What is wrong? Getting frusterated.....

Avatar for kraftymamma
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2003
What is wrong? Getting frusterated.....
2
Wed, 07-14-2004 - 8:17pm
I have been living with my boyfriend for 6 months now. I am 24 and he is 35. I have two daughters ages 4 and 2. He has two sons ages 6 and 4. My girls live with us but go to their fathers on the weekends. His boys usually come for one day a week for about 8 hours. I work 3 nights a week part time. He works ALL the time. I am serious, he has FOUR jobs. He has one full time job and he has 3 part time jobs. Of the part time jobs, one is only one day a week, one is about 2 days a week sometimes 3, and the other one is usually 3-4 days a week. Sometimes he will work 16 hours straight and today he has to work 26 hours straight between 3 of the jobs. I get frusterated becasue he is hardly ever here but some other stuff bothers me more. He gets fed up with my daughters so easily and it causes us to argue. My 4 yr old has what I would call an "attitude", "snotty mouth", etc. She talks back and sometimes thinks she is a boss, she don't take no for an answer and will keep asking the same question for something over and over again. This gets on my nerves and I do my best to correct her but this drives him insane. I honestly think she acts worse when he is home and somtimes he will do little things like look at her weird to tick her off just to irritate her. He works his full time job as a juvenile corrections officer so of course he really is rough on me about her. He says he is tired of her "running" me over and he sees kids everyday at work that their parents let then run them over and he thinks she will be like this when she is a teenager too. I just get so frusterated because I always feel in the middle and I have been trying so hard to be tough on my kids. Now, he has no problem with my 2 year old, I almost think he favors her. And when she does something wrong he says its my 4 yr old fault cause the 2 yr old will do what she does and learns from her. He always says how his boys listen to him and how they wouldnt get away with 1/2 the stuff my kids get away with on me. But he only has his kids for 8 hours a week, of course they can listen for those 8 hours. Their mother and stepfather say they are bad at home but he says they are good for us becasue they know the rules at our house and know they cant get away with stuff and that my kids should automatically know that they HAVE to behave at our house or else. I can understand that he gets frusterated cause if it was the other way around I would be fed up with his kids too. But I also think I would start getting pushed away from him if I was so fed up with his kids. And, I worry about him feeling less for me because of this. I try so hard and I feel like he still critizises me instead of telling me I am doing a good job trying. Then of course everytime we get into an arguement about anything else he always says comments about how my kids cause all the stress in the house and thats only why he gets stressed out. Also, he gets jealous of me because I have my children and he wishes that he could have his children so I think he despises me because of that. He wont go for shared parenting until we get married because he dont want to push his kids on me when he is working until we are married and I am officially their stepmom. But with the ways things are going I dont even know if I want to get married for a looong time!!!!! I just think he goes kinda overboard somtimes and I feel stuck in the middle all the time. I can't stand it anymore but I really love him and I do want to be his wife someday. Sometimes I just feel that if neither of us had children it would be so perfect. I get depressed and I cry and then he blames me for my daughter fake crying all the time cause of course, she learns from me. Any advice???
Avatar for kraftymamma
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2003
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 4:30pm
Anyone?
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-03-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 6:58pm
I'm not really to sure what to tell you I know that in my last relationship my ex had a 4 year old son and she would let him get away with any thing the only time she would do any thing is when I got extremely pissed at her then she would acctually tell him no and mean it but it would only last for a couple hours to days then it was back to same thing. I can't really say to much about you situation since I don't know how much you are willing to let your child get away with. but I can tell it does put a huge strain on your relationship, and very well could end it. I do have to agree with your b/f, if she's walking all over now it's only going to get worse. it's not just phase that she'll grow out of. please don't get me wrong I'm not saying your a bad mom it's not like kid's come with instruction manuals, but if you your self admit that you would feel the same way he does mabey you could try and talk to your parents or any other parents to give you some tips.

I wish I could be more help.

best of Luck

Opsicle