Blended Families

[ShrikeAttack]

Everything I read about blended families always sounds bad. I honestly have never seen a post on here where blended families work.

I'm nearly 50 and every blended family I've ever been party too, they're not great. They don't work. There's so much anguish and pain.

Why does anyone do it?

Younger women that are considering it, I'd advise them not to.

I guess this post is salutary. If you have a choice, don't.

@BoltonDoowar that sounds horrendous, your dad was abusive.

Is that why his first marriage failed? Did your mum eventually leave him while you were kids?

And yes to second children not necessarily having it easier - I’ve seen really miserable home environments that are not easy for anyone one including them.

I’ll say it again - I do think some blended families can work for everyone.

My grandmother had a half brother (died age 96 and she’s now 94). His dad died and his mum married a second man who she had a baby with. My great grandfather saw his dss as his and treated them equally. Maybe the ex being dead made that more simple?

Only on Mumsnet is is every stepmother evil and every child born of a 'second' relationship less important than 'real' progeny and every blended family a nightmare.

There's a core of bitter first wives posting on here and frankly it's both unrepresentative of most people's experiences and an utter cringefest of whining intolerance.

Part of me thinks that many adults put their wants before their children’s needs. I’m sure that many blended families do work well for all: but I would imagine there are many where the children are thoroughly miserable but the parents kid themselves on that all is well.

It's much fraught than a divorce

That is far too generalised and completely depends on the divorce!

My parents divorce still causes tension now many many years later. In the meantime my Mum has remarried and nothing about me having a step dad has been fraught to be honest and certainly not in comparison to the relationship between my divorced parents. I can assure you, that messed me up far more than having a step dad.

@chunderwunder.

Ah yes, the first family DC are ‘pure’ in the eyes of MN. Sod off to those dirty second family brats!

@ShrikeAttack

I think that's the thing *@whatsthpoint*, isn't it? It's always the adult's choice. And everyone else has to go along with it. Because they have a new lover.

And children really don't want that. They just want their parent, and their parent gets diluted. And we as society have to see that as 'good'.

I don't think it's good though. It's always shit for children of the first relationship. Their parental relationship gets made a little bit less, they're shoved to the back a bit.

And that's terrible for a child.

I dont think that’s right in all cases.

I have just separated for DH one of the many reasons being that our children were not prioritised in the way DSC were. If any were shoved to the back it was my kids awaiting DSC needs to be met first.

This has been acknowledged by DH.

I work in a secondary school in a pastoral role. If I had a pound for every time I've listened to a parent gush about what a brilliant relationship their child has with their DP and how much fun they have with their step-siblings when the DC in question has confided that they are utterly miserable and loathe the whole set-up, I would be a very rich woman. A lot of kids put a brave face on in these situations because they want their parent to be happy. IME a lot of parents are also willing to ignore the signs that being in a blended family isn't working for their DC and it can cause a huge amount of resentment as time goes on.

I also think a lot of the problems with blended families come from the expectations of what it should look like or be like.

I've seen so many people talking about how step children should be loved like your own, treated like your own etc... And I'm sure that works for some but it will not work for all. No one ever stops and seems to think what the children would actually want.

In my situation for example my DSC have never seemed to want a particularly parent - child relationship with me. We have a friend / fun adult relationship and that suits us fine. I don't take on responsibility for things to do with them unless I'm needed to help out every now and then and it works very well like that for us. Some would find that a terrible idea because I'm not treating them as a parent would. It just makes me eye roll so hard.

@chunderwunder

Only on Mumsnet is is every stepmother evil and every child born of a 'second' relationship less important than 'real' progeny and every blended family a nightmare.

There's a core of bitter first wives posting on here and frankly it's both unrepresentative of most people's experiences and an utter cringefest of whining intolerance.

I’m not a first wife and wouldn’t ever want a blended family for my children.

It’s based on first hand experience growing up and I wouldn’t want the same for them.

There's a core of bitter first wives posting on here and frankly it's both unrepresentative of most people's experiences and an utter cringefest of whining intolerance.

Even if they’re not all first wives, there certainly are some posters who come out with some very unfair expectations. Things they themselves wouldn’t dream of doing e.g. depriving their youngest child of a trip out somewhere nice when their older ones are elsewhere like with their father. Or ignoring their youngest every other weekend in favour of their older one. Just nonsense stuff.

I agree in that I'd never choose a man with children, however my stepmother is absolutely lovely, and makes my father much more tolerable to be around!

It didn't work for my family.

There wasn't anything particularly bad, just the general frustration and upset that often comes with trying to blend.

My mum met my step dad when I was 10. Before that, we lived with my grandparents. After that, I lived full time with mum and step dad; my step brother, who was the same age as me was there about half the time.

Stuff that didn't really work (with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight and a lot of private therapy):

• my step brother had significant difficulties with emotion regulation. Even as a teenager, he would have huge screaming meltdowns. We were all walking on eggshells to try to keep him happy all the time
• my stepdad doesn't really know how to parent. He's very anxious and doesn't know what to do of someone is unhappy - so didn't know how to set secure boundaries that helped his son feel safe.

He also felt guilty about potentially harming his son by separating from his ex wife.That spilled over into him needing everyone else to accommodate his son and his own behaviour in trying to manage his son

• Neither my mum or my stepdad are good at dealing with conflict and disagreement. So my stepdad accommodated a lot of really unpleasant behaviour by his ex wife and my mum didn't tell him that she wasn't ok with it.
• I really really strongly internalised the message that my needs didn't matter. Partly because a lot of things that I cared about (going on camping holidays, spending lots of time with my grandparents, eating at a table not on front of the TV) basically never happened any more because my stepdad didn't like them.

This sounds pretty bitter for 20 years on. The thing is that after 20 years my step brother has never had a full time job, still lives with his mum and frequently asks his dad for money to bail him out on his latest car purchase. He's been let go from lots of jobs because he's flown into a rage and yelled at the manager. Or ragequit. He's 32 and my mum's life is still in orbit around this irritating man-child. Meanwhile my mum is seriously ill and now realises she can't trust her partner (of 20 years!!) to ever reliably put her needs first. Ever.

And I'm relatively happy, but only after dragging myself out of an abusive relationship that swallowed most of my 20s (not knowing that you are allowed to set boundaries with others would do that) and spending hundreds of pounds on therapy.

1/10 do not recommend.

I think blending can work if both halves of the couple know how to talk about difficult things and resolve conflicts constructively. But then they might not be the ones who are trying to make a blended family in the first place.

YANBU and I think it’s really important that people acknowledge this as it seems all too easy for people just to batter on with moving a partner in with no thought for the Dcs.

I’m divorced and would not even think of living with DP.

@Washimal

I work in a secondary school in a pastoral role. If I had a pound for every time I've listened to a parent gush about what a brilliant relationship their child has with their DP and how much fun they have with their step-siblings when the DC in question has confided that they are utterly miserable and loathe the whole set-up, I would be a very rich woman. A lot of kids put a brave face on in these situations because they want their parent to be happy. IME a lot of parents are also willing to ignore the signs that being in a blended family isn't working for their DC and it can cause a huge amount of resentment as time goes on.

100%

It’s interesting that the majority of people who are saying their family works and is amazing etc etc are the parents, and many of those saying didn’t work for them are children from blended families.

Plenty of bad parents putting their sex life before their children. Not all of course, but the cognitive dissonance on display is very interesting.

It's hard to make generalisations though.

Likely the only children from blended families who will comment or start threads or go to pastoral care at school for example, are the ones struggling. Why would you hear from those with good experiences?

My only experience of being a step child is my own and it was a good one for me personally. My step dad is wonderful and my life has benefitted from him being in it. Of course that doesn't mean all have the same experience but it also works the other way. But why would I start a thread on MN, for example, about how great my step dad is and how my experience being in a blended family was good? I have much less reason to than someone who's experience was negative.

I was brought up in a blended family from the age of 14. I am now 54. I love my 3 step siblings dearly, as much as I do my birth sibling We didn't always all get on, but we are now very close, and have huge family parties (pre Covid) now that we all have children of our own. I know many non blended families who are envious of how close we all are. I am not saying this to brag, but to reassure those who are thinking of going down the same path. It may not be easy at first, but it does not have to end badly!

Well I adore my extended blended family, and all of the members of it, much more than a lot of my birth family. I had a far better childhood than I would have had otherwise and loads of people who loved me. I'm glad my father chose to be happy and that in turn helped him do his best for me. Frankly the idea that my dad should have stayed forever single and lonely and miserable at the age of 27 because of his 2 young children fills me with horror.

@Pedalpushers

Well I adore my extended blended family, and all of the members of it, much more than a lot of my birth family. I had a far better childhood than I would have had otherwise and loads of people who loved me. I'm glad my father chose to be happy and that in turn helped him do his best for me. Frankly the idea that my dad should have stayed forever single and lonely and miserable at the age of 27 because of his 2 young children fills me with horror.

This is what I have an issue with, the assumption that being single means being lonely and miserable. I love being single. If your happiness is based on being in a relationship then you need therapy for your self worth.

There's good and bad sides. My ex left when DD1 was a toddler and has very sporadic contact with her, never paid CS so I was a young struggling single mum for her first 8 years. I had to work so, so hard to keep afloat, long hours with DD in breakfast and after school club, for 2 years we had to have my friend live with us as a lodger or we would have lost the house. When I remarried and had DD2 I became a SAHM and I now spend so much more time with her than I ever could before. Weve got more money so she can have the right trainers etc that she wants rather than me penny pinching all the time. She absolutely loves having sisters - she had invisible ones for years! And because of the age gap there's no jealousy - me and her do loads of stuff together (although she's starting to prefer her mates now at 12). She loves DSD too and its much more fun for her having someone her age on holidays and days out.

Obviously there's loads of hard stuff too but its not true that there's no benefits to blending families for previous children - there was loads or I wouldn't have bothered.

Mine works really well. I have a (step)father, two (step)brothers and a cousin, who is like my sister. We all love each other very much. I also have a number of cousins who are strictly speaking not my cousins and who also come from a blended family and I am an adopter, so I am not big on genetics. I always wanted a big family and was always open to anyone joining.

My cousin's/sister's family is even more complicated and also works. There are 4 sets of children (8 children altogether) of different sets of parents and they all get on really well too.

It all depends.

This is what I have an issue with, the assumption that being single means being lonely and miserable. I love being single.

I’m the same. Especially after the relationship I was in which was a blended family - I need peace and calm now to concentrate on my children and my own personal growth. A relationship would just complicate all of that.
I’ll never say never in the future, but even then I won’t go out looking for anyone. And my standards are so bloody high after putting up with my ex. So maybe it really will be never …

And yes, I love being single. Being my own boss is still a novelty even 2 years later.

@TreeSmuggler

I agree with you but I suppose the counterpoint would be, does any family totally work? Every family has issues and problems.

Its like saying marriages are hard, so stay single. But being single isn't easy either. Life isn't perfect.

I think this post sums it all up rather well

Frankly the idea that my dad should have stayed forever single and lonely and miserable at the age of 27 because of his 2 young children fills me with horror.

Being single is great. And being single does not equate to being "lonely and miserable".

I'm glad your experience was positive but honestly with attitudes like this no wonder people rush headlong into disastrous "blending" scenarios.