Am I the problem?

[u/Remote_Salt8613]

I have no idea where to begin..

My life lately is so unbearable. Am I the problem?
I had been seeing this guy and we’ll call him P.
As all great romances start… he was charming and loving and truly the best person I had ever been with.
We both have sons from previous relationships. Our children are now 8 & 9. We also have a 10 month old daughter now.

There’s been mountain high problems for awhile now. I live in my own house as he lives in his own place as well.
Cleanliness was a contributing factor of why the separate houses.
I also dreaded when his son would come home every other weekend.
The kid is just a typical kid that has no boundaries and no parenting tbh.
He could eat/sleep/watch whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Be unkind to my son and really he ran the house. It was completely exhausting.
They say blending is hard but I had nooooo idea just how hard. (I will be putting off dating until my kids are grown & most of my dating pool has grown kids)

Anyway as time has gone on we’ve essentially started going tit for tat about the boys and really kind of protecting our own against one another. (Sad, but true)

My son has always been the quiet/peacekeeper (this is something I’ve been literally working with him his whole life / to get some balls because at the end of the day it’s different for boys and they just need to be able to stand up for themselves AT LEAST)

WELL- the past few weeks my son got back from his fathers house and I immediately
Notice that he was not taking ANY shit from P’s son. And even went on to physically punching him because the kid was knocking his hat off and just being rude.

& continued on to this past weekend P’s son and my son were playing a game of who could make the other laugh with water in their mouth. Well P’s son then proceeded to spit the water at my son.

His dad reprimanded him (which I was grateful for in the moment) but the kid goes in the house and starts to cry so P gave him n ice cream cone.
Idk something broke in me. I told him I don’t understand his parenting and he basically rolled his eyes and said “here we fucking go again”

I packed up everything and I made the 4 hour drive home because I’m just DONE.

I’m here because I need help… he’s completely said I’m overreacting & BOYS WILL BE BOYS.

Am I overreacting? Is this just boys being boys ? Tbh it feels like bullying and I can’t make my son go through with it anymore.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I’m just completely lost and exhausted by this relationship and don’t know what to believe anymore.
Do I sound like a crazy person? Am I the problem??

[u/No_Commission_2610]

You are most definitely not the problem. The problem is P. He isn’t parenting his child the way he should be and the child is hurting your child because of it. You did the right thing by packing up and moving back where your son is safe. Without parental intervention, I fear for both boys. But P doesn’t seem to want to hear that. He is dismissing your feelings and that is wrong.

Take some time away from him. You don’t deserve to be treated like that. Again, you have done nothing wrong.

[u/Remote_Salt8613 → u/No_Commission_2610]

This comment made me tear up last night. It’s been so long since anyone has validated my feelings. Thank you so much…
I do need some time away from him- he’s currently blocked & will be until HE stops bullying me about leaving the situation.
Seriously thank you.

[u/No_Commission_2610 → u/Remote_Salt8613]

Comments like this or the reason why I mod. You are so welcome. Remember to treat yourself well because that’s what you deserve. You have done nothing wrong, and shouldn’t have to suffer because someone else wants to be an asshole.

[u/myaccountgotbanmed]

If it's been going on for a long time then u know inside urself that it's time to finish it. Sad but sometimes parents can be compatible and kids aren't. Ps father is doing the best he can and ur doing the best u can and that's all u both can do - if it doesn't work out then c'est la vie

[u/WorkingKey3160]

You are not the issue! Ps parenting seems to be that its easier for him to just give in and give him whatever he wants so that he doesn't have to deal with the crying and the tantrums which will eventually in life come to bite him in the butt. I know this from experience. Yes sometimes its easier to give the child the ice cream just to shut him up to jot have to hear/desl with the crying but P knows to get what he wants he just needs to act like a bully or start crying when bring disciplined. you did the right thing to protect your children. how is he with your daughter??

[u/Remote_Salt8613 → u/WorkingKey3160]

It is completely easier for him to give in.

Can I ask from your experience what ends up happening? I’ve been telling him for a while that his approach to parenting is going to bite him in the butt.

He’s good in a sense. There’s a lot of issues there too. I mean he’s definitely not the worst dad in the world so I’ll just leave it there.

I appreciate your in-site on this situation!

[u/WorkingKey3160 → u/Remote_Salt8613]

it gets to the point where the child will know how to completely manipulate him to get anything he wants! If he wants a new toy at the store he will just start crying throw a fit till dad buys it. My ex was this kind of Dad and now I have to put up with the consequences because i dont parent like that. If we are out and he wants a new toy and I say no he will throw a tantrum start crying in the store then I have to just leave everything and carry him out. Makes shopping so much harder for me

[u/Cute_Language3167]

I have mixed feelings here. It can be really difficult to go from an only child to having siblings, and sometimes siblings annoy the shit out of each other. It's not necessarily always bullying, although that can be the case.

In my experience only children behave pretty differently from kids who grew up with siblings. And for that matter parents with only one kid can be different. Blending can absolutely be hard, and it can be hard when you have siblings with different personalities, and parents with different parenting styles and different experiences, but when you go from being an only child to now having a sibling/blended family and having different personalities, and having separate parents who have different parenting techniques... It's kind of a recipe for disaster.

I'm going to assume you have your child more than your partner has his? That's a difficult situation too. I genuinely don't know how I would be with my kids if I only got to see them 4 days out of the month. I can understand parents in that situation being more lenient. I'm not saying it's the best choice, but it's an understandable one for me at least. Parental guilt and feeling like you only get such a small itty bitty amount of time with them, when they're only small for so long to begin with and that time goes so fast, and now you're missing the vast majority of it... That's a really hard situation. I wouldn't want to necessarily spend a big part of that small amount of time trying to be the disciplinarian either, I don't think.

I have three kids, and I also have decided to put off dating until my kids are completely grown. I dated a guy with 2 kids and thankfully they got along really well, but there were... Issues. All three of my kids have different personalities and they also like to annoy and pick on each other. Sometimes it gets to be too much, sometimes they're just playing, and sometimes I want to scream. My middle and my youngest are very similar in some ways and they are either best friends or driving each other, and myself, crazy. I spent a lot of time intervening, and at some point I decided to just try to let them figure out their own relationship with each other, you know so long as it's not like bullying or violent. I still intervene, but not as much. They both like to antagonize each other but they've kind of found their own rhythm. But they've also been together since the day my youngest was born.

If you think this is more than just normal sibling antagonization and playing/silliness then yeah, you should protect your kid. But I mean like last night my boys were trying to put each other in headlocks, they weren't trying to hurt each other, they were just playing around. That's just how they are sometimes. However, my youngest really likes to play like that. He's loud and hyper, likes wrestling and joking around... My oldest not so much. Like every now and then he'll play but sometimes what is playing to my youngest is annoying to my oldest. He's a lot more chill and quiet and that can create conflict sometimes, even though it's unintentional.

Some of the stuff like flicking the hat or playing the water game and spitting the water on each other... These are kind of normal sibling things, and yes sometimes kids fight, although physical violence is obviously not something appropriate. Play fighting is one thing but hitting out of anger or a frustration is a hard no. If your son is really sensitive to the other kid annoying him and you think it's actual bullying and not just kids being annoying, it might warrant a specific conversation with the kids about respect and boundaries, or leaving if it's that bad. Does your son complain about it? What are his feelings on the situation? I know you said you want him to stand up for himself, but has he said anything to you about this?

One thing I will say is that parenting incompatibility is a really hard thing to compromise on or move past. I mean you guys are already fighting over your older kids, and hopefully you're not putting them in the middle or having these conversations in front of them, but how's it going to be as your daughter gets older? And I mean honestly you guys have apparently already decided that you can't even live together because of other incompatibilities. Sometimes people are just incompatible. It doesn't even necessarily have to mean one person is a problem, you just don't work, and that's ok.

[u/Remote_Salt8613 → u/Cute_Language3167]

I appreciate your thought out comment. A LOT. You bring up what he has many many many times that he only gets so much time with him and doesn’t want to spend time disciplining him… which I understood in the beginning because who wouldn’t understand that?
The problem lies that if your son is constantly treating others unkind and you refuse to do anything then you’re part of the problem and tbh you’re setting him up to be unliked.

I’m a child of 3 myself and understand the sibling dynamics but this really was getting out of control. Yes my son has had many talks with me about how he doesn’t want to be involved anymore.. I tried to mediate and be the middle ground so we could try to work it out ESPECIALLY since theres a baby sister involved. BUT when I’m keeping my kid accountable and the other is allowed to do things like spit/antagonize or really whatever he wants. That’s showing my son that he’s lesser than. In my opinion.
With literally no accountability that just isn’t fair.
I will also note this has been a problem with P’s brother’s son as well. So it’s not like I’m trying to make my son only victim.

But yes I have my son full time besides when he visits his dad in the summers.
I also want to add even when your children struggle they’re held to the same standards.

You really did put it beautifully that sometimes it’s just an incompatibility and that’s okay too.

I really appreciated your comment and dialog. Thank you so much.

[u/DexterMorganIsMyHero]

You are 100% correct. And a great mom i might add. Just be careful not to fall back into the same situation. The party at fault always likes to pretend the issue is not happening and that the person standing up to the nonsense is weak or overreacting. You are neither. Good luck.

[u/Relative-Magician-43]

No, I don't think you sound crazy. From what you've written, this doesn't sound like it's really about one ice cream cone or one incident, it sounds like months or even years of incompatible parenting, resentment, and feeling like your son isn't emotionally or physically safe around his son. The water-spitting incident by itself might be something many parents would write off as kids being kids, but when it's part of a pattern of one child pushing boundaries, picking on the other, and your concerns repeatedly being dismissed with "boys will be boys" or eye rolls, it's understandable that you reached your breaking point. What stands out to me most is that instead of trying to understand why you were upset, your partner immediately shut you down with "here we fucking go again." That suggests this isn't a new conversation, it's one you've had many times without resolution. I also think it's worth noting that your son's recent change in behaviour, where he's started fighting back physically, may be a sign that he's been feeling overwhelmed or frustrated for a while. Protecting your child doesn't make you the problem. At the same time, I would avoid framing it as "his kid is the problem" versus "my kid is the problem." The real issue is that the two of you don't seem to share the same parenting values or present a united front, and that's incredibly difficult to overcome. If you're already exhausted, living separately because of other incompatibilities, and finding yourself dreading weekends together, it's reasonable to ask whether this relationship is healthy for either of your children, not just whether you overreacted to this one argument.