to think most blended family situations are unhappy

[Nimbostratus100]

From my experience of many decades as a secondary school tutor, I would say most of the time when children talk about step parents, there is tension and misery ( from the children's point of view, not necessarily the parents)

I am going to say 75% of situations are unhappy, by which I mean most of the children are somewhat unhappy, or one or more child is very unhappy, or the situation breaks down because of parent or child unhappiness. Breakdown could mean the relationship between parents breaks down, or the relationship between a child and step parent breaks down to the extent a teen becomes homeless, or moves out

So to answer this, you probably need to know at least 4 blended family situations reasonably well, yours as a child, parent, or other people's.

I am expecting that some parents will vote that it is happy, when that isn't accurate, as I am aware this is quite common, and the child has a very different feeling than the parent.

However, I will be pleased if I cam completely wrong about this, and lots mare happy! I just dont see it in teaching.

YABU - less than 75% are unhappy
YANBU - 75% or more are unhappy

I agree.

Sometimes it is much better for children to be raised by separated parents so either single parents or blended families. Sometimes their biological parents are a nightmare together.

I've been told by my SD that her parents are happier married to their second partners. The SC have always had two happy homes.

And coming from someone in a position of power towards our children ! It’s absolutely wrong on so many levels

I also agree with this.

I have teacher/TA friends and they have never said this.

My Dad died when I was 10, my mum remarried and it was fine. He was a good man and made my mum happy.

Honestly, the op is only here to goad, he/she/they like to drop bombs and watch people tear each other apart.

Considering on another thread she started she was a foster carer and brought troubled kids (including a burglar, who went on to burgle them)into her home with her kids, she has absolutely no ground to stand on judging others parenting. I wonder how happy her kids were with a single parent bringing different kids into their lives regularly.

I dont believe a word this poster says, on any thread EVER! Far too many similarities with another poster who happens to be banned.

Its a tough one to answer because i'd say the majority of the childs unhappiness is due to the parents splitting, rather than the new step parent. My kids were 5 & 7 when I split with their dad and the youngest struggled with it and he subsequently doesn't have as close a relationship with my husband as the older one does (we got together 18 months after the split). Is that because he doesn't like my husband or is that because he wasn't happy with the situation generally?

I know 2 where the children really don't get on with the step parent, but mostly the families seem harmonious.

My kids weren’t happy when me and their dad were together because we argued all the time and they didn’t like it.

where does that go in the poll on this unscientific judgemental thread?

How do you feel about some posters saying that you shouldn't have remarried though and you should have put your child first?

I'm not sure you've read the whole thread but there have been some very judgemental posts.

I know a guy who is on his 4th family set up.
Two adult children with 1st partner
Another adult daughter with 2nd partner
A 9 Yr old son with 3rd partner
Now onto his 4th set up but because both are in their fifties he obviously can't father anymore children! He makes out this 4th set up is blissful and to be honest it works most likely because they don't live with each other and only see each other of a weekend, no financial worries as both very high earners, youngest child is spoilt by both of them and doesn't have to compete with younger children as they are all adults and so they don't have the pressures that other blended families have. Not sure it will stay that blissful though but time will tell.

There comes a point when you have been with someone for 5/6 years, you have married them and they have proved time and again that they are a good and trustworthy person when you trust them implicitly with an older child.

I'm afraid this isn't true.

I'm not talking about your relationship or your particular partner's relationship with your son, as that may well be lovely as you say: this comment is about risk levels. And obviously a slower, more cautious approach is less risky than moving in random people you barely know.

However, many people think the above ^^ and that their children are safe and happy with an unrelated partner but have misjudged. And many such partners hide who they really are successfully for years while abusing children. Many people feel this certainty, that they've done everything "right" and the children are fine, only to be proved wrong. My mother was an example of this. This is why the statistics show that the kost dangerous thing you can do as a parent is move an unrelated man into their home. Of course that is not to say all step fathers are a risk, but like with male abuse and violence in general, you have no way to know which ones are a risk. They don't have a neon sign on their head, in fact they are very, very good at manipulating and pretending to be wonderful people. It's a very dangerous game to play with a child's safety.

@Eggpie yes, very depressing. So few people seem to step back and think about the overall impact across a childhood. This is why many of us draw the line you speak of at co-habitation.

People can have perfectly successful new relationships if they wish without moving new partners into children's homes (I find the obsession with needing to move in together quite odd, personally), or having more children, or trying to create a family with strangers where unrelated children are expected to live as siblings. Maintaining the stability of the children's separate home strikes a balance between the child's needs and the adults' wants, while enabling the adult to also pursue romantic relationships if they wish. Whereas "blending" families in the vast majority of cases appears to be wholesale prioritisation of the latter over the former (despite protestations that people have "considered" the child's needs, then clearly promptly decided they aren't important and ignored them entirely!).

Sure, in some cases people may be lucky and it works out without causing more disruption and trauma for the children, but the stats are clear that in the majority of cases it does not, so why would a parent take this risk when it's not necessary?

@DryYourEyesWeepingWillow I have just read your first post and I'm sorry you had such a bad time but this is not normal.

I can't believe you have 20 friends who have been through the same unless you met them at some therapy group of people who have been badly treated by step parents.

In my large circle I have no experience of people being treated like this.

What a silly reply ! Everyone runs into that danger , but the reality is most men will not pray in your children !! Pedophiles are not the majority of men and certainly not a huge part of step dads like you like to believe !! What utter nonsense .
The reality is they can be anywhere , men , women , a teacher in school , someone at church , a tutor , a friends dad , a grandparent .

Of course its not most men, but you don't know which men it is. They don;t wear badges. Yes, it could be anyone anywhere, but its overwhelmingly likely to be in your own home.
We do know that paedophiles look to make opportunites, we know that they target single mothers with children the right age, we know its literally the most likely scenario of abuse.

Its nice for you if you don;t know much about this, but your naivity is not licence to call other people "silly" for talking sense.

True.

She's goady, biased and disingenuous.

She's claims this is a discussion, and infers that her experience makes her made up statistics scientific. Its anything but.

Thank you. But no, I didn't mean to imply oir family situation was the normal outcome. Just an example of what can happen. The 20 or so friends whose parents divorced and remarried, sometimes with additional half/ step siblings and sometimes not, mostly did not experience the level of abuse we did, only one of them. The other 19 or so though were all varying degrees of unhappy and mental health impacts from the situation that persist into adulthood. Also impact on their lives in a practical sense as many left home earlier than they should have to escape the situation. Lots of unpleasant behaviour by step parents, making them feel unwanted or an inconveniece, being treated very differently to other unrelated/ half related siblings. Some nasty verbal abuse. So no, not implying of course that all step parents are physically and sexually abusive of course. However, the outcomes for the vast, vast majority of children were negative. Only one speaks positively about the blending and that happened when she was a very small child still (her mother died when she was a baby), her step mother happened to be a lovely woman and loved her, there were no other children before or afterwards.

Obviously this is not a statistical sample! But the studies done on the topic bear out that for the vast majority of children "blending" is a negative experience, particularly if additional children are in the mix/ created afterwards. And also that it massively increases the risk of child abuse and mental health issues.

So for me, it's absolutely not something I'd ever even contemplate. It's for me to live with the consequences of my decisions as an adult and bad judgements I made, even if that might be inconvenient or not what I'd ideally want. Not for my children who've already suffered as a result of me choosing a poor father for them to now potentially suffer more disruption or instability or emotional insecurity or higher risks of abuse etc (or me even to risk that) for my own preferences or gratification.

As I said above, and is clear from the stories here, sometimes it works out fine and is beneficial for the children. But the fact remains that in most cases it does not, and that when embarking on this you have absolutely no way of knowing no matter how careful you are and slowly you take it. So personally I just wouldn't. If I did want a relationship I could have one without involving them in it, so it's not either/ or, the comments about being a "martyr" are disingenuous in my view. It's perfectly possible to strike a balance and protect your children and keep home their stable santuary while having romantic relationships separately, if separated parents wish to do so.

I find the obsession with needing to move in together quite odd, personally

Clearly you've never struggled financially, then.

The vast majority of the single people I know live in house shares, and of all the couple's that live somewhere better than that, they need both incomes to afford it.

The pull towards living together is quite obvious if you're not rich enough to afford a home alone.

What a silly reply ! Everyone runs into that danger , but the reality is most men will not pray in your children !! Pedophiles are not the majority of men and certainly not a huge part of step dads like you like to believe !! What utter nonsense .
The reality is they can be anywhere , men , women , a teacher in school , someone at church , a tutor , a friends dad , a grandparent .

My replies have all been respectful and I think to be honest that speaking to a victim of abuse in this way is not appropriate.

Your reply is the "silly" one here. Do not try to twist what I said, read it again.

I did not say "most men pray [sic] on children".

I did not say paedophiles are the majority of men, or a "huge part of step dads [sic]".

Of course they can be anywhere. But unsupervised access increases the chance of occurrence massively. And they will seek out opportunities for access so often target single mothers. This is a fact.

Moving an unrelated man into a child's home is statistically the most dangerous decision you can make as a parent. This is a fact. Not just in terms of paedophilia but also physical abuse. Research has shown this to be the case.

This isn't the only issue with it anyway, as I described in my other posts. But your comments about this are ill-informed I'm afraid. And highlighting a much increased risk and that fact that the parent would not be able to tell, so any false sense of security they may have due to knowing the person for a long time, or them being seemingly very nice to the children and the children liking them, etc, is exactly that: false.

The other thing with statistics is that you can’t measure the other side.

So, how many of those who had unhappy blended family situations due to poor parenting would have been happier with their poor parent solo? Or with their poor parent and other biological parent?

Statistically my children, with a blended family, have apparently had a poorer quality childhood than me who lived with both their parents…

Whereas in reality my children (the step children in the mix are now adults) had a happy childhood where as being burned with an iron and starved was such a regular occurrence in my household I told my teacher about it in the way a normal child would tell their teacher what they had for tea…

I’d say the crucial statistic that gets missed a lot is poor or selfish parents. Shitty parents that have zero regard for their child’s well being don’t suddenly get better if they are, or stay, single.

Starting a new relationship or moving in with a partner for financial reasons is a terrible idea. Entangling finances is one reason so many people get trapped in miserable and even abusive relationships. The answer to this problem is to campaign for the UK to stop penalising single parents financially, not to move unrelated adults into your children's home.

Starting a new relationship or moving in with a partner for financial reasons is a terrible idea. Entangling finances is one reason so many people get trapped in miserable and even abusive relationships. The answer to this problem is to campaign for the UK to stop penalising single parents financially, not to move unrelated adults into your children's home.

I think this is quite a simplistic reply. I'm not saying people should move in together purely because of finances, but it is a natural, socially normalised endgame for couple's that are happy and settled together and would happily cohabit, and part of that will be because pooling resources is the most sensible way of affording to live in our economy. House prices are not compatible with single incomes.

Single parents will be in the position where they are having to forsake that social norm in order to ensure their children don't have to live with a step parent, and as such, quite likely expose themselves and their child to a lot of financial hardship they are aware could be avoided. A decision will be made. For many that will be that cohabiting with a trusted partner or spouse is better than the alternative they are living with.

I get why people wouldn't make that choice, but find it a bit privileged when people go on about how they simply can't fathom why people might be attracted to the idea of living together.

My kids, with me as a single parent, have had a better life (even with the blended family shit show) than they would have had if I’d stayed with their dad. Where’s that in this poll @Nimbostratus100 ?

Mine too! I’m 3 years single and I still wake up each day thinking thank fuck for that. I honestly dread to think what our lives would be like if I had stayed with their father.

It was a toxic, dysfunctional atmosphere created by him. He has an older child with his ex wife and absolutely not their fault, but the whole experience has put me off ever being a stepmum to young children again. So I shall stay single and concentrate on me and my own.

@funinthesun19 I’ve very carefully not blended with my new partner. I didn’t date until my kids were grown up. I thought I did everything right. And yet here’s a thread on here to judge me for something I have ZERO control over (my ex getting a new partner and blending).

it’s really upset me. I don’t understand why the op isn’t taking into account that my kids would’ve been unhappy if I’d stayed with their dad. And why s/he is not answering the questions I’ve asked about this. It’s goady and judgemental and I can only hope she doesn’t teach in any of the schools my kids attended.

I did my fucking best for my kids. And yet. It’s not good enough. Can’t find a stick to beat you with so let’s try this one.

it’s horrible.

I should add. I was single for 15 years. I had fuck buddies and fwb scenarios but I didn’t dare at all until my youngest was (almost) an adult.

and yet. Oh woe is me. Kids in blended families aren’t happy.

well. Can someone please tell me what the fuck I was and am actually supposed to do about that?