As a product of a "blended" family and with a friend who recently went through a soul-destroying divorce, I often read the step-parenting board.
Apparently children are expected to adjust to the separation of their parents without complaint.
They must love the "best father in the world", the greedy, grasping (poss MH issues/neglectful) ex wife, the new partner/wife (and their kids if applicable). They must have developed diplomacy skills, manners, and the ability to deal with disappointment by age 4 - ideally before.
This is despite the emotional hardship they have suffered through life-changing separation and often difficult and inconsistent financial circumstances.
Having two "homes" is supposed to represent great love, care and expense rather than disruption.
Intensely competitive parenting by the NRP (often the one who left family responsibilities behind, and subsequently feels guilty) is not just prevalent, it's a "Disney" phenomenon.
And no guilt-ridden "Disney Parent" is complete without a "Mini-Wife". Curiously, there is no obvious male equivalent.
The Disney Parent has a new partner. How appalling to find that there's another little person who loves the "wonderful new partner/husband/wife/mum/dad" in a way that cannot be understood, or tolerated.
So, abandoning gender neutral terms in respect of the "mini-wife"; this is the enemy. She is usually as greedy, grasping and neurotic as the ex, and has adopted all the ex's worst unique behavioural issues.
Except unlike the ex, she has the power to expect and demand priority, time, finance and undermine parental and step-parental authority.
How can this menace be eradicated?
Let's give her a really insulting, dehumanising nickname. Dress it up with some psychology which originally blamed the behaviour of NRPs, and reinterpret it as blaming the child for some imagined psychological/personality disorder. Then call it a "syndrome".
And find other similar step-parents, who have also found the grass isn't always greener second time around.
Thank goodnessfor MN, where other people's children can freely be blamed for relationship misery.