Just want bio mum to step up

so they have one child each? so essentially doing 50% of the work each?

i dont get it? do you resent SS because he lives with you and his father?

@mumsthewordi

I think everyone who has read your posts properly can see that you are a caring step-mum, but I think you have to accept that your stepson is not going back to his mum.

With that in mind, what would improve the situation? A cleaner, so you spend less time on housework? DH putting aside time to spend with DD? The GP babysitting both kids so you & DH can go out together regularly? Or just more appreciation from DH that you are constantly going above & beyond for your family?

Have a good think about what you want & then talk to DH. 💐

Am confused over the number of children. Do you have 2 daughters with your partner @mumsthewordi and there are 2 stepsons, one who lives with you and one with mum?

If DH and his parents thinks ex is a bad mum why are they happy for the other son to live with her?

I think it's sad that your SS doesn't see his mother, and awful that he's been seperated from his brother. He needs to have contact with both, and his Dad should be doing all he can to support his sons relationships with other family members.

I can understand how you feel used - would you partner have to get a different, better paying job if you weren't subsidising him? Would his son be living with you if you didn't have such a comfortable lifestyles? The fact that you're doing the bulk of work aroundvthe house is rubbing salt into the wound.

I think the priority should be your SS building a relationship with his mum and brother. He needs to spend time with them, and I think you're totally reasonable to not want him with you all the time.

You're right not to get married, you'll be financially vulnerable if you do.

Again, there is inherent misogyny at play here. You talk about protecting children from step-mothers, but the biggest danger for children is when a step-father moves in.

Or maybe it’s a way to protect children from the women who will get together with a man who has children. Make more children with him, then push out the original children because they are “too much”

How would OP feel if something happened to her which meant now theoretical ex DP had to have her child full time, but XDP had already moved onto to have another child and the mother of that child did t want her DC around. Now XDP says “Sorry, she didn’t sign up to be a step mum full time, just a mum to our own child. That means I can’t be a full time dad either.”

Why do you have the assumption that his mother should be his resident parent? He is happy with his father so there is no need for him to move out.

Obviously not ...... (she seems to avoid any blame but heaven help the step mother)

Why is OP the villain in this story? She provides the home where her step-son lives and she has just said that she wishes that he spent some time with his mother. It doesn't sound as though her partner pulls his weight financially, in the home or with his own daughter with OP who she is pretty much left to parent singlehandedly, so she is rightfully pissed off.

I'm saying it because that's what I would do. And it's what I would do cos it's what I would want for DD if she ended up with a step parent.

Either you're willing to have them in your life or you're not. It's not a part time job. For men or women.

It’s you and others who posed things like below:

Being prepared to be a step mum means being prepared and happy to have this child full time.

Each of those shows the double standards at play for step mums vs step dads. Step dads are mainly told they don’t have to take on parental duties, yet step-mums are told that they have to 100% take on step-kids as their own.

Even on a thread where OP is paying all the bills and doing all the cooking and cleaning for her dc, she is still being told she’s not doing good enough.

She doesn’t do all the cooking and cleaning or pay all the bills. She did say that initially but changed it further down to detail that he contributes to all.

Women mainly tell other women they have to be 100% in to being a step-parent as a way to punish a woman for daring to have another relationship after kids.

There is no high-horse.

One is either all in with a parent they decide to live with and create a new family with.

Or they are all-out.

One does not live with and start a new family with a parent.

Who exactly is expecting it of a step mum? Besides OP’s partner, who I have told should be put firmly in his place?

When have I even once condoned the expectation that a step mum be chained to the cooker with mop in hand? Being a step mum full time doesn’t mean doing everything. It just means you can’t send the child away from their father’s home because you can’t be arsed.

Actually I said they're different scenarios to this one. Not a single one of them is encouraging SS to go home or saying they were prepared to do it not full time.

I said, in a previous post, she doesn't have to love step kids but she shouldn't enter a relationship with a man who has them without being prepared for the possibility that being a step parent is full time. Not that she should take them on as her own. Just that it's always a possibility that it becomes a full time gig. If you're not prepared for that, don't get involved with a parent.

And that's what I'd say to anyone, man or woman. Input is as per what works for an individual person/family. But you can't choose for it to only be part time because the best place for the step child may be with your new partner. And that could change on a sixpence if it wasn't the case when you first met them.

Is the OP currently working, do we know? Just because it is her house and she pays the majority of the bills doesn't necessarily mean she's working. She could be on extended maternity leave or she could have got a large payout of insurance when she was sadly widowed, which may mean the house is paid for and there is cash in the bank and she's now a SAHM. Either of those things might explain why she does all the cooking and cleaning.

I ask again, how many step-dads do you know who pay all the bills and do all the cooking and cleaning for their step-dc?

And if the answer is none, then why is this being expected of a step-mum?

Actually that's kinda how it is with kids. Would you want any step mother of DD to only want to be part time, and if you died or were too unwell to have her full time to not want her in their home?

Or would you want any parental figure in her life, biological or not, to be 100% in?

First one, woman is asking what she should expect from a step dad in terms of behaviour for them as a family and is given various advice. But it's about a man who has been clear with her he doesn't want to be a dad, so the thread mostly focuses on why a man with no interest in having children wants to be with a woman with one. You're right, noone is saying "don't be with a woman with kids if you don't want to be a step dad" but it's cos they're talking to her, not him, and I've seen questions asked around that topic.

he has not been clear to her he doesn’t want to be a dad. She says ‘I was not aware he didn't want children, he said he would have them if I wanted them’. He lets the dc call him step-dad.

Really weird how you think it’s ok for him to check to check out of being a step-dad and yet you tell OP she has to take on her dp’s dc because they live with her.

Second one is similar, what should she expect. People are saying her DP sounds like a lodger not a partner or parent. Not the same scenario.

No, it’s people mostly telling her he should do chores but he doesn’t have to take care of step-dc. So very far from ‘take them on as your own’.

Third one is a man who is absolutely willing to be a step dad, asking advice on behavioural issues. So obviously no one has said don't be with a woman with kids if you're not prepared to be a step parent. Cos he has made it clear he's all in as their step parent.

But the point is people are telling him to step back from parenting. Whilst your telling OP a step-mum has to take on step dc as her own.

You're blaming OP not his mother who abandoned him?