couples counseling would benefit you both and your relationship with your step-son. Just something to consider.