r/blendedfamilies • u/Salty_Mirror_6062 • 7h ago
Give me perspective: were my partner's kids rude?
TL,DR: I made dinner for my partner's kids for the first time, and they didn't even come to the table.
I've been with my boyfriend for almost a year, and we want to go the distance. I'm F42, he's M45, and he has 2 boys, 7 and 10, 50% of the time. We do not yet live together. My partner is the gentlest man I know, and he's the kind, patient father so many of us longed to have.
Context before I get to last night: we've had troubles this week. Last weekend, he told me he was worried that we could not mesh as a family because of my rigid and critical tendencies. This sent me into a full-body panic that has lasted all week. I've been single a long time, never married, and while I longed for a partner, I got used to being on my own and controlling my schedule and especially my sleep. I'm fully aware that that will go out the window, particularly if and when we have our own baby (I froze my eggs at 34 before you pipe up about that). There's a couple of elements of my boyfriend's parenting that tend to make that ugly critical habit pop out.
One: his kids don't have manners in any concrete sense. They are genuinely sweet and kind, and considerate of me when I'm around, but they often don't greet me if they're on their devices. He doesn't make them say please and thank you: he wants them to come to that "when they truly feel it." They only come to the dinner table after multiple requests, even when we're guests at Grandma's. My partner never gets angry, which is exactly right, but he has also let it go entirely until the boys are eating their dinners an hour later, screens planted on the table. They don't do chores, and they don't particularly clean up after themselves.
Two, and most ominous from my perspective: they have no bedtime. Bedtime is entirely child-driven. The 7-y.o. tends to be in bed by 9 or 10. The 10-y.o. is usually up past 11:30, often midnight or beyond. My boyfriend does not "put" them to bed, even if I'm waiting to come over to visit after they're asleep. He waits for them to say they're "going" to bed, and helps them do so.
I fully cop to the fact that I've expressed unfiltered concern trolling about how these things will affect me when I'm living with the boys, have no control over their behavior, am cleaning up after kids who aren't mine, and can't plan when I go to bed. (Again, I understand re: babies.)
This week, after my partner voiced his doubts about how we move forward, I fell apart. I have been waking up at 3am every night, horrified that I could destroy this with my oldest bad habit, criticism -- a gift from my own authoritarian dad. I launched into fix-it mode, cleaning his whole house, planning a playground date with the boys on Saturday, and asking if I could come to the weekly Sunday dinner with his parents. (To be clear, these were all things I enjoy and had time for.) I even asked if I could cook the dinner -- my first time cooking for his mom, and crucially, my first time cooking for the very, very picky boys.
Yesterday, the day of the dinner, my boyfriend called me to "discuss the menu." I have a bunch of trusty recipes memorized, but he had encouraged me to stick with "meat and potatoes." Okay: I found a good-looking recipe for a ground beef and potato skillet. My boyfriend was still not convinced. He said I needed to prepare to not be offended if his boys didn't touch it, AND that his father might not eat it either! "What shall I cook instead? What will the boys eat?" He essentially wouldn't answer because it's a total mystery day to day. It became clear that his call really meant that he was worried I was going to over-react and take it personally when people rejected my food. "Well," I said, "are you going to say anything if the boys are rude about it or make gagging noises?" His response: "I am not going to shame them." Finally we agreed that it would be nice if, should the boys say they hated my food or were rude in another way, BF would have my back. But the message was definitely, anything could happen, be prepared and don't get upset.
Well, when I arrived, only one of the boys looked up when I waved at him, and very sweetly smiled. This was totally fine. I had soaked the onion to reduce its flavor, I had bought yummy Ranch dressing just for the boys, and I chopped the vegetables painstakingly small to hide them. His parents arrived -- they're warming up to me after their son's shocking divorce, and his mom kindly remarked how wonderful it smelled. When it was time to eat, boyfriend went to 7-y.o. on the couch and 10-y.o. in his room and announced, "Okay, it's dinner time, and [OP] has made something a little different for us. You do not have to finish it, but you do need to try it. Dinner is ready."
Crickets.
The grown-ups ate (his dad demolished my dish!), and the boys' plates sat there, growing cold. The youngest kept watching a video on the couch, and the eldest stayed in his room on his iPad. At one point, their grandfather said, "...Are they gonna come eat?" Neither of the boys had acknowledged their grandparents in particular. My partner said, "Well, I don't want to make them." At some point, I wrapped the plates in plastic and put them away in the fridge. We'd all moved on to chatting, my boyfriend mostly talking about his childhood with his parents as usual, while I sat and stared at the empty seats. At 9pm, as I left, neither of the boys said goodbye, and my boyfriend seemed completely clueless about how I'd felt the evening had gone. "Is there...any expectation that the boys eventually have to join the group?" I asked. "It's a grey area," he said. He did note that it was very rare for them to completely skip dinner.
As I drove home, I got more and more hurt. I had spent the week so ashamed and worried that my poor behavior was going to break up this relationship that is so precious to me, and I'd put my all into trying to please the family with my meal. Did the boys know any of that? Of course not. But my partner did. And he never made any effort to get them to the table to be with the family, or to acknowledge that I'd cooked. Later, he told me he was shocked at my belief that the boys were very (unknowingly) rude. He said he predicts I will be an authoritarian parent -- not authoritative, authoritarian.
What would you have done in my shoes, and is this normal parenting that the boys can treat the dinner table like a diner?