AIBU to think there is rarely anything good about being a step parent?

[PorkyPINE1]

From reading here and my own experience, I am yet to really be able to name any upside to having stepchildren. Aside from obviously being with the man I want to be with, I feel like there isn't anything I can name about being a step parent that isn't hard work / a compromise / a positive experience.

Not looking for sympathy by the way, I obviously chose this situation. Just pondering after a read on here this morning!

@Tandora ok so take the fire out of the analogy. I challenge you to say you would help, assist, save, prioritise your SC at the detriment of your DC.

I'm sure if DH's knew how stepmum felt they would tread on them to save all the children.

If that's the way you feel OP, then that's how things will remain unless you actively change the way you feel about it. Perhaps your partner will make your mind up for you.

It's entirely impossible for a relationship to survive something that is a negative EOW or less. Many do!

I wonder if the women who can't love their SC is because they came from their DH's being intimate with another woman. Insecure and pathetic.

Fucking hell, do the people leaving comments like this realise that this sneery, aggressively judgmental attitude from others is a big part of why lots of people come to hate step parenting? Can't even have a discussion amongst ourselves without it being taken over by comments like this.

You are an active component in the thing you supposedly hate. Well done you 👏🏻

No, they could have landed from outer space for all I care....they simply were not my children.
As I mentioned in a previous post, they were already in their teens when I met them (not all of us get together with our husband/partners when their kids are still pretty much babies), are you really suggesting I should feel as much love for them as I do for the actual children I gave birth to?
Plenty of us look after sc throughout their lives and do a damn good job of it, lack of love compared to our own children doesn't mean that sc have had a terrible time of it. My sc chose to live with us as he preferred it to his mother's....I must have been awful 🙄

Oh my god I have a fact for you. You won’t believe it…
You can both not love your husband’s child AND not care that he has an intimate past with another woman. Amazing isn’t it?

Just because she doesn’t love her husband’s child like her own, doesn’t mean she is jealous and insecure about his past sex life. What a really weird way of viewing it.

Your comment is also really unhelpful, because it’s shutting down and minimising the actual problems that stepmums may be facing. The problems that make it even more difficult to love their husband’s children.

AND you’re making it out like stepmums have no self love or self respect.

Nothing to do with his past sex life.

Everything to do that child just simply not being hers.

I love my step sons. Their Mother makes our life fairly unbearable which I could do without, but I really enjoy our time with the boys. It's hard sometimes and annoying when they fight and obviously it's extra work for me and DH, but none of those things anymore than I find with my own DDs.

This ! This is exactly as my own experience.

As I said a while back, when we divorced my DSD chose to stay with me rather than live with either of her parents (she'd been with us full-time since the age of 5). Did I love her as I love my own DD? No, but she clearly felt I loved her more than her own parents did and tbh she was right.

Did you not love her as your own because she was a product of his sex life with his ex?

Sorry, just demonstrating how ridiculous that other poster is.

'She seems to love him very much'.
You have no idea what is going through her mind. If anyone saw me with my sc they might have assumed I loved them, cared for them very much at the least.
Nope, I felt nothing compared to my own children.
Everyone assuming their partners love their children as their own would probably be in for a shock if they could read minds.

I know. I don't love my nieces and nephews as much as I love my own DD and I'm related to them.

Well firstly no one said "on" but anyway, am I the only one who'd expect and flipping want my husband to first save our children in an emergency?! I would expect them to come much much higher in his priorities if the situation ever arises!

Or maybe most people are not fake like you . My partner married his ex wife when his step son was 3 year old. They went on to have another child , step son is now 21 and son 16 . He got divorced 10 years after and to this day his step son still calls him dad , still went to his home after the divorce , still comes to our house now that we are together ( we have been together 4 years ) still comes on family holiday , still call out child together his sister . There is absolutely no way he doesn’t love his step son ( which by the way he never call me step son , only son ). He meet my own younger daughter when she was 3 , now 7 , he absolutely adores her and calls her daughter and she calls him dad . There is nothing fake about the love any of us feel towards our step children.
And by the way I absolutely love his 2 boys to bits ( even though the oldest is nit his biological child ) and they are a massive part of our family .
Do not assume everyone feels the same way as you , couldn’t be further from the truth.
And having just read your reply to him , his reply was , I’m glad none of us are like that . I couldn’t live my life amongst such a lie

Urgh I think this thread is one of the saddest I’ve read on mumsnet.

Nothing wrong with regretting being a step parent or regretting blending your families (after all some people regret becoming parents, let alone step parents). Nothing wrong with having a rant about how hard it can be. It’s the human shield comments and the total lack of self reflection or basic compassion for the kids that is pretty unpleasant.

I don’t think I’d become a step parent because I think I’m aware of my limitations and I just don’t think I have it in me, but if I was in that position I hope I’d have some sadness that I hadn’t been able to bond or form any attachment with my step child, sadness that between us we had failed to successfully blend our families. Instead of posting that I would step over them in a fire or couldn’t care less if I never saw them again.

Maybe you do all feel that, but it’s not coming over that way.

Do not assume everyone feels the same way as you , couldn’t be further from the truth

You mean like you are? There will be plenty of people that feel both ways. Would it really be surprising if those that don't love their SC or love them far less than their own kids kept that fact to themselves, given the reception they get when they admit it?

Stepmother is very different from stepfather. All stepfathers are asked for is not to be too mean. While stepmothers are supposed to be 100% devoted.

Your children and the children who aren't yours.

I actually do love my step kids and step grandchildren, I guess the difference for me is that I don’t have any kids of my own.

There is nothing wrong saying you love your own kids more. That is normal.

To find them joyless is very sad for all involved including the stepmum and I'm glad that is not my life.

sadly I can see lots feel like you but you where the one quoting someone else and telling them they where fake , .
Lots of step parents are not fake . Lots of us truly love our step children . My criticism you Yi assuming most are lying , I do not believe that .

You expect very little from a partner . I expect my partner to be a full part of our life’s . And that involves a lot more than not be mean