I’m new here, very stressed and a bit fragile so please be nice. I’m not looking for criticism, just maybe someone who’s been in a similar situation to me to sound off to.
I have two children with my fiancé, a 2 year old and a 6 month old.
Four months ago my fiancé’s son (12) (my soon to be step son) came to live with us full time and no longer sees his mum. This was a massive shock as things have always been rocky with my step-son. (Heavily influenced by his mother who has a terrible relationship with my fiancé despite the fact they separated 10 years ago.) My fiancé and I have been together for 5 and during this time we’ve gone through massive periods where we haven’t seen step-son at all. During this time his step-son has degraded me, lied about me, abused and manipulated his father and yet still expects to run our house- holding the threat over his father that if something doesn’t go his way he’ll leave again for a long period of time.
And yes, I know he’s only 12, and he does have some real deep seated emotional and attachment issues but that doesn’t make everything we’ve been through any less stressful and upsetting.
The past few weeks we have been through a rough patch, he’s been speaking to his mum and at the same time starting to become emotional abusive to my fiancé again, spewing vile words to hurt him that no 12 year old should even have in their minds and acting as if his parents broke up last month.
I naturally refuse to put up with this and have made it very clear to my stepson it’s not acceptable.
Anyway; things finally started moving to a more positive place again when fiancé brought up that he was going on a trip for work for a week in a few months and I just lost it.
When fiancé is around to act as a buffer, step-son and I genuinley get on ok, but when he’s not things are a bit awkward. We are both civil and polite but don’t actively seek each other’s company. When he comes home from school he’ll say hello then go and play Xbox and that suits the two of us. (That and I have two infants to run around after.)
But the thought of spending a whole week like this is horrible, it’s too much pressure and I know stepson doesn’t want it either.
The biggest issue is my fiancé just doesn’t seem/want to accept that this is just the way things are, he continues to push this notion that we’ll be best of friends one day and one big happy family, but I don’t want that and I know step-son doesn’t either. We maybe aren’t in the greatest situation but we can live in it and it works.
He loves his son unconditionally, and rightly so, but I just wish he could even try to understand that due to circumstances this is just the way the things are and actually by trying to push this notion of everyone being one happy family on us he’s actually doing more damage to his son and to me.
And please I could really do without the ‘his child was there before you’ and the ‘you knew he had a child before you got together’ comments because you have no idea about the extent of the full situation and how bloody hard I have tried and everything I’ve sacrificed to try and make step-son a part of my family.
Just hoping there’s some step-parents out there who also find things really bloody hard sometimes and could lend an ear.
Thanks.
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Step-parenting
Fiancé expects too much of my relationship with step-son
15 replies
Callie29 · 29/01/2020 06:18
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