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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

My mum has a new stepdaughter and I'm a teeny bit jealous.... AIBU seeing as I'm 30?

43 replies

Meetmeonamonday · 04/12/2017 22:15

So a bit of background, my mum now has a wonderful partner after many very lonely years. I'm ecstatic for her, truly. And said partner has a teenage daughter.

My own teenage years with my mum were turbulent, I was a typical teen whilst she practically washed her hands of me and instead prioritising her own social life and a string of short term non serious partners. I never felt very wanted or supported during these years and have been in counselling for this since and other various reasons.

Now my mums partner has a daughter that I'm ashamed to say I'm feeling pangs of jealousy towards because the daughter gets to enjoy all the perks with my mum that I never really did. examples are, the daughter gets to spend family weekends together at my mums with her dad, she often buys the daughter special very thoughtful treats, the daughter is spending all of Christmas with my mum. The daughter attends functions and parties with the two of them as a family. The daughter is now allowed unattended eg when they're both at work, in what was for many years my family home and bedroom in particular.

I don't want to be jealous, I love my mum and she's not doing it to be intentionally hurtful. I've not said anything to her as don't want to upset her now she's finally found happiness.

I am also currently in a pretty bad place in my marriage so am feeling a bit tender at the moment anyway.

I just feel, I dunno I suppose redundant. Do I need to snap out of it?

OP posts:

Bummybum · 05/12/2017 06:34

Wow Wally. What a selfish point of view.

Op I’ve had similar to you, it’s very tough.

speakout · 05/12/2017 06:37

Continue with your counselling.

You need to live life without validation from your mother.

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 05/12/2017 06:40

Really wally?can yiu not see this from a 9yo perspective
9 is emotionally a child,who’ll not want change.fears loss of mum
Not reasonable request,because it comes from a raw and emotional state.
Surely you can see that?

Booie09 · 05/12/2017 06:40

Hindsight is a great thing from your mum's point of view! Maybe she is realizing where she went wrong when you were growing up! How about you try and meet up with your mum and step sister? How old is step sister?

NotAgainYoda · 05/12/2017 06:49

Wally

Wow, you got that spectacularly wrong

KatharinaRosalie · 05/12/2017 06:49

OP the feelings are of course natural. What I would recommend - do you get along with the daughter? Could you try? Welcome her to the family instead of resenting taking what's rightfully yours? I'm not saying this because I'm some kind of a saint - I have simply found that it's much harder to feel jealous and resentful if you actually like someone and are friends with them.

Mummyoflittledragon · 05/12/2017 07:17

Wally
I hope you were a bit more sensitive to your dcs than you have been here. I don’t believe op wants her mother all to herself. She sees what she didn’t have from her mother.

Meetme
I actually think you’ll be more likely to get what you’re looking for if you embrace your stepsister. And try to spend some alone time with your mother. The benefit of accepting her is that she and her new partner may be willing to look after your dcs so that you can spend some time alone with your mum. This will then give you the opportunity to explain how you feel. But in order to do this and to give your mother more chance to accept and understand your feelings, I would show care and dedicate time to your ss first.

PrimeraVez · 05/12/2017 07:42

No real solutions I'm afraid, but I'm in a similar-ish situation. I didn't have a particularly close relationship with my mum as a teenager and I never moved back home after uni. In fact, after I graduated I moved overseas with work and I now only see her 2-3 times a year.

She remarried when I was in my 20s, and her DH has a daughter who is a very similar age to me. After her relationship broke down, she actually moved in with my mum and her DH 'for a few weeks'. Three years later, she's still there and her and my mum are BFFs.

I got particularly upset when my mum had a breast cancer scare and didn't tell me 'because she didn't want me worry', but I later found out that my step-sister had been involved every step of the way. I found that very hurtful.

Part of me thinks it's my fault - for moving away and not being particularly close to her, and now I'm just jealous because I see her having the kind of relationship with my stepsister that in a parallel universe, I should have with her. The net result is that the jealousy makes me even more distant from my mum.

Wallywobbles · 05/12/2017 09:24

Of course I was more sensitive but just because we fear change isn’t a reason not to change anything and I presume you are not saying that because I’m a mother I should have remained single and sexless for a minimum of 17 years. DDs were 2&3.

I also think we live in a blame culture and I fail to see how the OP blaming her mother is actually helping her.

Sure it’s shit that her relationship wasn’t great with her mum during her teenage years. And I suspect a lot of us went there (myself included) too in one way or another. But she’s now 30 and she’s still letting that have a big impact. And does the OP seriously believe that her mum wasn’t making the best of the situation she was in at the time? Does she think her mum was deliberately crap?

JustKeepDancing · 05/12/2017 10:40

OP, if it's any consolation I am in a similar situation and feel the same way. My mum remarried a lovely widower with a son a couple of years older than me. Because he was at Uni when they married, then I went to Uni, we never really lived together or got to know each other, but he and his wife are now really close to my mum and she's a very involved granny to their son. I am jealous of how close they are, but I did find that counselling and being honest with an old friend about how I felt have helped a lot. I'm also trying hard to be involved in my step-nephew's life, which is making it easier.
Families are hard. I sometimes think there needs to be advice and support for adult children of divorce as much as younger ones, as the challenges change but don't exactly go away as we get older.

Autumnskiesarelovely · 05/12/2017 13:14

I sympathise OP like I said in pp however Wally has a point too. This is as good a time as any to find compassion for your mother too, there was good I’m sure, as well as bad, and you as a teenager may have also given her a hard time.

Your own position that children need more care, then your mother is doing this for her step child, who will be having similar loss issues as you did. Find your own ability to learn from the past as your mother is, and reach out to your step sister.

OldPony · 05/12/2017 13:28

WTF! That is so insensitive. When my DD was 6 (having been single since she was 1), i was explicitly clear to her that I would not remarry unless she was happy and like the man. If other kids had been involved I wouldn't have gone there.
My DD comes first and I couldn't be happy if she wasn't.

Lizzie48 · 05/12/2017 13:36

Wally, I don't think the OP particularly holds it against her mother now, she's very happy that she's found someone who loves her. However, it brings home to her what she feels she missed out on during her teen years. Her stepsister is getting things that she didn't get and she's feeling hurt.

The OP has no intention of telling her mother how it makes her feel; she doesn't want to spoil things for her. She's expressing it on an anonymous forum precisely because it's something she can't share IRL.

So no, it's not reasonable to feel jealous, but I think the OP knows that. But it's understandable, and none of us can help how we feel. We have to work through our feelings, which means owning them not pretending not to feel them.

RosyWelshcakes · 05/12/2017 13:39

OP, I think you just have to wait for the opportunity to say to your mum yes, its nice that you're enjoying DSD - I wish we could have had the same.

Short and sweet, point made.

And you have every right to be struggling with the goings on.

Booie09 · 07/12/2017 06:56

#wallywabbles*
Let's see how your daughter's feel in 10 years time!!

Wallywobbles · 07/12/2017 20:31

Booie some interesting reading of my posts. Clearly I phrased things badly. My daughter loves her step dad. She just didn’t want me to get married again. When we started going out she was worried about having to share my love. After 3 years she could see that wasn’t true, but for her and DD2 security getting married was the best thing for them.

Their father has lost PR. So my husbands the only security they’ve got if something happens to me. They’ve both stated that they would want to continue living with him in our family home.

What earthly reason do you think she’ll feel differently about him in a decade?

Wallywobbles · 07/12/2017 20:37

Op my sincere apologies for offending you and for the sidetracking my posts have caused.

Booie some interesting reading of my posts. Clearly I phrased things badly. My daughters love their step dad and he loves them. She just didn’t want me to get married again. When we started going out she was worried about having to share me and my love. After 3 years she could see that wasn’t true, but for her and DD2s security getting married was the best thing for them.

Their father has lost PR. So my husbands the only security they’ve got if something happens to me. They’ve both stated that they would want to continue living with him in our family home.

What earthly reason do you think she’ll feel differently about him in a decade?

chocatoo · 07/12/2017 20:44

I think that you should try and organise some time for just you and your Mum. Maybe you could say that you are genuinely delighted that she's got such a great relationship with step daughter but that it has made you feel a bit sad when you realise all the stuff you two missed out on and suggest that you and she could start to schedule more time together to enjoy the relationship that you have now?

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