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?

I had a stepmother in the 1970s before it was a normal thing.

Only myself and one other kid in my year (and we were at a 7 form entry comp) had a step parent. FWIW, neither of us were happy.

Although that was bad circumstances maybe as in both our cases, our real parent had died so we werent just step kids cos of divorce, with 2 parents alive and kicking somewhere in the world.

My stepmum was, as it turned out, mentally ill. She starved me, neglected me, bought things for her own kids and not for me, and by the time I was doing A Levels I had to hand wash all my own clothes whilst she washed her's and her daughters' in the washing machine. If she knew I had an important exam, she'd pick an argument with me before I went to school. Once or twice, when dad wasn't around, she put her face right in mine and screamed abuse. Never in front of him. She'd feed us tiny meals and then cook a second, proper sized tea for my dad and her older, working daughters. My stepsisters had a load of insurance money from their dad dying, so if they were hungry - they went down the shops. I had nothing.

My clothes had holes in. (They could buy whatever they wanted). And by the time I left that house, aged 19, and five foot six I weighed 6 1/2 stone.

I don't have a very positive view of stepfamilies.

Years on and my husband is stepdad to my two youngest kids. I never thought I'd ever get in this kind of situation, myself. But I did. Their birth dad is a Fathers 4 Justice looney and totally has nothing to do with them. Their step dad is in every respect, their dad. He loves them, cares for them, looks after them if they're sick in the night, helps them with homework and has never treated them differently to our own kids.

Know what? After all that - I still hate step families. I had to forgive my stepmum as if she was mentally ill then it wasn't her fault. But she was a dick. And to a motherless child? Not right.

But I dislike her and now she has senile dementia, I don't let my kids see her.

My stepdad is amazing. He nursed my mum through motor neurone disease and was always there for her.

My mum married him when I was in my early twenties, so its not like I grew up with him either.

When mum died, eight years ago, both my dad and my auntie on dads side came to the funeral, it helped everyone was grown up about things.

I still very much keep in contact. He came to my brothers wedding and is invited to "family do's" as is his new partner.

I do realise this is definitely not the case for everyone, but not all situations are the same.

In short (after much waffle!) there is no "normal".

I'm really surprised by a lot of these answers. I've got a step mum. She married my dad when I was an adult and had left home (but not long after) so she never brought us up.
She's been lovely to us though and her and dad are happy together.
She is nanny to our children and I send her a Mother's Day card. She is and always will be a part of our family.

I've always been a bit perplexed by people who resent step-parents purely on the grounds that they have two parents already. If they're horrid, fair enough. But if they're nice, I don't get why you wouldn't be glad to have more nice, supportive people in your life.

My parents are/were awful and I used to wish they'd divorce and marry nicer people. To be completely honest when people complain that they don't want their parents to remarry it sounds like first world problems - I don't get it and I'm not sure I ever will.

You don't get to pick your feelings though. On an intellectual level, I know my stepmother is a good person who makes my dad happy. On a visceral level, she makes me miss my mum and I wish I'd never met her.

This is why I started this appletini, to get others' responses to see if I could make sense of why I feel the way I do.

This has been quite helpful for me, and i think the crux of it is that i am not keen on either step parent (more so step mother) because my parents are not together.

Mine separated when i was 5 and I suppose part of me feels that I didn't experience family life (which yes, is a first world problem, but considering I live in a first world country isn't unusual) and I do feel robbed of that. Of course both my mum and dad think that the new families they created are the ideal setup, but to me they aren't and that is something that I can't shake off.

I think that's a completely valid feeling! And having your family life pulled from under you at the age of 5 is a problem, wherever you live in the world.

I think you've hit the nub of the problem when you say that your mum and dad think that it's all happy families.

To my mind one of the things that often happens with divorce is that parents tell their children that they are all happy families, when the children are feeling something very very different - they're hurt, upset, sad etc. They may also notice that their step parent doesn't love them the same, even though their parent says otherwise. But they are never allowed to say any of this.

These are feelings that never get acknowledged and fester on for decades until they pop up again at family events like weddings and funerals. Divorce is shit, children suffer, but parents don't want to believe that.

On the one hand, I'm glad my father's wife is around as all three of his children live a distance away and I would rather he not be alone, day in, day out. She is not a bad person.

On the other hand, she is an incredibly silly woman, who I would not choose to spend time with. She buys into a general idea that my dad is a saint who brought us up after my mother died, when actually the situation was far more complicated and we weren't given any help with our grief as children and DF was very removed emotionally. She has no interest in the reality of the situation, and has never asked.

She can be quite spiteful about my family, especially my sister who had the most difficulty with her and Dad getting together (dad told her about the engagement via text), but my stepmother is very black and white, and didn't see a young woman who was hurting, instead thought she was being a bitch/spiteful, because my sister is very reserved and she is very much not.

Her family are very conservative and I cannot stand them.

If I do get married, it would be difficult for me to see her in photos where my mother should be. Silly after all these years, but there you go. She has been good to my father, though, so maybe I would keep contact with her after he passes, I don't know. It would be out of obligation in any case.

Mine separated when i was 5 and I suppose part of me feels that I didn't experience family life (which yes, is a first world problem, but considering I live in a first world country isn't unusual) and I do feel robbed of that.

But that's not your SP's fault. (Unless they were OM/OW?)

Is it easier to transfer those negative feelings from your parents to your SPs?

I'm a step mum to DP's six year old. Both DSD's parents are fully in the picture so I'm 'surplus' to requirements. It's very difficult to find your role in that situation.

Now I'm mum to my own DD so I've found my station within the family. But it is hard.

This thread does somewhat confirm what I've already suspected.

Oops, posted too soon.

DSD and I have a very good relationship. Although I try not to be too intense or mumsy with her because, as I said, she already has a mum. So I try to be friendly but firm counsel instead.

I know that DSD feels jealous and thinks it's unfair that my DD gets to be with me and DP all the time while she has to go to her mum's for half the time. But I really can't see what we can do about that. Unless she spends less time with her mum, which is obviously not workable.

But I really feel like, if it was my DSD starting a thread on here in 20 years' time, it'd somehow be my fault that she missed out on that family life, even though I was nothing to do with her parents' split and the only thing I'm guilty of is falling in love with her dad and wanting to have his baby.

Neither of my step-parents are married to my parents - my step-father and mum split up when I was 9 or 10, my step-mum and dad when I was 16 or 17. They are still my family, I love them and they show all the signs of loving me. And the same goes for their spouses and my step-dad's later children.

It didn't occur to me to exclude them or their now-families from my wedding or my child's adoption.

But I am aware that I am lucky this is how it all turned out.

I don't think your mum is unreasonable in feeling excluded OP, I would too.

I've always been a bit perplexed by people who resent step-parents purely on the grounds that they have two parents already. If they're horrid, fair enough. But if they're nice, I don't get why you wouldn't be glad to have more nice, supportive people in your life.

I think it's because they're a symbol that your (one's) parent decided that it was more important to shack up with a new partner rather than give everyone in the family some breathing space and some time to heal as a family after a traumatic event (divorce or death).

I mean, I have a friend who's been raising her 15-yo daughter on her own since the dad left three years ago. They are just starting to heal, really. Daughter had a hard time in school but is straightening up. They get along well at home, it's a very cosy and warm atmosphere. Daughter tells her mum everything.

And now friend wants to have New Boyfriend of Nine Months in! Daughter is polite but reserved with him, being a teenage girl. Friend thinks he should just move in and then daughter will see how great he is and then they'll all get along.

I can't believe friend is considering this. She can't wait three years and just have conjugal visits? Does she not realise how precious her family life/daughter is? I mean, would anyone enjoy having a random 32-yo dude moving into their home?

I think we are going to fall out over this, frankly. And then in 20 years the daughter will be relating experiences like the ones on this thread.

Not at all strange OP. I can't stand my step mother and have no positive feelings towards her whatsoever! She resented my existence from the outset and made no effort with me at all other than buying me a bag of toiletries when DF and she got together. Then, whilst she was trying to forget my existence my DF was bringing up her DD as his own. Nice. If and when the time comes I will not see or speak or have anything to do with her again. bitter and twisted

Matilda, i have a fair few friends where the same happened when they were young. Mum/dad may be in lust after a few months but dragging the children into it is awful. They get no choice and the impact can be devastating.

I'm a stepmum, I'd be very upset if I wasn't included in my dsd wedding pics but I'm sort of expecting it. Her mum hates me, plain and simple, so I'm expecting to be excluded, I'm not sure how I'll handle it, I'll be upset but I'm also practical enough to deal with it. To clarify, I wasn't the ow, but I was a close friend of the couple who then got with dh when he became free.

I'm her stepmum but the relationship isn't like mother/daughter, it's more friends. We love each other and we freely tell each other that, she confides in me and I give advice when it's asked of me. I figure I'm more of an aunt to her.

I can understand your mums hurt.

The flipside of your scenario Matilda could be the random bloke moves in and becomes a wonderful friend/father figure like some of the examples given on here. There are some positive stories on here, you can't state that it will definitely lead to misery, it's not that clear cut.

Meh. The girl in this example had a father. She doesn't need a new one at 15. And he can be a friend/supporter/champion... from his own house.

I just think it's a shame that the positive stories on here are largely being overlooked. No one can predict the future and say for certain that it will all end in doom snd gloom. My life would be a much poorer one without my step mother in it.

i adore my step mother. Her and my dad got together when i was 11 but she only moved in when i was 17 and had moved out. It might help that even though they got together when i was 11 we had known her as a family friend since i was 2 or 3. I literally don't remember her not being in our lives. My siblings feel the same way. I am closer to her that my real mother and if my dad ever died i would definitely keep in touch with her. She refers to us and her own children the same and her will is equal between us and her kids with no predujice. In every day life i don't distinguish between my paternal step siblings and my actual siblings as we are all equal. Totally different to my relationship with my mums partner - whom i don't class as a step parent at all. They have been together for over ten years but i have never lived with them and my kids don't class him as a grandparent either.

I am fond of my stepfather and hate my stepmother. That's because he is an amiable, secure in himself and generally well-balanced person who makes my mum very happy while she is a paranoid tantrum-throwing nutjob who physically abuses my dad and controls every aspect of his life while forbidding him from any relationship with his children except under her strict supervision.

For info both my parents remarried when I was already an adult so neither had anything to do with raising me. They were both invited to my wedding of course.

My step dad is my dad as my real dad left and i never seen him unless we passed in the street. My step dad does everything for me and my siblings and we all call him dad and our kids call him grandad.

I am a step mum to my DP's 15 year old dd who lives with us fulltime and we get on great as she thinks its great having two mums. She only sees her dad during the school holiday but hates her other step mum.

Both parents re-married after their divorce, so i had a step mother and a step dad. Step-dad was everything you would wish for in a dad. He never was the one who put food on our table and clothes on our backs. He made sure we had presents for birthdays and christmas. He gave us holidays - nothong earth-shattering, usually a week in a boarding house by the coast, but a holiday.He was the one who came to see us in our school plays and who came to see us at prize-giving. He never asked us to call him Dad, but because of the way he treated us, it was natural that we chose to call him that. When I married, he had a big role in my wedding (alongside my dad) and when my own children were born, he was the most amazing and wonderful grandad to them. We were all devastated when he died and even now, many years later, we all love him, all the more so for choosing to take on our mum and two (very stroppy) teenagers. We miss him more than I can say.

My step-mother? She is very domineering and although she never said anything bad about my Mum, she always managed to imply that my Mum was too demanding about things like maintenance, contact etc. My mum used to virtually have to beg my dad to remain in contact - we probably saw him 6 times a year. He lived about 20 miles away. In all the years after the breakdown of my parents marriage, despite having a holiday with his new family every year, not once were we included. We went to stay with dad and step-mum once for about 5 days. That was all. She managed to make us feel very uncomfortable when we visited, especially after the birth of our own DCs, so much so, that even after her and my dad moved away, DH would only visit for a day, never stay over even though we would spend longer driving there and back than the time we were actually there! From the age of 10, I never saw my dad on my birthday or christmas day. The longest time I 4ever spent 'alone' with him, was the three minutes it took him to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day, apart from one day, a year or so before he died, when he visited me during the day while he was off work sick. I was under strict instructions that step-mother was not to know about the visit. When he died, she did something dreadful, which I can't say here because it could 'out' me. Suffice t to say that frankly, if I never see her again, or hear her name, I will not be worried.

So I guess you could say we saw both sides of the coin with regard to step-parents.