To think that step families never work

[OneHurtSpaggetio]

am currently seriously considering divorce. My H and I have a 9 month old DC together.

Our marriage was rocky from the start but I am a blind optimist and thought it would improve. I was head over heels.

He has historically gaslit me, and been abusive in different ways. We also have extremely blissful days together where we are best mates, but the lows of the relationship are horribly low.

He has put in a significant amount of work to correct poor behaviour, but short of a personality transplant, I wonder if it will ever be enough to end the cyclical lows.

We have been married for 2 years, and I sometimes feel very positive that we will go the distance and have a fantastic turnaround story, but after a particularly toxic week with him and then with his toxic family, I feel lurching sadness that my life is indefinitely fucked if I stay with this man.

Truly, the only thing keeping me “in” is my beautiful DC.

I always feel like MN is very quick to tell people to leave rather than stay and work on their issues, so I’d like some honest opinions about what life after divorce is like and whether step families can actually be happy (I grew up in a “blended” family and had a horrific time with both step parents being abusive to me), or whether people ham up the joys of divorce on here.

YABU - divorce and step families are better than staying in a fraught marriage

YANBU - the grass isn’t always greener and people can grow and relationships can recover

Thanks for your replies in advance, MNetters

I find this so interesting, do you share resdency with your ex? How many children?

There is no way I would have been single for 10 years or so, while my children got to university. For a start, my house felt so empty 50% of the week. I have a good job, am an extrovert, play sport regularly, socialise a lot independently, but still had a real.desire for a partner, an inate drive.

My SM is my absolute hero, to be honest.

She took 3 of us in after not even knowing my DF for all that long. It certainly wasn't easy for her, and she had two children of her own to consider, but she's been the absolute shining light I needed growing up.

I see her as my mom and she's told me she loves me just like she loves her own daughter. I was 4 when we moved in with her and I'm 27 now.

At least you would get to choose your partner. You don't get any say over his - the woman who would be parenting your child 50% of the time along with your ex

I don't think stepfamilies work very well, no, and it's not an example I want for my own family, so I didn't move anyone in. I still just date on my non-family days. I actually really like it that way

The fact that you’re thinking about whether a step family would work for you at this point doesn’t bode that well for how a new relationship involving a step family would work for you.

I’m a stepmother to two and I love it. Never wanted children so DH and I don’t share bio kids with I think makes it ‘simpler’, but I genuinely love it. Both my DSC (now 14 & 16, been in their lives since 8 & 10) also talk about how much better life is for them since their parents split as they hated the arguments their mum and dad used to have.

Your priority now should be your DD. Staying in a toxic marriage is no good to either of you.

Don't stay put just because you're worried about potentially being part of a blended family in five years time.

No, ex is not involved. He was sporadically at the start, but not now for a while. Just the one child.

I don't really have a desire for a partner which probably helps. Being single for so long has made me very intolerant if I'm honest! Even my happily married colleagues seem to do things that I wouldn't - one of them for example buys all birthday gifts for her MIL because her husband is crap at remembering birthdays. She's perfectly happy and I know her husband and he's lovely, but things like that would annoy me. I've spent too long raising one child, I don't want to be running around after a man as well. 😂

I'm not celibate, I have dated casually, and I'd even have a relationship if I met somebody I really liked, but I do not want to be a step parent to someone else's kids and I do not want a man living in my space. Easier to stay single in that respect!

Yes they can work, but for me my children's happiness was ALWAYS a priority over my own. I love and adore my DSD. I can't imagine the horror of being a child and mummy or daddy having a different BF/GF new siblings to contend with on a regular basis.

IMO and a lot of experience-

Step families work better for the dm in the situation and dc in the main home.

Step families struggle esp for the step mum and dc at dads house.

I think it works best for dc (personal and professional judgement) where dc have a main home and visit dad. I don't think it works well living between two homes apart from where there is Zero toxicity involved. Dcs need to feel they belong but they don't need to have double of everything at each house and call both houses home.

@Bansheed you don't have to be single to not blend families. I've been living with just my kids for nearly a decade. I have a partner but he is rarely about when the kids are (and ex doesn't have them all that often). It's quite an "arms length" relationship and not what I would have envisaged years ago, but actually I love it now. OP I agree with the others that you are looking at this all wrong. Step one is your current relationship and whether that could work or not. Even if we all said step families do work, or don't, that shouldn't be what makes up your mind.

OP, focus on the now. You are unhappy and you're DC needs to be in a positive environment. You will be fine as a single person. It will be hard but you will be fine. If you do meet someone in the future, the idea is to take it very slow. Both for you and the DC. I hate to say it, but women who have been in one abusive situation are often vulnerable to another one. So take your time, get comfortable in being on your own and only let someone else in (slowly) who is genuine and no red flags.

Our blended family works really well. It was hard negotiating the situation at first but we are in a good place now. The kids are more open and relaxed and their behavioural issues that had started while my DP was with his ex wife and continued during the divorce resolved. DP's parents were amazed at the turnaround in DP and the kids. DP's ex has also moved on with another partner and they seem very happy and the kids really love and care for him as well.

We're not all best buddies - we don't have coffee and cake together! But we are considerate and friendly when we see each other and we support and accommodate each other's households when there is a need (illness, work commitments, child care issues).

It takes the adults to all be very mature and truly put aside their own feelings to think about what is best for the kids. It sounds like you unfortunately had two step parents who weren't nice people - and probably wouldn't have been nice regardless of whether they were parents or step parents.

I'd never opt to be a stepmum. I shudder at the thought quite frankly, along with the notion of blended families. I know for fact I would always opt to keep me and my kids as a separate unit to him and his. Me in my home, him in his. If he couldn't settle for that, we'd have no future because there's no way I would agree to live with someone else's kid(s), even on a part time EOW basis.
God. No.

Step families are hard work but that doesn't mean they don't work.

But as other people have said, don't base your decision on that factor.

I don’t think you should base your decision to stay/not to stay with your DH on whether your DC might have have stepparents one day. Is this what you’re worrying about?

Staying in a miserable relationship with your children’s father can be soul destroying, so if it doesn’t improve just remember you and your DC deserve better. Potential future stepparents are irrelevant at this point.

Just to answer your question, stepfamilies are hard work. But in my experience it’s because of the parent. If your husband has form for being an abusive and generally being a dick, then if he ever meets anyone else and she becomes your child’s stepmum, chances are he will be like that with her too and she will find being a stepmum hard work. Not because of your DC, but because of him.
If you was to ever meet someone, I think it would be more likely to work out. As is the case with most stepfamilies where it’s the mum and stepdad. But I do recommend not rushing in to anything.

My DH and I have 4 children. 2 were from my first marriage but my DH raises all 4 of them equally and we don't consider ourselves a "step-family" we are just a family and a very happy one too. I am sure there are some disaster step families too just there are some awful "regular" families. Life isn't black and white.

Step-families can work. Or they can't. It's the same as any other family.

Step families are no more detrimental to a child than growing up in an unhappy home.

I was raised in a bad marriage and i don't thank them for 'staying together for the kids'. No violence, some rows. But no love and no affection for each other no laughter. Quite tense and speaking badly of each other. I moved out young as did DB.

They are still together now in retirement and its worse then ever in many ways. And has created a burden for me and DB as they dont emotionally support each other or ever do anything together outside of the home. Being your parent's happiness because they never went out to find it is a massive burden.

I left my own unhappy marriage and have created a warm happy good life full of love and laughter for me kids. It has evolved over time and now involves two step parents.

Are you using the term "step family" instead of "single parent"? I don't understand otherwise. If you divorce, you'll be a single parent. There won't be anyone "step" in that equation unless you or your ex decide to meet someone else

Are you seeing someone else, or have you had your head turned? Is that why you're framing your thinking as "how do step families work" rather than the question in front of you which is "how do I end this sham of a marriage "?

Surely OP is just sad and anxious about the prospect of maybe not having any more children if her relationship needs to end, depending on what comes after. I think it's really understandable to be weighing up all the factors in a decision to leave, particularly given her childhood experiences.

I can’t thank you all enough for your kind, considered replies and for sharing your own experiences with me.

A few of your replies have brought tears to my eyes. I have felt incredibly dark these past couple of days (DH has gone to stay at his parents’ house and we haven’t spoken), looking at my beautiful DD who is the love of my life and fearing that she will suffer as I did as a child has been nothing short of utterly crushing.

Your replies have been a handhold out of the darkness and I truly thank you all for that - it has stopped me from feeling so alone.

To answer some of you who are wondering why I am jumping to asking about step families: my DH is younger than me by 5 years and I know that it is very likely that he would remarry AND have more kids, if we were to divorce (cultural, largely).

From my side, it’s really hard to imagine having another relationship at this point, the thought of being a nomadic entrepreneur (I run my own business) with just me and DD against the world, a la the film Chocolat, sounds pretty great, but I know that I’m unlikely to be able to fulfil my feminist fantasy.

Who knows if I’d ever trust someone with my heart again. The thought of that makes me feel physically nauseous if I’m being honest.

DH has agreed to both counselling and anger management in the past, but then pulled out of both after one session. I think he truly isn’t ready to face his demons.

Short back story: his family are well-to-do professionals (think along the lines of barristers, doctors etc), he had a v charmed life artifice (privately educated, big house, parents hosting regular dinner parties) but his dad used to batter the daylights out of his mum behind closed doors. She tried to commit suicide when he was 10 and he saved her life by calling the ambulance. He has never told anyone except me. They don’t know that I know. He has a child-like relationship with his parents where he still puts his dad on a pedestal and seems to mentally erase the first (12?) years of his life, whilst also having a husband/son style relationship with his mum because his dad was hardly present, due to his job and also the abuse. He very much copies the worst parts of both parents, but also the best parts, so I feel like I’m living with Jekyll and Hyde.

I’m not expecting more replies and don’t mean to drip feed, but just wanted to clarify for those asking.

To answer some of you who are wondering why I am jumping to asking about step families: my DH is younger than me by 5 years and I know that it is very likely that he would remarry AND have more kids, if we were to divorce (cultural, largely).

If he does he does. It’s still not worth staying in an unhappy marriage for just so you can prevent a stepfamily situation coming along. It’s better for your DD to have one happy home with just you than no happy home at all if you stay with her father.

Thanks for the clarification, op.

I agree with what funinthesun said above.

OP,

Please get away now while your daughter is young.

He is a damaged man and you cannot fix him.

Your daughter will pay the price of you making a project of him.

Accept that this was a mistake and save yourself and your daughter.

He may remarry, so what?

Your daughter will have a safe space with you.

She can have a good outcome in life if you leave now.

Billy1966 - well said.