To ask does your partner need to love your kids, if he's not their biological father?

[blubberball]

Or is it enough that he just cares about them, but doesn't love them?

I was kind to my stepson, I made sure he was cared for and safe. I didn't like him and certainly didn't love him, but I made sure he never knew this.

It's completely unrealistic to expect a stepfather or stepparent to love stepchildren as much as their own. Biology/attachment just does not work like that.

However, as a number of PPs have mentioned, it is possible to develop very strong relationships over time, althouogh it generally takes a lot of effort.

@Usou

It's completely unrealistic to expect a stepfather or stepparent to love stepchildren as much as their own. Biology/attachment just does not work like that.

However, as a number of PPs have mentioned, it is possible to develop very strong relationships over time, althouogh it generally takes a lot of effort.

A great deal of effort and a supportive environment.

I don’t think a step parent can ever love a child in the same way they’d love a biological child.

I’m very close to my sister and I love her children very much (aged 8 and 14) but that love doesn’t even compare to how I love my own children, and they’re related. I just cannot imagine loving other children more than mine, or even on par.

Maybe it’s different if the step parent doesn’t already have a biological child of their own? So they have no love to compare the way they feel about their step children to?

I have to admit I would worry if I was with a childless man and he was stepdad to my children, and then we had a child together and he would then be a biological father. I would worry that he would always feel more strongly for our joint child than my children.

I know a woman who has a two year old daughter and after 9 months of dating another man (childless) she is moving in with him. He’s already expressed his displeasure to her that apparently she doesn’t make him feel special enough and that he’s fed up of her always prioritising her daughter over him.

I can’t believe she’s moving in with him - it’s got complete disaster written all over it.

I’m a step mum. A step parent should never be cruel, unkind or hurtful but doesn’t have to love.
It’s a two way street, if my step kids had ever shown me any kind of affection (in the early days when I was affectionate to them) it would have been repaid 100 fold.
Unfortunately this didn’t happen (thanks mum) and they were cold and distant with me. Many years later we have no relationship.
A step parent can’t build a love bond with a child they are not blood related to unless they get some affection back.
A sad realisation of the truth.

@DoNotTouchTheWater

It’s genuinely offensive to adoptive families to drag adoption in as your ‘mic drop’ argument about a completely different situation: stepfamilies. Just blood boilingly offensive.

Two things about step parenting:

1. How loveable (or even likeable) someone’s children are - especially to a steppparent - depends enormously on their parents’ approach to everything. You’re fucked with a difficult ex and a parent operating out of fear, obligation and guilt about their children. No matter how kind of caring someone is, they’ll always be the handy bad guy. Most of these parents do not acknowledge that they are doing these things, because a stepparent is such a handy scapegoat for all things.
2. As others have said, it’s very difficult to build a meaningful relationship with other people’d children a few days a month. However much people will insist that ‘it’s their home too’, it isn’t their main home and it makes a huge difference to the relationships they form and their attitude to things.

Probably one of the best posts I’ve ever read on MN!!

@blubberball

Thanks for your replies. My situation is that I have 2 dc who are aged 14 and 10. Been with my dp a few years, but it is a ldr. He doesn't live with us, and I mostly see him without the dc, whilst they are with their biological dad eow. My dp has no dc of his own.

We were planning to move in together, but my eldest got very upset about the thought of being away from his friends and family. So we are continuing a ldr. My dp does drive down here and spend weekends with me and dc once a month or so. He cares about them, seemingly more than their own biological father does. He cares about their behaviour and their school work, where as their bio father takes no interest whatsoever. He set up bedrooms for them at his house, and built my youngest dc a bed. Their bio father never did this, and never would.

He is kind and caring to them, but I know that he gets frustrated with their attitude and behaviour towards me sometimes. He doesn't let on to them though.

This is pretty close to love if not loving them. What makes you think he doesn't?

@Lunalicious

My DH loves all my 4 kids. 2 are his and 2 aren't. He treats them all the same... does he love them all equally deep down? I will never really know, but the kids all feel they are loved and treated equally and that is what matters.

Same here. Although another poster said about it being a two way street and this is also true. A few years ago I would have been absolutely certain that if we split up or I died he would continue to have a relationship with all the children. Now one of my teenagers is going through a challenging time and is pushing him away and I know that while he would try to maintain a relationship with them if he got nothing back it would be easy for that to peter out over time.

Ive got stepchildren, ive been in their life for 10yrs, they are now 18 and 23. The eldest and I have a very aunt/niece type relationship she will talk to me about things she wouldnt talk to her parents about and she regularly comes to visit (sometimes just for the day sometimes stays overnight) she sees herself as family and just slots seamlessly into our lives, adores her younger siblings and i would say i love her in the same way i love my best friend and she loves me like she does her aunts.

The youngest was very hard work as a child and used by his mother to manipulate DH, he has never seen himself as part of the family theres a very distinct divide when he visits in that its him, DH and DSD and then theres me, dh, and our children together. He has very little interest in his siblings and expects the world to stop when he decides to visits and to be treated like a guest. He has always been treated the same as DSD so there is no real need for him to feel this way its just the way he feels so although I care about him and try to make him feel part of the family i certainly dont love him and he doesnt love me but we also dont dislike each other and get on fine.

When he was younger and before i had children of my own i used to feel i had to forge some kind of amazing relationship with him otherwise i was a terrible stepparent, it took having my own children to realise that as long as i was kind to him and he always feels welcome thats enough and is all he wants from me.

@RainbowMum11

Further, I would ask, if you have children why are you insisting they live with an unrelated adult? Couldn't you keep your sex life out of your children's homes and lives? There is no need for any 'partner' to love your children, or to know them at all.

What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say!
So your relationship breaks down with the other parent of your child, you shouldn't enter another long term relationship, ever?

That just ludicrous.

To be honest, to me it's about as ludicrous as suggesting I love step children as much as my own child.

I have step children, obviously I care about them because they live in my home and I spend a lot of time with them. I do not love them like my son though and I never will, that seems utterly impossible to me personally.

But they have a mother and weren't babies (primary school) when we met so 🤷‍♀️

My dh married me when my kids were 18, 15 and 8. My eldest went off to uni. He was and is a really good stepdad to my 2 eldest, they get on well and he is kind and generous to them both, but he has a special relationship with my youngest because he helped me bring him up from a young age. DH has no biological children of his own. He is a great Grandfather to dd's 2 children. He undoubtedly loves the grandchildren to bits. He is very fond of my dd but I would not say he loved her. After uni she got a job and remained in uni city, eventually married and bought a house there. We visit her, she visits us but they have never lived in same house. DH occasionally goes to cinema with eldest son and he has helped him in his career. DH and DS lived in same home for about 8 years and they became close. I would say DH loves eldest DS and youngest DS. He often spends 1-1 time with youngest son. He has left all 3 of my children equal amounts in his will.

@Willyoujustbequiet

Yes for me. I couldn't be in a relationship with a man not capable of loving my children as his own. It's a deal breaker.

For those saying no because they arent biologically his I hope you never adopt.

I know people like to think this is some big "gotcha" thing but it's not at all... I actually think comparing adoption to step parenting is incredibly insulting to adoptive parents.

Me being a step mother to my husband's children IS NOTHING like being an adoptive mother, in any way shape or form. My step children have a mother, they do not need that relationship from me.

Unless we are talking a situation where the other biological parent isn't involved at all and you've raised that child as their parent, it's nothing at all like adoption. Can we stop with this stupid comparison.

I know she doesn’t love me the way she loves my (half) brother and she knows I don’t love her the way I love my mother, but that doesn’t diminish the relationship we have.

This is what I don't understand, why does the relationship have to be like parent - child for it to count? There are many people that I love in different ways to my son. It doesn't diminish those relationships. I don't love my God daughter in the same way as my son. But I still love her. It's the same with DSC, I don't think of them nor love them as if they were my own but I still have a good relationship with them.

@HRTQueen

He gets frustrated after spending one weekend a month with your children

Isn’t that your answer

It depends what he's getting frustrated with. The OPs child is 14. I know from my own DSS of a similar age that he can have a horrid attitude toward his mother and father at times. It wouldn't matter how often I saw him, witnessing that would frustrate me.

My SS's mother's partner gets frustrated with the same thing. He cares about DSC but he doesn't like how the teenager can be with his Mum sometimes.

Needs to love them. I wouldnt have ever moved dp in with ds1 if I hadnt been confident there was love there.
Hes treated ds1 as his own the entire time. Ds was 4 when we met dp and hes an adult now. Dp has made sure ds1 will have same rights to inheritance as his biological children etc.

I couldnt be with someone that didnt love my children.
I had a stepdad and I think.he loved me to an extent, was definitely fond of me and did lots of things with me and taught me lots, but not very emotionally available. I guess thats ok too, but i think the fact that all the important men in my life, dad, brother, stepdads love was either very conditional, intermittent/absent, or half arsed, certainly had effects in my adult relationships.

No IMO. Which is why I didn't date again before my son left home in his 20s.

My stepchild is two and I absolutely adore her. I’d defend her and put her first at all costs. She was very easy to love because she’s part and parcel of my DP. She has a very involved mother so I’m careful not to overstep but the more people who love her the better really. We haven’t had children of our own (yet- hopefully we will do) so I can’t say if things would be different if I had a biological child but I can say for a fact that I love her to absolute bits.

Once they are over 10, I think expecting unconditional love from a step parent, particularly if they don’t live with the children full time, is optimistic. Similar to in-law situations - some people get on brilliantly, most care for each other but nothing like the relationship they have with their own parents/children.

Parenting tweens/teens is hard work, and if you haven’t done it before I think it would be very difficult to build unconditional love in that time. It might come later though.

Similar to in-law situations

It is an in-law situation. Not just similar to it.

For me, yes a partner would need to love my children. I wouldn't say he needs to love them the same way he loves his biological children, but there would have to be love there.

I wouldn't have stayed with my husband if he didn't love my children from my first marriage. He tells me that the love he has for his step-children is the same as the love he has for his biological children (again, it helps that they were so young).

I can't see into his heart, but my children are now young adults and I have never had any reason to question it, and that's good enough for me.

I wouldn’t expect a step parent to love a step child like their own, but I would expect them to love them if they were going to be part of my family.

It’s fine for a step parent to only care about the children at the beginning of the relationship, but by the time they are marrying or living with the parent t should have developed into more than that.

How can anyone build a happy and successful family life with people they don’t love?

I think it’s age dependent. My dh came into our lives when my dd was 3 and has lived with us since she was 5. My exh lives a long way away and therefore dh has been for all purposes her everyday dad since she can remember. If he didn’t love her it wouldn’t work for her or me.

I was worried when we had a child of our own in case it made his feelings change but he says it hasn’t and he loves them the same. I’m not sure I 100% believe that but he doesn’t treat them any differently and there’s nothing that implies it’s not true which is all that matters. He does all the dad stuff / running around after her / parents evenings etc - I never really think of him as not her dad.

If dd had been older I’m guessing we wouldn’t have needed that in the same way and care and kindness would have been enough

I don't think any child should have to live with adults who don't love them. I think most blended families don't work, and the children are unhappy. Even in families where the adults think it works just fine.

Nope, I don’t think it they would have a biological disposition towards doing so either so why pretend/ delude yourself into expecting it. A man can love another’s child -‘a lot a bit like they may love a friend or a beloved pet or family member but not actually as their father. Those who claim to are usually not emotionally literate enough to discern the difference

This an interesting question.

My sense is that step parents view their step-children differently. In the same vein, step children view their step parent differently than their biological parent.

I think step children and adopting children are two separate things. When you adopt a child, that child is yours whereas a step-child usually isn't yours. I personally don't view my step parent in the same way I view my biological parent and I wouldn't expect them to view me in the same way their biological children.

I think all the children should be treated fairly and equally in blended families.