AIBU for regretting being a stepparent...

[mnuser2021]

Hear me out. I adore my stepchild - he is very mature for his age (can have the best conversations with him), well-mannered, and probably the most caring child I have ever encountered. Seriously.He only remembers a life with me in it and practically sees me as his mum. I do everything daily-life related; ofc OH helps when he can but stepchild generally prefers to do daily "boring" stuff with me. He lives with us almost full-time (2 weekends a month spent with biological mum), and I was prepared for this coming into this relationship. This was never a problem for me, I'm happy to help and he's such a good kid. However... Ever since OH and I had our own, the love I have for each of them is very different. Do I care about my stepchild? Absolutely, and very deeply so. I genuinely love watching him grow and feel proud of his accomplishments. However, it doesn't compare to the love I have for my own. And I must admit, I thoroughly enjoy and look forward to the weekends he's not here when I'm just with my "real" family (for the lack of a better word). I now wish my partner didn't have a child as taking care of and managing both of their schedules tires me out and, for this reason, I couldn't imagine having a third, which makes me sad - that I don't want a second "because of" stepchild, i.e. I will only have 1 biological, which I never imagined. It makes me very sad thinking I'll have two children I don't hold the same emotional love for, and I wish I'd be pouring all my efforts into two I truly loved equally (gosh, sounds so cold written out like this... I hope you'll understand where I'm coming from). Luckily, the two of them (siblings) are unbelievably close! It's utterly heartwarming. But even in their most intimate moments, I catch myself wishing I'd be experiencing it with two biological kids.I don't want this to come across heartless - hell, I've been the stepchild myself my whole life, and I LOVE my stepmum! Which makes me even more committed to never treating them differently. But admittedly, I feel very differently about them in my heart even though they're both amazing kids (I guess it's a "you never love anyone like your own" thing), and god... I have many moments I feel I've robbed myself of the family dynamic I now crave (which I never knew I wanted until I had my own) and it genuinely makes me sad and regretful in hindsight.AIBU? Can anyone relate?

What you are feeling is normal, don’t beat yourself about it, just keep the love flowing on the same way you have. You are that child mother to him and to your own child, even if you feel the difference privately.

One thing that I don’t think has been mentioned is that such difference in age may be the cause of your issues and that you may feel exactly the same if they both were your own kids:

It is difficult to set priorities and provide the same level of attention when the kids have such different needs and interests due to their different age.

All children are different and behave differently at different ages so this want to be able to devote more time to your younger child you might have felt anyway if you were the birth parent of both.

And also, despite everyone claiming all their children are equal and loving them the same, it is very usual for siblings to have at least an idea about who of them is the mum’s or dad’s favourite. The added complexity when it comes to half siblings is that that preference if often blamed 100% on one of them being the SC, who then becomes the scapegoat as a step child is often perceived more like “an option” or “choice” that you can revert 😕

‘Oh helps where he can’ with his own child? What I’m I reading. We need to be raising the parental bar for men. Fuck me.

Maybe it can help to reframe it all a bit.
. I have a DS and step children and I know the love can feel different. My step children have a fabulous involved mother btw.
so I know my love for my step kids is different but it’s also unique to me and my step kids. We grew to love each other and it happened in a different way to what they have with their mum/dad or what i have with my DS.
but what me and my step kids have is just for us and we don’t have that with anyone else. So I love to remember how special that is in its own way if that makes sense?
and I see the bond they have with my DS and it’s so special, in way it brought us closer together to have a ‘blood bond’ between us. Even though we are already bonded but i think it just reaffirmed it for the kids that we share something the same now (DS). I’m terrible
with words so hope this makes sense.
I also make time still for 1:1 time with the older kids and make a point of still doing things with them that DS is too young for.

for example the oldest and myself love sushi. Nobody else like sushi. We go on sushi dates just the two of us where we can go out and appreciate the same thing without any complainers :D
or the oldest and i both love chess and DS is too young to take it seriously anyway.
or the middle and I go rock climbing together.
so there are things we can enjoy together without DS which means we don’t always have to adapt to suit him (which the kids are good at when needed). And can all enjoy the things we love most :)
is there anything you and SS can do to together that’s just for you two?

Quoted the wrong person, sorry.

I think nearly all stepparents feel this way if they are being honest, and it intensifies when they have their own dc. I think there's something subconscious about the child serving as a reminder of your spouses past that makes loving a stepchild 'like your own' different from a child through adoption.

It is very difficult sometimes, it can feel a little out of balance. DP and I both have a child each from a previous relationship, and we have decided we are done, we don't want another. Our family feels complete and to me we all equally feel part of that family even though DPs child doesn't live with us (we aren't married so technically not my DSS). I genuinely look forward to him coming, my DD loves him and we have so much fun all together.

However...

I understand where you are coming from.

@Anni1234 with respect (and you sound fantastic BTW) co-parenting a child with another fully responsive parent who is reliable and consistent in their care, such as your SC's mum, is different to parenting a child with a parent who is only present twice a month. We don't like to admit it but kids really need a mum. That's why so many of us can grow up without dads around and turn out mostly ok. I don't know many who didn't have a mum around who grew up equally well adjusted. In OP's case, she knows that she has to love that child ten times more, and be ten times more responsive and consistent to 'make up' for that absence of mother. That's not fair. It's not her job to have to do that. But that unfortunately is what that child needs. Attachment matters.

So many people would love your "problem".
A loving stepchild who causes no issues, a child of your own with a decent man?
Jeez, wake up to yourself.

I've not read the full thread yet but just wanted to say there is nothing wrong with you OP. You are completely normal in my experience both of being a step parent and knowing plenty of others.

ofc OH helps when he can

Firstly what the fuck does this even mean? "Helps"??? It's his son, he should be doing the vast majority of his care and you, as his partner, should then be the one helping him if and when appropriate not the other way around. Far too many men get into relationships with new women and then treat them as a replacement nanny. It's not acceptable for a RP dad (or a NRP dad) to merely help 'where he can' with his own child. That's completely unacceptable and should have been nipped in the bud from the start. I know posters will jump on "but they are a teeeeeam OP chose to be with a man with a kid', it makes no odds imo. The starting point for a step parent should always be that the parent does the bulk of the work and the step parent helps as and when able, not the other way around. That is the problem on the huge majority of step parenting threads on this forum and it very often leads to massive resentment further down the line for the step parent.

Secondly, of course its fine to feel differently about your own child. I have two step children and there's no way the way I feel about them and my own DC is even within the same universe. And yes I also look forward to the days they aren't here so I can focus on our DC, the house is quieter, less chaotic ect. I just don't have that unconditional love of a parent for them and therefore I value the time to decompress from them being here, I don't feel bad about that at all.

Its an entirely unreasonable expectation for someone who isn't your child's parent to love them completely as their own. Does it happen? Yes I'm sure in some circumstances it does (I suspect more often in step dad's than step mums because I personally think they often get a far easier deal but that's another thread). Should it be expected? No absolutely not. Only a fool expects someone else to love their children as much as they do. Feelings are what they are, you feel it or you don't. Expecting someone to feel something is stupid unless you're willing to be disappointed.

Basically you're doing fine, your step son sounds happy and loved, he doesn't need to be secretly as loved as your child by you. It is what it is, you're not his mum (although she also sounds useless so the comment about you never replacing her is rich considering you sound like you do more for him than mum and dad combined).

I regret being a step parent all the time, I still show affection, am caring and welcoming and friendly. But if I had my time again I'd never do it and I do wish I'd made different choices now and had a nuclear family, things would definitely be simpler. But it is what it is, I didn't make that choice and now here we are so I guess you just need to accept your feelings are normal and nothing to be ashamed of, cut yourself some slack and try and focus on the good things (like your child's relationship with their sibling for example).

So-called 'blended' families are the absolute pits.

@Ontheperiphery79 usually I would refer to them as ‘useless cunts.’

@mnuser2021 I have read all of your posts on this thread, but not all of the others, so apologies if I say what has already been said.

I am straight, but I think I love you OP. In some ways your post is very sad in that you feel that you cannot love your DSS in the same way, or as much as your DC. But OP, your OP is absolutely full of love for your DSS. If you didn't have any biological children of your own - for whatever reason - you might wonder about it (as you are obviously both a very thoughtful and intelligent person), but you wouldn't know for sure whether you would love your own biological child more, or maybe how much more than your DSC.

I think that particularly when our children are still actually children, rather than being adults, it would be almost inevitable for us to love our own children that bit more, especially when their bio mum is still on the scene. However in my experience (and I am the only person whose experience I can talk about!) when I became pregnant with my second child I was really worried about whether/how I could possibly love my second child as much as my first child, because I already loved my first child so very much.

When my second child was born I fell in love with them as soon as they were born - I had of course loved them when they were still in my womb, and would have been devastated if I had lost them while pregnant, but I was still worried in case it wasn't as much as my first (PFB) - My second child is the same sex as my first, so I don't know if they had they been the other sex, whether that would make any difference, but in my case I don't think it would have. I later went on to have a third child (same sex again, and still not a problem). My second baby had, and still does have, a very different temperament to my first child, and then my third had, and has, a very different character to the other two!

I actually found bringing up two young children easier than when I just had one, but that was probably because I had already learned so much baby related with baby number one - I had virtually no experience at all with babies until I had my first - when I was about 9 I pushed a baby in it's pram for about 10 minutes, and when I was about 14 or 15 I held a 6 month old baby on my knee for about a minute, but she started crying so I gave her back to her mum almost straight away 🙈 That was the sum knowledge of babies until I had my own.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make above, is that your baby is your first born, and obviously I have no idea how much experience you already had with newborns, but if not much, you might find having a second baby much easier than having one baby, and one older stepchild. So if you want another bio child please don't rule it out because of your recent experience. Your DSS will also have experience now of being an older sibling.

@mnuser2021 I felt (and still feel now even though I am now a grandmother) a different love with all of my children. I don't mean that I love one more than either of the other two, and I can't think of a way of describing my love for each of them - even to myself - but every baby became the most vunerable of my children when they were born, and that was simply because a tiny baby is more vunerable than most older children, so if there was a fire in the house most of us would try to dave the baby first as it couldn't climb or run away from the danger by itself.

I am not trying to suggest that that is why you feel differently towards your two children, as I think it is only human nature to do so in your sort of situation, but with one of your children being so young, your different feelings might be for more complex reasons than just one being your stepchild and one being your born to you child.
By the way when my husband and I only had our youngest child at home, while the other two were with their Grandparents, we used to enjoy it being just the three of us, and having a rest from the other two.

You are such a lovely mum, stepmum, and person, that I think you need to try to stop thinking about the negatives of a situation that you can't change without making such drastic changes that I think you would hate them, and that would not make you happy, even in the long run. You cannot force a change in how you feel about your stepson, but as all your children get older I think a change will happen organically anyway. Please be kind to yourself, and forgive yourself, you have NOT done anything wrong.

If you have managed to get to the end of this post OP, Thank You, and apologies for it being ultra long, even by my standards.

I can tell that you really care for your stepchild. I'm in the same situation and I really thought I loved my DSC before I had my own child but the overwhelming love I feel for my own child is nothing like I feel for anyone else.
I try my hardest to treat them all the same but it is different.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable however I think you’re massively overthinking it all. I personally feel like my cup is tipping over with two often thinking that having a third would cause me to crash and burn - gosh I already do on the daily tbh it’s hard work - but there is a saying you don’t become a parent until you have 2+ and whilst I don’t want to sound like people who have 1 aren’t - I honestly really struggle with two in comparison. What I’m trying to say is that if you want another then I would honestly go for it. A bit like myself I will never say never - for a start we don’t have the space and I certainly don’t feel like I have the mental capacity - that being said I feel like if it happened I would like to think in those super hard moments love prevails. Life with kids (especially multiples) can and will be hard work and have huge ups and downs.
I think it would be harder to deal with the resentment you hold for your stepson for the life choice you made based on him being around.
On a side note I’ve done a lot of research on love and it’s more so the actions you take for someone you care about rather than a feeling.
Hth and sorry if I’ve offended anyone.

In your opinion. My blended family has given every one of us more people to love, and who love us. It has been something so positive for everyone and I wouldn't change it for the world.

What a constructive comment.. what do you suggest? Drowning the step kid? Leaving the dad of her child?, find a single 30 to 40 year old man who despite his age has never been able to have a long term committed relationship?

The absolutely perfect Prince Charmings marry early and stay married to their first true love until they die. You cannot get them at the supermarket or download them from the web. Obviously, you can choose to stay single but staying single forever is a very personal choice and one that many find rather lonely.

@ChicaneTurn Thank you 💙

I suggest not forcing children into "blended" families TooOldForASugarDaddy. But you do you and put yourself first instead.

To be fair this is also true, the overwhelming feelings with the first born baby - even with your biological second- born it won't be "the same", I thought it would and had a second baby largely expecting it to be a reprise of that overwhelming passion but with me more competent - instead it was completely different, not less but different entirely. So you may be comparing apples with oranges, and then your second bio child would be bananas 😆 if you see what I mean.

I think a lot of hormones kick in especially when our children are small, plus many people would feel more protective instinctively over a baby or toddler compared to an older child. So it maybe doesn’t totally shock me to hear you don’t feel the same sort of overwhelming love for your stepchild and I don’t think this makes you a bad person. The important thing is your actions and how you treat him although it’s also important not to wish him away. I think people who commented pointing out the close biological ties your own child has with your stepchild are ok the right tracks as to how you should try to think of it.

Worth remembering that although you have this worry that you’ve robbed yourself of the family dynamics you wish you had, you would never have had them with your current partner and therefore your own child would never have been born. There is no guarantee you’d have found someone else, been able to conceive twice, had children without special needs etc. and been able to recreate this perfect dynamic anyway. We all have our crosses to bear in life. Your feelings may change as times goes on. Just keep an open heart and mind.

I think there can be a sort of grief for the child you didn't have. I've got two stepchildren and one child that I had with my partner. All are now grownup. I have a good relationship with my adult stepchildren, who I have known since they were 5 and 7. Being a mother of 2 as well as doing a lot of stepmothering for another 2 seemed too much. I was an older mother. There wasn't a lot of money around. And my stepchildren were brilliant with my child.

I think we just have to learn to live with those 'What ifs'. All of us have them one way or another.

I absolutely relate. I never wanted to be with someone that had kids because of all the extra drama etc. ( and there is loads, their mother is an absolutely bloody cow)

it’s really hard work and I also much prefer just my kids here. But it is what it is isn’t it. The kids don’t care either so we are at least mutual in our relationship with each other ( they are older than in OP situation and spend the majority of their time with their mum)

my OH is also a much nicer person to me and my kids when his aren’t here so that doesn’t help me enjoy the time when they are! ( it’s the pressure to be everything I think and him really wanting them to be included , they don’t care or make any effort though so that disappointment is hard to manage)

so I feel you OP and don’t let anyone make you feel bad, families are complex things.

There are lots of perfectly adequate men who for whatever reason are childless past 30! Are you seriously saying there are no good childless men past 30, so your only choice is to shack up with one who has kids, and then procreate with him yourself?

What utter bollocks.

You don't say how old the children are.

I have two thoughts, slightly dependent on their ages:

1. You don't know how it would be to have an older child then a younger one come along - what you describe is a tiny bit similar to having a second baby and working out who takes priority, how to show love to a big stroppy toddler when there's a tiny baby you want milky cuddles with and you're secretly glad when the toddler goes to nursery and it's quiet and just the two of you
2. Your step child will always be a step child, you don't have to force the relationship to resemble a biological relationship, it's ok for it to be different so long as you keep working at it and not excluding SS. You don't need to feel guilt about biology mattering, but you do have to give SS the best start you can
3. Your OH should be stepping up and thinking about all this stuff as well - doing what you can as soon as you can is still dependency on you to do the parenting legwork, it's optional for him but not for you

I'd take a guess at that your biological child is still very young. When my 1st was born my previously strong feelings for my stepkids evaporated. The baby took so much of my time. Those feelings did come back. Honestly I think hormones have a lot to answer for here. I wouldn't discount a third either. You don't know how the demands on you will change as the current two get older.