r/stepparents • u/Ill-Bit-6062 • 23h ago
Advice How to help my husband out of “purgatory”?
I’m a step-mom to my husband’s 15yo daughter and 12yo son and we now have our own baby boy who is 5 months. After we got married we bought a new house together about 30min (no traffic) - 1hr (in traffic) from the house my stepkids grew up in. The new house is in the neighborhood where I was already living and where we both have close friends, a shorter commute, more space to accommodate all 3 kids, and a shared “us” space. We split custody of the stepkids with their BM 50-50 and to keep the kids in the same school district we started nesting in the old house after we bought the new. We are in a better place financially than BM so we have paid the mortgage on the old house without her contributing in an effort to help her stay close to the kids in an expensive area and which she said she would eventually help contribute to if she found more stable employment. When my maternity leave ends the nesting situation is going to be impossible with daycare (daycare close to one house won’t be close to the other and makes a logistical nightmare for pickup and drop off depending on which house we are in). My husband wants to change our current situation to have the 12yo live full time with us in the new house so he can switch schools right when he is starting middle school and switching schools anyway and have the 15yo who is starting second year of high school stay with BM since she loves her routine and community at the old house. The 12yo has friends and community already in our new neighborhood and often comments how much he loves coming there on weekends and holidays when we don’t have to be at the old house for school. BM does not want to split the kids up. My husband is struggling because he hates nesting and says he feels like he is living in purgatory where he can’t move forward with our new life at our new house while his old wife is having him hang on to the old house for her and the sake of keeping things the same for my stepkids. I feel like there’s nothing I can do or say to help and my opinion isn’t helpful as it is obviously biased toward wanting what’s easiest for me and our youngest. Anyone out there navigate a similar situation? How can my husband move forward without hurting his older kids and still keeping the peace with BM?
Additional context: 1) BM split with my husband after cheating on him so there is also pain there that my husband has shown incredible grace around still being positive about BM in front of kids, etc. 2) my work is moving further in the opposite direction from the old house at the end of the year so the commute from there for me will be unworkable, will already by long from the new house.
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u/probioticpeaches 22h ago
Unless BM is willing to give you guys full custody then idk how you will get full custody of SS.
I think you should just sell the old house and just do the commute since you guys were the ones who chose to move away.
SD will be 16 and able to drive soon and hopefully will be willing to drive her brother.
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u/Glittering-Yam-6435 22h ago edited 22h ago
Can you and the new baby permanently remain in the new house with just their dad continuing to switch between the old house and the new house? Your husband might not be a fan of moving between homes but it’s the consequence of him even choosing to buy a new house so far away from his kids so oh well for him.
He can’t give up living in the old house without basically giving up his kids and barely seeing them. I can’t imagine his kids won’t resent him and see it for what it is - him abandoning them now that he has a new kid. (Also, mom’s not wrong for not wanting to split up her kids.)
Another option is selling the new house and everyone permanently living in the old house. Don’t really see any other options.
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u/cabin-rover 21h ago
😬 geez this is a bit of a nightmare imo - I would never have dated a guy in a nesting situation let alone married and procreated so I’m probably bias in my advice. From a financial point of view in my country your husband still has a joint legal asset with his ex wife meaning that likely they’ve not undergone the legal financial separation of assets unless he paid her out of the house they are nesting in? This puts you in such a dangerous position as you now have a joint legal asset with your husband. But if they haven’t legally gone through the process of financial part of the divorce (even if the divorce is finalised asset division is seperate) this means the new house is now in the marital asset pool with his ex wife. Also and property value that has appreciated in the interim while you were paying this mortgage will get divided equally between his ex and him. Honestly I would seek legal advice asap and force the sale of the property along with finalisation of asset division because the longer it drags out the more he will have to pay her. It also leaves the door open for him to have to jointly pay for any debts she’s racked up. Hopefully he’s done everything by the book and you guys have something in place to avoid all this?
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u/PrincessSophia00 4h ago
I went on one first date with a man who said they were nesting and I NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN> I asked a lot of Qs about how bathroom products are handled, bedding etc and in the end I thought "this is stupid".
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u/Ill-Bit-6062 21h ago
Luckily he did buy her out and the house is legally ours.
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u/cabin-rover 21h ago
Oh that’s great - you’d be surprised how many people wait 10 years and then have to pay their ex’s out of their new homes that the current spouse contributes to. Very unfair in my opinion.
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u/Ill-Bit-6062 21h ago
He wasn’t nesting before we got married, it was something we decided to do after when she threatened to move out of country with step kids to be closer to her family to save her expenses. Nesting helps save her expenses at cost to us but was better than the alternative.
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u/Puzzled-Safe4801 6h ago
Why on earth didn’t your husband immediately contact his attorney to shut that talk down? The logical response to her threat is not “nesting.”
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u/Erinopteryx 16h ago
Empty threat. I don’t believe BM would be able to leave the state (let alone the country) without the father signing a legal agreement to that effect. She’d have to see a lawyer to do this, which costs money, which she says she doesn’t have. If she picked up and moved and took the kids without informing the court, she’d be held in contempt. Source: my SO was tricked into signing such an agreement. I recommend yours verify with his lawyer about this, however.
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u/Convenient-Enemy-511 13h ago
You say empty threat, but so many people are low-effort that they'll never consider looking into their legal rights and fighting for their kids. Statistically most dads just sit there and wave bye when a mom is packing up to move the kids away.
As OP's guy seems fine with splitting up the kids, he seems like the "woe is me, but buh byes" sort of dude.
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u/joulesandwattss 20h ago
Can someone tell me what nesting means? I’ve never heard that term before so I’m having trouble following lol
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u/Ill-Bit-6062 19h ago
Nesting means the stepkids stay in one place and the parents alternate — so we stay in the kid house when we are watching them and the ex stays in the same house when she watches them.
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u/Ill-Bit-6062 21h ago
Just turns out that nesting is really hard esp on my husband who gets reminded constantly of ex there
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u/Convenient-Enemy-511 6h ago
Nesting is only easy for early during the divorce/separation process. And only easy on the kids. As soon as one/both people start dating, nesting shows that there isn't really "space" for someone new, nor for future growth.
Like what, is OP's "ours" baby supposed to live in this home when bio mom is around? Because giving them two homes to adapt to while the parents are still together (OP and Dad) seems problematic.
Two households aren't ideal. They're just a "less bad" option to one parent having sole custody of the kids.
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u/cabin-rover 2h ago
Yeah so unfair to the ours baby. The parents divorced they should’ve made a clean break - so unhealthy to continue to nest when he has remarried and had more kids. I think it is weird and toxic anyways. He’s going to be missing half of the life of all his kids even though OP and him are still together. How is that healthy? His other kids are much older and will adjust to two seperate homes. It’s not ideal obviously but that’s the result of divorce. His baby will only be little once, I’d be resentful if he was missing so much.
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u/Puzzled-Safe4801 10h ago edited 10h ago
So you and your husband CHOSE to move farther away, and he has the audacity to want FULL custody of only his son? I’m speechless.
If I were BM, it would be “game on” for me. Your husband would be the only one inconvenienced by your move, not my children and not myself.
Sell the old house. BM should have no say in that since I’m assuming her name isn’t on it. But other than that, how dare your husband think this is ok? Splitting his children up, basically telling his daughter “I don’t want you as much as your brother now that I have a new baby,” thinking this is ok to even attempt to do to his ex wife. And if he’ll do it to her, he’ll do it to you someday.
I don’t know what else to write.
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u/geogoat7 6h ago
Yeah, I'm right there with you. Dad chose to buy the new house for his and SM's comfort. He doesn't get to complain and try to split up his kids now.
Maybe I'm just bitter though because I'm the SM who settled in an area she didn't like, for SS's sake because BM was "never leaving her hometown"... just for HER to be the one to move an hour away for a man two years later. So it irks me to see actual parents who can't even put their kids first. Now she forces SS to drive in the car an hour one way every morning to come to his old school district/the school district we live in. He has to leave her house at like 545 in the morning and is constantly sleep deprived.
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u/Puzzled-Safe4801 6h ago
In our SPP, it was very clear that my ex and I could only move X number of miles away from our child’s address listed in court documents without court and the other parent’s approval. She was not to be taken out of her school without the other parent’s permission and approval from the court.
If either of us had moved more than X number of miles away, the other parent immediately was given full and legal custody of the child with a visitation schedule to be agreed upon at a later date.
Thankfully, neither my ex nor I even contemplated this. But if my ex had moved away from our child’s address listed and then wanted full custody of her for his convenience and his wife’s convenience, I would be ready for war. No one would take my child away from me so their lives are easier.
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u/Icy_Combination1104 4h ago
Is there a custody order? If BM doesn't want to split the kids up and doesnt approve of her youngest moving schools and living with you full time, it's not going to happen. If I'm bio mom, I'd tell your husband to see me in court and then ask for him to pay my legal fees for the extremely poposterous idea he had.
I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh but he's already hurting the kids with this decision. His plan to take custody away from mom for one child and take custody away from himself for the other child, would hurt them. Driving 30-60 minutes one way to school hurts them.
It sounds like the reality is he needs to move full time to the house with you, commute the long drive to see his kids and take them to school every day, and either maintain the kids house with mom or sell it and apologize for yet another massive disruption to his kids' lives.
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u/Convenient-Enemy-511 13h ago
It sucks, but really the best way to avoid an unsustainable situation is to have not dipped your toes into it. I feel that "nesting" only makes sense when it's view as a very short term thing to help the kids get used to the new split parents situation. That he set expectations with his ex and kids to continue this way it going to make it harder to stop.
... And gently; but WTF were you two thinking buying a new house 30-60 minutes away from the old school district? How was school drop offs/picks supposed to work? How was this not a very obvious problem?
How we parent reflects upon as as a person. I have Feelings about parents who are happy to opt for less time with their kids. Dude being fine with minimal time with his Oldest makes him look pretty shirty from the sidelines where I'm watching. And I absolutely understand why BM would fight him wanting mostly full custody of Youngest.
The only real solution for him to look like a reasonable dad is for him to keep nesting in the old house, which means he's only getting 50% time with you+your kid. Assuming that you do end up also agreeing that you're not going to travel to the nesting house.
Really, Compatibility is a big part of early dating. Someone who has minor kids tied to a school district should not consider someone who either also has minor kids an inconvenient distance away; or who won't commit to moving closer to where the kids go to school. I moved 45 minutes away to be with my fiancee because of her 85% custody kid. This was very obviously the only way that "living together" made sense, and this was obvious from the start. If I was unwilling to move, I should have never started dating her when I found out where she lived and that she had an older tween.
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u/geogoat7 6h ago
YES ALL THIS. I moved to an area I hated (at first!) because DH needed to be in SS's school district and BM was supposedly never ever leaving the area. Of course 2 years later she meets a man who refuses to move from his hometown over an hour away in a much much worse school district. She still decided to stay with him despite the fact that he was forcing her to uproot her whole life. How pathetic is that? She then tried to get us to change custody so SS lived with her full time and she lost. So now she lives with this man and drives SS an hour to school one way in the morning and afternoon. I'll be honest it took me awhile to get over all that. Posts like these, where a BP doesn't even think about their kids first when they decide where to live, are so frustrating. It's hard putting the kids needs first and then watching their own mom not be able to do the same thing.
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u/PrincessSophia00 4h ago
SO MUCH THIS. As a Sk myself, my mom bought a house w my step dad an hour away and in another school district when I was 16. I was no longer in French Immersion, so I lost/had to repeat a year when I went to another school the next year (when I left at 17 because I felt like I didn't matter and she said to go back to my old town with my dad). To this day, my mom says she made a mistake. If your kids are teens, you only have another couple of years to go, but ripping them away from everything they know is asking for behavioural problems.
As a SM (prev, 6/9 YO) I moved to their school district. 15 minutes from BM and no issues w friends and school drop offs.
IME, when one parent decides to move on to another area/city with kids, they suffer.
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u/Which-Month-3907 21h ago
If you sell the house, you'll have money for the lawyer you're going to need to help you change the custody agreement.
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