To think the first child always comes last in broken families?

[birdsinging]

My mum and dad split when I was 4 so I barely remember them being together but my dad met someone pretty soon after and she was really lovely to me, I had a room at my mums and at my dads and it was meant to be 50/50 type arrangement until my dad and step mum had another dd and I was asked to stay at my mums full time because they needed my room but I still visited and could stay on the sofa sometimes.

I'm still close to my step mum but it's nothing like the instinctive bond she has with her own daughter and since they've had their own dd it's like they are a real family and I'm not really part of that.

My mum remarried and had 2 daughters with my stepdad who I get on with but now he has daughters with him, his daughters are everything to him and it's obvious they are the real family and then there's me too.
I just feel a jealous that all my sisters live in a family home with both biological parents who will always put their own first.

I don't live at home now but my younger sisters all do but in each family home I'm the only person that isn't fully related to most of the family.
I don't think my parents or sisters will ever see how it feels to be the other child, my nan always said I was so lucky to have two families to love me but it's just two families where I've never been anyone's priority.
I've left home and I'm happy in life, I just feel my childhood was ruined because my parents had me first. Sorry to rant but it's Christmas and I am thinking about family and it's just upsetting.

@Rollonfriday22 hold on! No one is saying that staying in a crap relationship is the right thing to do. I'm so so happy I left mine. My kids are far more stable, less on edge, happier, doing better in school.
I think being raised by a competent single parent is actually the ideal for the child.
However
I don't know one blended family that truly works. Personally. Your love for each other is represented in that child, that child is a perfect mixture of both of your genes. When you take the love out of it, what remains is a child. A child who cannot compete with the child which represents all the things you love about your new husband or wife.
Add more complexities around race and culture. It's a good recipe for low self esteem. Add both parents arguing over who's turn it is, how much money you pay eachother, how much annual leave or sick days each of you are taking. None of us need to overhear that but we do. And it stays with you.
I love my stepdad but his family isn't my family. I'm like a ghost in the room. I don't know the stories, the traditions, the jokes. I don't know how to act or what to say. I'm like a toucan in a room of doves.

True. But why risk it when you have a choice? Why not just focus on the child(ren) you have and give them the best chance of recovering from the ACE(s) your failed relationship and its aftermath will have caused them? Where is the guaranteed benefit TO THEM of you starting up a nice new family, vs the very obvious risks?

@NauseousNancy

Nothing to do with the OP, but these threads bring out very angry people who don’t seem to comprehend that all families are different. There is a nice step parenting board, should you need a bit of balance.

I have dd1 , her Bio Dad left me for ow , when she was 3 months old , he has another child and hasn’t seen dd1 for about 19 years! I met someone subsequently and have had two more dc . Dp adores dd1 and she now lives with his mum . It seems to have worked as well as these situations can.

I’m sorry to read how you are suffering @birdsinging

I’m also from a broken home and thank you for this thread. The pain never goes away in my experience. Yet it is quite taboo to say so usually. The children of divorce are meant to keep quiet and not upset their parents with the heartbreak and grief of not having their families intact or worse still the blending of new families. Adults like to reassure themselves that children are resilient, it isn’t true in my opinion. Thank you for everyone on this thread standing up for children, if only it were more widely acknowledged in society.

For clarity, I don’t think anyone should stay in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship but in so many cases families are broken up and children devastated just because one parent or the other felt a stronger attraction to the new partner.

As others have said even if separation is necessary for physical or emotional wellbeing, setting up home with a new partner and blended families can be avoided.

I’ve said this on threads before, but it utterly baffles me that people will choose to move a total stranger into their children’s home and just expect them to live there and deal with it.

Teenage girl having to live with her mother’s boyfriend? In her home, which is meant to be her sanctuary and safe space? No thank you. There is absolutely no way I’d inflict that on my daughters. Not for anything.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush I'd say a very obvious benefit would be the chance to have a sibling to enjoy and grow up with, and the additional fact that they won't be alone as an only child once their parents have gone? It's not as clear cut as you're making out at all.

This is funny. There is another thread where someone is contemplating having another child with her new partner, and asking whether 7-8 years is too big a gap. Everyone is cheering her on and telling her that it's wonderful.

Yet here we have the older dc saying how shit it is for them.

All I know is I have kids, and every decision I make about my life is about how it will affect them. I have poor mental health, and it is MY LIFE'S WORK not to inflict that on them or make it their problem. I don't think that's naive or anything else; I think that's parenting. I think if you bring another life into this world, and are responsible to shaping that person from the ground up, that should be your number one priority, always, over and above having 'a life of outside' of them, of that.

I personally think you have to think this way to avoid very uncomfortable feelings of betrayal and anger. But I don't know that. And you don't know me well enough to be calling me naive, narscissistic, etc etc.

I think we have to look at economics too. If it wasn't for the crippling cost of living, cost of childcare, lack of well paid flexible jobs, reduction of opportunities to retrain, then how many women would quickly shack up with men and have children with them?

I think my happiest single mum friends are ones with the money and agency to date and enjoy intimate relationships without needing to move that person in or move their children in with another man. It is just a breeding ground for abuse.

Yes, I agree. And there's so many in the same position. I'm sorry, OP, I understand how you feel.

Having a half-sibling is not the same as having a full sibling. I know, I have both. I love them both; but it is very different.

I have both older and younger half-siblings.

My older half-siblings come from both sides. Step-siblings also older. (Really ex but were in my life since birth. )

Some people wouldn't have any siblings followed by nephews, nieces etc if they didn't have half-siblings.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush I agree, siblings are those who share your upbringing and roughly go through similar hardships or adventures. Half siblings rarely share that unless you are all raised by just one parent, both having equally distant or absent parents.

Another ‘first child’ here. I actually lost my shit a while ago because I wasn’t included in anyone’s will, as if bio parent dies first then their new spouse and children get it all and you get nothing. It’s disgusting how original children are treated when shiny new ones come along with new partners.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush but if the alternative was growing up an only child, it's not so clear cut is it?

We're coming at this from very different experiences and I wish I could give my daughter the traditional family, I know that would have been ideal and it eats me up every day that she doesn't have that. But it's absolutely not a blanket position in the way that you make out it is.

I think a lot of this comes down to whether any of the children are the odd one out without a full sibling. If OP had a full sibling, or if her mum had only had one more daughter rather than two with her new partner, OP probably wouldn’t feel so alone.

Every family is different, not everyone sidelines the first child(ren). Personally I think the most important thing is that you should only have subsequent children with a new partner if you can afford to support and adequately house your existing children as they have to be prioritised before you conceive more.

Wow. That is dreadful.

Your step-siblings should've included you when giving out shares (and never mind what the will said)

That sounds tough OP. YANBU but I think it's less about being the first child and more about how your father and stepmother let you down when they had another DD. They absolutely should have kept your life as it was when they added their daughter to the mix. A good father would never have done what he did; relegating you to occasional couch stays and upending your security like that.

I'd be upset about that too. Mind yourself 💐

Blended family wasn’t a term when I was growing up in a situation where I was less important than my half siblings who lived full time in DM and stepfather’s home and less important than my step-siblings who lived full time in DDad and stepmother’s home.

Blending is a sugary term used to make the adults feel better.

Way too many people have multiple children with zero thought about how their stupid selfish actions negatively affect those children.

This is spot on @CalistoNoSolo

Lots of people grow up only children, it's not an ACE. It's normal. Family breakdown is an ACE, no matter how you do it. The children of broken families are vulnerable and should be protected from further hurt. No-one is having another kid with another partner 'to give eldest a sibling'; be real.

I would love my children to have a perfect family too. They don't, they have me and I'm crap in many ways. I'm not trying to make anyone feel shitty here (cue mass disbelief); I'm just trying to empathise with the OP, because it's such a taboo for the stepkids to say how unhappy and left out they feel nowadays, any mention of how damaging it can be for them is seen as a criticism of 'non-traditional families' and somehow bigoted and oppressive; also we don't want to hurt our parents or stepparents feelings, much less our step and half siblings; do you think I'd ever say any of this to them?? Of course not. I love them, and they love me. But contrary to popular belief, love is not enough. The lack of stability and feeling like a spare part exists even in the light of that love. Because whichever way you slice it, I am only partly part of 'the family' that now exists.

Its not always the case that the 'first family' children are sidelined when the 'second family' children arrive. If you read the Stepparenting board, there are many tales of 'Dad guilt' where the first children get all the perks just because Dad feels guilty the marriage broke down, and the second children are expected to get the crumbs and be happy that their parents are still together