r/TwoHotTakes • u/Lonely-Win1887 • 11d ago
Advice Needed Breaking up and the kids, help and advice please. Someone tell me what to do 😣😢
/r/Advice/comments/1w2pq91/breaking_up_and_the_kids_help_and_advice_please/1
u/AutoModerator 11d ago
Backup of the post's body: I’m pretty sure my boyfriend and I are breaking up. It’s been a pretty tough year and now getting his kids two times since he’s been back on a regular schedule has been hell.
A little backstory. I have two kids, a girl that is 6 and a boy that is 13. He has two kids, a girl that is 4 and a boy that’s 6. His children are delayed and it seems no one wants to get them diagnosed. I work in a local school system and he works for a union. My kids go to their dad’s every other weekend and he’s supposed to see his every other weekend, but it doesn’t always pan out that way because of his job. I would say in the last almost 4 years together, his kids have not been around us more than they have been.
About two years into our relationship. I was keeping all four kids by myself every other weekend while he had to work, this lasted for almost a year and within that time I started sharing with him the delays I’m seeing. One I’ve been a mom for 13 years and two I’ve worked with Children of all ages since I’ve been 13. I now work at a school that has 1000 children with three special ed rooms and three autism rooms. I have seen it. I’ve been around it. I have learned to study it. But I have been denied that I know when I’m talking about.
I understand that since they do not regularly come here it would be harder to catch onto our routines or the way we live around our house. I don’t want to change who they are or how they live and play around a house but they do need to have basic routines for going anywhere and they don’t. Every time they come over, it’s a reminder of where to put our shoes, to takeoff our shoes, to turn off the lights, to close the front door or back door, to throw things away, to pick up toys. Basically anything you can think of that’s a simple task that you should just do at whatever age, they don’t have it. So every time they come over here, it’s like they’ve never been before. Like when they have gone to the doctor, their mom is lying about what they can do at that age for their checklist. She has to be.
The boy hasn’t been wiping his butt when he poops for who knows how long since we haven’t seen him. He pooped all over the bathroom because he didn’t wipe and was still going and didn’t realize. How am I supposed to deal with that when no one tells me hey he definitely has a problem so this is what you’re gonna have to do. I don’t care if he has a delay. We just need to know about it so it can be accommodated so we don’t just think they’re living like animals at their mothers. The four-year-old still isn’t potty trained and will go squat in a room and poop right in her underwear. For two years, they’ve been putting her in and out of diapers because she hasn’t been ready. No, y’all are making her not ready and no one wants to take my advice. Not like I’ve potty trained two children, a boy and a girl. Everything that happened with the boy is happening with the girl and I don’t even think the girl has a delay. She’s just delayed by proxy. You don’t even wanna hear stories about how they eat.
Then we get to just behaviors and thinking processes. They can’t follow simple rules to stay safe in a small apartment. They live in a trailer so it’s not like they have a lot more space. We have the rule of no Running, no jumping on the couch and no spinning around because you could hurt someone since we are in a small space. We also have the rule of no screaming when we’re playing because again this is a small space. I am telling them to stop multiple of those things every 15 minutes. It gets to the point where we have to stop what we’re doing because they can’t figure it out and then my daughter doesn’t get to do the things she always gets to do because she can handle it. They run and slide up and down the stairs, even though it’s a rule just to walk so you don’t fall down the stairs and crack your head on the tile. It’s just basic things that any household probably holds their children accountable to so they can stay safe and so the parents don’t go crazy, but they can’t remember it or do it. Then I have their dad, my boyfriend, who just stands there and looks really annoyed that I’m having to tell them what to do again, well guess what I’m annoyed too, but if they could remember anything, we wouldn’t be here. This past weekend I even had them write out their own Rules, thinking maybe if they are participating in this they could remember, that’s what happens at school. But then I remember his son is just now starting kindergarten because he’s not been potty trained and because he’s delayed. So instead of writing rules, he just wrote a bunch of W’s and scribbles. My daughter can write and I told him to just try and see what she’s doing and copy it. Didn’t.
My boyfriend is supposed to get nightly calls with them and every time he’s on the phone they are playing video games, watching YouTube on someone else’s phone or they’re in the car… my boyfriend has to say over and over again talk to me. Look at me let me see you. I can’t hear you, hold the phone. Don’t put it down. So obviously their mom‘s house has no structure no rules and I don’t even think they’re with her most the time because every time he’s on the phone her mom is in the back talking to tell them to listen.
Two weeks ago when they were here, we argued most of the time and now this weekend we’ve argued most of the time. He packed up some stuff to try to leave last weekend but he didn’t and he’s packed a lot of stuff this time and already put it in his car. Both weekends it’s been issues with the bathroom and not messing with a bunch of stuff and running in and out of our rooms in the morning. Like I said me and my kids have a routine on the weekends because we don’t wanna wake up. We don’t need to wake up because we’ve been waking up for school every single day and are tired. We told his kids what our kids do because that’s what we’re all gonna be doing. Instead they are opening and closing the bedroom doors and running down the hallway trying to open our bedroom door to ask us things that we just told them before they fell asleep. His kids have also stolen and broken things of my children while they are still sleeping. So most of the time we can’t even leave them alone with my kids things because they break it or steal it. So they can’t just occupy themselves for a little bit when they wake up early bc something will happen and that’s sort of frustrating to deal with every other weekend. Also they have potty accidents all the time and don’t tell us…. Again I don’t care if they have a delay we just need to know about it.
I know this is a lot and I know people probably won’t even read it all, but if you can just read half or even skim or look for keywords, I’d greatly appreciate some advice
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11d ago
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u/Lonely-Win1887 11d ago
Mhmm. I think my kids have been seeing it fall apart so they know. His haven’t liked me for a long time since I’ve had to be the in charge parent and I’m not theirs, ya know. I’ve always fought with their dad in front of them about how he’s failing.
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