Blended families don't work

[picklesandcucumbers]

This comes up time and time again.

It riles me off when I see another thread on here saying "my family life is falling apart, kids and DP not getting along"

Yeah

Blended families don't work

There's a minority that do - but they're an exception

If you get into a relationship with someone and you've got kids, expect it to go badly

Anyone find another thread about kids and DP not getting along, just signpost them here....

@Stretch I'm sorry you had such an awful experience. I'm pleased you and your dc are much happier. ❤

@BeezkneesI voted that blended families don't typically work and when they do its very uncommon.

It's my personal opinion that we really have to stop looking at woman this way

A. -Woman who wants a relationship and feels it will add to her life
> she must be sad and pathetic why you can't simply be fulfilled and content being alone.

B. -Women who prefers single life and gets fulfilment from other relationships
> wow strong and independent. This is the leading lifestyle of the future. Superior in every way.

Neither of these women is better or worse than the other. They were simply wired differently. And we shouldn't push them to change who they are. I tried to force myself to be happy single for years and finally realized that this is just hardwired into my mainframe. I'm not meant to be single.

There were other issues too. For instance I was asking too much from my friendships because really want I wanted was romance. Because I was trying to force something to work when really what I needed was a fulfilling romantic relationship. I ended up unintentionally eating up too much of their time and attention. I made them feel guilty when they were busy. And then I felt abandoned by then when they went through major life changes such as marriage and having children. Sometimes two or three of them would go through this at once and I felt very lonely.

Friends can't fill the role of a life partner for this reason. Nor should they be asked too. Life partners offer a completely different experience.

So yes I think A type women should seek out romance and relationships. I think they literally need them to be happy. I think they are hardwired that way. But perhaps blending families is complicated and not straight forward and should be very carefully considered. It should be a last resort.

@Edsspecialsauce you don’t need to be of a ‘higher social class’ to be a snob in my mind.

Not all blended families involve moving a random man in. Some of us have known that man for several years before they met the children involved and then several more before they moved in.

A man or woman should not be forced to spend the best years of their life without a partner just because the person they chose to have children with let them down.

I’d welcome your judgement more had I chosen to stay with the man I had my child with, the man who changed overnight when my baby was born and who beat me often.

I don’t know one that has worked.

@adviceneeded1990 but if I stay single, nothing very awful, risk wise will happen to my kids. We might be a bit skint.
They have a dad who loves them and they will continue to see him. They'll also have me. We actually get on well and will go out on day trips together.
What is the worst thing that my kids will turn around and say as adults? That we were a bit skint and mum worked a lot?
Compare that to the kids that grow up in blended families. Some will be ok, some will feel replaced, sidelined, ignored, hated, resented, neglected. Some will be beaten. Some will be quietly ignored. Some will feel unsafe.
It is a much much bigger gamble than staying single.
I have a stepdad who I love a lot. He came into my life when I was an adult. It's still a bit weird going to his family gatherings. I don't know how I would have coped with that as a kid. I'm a different class and ethnicity to them. I think as a kid it would have affected me, even more so if my mum and he had had children together. I would have been even more a genetic outsider.

I agree, this is a fair summary

I don't think the issue is that blended families don't work.

I think the issue is that the definition of 'family' that's still default - a mum and a dad plus biological children - is so narrow that it's damaging. For most of history, children have been brought up in much more fluid, diverse situations than this. It was the norm that children were raised by grandparents or aunts and uncles; that wider families lived together; that parents remarried. In many contexts, unrelated people played significant parental roles in the lives of children, especially teenagers. Of course, it's wonderful that most of us don't expect to lose multiple spouses before the age of fifty, which was fairly normal 500 years ago; it's great that children aren't sent out to work as young teenagers, which happened couple of generations ago.

But actually, children really need a flexible idea of family. It's good to have multiple adults who fill parental/grandparental roles.

When a child goes from a small nuclear family to a blended family, it'll feel as if their whole world has been shattered, and they've gone from something barely sufficient, to something where their mum or dad has been replaced by someone they don't know well. This would be much less traumatic if children had wider familial networks in the first place. Weirdly, we've been made to feel that having a wide family network (nan helping out with the kids; next-door-neighbours who act as aunties and uncles) is somehow less 'good' than one-mum-one-dad families. I think it's a class issue. And it really is damaging.

I only know three blended families (blended for 21, 16 and 5 years). They all seem very happy and in the case of the first two the children are obviously now adults and doing well. So I think it can work?

I find it funny Mumsnet’s advice to EVERYTHING is LTB. But then slate single mums.

I couldn't do it to my DD. If for any reason DH and I were no longer together, we've both said any new partner wouldn't be moved into her home(s). She will always come first.

I believe I could still have a healthy relationship without living with someone. And tbh, I love DH and home is not home without him, but I very much value my own space. So it would have to be someone VERY special to move them into my space at any point. Before DH I split with boyfriends because they wanted to live together and I did not want to share my space with them permanently. So if I feel like that, I can only imagine how DD would feel about someone she's not chosen moving into her space.

I’ve seen blended families where everyone is happy as can be, and traditional ones where everyone is miserable. Silly to generalise in either direction, every family is different!

This is a weird thread.

so women and men have to commit to a relationship that doesn’t work and makes them unhappy for life.

But if they do break up, they then can’t ever try and experience a happy family life with a new partner.

you’re also saying that if the mother goes on to have another child they’ve then ruined their other children’s lives forever?

i have half siblings. They haven’t ruined my life I love them dearly. I’ve also previously had step siblings who are now not in my life. They also didn’t ruin my life. Again I’ve had a father and a step father and a mother and a step mother. Neither of them have ruined my life either.

my kids have a half sister and are desperate for their father to have a baby with his new partner because they adore their half sister.

this is such a weird thread.

This is such a logical statement! I love it.

@PilgorTheGoat has anyone said you should have stayed with your baby's dad? No.
But why do you have to live with someone? What if it went wrong? Then your kid has another person to mourn.
Human beings are too messy and complex to deal with blended families.
Take my example, mum has a lovely little boy with a man who can't be involved. Meets someone, they have a baby. Nice guy, loves her son. Relationship doesn't work, he moves out. Continues to have his child 50/50. He doesn't take the little boy as he has no parental right to. So now you just have an angry little boy with no idea about why this man who he loves has left but also still comes to get his sister every weekend and doesn't take him?
If you could be assured that every relationship would work out then that would be fine, but it doesn't and the ones who are hurt the most are the kids.

I have reported this thread. The bigotry and judgement on a site which was set up to support women is repulsive.

To the majority of posters, shame on you.

😂😂😂

Mine does!

If your basing your views on mumsnet posts then 99% of DH’s are either useless or narcissistic & abusive, similarly the majority of MILs are interfering or bat shit crazy and no ones ever happy at work. People only ever want to vent/look for advice when things go wrong so you’ll generally only see negative posts on here not positives.
Happy blended family here btw. Know its not always the case but equally know plenty dysfunctional/unhappy conventional families.

Is having another child when you've already got one and still in the same relationship selfishness on the parents part too? What if the first child didn't want to have / live with another /2 / 3 /4 /5 brothers and sisters? 😳

I am an adoptive parent. It is different to step parenting because adoptive parents start out intentionally wanting to add the children to their families and undergo a lengthy time period of training seminars, multiple interviews and just waiting for a match. So the child is very much wanted.

I grew up as part of a blended family. It did not fucking work. It wasn't actually blended at all, it was a toxic nightmare of passive aggressive rage. What actually happened is that two new families were created and the kids from the first family (my sister and I) were not part of either. Our parents divorcing was not our fault but we paid the price.

So - while I'm sure some blended families can work, if everyone involved is pretty saintly - you're not BU to think that, generally, they can't. It's clear enough from a whole bunch of threads on here that stepkids are, at best, tolerated. Once the step-parent has kids of their own, stepkids are regarded as a threat/nuisance.

Well no one said it NEVER worked or that anyone that said it could was blind to the problems. Not sure why you insist on seeing it that way.

Unfortunately many parents convince themselves all is well when it really isn’t, because it’s what THEY want. Many. Your positive experience does not cancel out all the unhappy children or make that fact not so.

Personally I don’t get how parents are willing to take such a gamble with their children’s lives.

These threads always go the same way. Adult step children come on and say it’s shit. Teachers come on and say it’s shit. Step mums/mums with a partner who isn’t their children’s dad come on and say maybe some but not mine.. mines perfect….

Most children will not tell their parent they are not happy because they feel the pressure of keeping their parent happy on their shoulders too. Look at all the oh so am I never meant to be happy be single forever yada yada.

I agree. You see the same on threads about raising a biracial child in a predominantly white area. White mothers insist that their biracial children are perfectly happy in those places, they don't experience any "severe" racism - why, there's actually more racism in diverse areas! Meanwhile, biracial posters tend to say that they found it very difficult growing up as one of the only BAME children at their school.

@Edsspecialsauce your children could end up perfectly happy. Just like a child in a nuclear family could. Just like a child in blended family could. All three scenarios are perfectly plausible. And children from all three scenarios could end up miserable. It all depends how the adults involved conduct themselves, in my experience and in my opinion.

I disagree. I was married to someone with a lot of temper /financial issues. They are extremely excited to see a man in my life who actually does interesting stuff. He teaches my son how to use tools, build and fix things. He helps discipline the kids to wash their dishes and they are happy to have responsibilities. Their dad left everything on me and had a screen addiction. My new man is a doctor which both my kids are interested in and they respect him. He didnt have kids before me (we have a toddler and I am due with our second in April) but he says my kids are great. They are used to man who had rages and was always causing drama but never taught them how to do anything practical. Everything was for the woman to do while he sat on his computer or phone. Now I have a man who does everything and expects the kids to learn to help out too, which they enjoy, and helps me be a better more relaxed mom.