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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask how bio-mums feel about step-mums?

311 replies

InaccessibleB · 01/07/2018 21:37

I'm a step-mum. I try my best to help look after DSD. We get on great. I pick her up from school every other week. Take her out and look after her when DP is out (I'm talking if he nips to the shops or has a weekend meeting). I try to be the step-mum she needs and a good partner to DP. I never overstep the mark and know that I am not her mother.

I am met with a lot of issues. DPs ex trying to get a court order to say only he can get her from school, asking for her not to be left alone with me, telling DSD that she's not to let me dress her or bathe her etc (she's only 6, I'm a normal woman, and being made to feel like a weirdo if I want to bathe my DSD who asks for me to bathe her instead of DF as it's more 'fun')

I keep seeing these AMA threads and I actually want to ask YOU as biological mothers a question about how you feel about step-mums to your children? I'm struggling to feel accepted as a part of her life and want to try and understand this from her mum's perspective. Very open question and I'm hoping for some open answers...

OP posts:
HollyGibney · 02/07/2018 00:26

Oh and the people who come out with stuff like this are ALWAYS the first to move boyfriends in and get them fully involved in family life and are totally blind to the utter hypocrisy.

Nonsense. I've been single for nine years and would never move anyone in with my kids. My ex doesn't have a DP who wants to be involved with my kids at present, he barely sees them anyway, but when there was one on the scene, the thought of handing my kids over to play happy families with them was excruciating. I wouldn't want her providing personal care and picking up from school, HE should do that. However I do understand that I would have little say in this. Fact is she would be utterly irrelevant to me, I wouldn't want to be "buddies" no matter how much she wanted it and I just wouldn't be. Basic courtesy and an expectation that she maintained a healthy distance would be my preference. My kids don't need another parent.

Fivelittleduckies · 02/07/2018 00:27

Don’t get snippy love. I bothered to post - not a given on every thread.

What an honour you have bestowed @springydaff - we should all be grateful for your rude input.

she isn’t your daughter

Don’t think the OP has ever suggested that she is. You seem to be unloading all of your personal baggage and associated opinion on this poor woman. Perhaps channel it to the correct figure in your own life.

OP seems very respectful of the Mother’s feelings given her “bothering” to post on here for advice on how to improve the situation. The only person in her life who has a right to tell her Whether she can refer to the child as her step-daughter is the child’s dad and the child (when she’s old enough). OP has no obligation to the mum.

Original poster
InaccessibleB · 02/07/2018 00:28

@SuperMumTum my DP does this every week with his daughter and he doesn't get involved in his exes life. He trusts that she loves her daughter enough to keep we safe and only let people who love and care about her in to her life. He finds it extremely difficult and misses his daughter like crazy but is adult enough to accept that he cannot dictate what his ex and her partner do in their spare time. Using the fact that I don't have a child to invalidate my argument doesn't work. I'm still entitled to an opinion.

OP posts:
TheFormidableMrsC · 02/07/2018 00:30

Oh and the people who come out with stuff like this are ALWAYS the first to move boyfriends in and get them fully involved in family life and are totally blind to the utter hypocrisy

Nope. I have been single for 5 years and I am the only stable, sane parent in this shit situation. Don't get me wrong, I date, but I don't bring anybody to my home and nor do I introduce anybody to my son. Neither my ex nor the prick he lives with have given a second thought to the welfare of DS. So I do it.

Pigeonpresent · 02/07/2018 00:30

Have you considered maybe you’re too good? The kid sounds like she adores you, you have a good relationship with your partner, you’re pregnant- she might just be plain old jealous. You sound lovely but you might just have to accept that sometimes you can’t fix people. Don’t let her ruin what sounds like a lovely relationship with the child, it says more her than it does about you.

SuperMumTum · 02/07/2018 00:31

I didn't say you didn't have a child. I said "when you have to hand your child over..." meaning you don't have to trust another woman with your child on a regular basis (yet). I did not knowant how hard it would be to be oh so reasonable at all times until I was in this situation, not by choice.

Original poster
InaccessibleB · 02/07/2018 00:32

@SuperMumTum I really am trying to understand and don't want to argue. I just don't know how to fix this and just see it getting worse when baby arrives. Oh I don't know.

OP posts:
Mousefunky · 02/07/2018 00:33

Bio-mum is used in cases of adoption, not with step parents...

My exH’s girlfriend is a twat. I don’t just mean I am a bitter ex and I hate her for no reason at all. She actually is a twat and a million miles away from who and what I am. My DC don’t like her and have every reason not to. If exH had met a nice woman who actually cared about my DC it would be a different story entirely of course and I would love that actually.

Original poster
InaccessibleB · 02/07/2018 00:35

@Pigeonpresent that's a lovely thing to say. Though if it's the case it makes me think it'll never get better!

OP posts:
SuperMumTum · 02/07/2018 00:37

It probably will. My ex's gf has just had a baby and it has changed the dynamic. My kids now have to share their father with the baby as well as only seeing him 2/3 days a week.

TheFormidableMrsC · 02/07/2018 00:38

Mousefunky I totally understand what you're saying. I feel much the same. It's very difficult isn't it? I find it unfathomable that I would introduce my children to somebody so toxic and think it's OK.

OP, I do think you sound like a lovely stepmum but you can't control her mum's feelings which to her are perfectly valid, that's her little girl. I do hope you never find yourself in this position because it's so tough. However, I would much rather be handing my DS over to somebody who was kind and a decent human being than somebody who hates me with such an intensity that I feel my DS is at risk.

Original poster
InaccessibleB · 02/07/2018 00:40

I'm considering asking her out for a coffee to meet properly and not just at the door and talk about her concerns. Or maybe that is a crack pot idea.

I'm anxious. I suffer from a lot of anxiety. It's hard to know what is right and wrong sometimes when your vision is so clouded by worry...

OP posts:
TheFormidableMrsC · 02/07/2018 00:44

@InaccessibleB I think that might be a good idea actually. Many won't agree. In my case, I didn't know the OW was the OW at the time and she contacted me and offered me a shoulder to cry on because my ex had left. Such frightening narc behaviour. Had she been upfront and offered to meet and be honest with me, I might have felt differently. I do think that communication is the key and when you don't have it, it makes things a billion times worse. You have nothing to lose by offering in my view.

TheSausageEmperor · 02/07/2018 00:45

Have skimmed the thread and saw a wee bit of the bollocking OP got for the term bio-mum so I will answer the OPs question and that alone. I am a stepmum so not the perspective you are looking for OP but read on (not married, but engaged) I have raised my stepson from his age of 6 and he is now 17. His mum fucked off when he was 8 months old and my fiancé had two short-term gfs in between that happening and meeting me. We met her once, she spent more time praising me for raising her son than actually engaging with him. She died a couple of years after we met her but in the interim she showed no fucking interest in seeing him again. So I can't speak for her but I can say that when she was alive, in the brief time I met her, she was all for me and praised me to the high heavens.

Fivelittleduckies · 02/07/2018 00:46

@thesausageemperor sorry, how have you answered the OP question?

springydaff · 02/07/2018 00:48

Sorry op Flowers

TheSausageEmperor · 02/07/2018 00:49

I haven't. I have given my experience of the bio-mum's encounter with me.

Fivelittleduckies · 02/07/2018 00:50

Sorry @sausage don’t mean to have a go. You sound lovely and your son sounds very lucky to have you. But in the context of the OP concerns your anecdotal story comes across more as lucky you rather than the norm..

TheSausageEmperor · 02/07/2018 00:53

That's fair enough Fivelittleduckies

TheSausageEmperor · 02/07/2018 00:54

I apologise.

runbeerrunbeer · 02/07/2018 00:58

Hi op
Me and ex split up when our DC was 3. He and I met with another some months/years after. His g f who he plans to marry is lovely. She's different to him and I but that to me is a blessing. I know she loves our DC very much having been part of their life for a few years. She's laid back. Doesn't try to be mum but treats Dc with a lot of love and respect. She is kind and full of fun with ex, hence to me a good role model. Personally, I'm
Very happy he met someone who I think is a good person for my DC to be around.
Having a split family is never, for me, what you plan, but it works for us as I have lots of respect for my ex and the woman he is now very much in love with.

weekendninja · 02/07/2018 01:00

OP, minus the bath situation you sound like you are doing a great job. Just the very fact that you have chosen to post shows that you are giving it consideration.

It appears that whst some find hardest is the lack of control; I'm in a relatively new relationship and the demands of what is allowed/not allowed from both my ex and my boyfriend's ex are rediculous and desperate (and we're not even living together yet).

My exDH has a partner and a child together. I completely understand that he needs to earn a living, just like your partner does and see no problem in you doing the occasional school pick up. Not everyone has flexibility or works part time - even in a married household additional help is common. I'm sure your DSD would prefer you to collect her than a child minder.

Keep doing what you're doing by being active in her life. You shouldn't just be there in the background because you are her family too.

Ginandjuice11 · 02/07/2018 01:11

You appear to be very aware of DSDs emotional needs and I think you should be commended for that. If her mum can't accept you, it's because of her own insecurities - you've not done anything wrong.

I have a friend in a similar scenario. She's an amazing step-mum and everyone around can see it. DSD adores her and it would be lovely if she could see that herself, but I think she lacks confidence.

Parenting is tough whether you're mum or step mum. It's a series of phases and guilt thrown at you from every angle. All you can do is go easy on yourself and try and accept you're trying your hardest Flowers

Celticmombella · 02/07/2018 01:19

I think you need to put yourself in ex shoes. Ur baby is due in October. How would you feel having to drop ur child off to someone for a few days. You would not like them at the start. If she says no bathing, not bathe the sdd. U will earn her trust. At the end of the day it is up to her parents, not you, to agree on routines etc. It's just a bath, make ur bf do it.

Ivy3621 · 02/07/2018 01:20

Jesus some of the mothers on here sound like utter control freaks. I am a mother and step mother so can come from both sides. OP great job, keep it up. Mothers if you support the reasoning that access time is for DAD and daughter only then I bloody well hope you don't let grand parents bath your child, babysit them and pick them up from school, after all its mother daughter time. This lady is now DSd family and should be treated as such. You all need to get over yourselves. OP if your Dp is ok with it then that is fine. Don't upset a little girl because her mother is possessive and threatened.