to ask how you feel about your step-parent/s?

[Madmum24]

Ok genuine question. I assume there will be a range of answers, and I suppose in a way I want to see if my feelings are "normal"?

Big family meltdown recently due to my step sisters wedding. My Mum, who did a lot for her, and treated her the same way she did her own children discovered that out of the 1000+ photos that were taken, that she is not included in any of the 200 photos that they are keeping. My Mum was in lots of shots, both group and family etc, but there is no trace of her at all in the album. My Mum is devastated and really hurt, she has been her step mum for 20 years and was really involved every weekend, doing sport pickups/collections etc.

So this is what got me thinking. I have a step on both sides. Step dad (step sisters father) and a step Mum who married my dad. Because I lived with my Mum and stepdad I suppose I consider him more family than my stepmum, who although did a lot for me, and often professed her love for me, I was more like a guest in their house. If my father died I wouldn't feel any need or particular want to keep any ties with her, IYKWIM? But I can't shake off the feeling that that isn't particularly "normal"! I would only have put her in my wedding pictures as a gesture to my dad, not for me, so I can see where my dss is coming from.

AIBU?

Whenever I have issues with being part of a step family I just try and imagine how difficult it must be for some parents as its been mentioned upthread. My mum does a lot for my stepbrothers and sisters and I know it's not appreciated and that she means nothing to them.

I know being part of a step family is always down to circumstances but I will do everything I can to avoid ever being a step parent. I honestly don't think I could do it! I also find it hard to explain my situation to my dh who is an only child who's parents have been together forever. He just can't get his head round my family dynamics!

I have both a step-mum and a step-dad. My relationship with DSM is friendly and very nice, but she came into my life when I was 25ish and she and DDad live abroad. I like spending time with her and she is lovely to my son. She is my second step-mother, I have no contact with the first which is a shame as she was around for 9 years of my childhood.

My step-dad is like a biological dad to me. He gave me away at my wedding (DDad was abroad, didn't come to the wedding), taught me to swim, put up with my exams stresses, took me out or driving practice. He was the first grandparent to hold DS, was welcomed into the delivery suit 15 minutes after he was born and adores DS. There is no distinction between bio and non-bio grandfathers for DS.

I think I have been very lucky (and I hope that they would say the same!), our experience has been good.

I never liked my stepmother although to be honest, we never called her that as never lived with her. She's was always referred to as my dad's girlfriend. However, I didn't get on with my dad for good reasons so we were all quite pleased when he moved in with her (a fair distance away) as it got him out of our lives. She was fairly unpleasant but as i didn't have much to do with her, it didn't really bother me (or my siblings). However, I didn't invite her to my wedding as my DH said there was no way we were going to invite the 'racist bitch' to our wedding. His words not mine. My dad came on his own as we have come to some sort of reasonable relationship in recent years.

Ambivalent, she's not part of my family and I have little to do with her. Thankfully she's at the other end of the country.

My step dad has been in my life for almost 16 years now. He is lovely. I'm getting married in a couple of months and I'm desperate to include him properly in the whole thing without putting my Dad's nose out of joint.

If I have children in the future (hope to) they will call him Grandad (or similar, he can choose).

I have both. Have never met my stepmother or step brother and sister as my father never kept in contact with us after he left when I was 6. I would have loved to have had a relationship with them as I grew up in a very toxic household with my mother and stepfather and any alternative would have been better quite frankly.

My stepfather made it clear from the start that he only there for my mother and woe betide us if we caused her any upset. There was clear favouritism with his biological children with my mother who came along very quickly, and later, grandchildren. His parents and siblings, my step family, would only buy christmas and birthday presents for his bio children too which was pretty shit, especially as we had no contact with my real father's family or my mother's. Us older children were not even allowed to attend my mother's and his wedding.

Not a good experience and not something I would ever bestow on my own DC.

I would not invite my stepfather to my wedding, I would invite my stepmother but only out of politeness to my dad. I would bin any photos of her.

I have had step parents since I was 5 and I felt uncomfortable and in the way with all of them.

I get on very well with my stepdad, generally. He can be a grumpy bugger, but we're all very much family! I also have stepbrothers and sisters, and a half brother born later, we all generally treat each other as brothers and sisters. Some are closer than others, but thats the same as biological families. Most of us have children now, and family occasions are filled with the extended. They would all definitely be in my wedding pics.

I think my father re-married too quicklylike a year after our mother moved out, which is crazy. Then there was a great push to sell the house we'd all grown up in, I guess to pay the legal fees. There was "joint custody," which meant that my siblings and I sometimes stayed with our mother, who lived in a small rented house and grumped about how much food we ate, and sometimes stayed on fold-out couches in our step-mother's basement. (Our step-siblings kept their lovely single rooms, of coursethey'd been through a lot of turmoil.)

I remember answering the phone once in my step-mother's house ("my new home," right?). The person calling was some church friend of step-mother's, and made a big deal of not recognising my voice. Did she have the wrong number? I remember sullenly saying, "No, this is [matilda]." "Sorry, who?" "[Matilda.]" "Who?" "I'm [Matilda], this is my new home. Did you want to speak to [step-mother]?"

So I'm glad she's made my father happy but we've never developed a relationship. I mean, she was palpably relieved when I turned 18 and she didn't have me in her basement anymore. If she and my father divorced (God forbid) I certainly wouldn't have anything to do with her.

wondering

That is awful! Why did your mum marry such an awful man?!

I think - our family is currently going through a lot of step-related upheaval at the moment after my dad's death a few years ago - that quite often there is a ton of unfinished business from when the children were small, stuff about feeling excluded, not being able to express feelings, anger, all sorts. This never gets sorted out and then bubbles up at these kind of crucial life events.

Certainly that's true for us. I have accepted for some time that my family are pretty dysfunctional, and I couldn't really expect much from them. Have probably thought that since my parents' divorce at the age of 8. My brother believed the 'we are one happy family' line and is now discovering, in his forties, that it wasn't actually true, and DSM prefers her birth child (no shit sherlock). He's pretty distraught.

Ironically, this means that I get on well with DSM, as we have few expectations of each other. She's a great gran to DD too. DB has expectations, and is furious when they aren't fulfilled.

Yes, I think weddings and funerals can really bring things into relief in surprising ways. My brother's death brought up lots of old wounds, for instance.

My mothers husband has only ever exchanged a few conversations with me, always instigated by me when it has been unavoidable.usually funerals
He has 2 DC, his son and I got on ok on the few occasions we have met, his DD I have met once.
They have been together since I was 4 years old and I'm 47 now, they married when I was 17. We only ever spoke about half a dozen times before they married. He made it clear we were not part of the package.
I am never invited to their home, I went round with DD one day last week uninvited, it was the first time DD had seen her GM in 4 years. She has not seen DS1 for nearly 2 years and DS2 for 6 years
She has not met her youngest DGGS.
It used to upset me but not anymore, she made her choice. I actually get on ok with her but I view her as just a relative, my parent was my DGM.

Having grown up with a step parent theres no way i would ever want it for DS. The step parent chooses the partner not the children and any he/she has of their own will always come first.

My mother didn't have any DC by him thank goodness...but his DS comes before DB and myself. He doesn't see his DD very often. He doesn't approve of her 'lifestyle'.

I worked with an Iraqi man for a while and he used to say our department were "Children of the stepmother", it meant we always got overlooked or second-best.

I think when step-families work out well it's the exception that proves the rule.

I absolutely love my Dad to bits, I think he is amazing and one of the best people I know and the best male I have ever come across.
I don't think of him as step anything, in every way you would want your Dad and human to be he is and more.
I am very lucky to have him in my life.

I have a step parent on both sides.

They are nothing to do with me,one I am quite fond of in a friendly way, the other I have little interest in getting to know. Either way I'm an adult they are not my parent they are just my parents husband/wife and I would rather not engage with any silliness about their relationship with my actual parent conferring some type of a family relationship on me

My stepdad was a better dad than my biological dad ever was. He died before I got married, but it was his name that I insisted was written our marriage bans, and I had a picture of him attached to my bouquet.

I think if my mum was to remarry though at this age, I would have a different relationship.

Completely normal OP. I grew up with a Step Dad, who I see more as a father than my real father, although he has plenty of major flaws. My Step mother I just always hated. She used to brush my hair super hard with a spiky brush to make me cry, insisted on bathing me and washing my hair and blow drying it like I was a baby until I was about 12, she even told me my Mum had an abortion before I was born, whilst we were eating dinner on a foreign vacation - for no reason, just to get a reaction. I actually cut contact with my Dad for about 6 years in my late teens early 20's, so I could get away from her.

For my wedding though, all my parents showed up. I didn't bother getting copies of any of my wedding photos printed as I didn't like any of them, but I do have copies with my step mother in on the computer. I wouldn't deliberately exclude her, but I wouldn't go out of my way to print that photo IYSWIM, because she means nothing to me.

Step families are never easy. My mum died when I was 4 so I don't know whether this helped the bond with me and my step mum (I don't know if that sounds right!)

My stepmum is amazing. I would go to the ends of the earth for her and I know she would walk over hot coals for me, my sister and our children.

In short, I couldn't be without her.

She would be absolutely devastated to be in your mums position. She will be one of the most important people at my wedding when I get round to it.

I am fond of my step mother. I have known her since 1975! I never lived with her and my dad. They had three children together, the first of whom was born when I was 16.

However, she is not terribly bright and is absolutely crashingly ignorant about how my life has been affected by my parents' divorce and has also been breathtakingly hurtful wrt my father's will. But I put this down to her not really having much natural intelligence, rather than any actual malice towards me on her part.

My dad and stepmum got married when I was 17 and my dad died when I was 47 so she was in my life for 30 years. Since my dad died 7 years ago I have not seen or spoken to my stepmum (not even sure if she is still alive). As they only lived about 10 miles away I suppose you can imagine what our relationship was like.
I just wish everyone thinking about breaking up their marriage and saying how the kids will be fine with the new man/ woman would read this thread.