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....

No women should not be martyrs to motherhood but surely ensuring that your child feels safe, loved and secure is a basic of parenthood. You say common sense should be applied and that anyone in their right mind would not move a partner in straight away but many do.
However, anyone who has spent time on mumsnet would know that problems occur in families of all shapes and sizes.

The distinction between having a live in partner or some that lives somewhere else...

So if they live somewhere else that somehow doesn't effect your children?

Do you mean lives somewhere else and also doesn't spend anytime with you as a family?

@TheNightOwl26 i don't see why a child can't feel safe, loved and secure in a blended family? I think there are alot of people making unfounded assumptions here. It's all very unpleasant.
I grew up with 2 half siblings on my dad's side and 1 half sibling on my mums side. The only problem I experienced growing up were the horrible comments people made about me having "lots" of half siblings, and my mum having 2 kids with 2 different dads. I really hope 50 years from now attitudes will have changed.
My half siblings from my dad's side lived with their mum, but we have a great relationship and as adults in our 40s, all make the effort to see each other. My half sibling on my mums side lived with us. I consider him my brother and never refer to him as a half sibling ordinarily as he has always been there. His dad was not interested in being a father and my dad was a constant that was there throughout his life. I imagine some kids with single mums/dads might not feel safe, loved and secure with just one parent in a household/one absent parent. I know from my experience as a child my mum had an unexpected life threatening illness and the thought of losing her or losing a primary carer was really unsettling. A step parent will not love a child like a parent but that doesn't mean they can't form a strong bond and be a significant person in a child's life.
It wasn't always easy but I don't know many families that aren't without some problems along the way.

This is a really nasty, judgemental thread, and I say that as a woman who’s in a traditional nuclear set-up, happily married to my kids dad.

Excluding the type of person who moves a new ‘partner’ in within a year, many people think carefully about who and when they bring people into their kids lives, or move them in.

I don’t know what the OP or her supporters thought they would achieve by this thread other than make a lot of people feel bad.

And you can bet your bottom dollar OPs home set up isn't all sunshine a lollipops either.

I feel that we as humans don't have the emotional bandwidth to cope with some situations. The majority of people are too petty, jealous, self centred to be in blended families, you only have to read the threads on here such as 'do I have to take DSS on holiday?' 'Can my husband get away with paying less maintenance?' 'SICK of DSS's being here all the time when they come back from uni' to see that. Blood is thicker and all that.

@Edsspecialsauce I disagree that that is the majority of people

IME, if you're living apart, it doesn't affect the children as much. They have time away from the partner. Their home life doesn't change drastically. You can all spend time together as a family, but that's in the knowledge that it's not full-time.

I'm not saying that everyone should do this. I'm saying that for some couples, it can be a very good alternative. So it's not that the choice is binary - it's not remaining single forever vs living together and having more children. You can have a relationship that doesn't involve those things.

You make some very good points. Of course a child in a blended family can feel safe, loved and secure (I would hope the vast majority of them do!). I was referring to some of the stories that posters have talked about on this thread where parents had failed to take into account the needs of a child, but problems can occur in all types of families. Unfortunately, unhappy children come from all walks of life.

I think there are scenarios where it may work well.
John and Jane divorce and have 50-50 residency of Emily and Daniel. They are amicable. John marries Sarah who has no children and they don’t have any more children. Jane marries Dave and they don’t have any more children. Neither step parent brings any children into the home or the family. I can see how it works.

It is easier if children are adults and long flown the nest or at least old enough that they have options.

I married a man who had been widowed young with 1 child. To me, she is my child as much as the ones I birthed. It’s not easy but she lives with us 100% and we are one unit with no children going off for contact to another parent, no exes and no other sets of grandparents or families. Our situation is perhaps more unusual. I won’t pretend there aren’t issues for her that would not have occurred had I not met my husband. I had no children at the time and he had one bereaved child. Was it selfish? Looking back, yes. We are fortunate in that DD is very easy going and she bonded with me. I wouldn’t ask her but I do wonder if she thinks about what would have happened if I didn’t marry her dad.

I understand why so many parents are defensive on here but it’s interesting how it’s the mums in the situation saying their life works. Yet, those of us who grew up in blended families have a different view.

But there’s plenty of posters on here saying they handed blended families growing up and they were also happy.

to those so judgmental of mothers moving on I do hope your daughters don’t get left as single mothers because I’m not sure they’d be so supportive telling them they’re never allowed to live in a family unit ever again.

@Doneit555 I think you're ignoring the fact that lots of us are single mothers sharing the reasons why we aren't moving unrelated males into our children's homes. Who are we judgemental of? Ourselves? And I am in a family unit, my son and I are a family unit.

Sorry I didn’t mean kids and parent aren’t a family unit of course they are and a very special one too. Just being defensive that I’m being put into a bracket of being an unloving mother who’s ruined their kids lives. When that just isn’t the case for me. Of course awful things can happen but that isn’t just in blended families. I didn’t mean to offend.

My partner and I are pretty rock solid and we've been together for 14 years. We have a child together but I feel if he were to die or we divorced I may try dating again but I don't think I could settle down with that person until my child moved out. I've personally lived through examples of blended families going explosively wrong. I definitely wouldn't bring another child into the situation. I feel like when half Siblings are brought into the picture is unfair to the first child because they are in an unbalanced situation by default whether consciously or unconsciously.

The first child will either be getting carted back and forth between two homes which is already a crappy situation. But now one or both of their homes has new children. And in the home with the new child that child has two bio parents there advocating for them while the first only has one bio parent advocating for them.

The step parent might try their best to be fair bit at the end of the day it is unlikely they will advocate for them the same way they would with their own bio child. This is simply a cruel reality that one cannot change.

If you don't like this thread, don't read it.

Why do people report threads they don't agree with?

Newsflash: people have different views on things.

I'd have thought MNers would be well aware of that!

Personally I agree that blended families can cause quite complex issues, not least when it comes to inheritances, if not before.

There is some seriously selective reading on here sometimes.

Firstly, you can be a family in any way, shape or form you like. It doesn’t need to be man, woman and children. This is 2024!

There have been people like me who have given a balanced. I married a widowed a man with a child. I don’t think women should be on their own forever but the whole “it works for us, we are happy” is brushing over the fact there are very different and difficult problems in a blended family. I am not suggesting nobody does it but the defensiveness of some mums on here is full on!

If you do go ahead with blending families, pretending it’s “happy” isn’t doing anyone any favours. It takes work, hard work. Can you have a happy blended family? Yes, I very much believe so. Being overly defensive and acting like its your right isn’t the way forward though…

@Doneit555 none taken, and I was being a bit defensive too.

I was widowed and left with 4 young children. My priority has been them and their well being, I haven’t entered into any new relationships and they are now teenagers.
When I was a young child my parents divorced and my mum had a bf. She was with him for all the years when I was growing up. He made it abundantly clear that he wanted me out of the way. The only time this changed was when my mother became terminally ill and then he started saying that her family should look after her. I did take care of her, with pleasure as I loved her, but the fact I was made to feel like I was in the way for much of my childhood made me determined that my children should never feel that way.
Sadly, quite a few adults seem to put themselves first at the expense of their children’s happiness.

My boys Dad moved in with his new partner within a year of our split. She used to be our next door neighbour so I think they both thought that they would all be one big happy family. In reality our oldest son can’t stand either of them and no longer has a relationship with his Dad, the youngest comes home saying maybe her children will like him when he’s bigger and her son has now moved in with his Dad due to not getting on with my ex.

My ex made it no secret during the 10 years we lived next door that he couldn’t stand her annoying brats. Yet thought it was appropriate to move in with them. Neither can put the children first I just feel so sorry for them all.

It’s interesting as my kids have had no father involved as my ex chose not to bother when we split up and they have quite often expressed to me they would like a step dad or a father figure, my son asked if he could get a new dad and my daughter went through a phase of being desperate for a new dad even calling the teachers at school dad and asking me to marry her teacher so she could have a dad which was really embarrassing so it’s not always true that kids don’t want their mother to meet anyone else and would prefer if they stay single till they’ve grown up.

Mine too. Although our 6 are all adults now, we’re 22 years down the line.

I think it's such a subjective topic based on everyone's own personal experience
But you cannot outright say that blended families don't work. That is simply not true. As I mentioned earlier I grew up in a blended family and I had a really happy childhood. And it isn't fair to imply that mums that enter a new relationship are bad mums which is the overall feeling that comes from this thread. There's an argument that a happier mum could be a happier parent. I know I'm a better parent when I'm able to share the load with my DH. This is 2024, families come in all shapes and sizes and that is something which should be embraced. What perhaps need to change are people's attitudes to blended families and people's approaches to blending families, there will not be a one size fits all. But noone should be made to feel like a bad mum for wanting a new relationship.
I know of families where the parents divorced, wife never remarried as she wanted to "focus on the kids" and spent the rest of their childhood being bitter and miserable about the exH and projecting her unhappiness onto her kids who ultimately went on to have mental health issues later in life. And if you ask the kids, they wished she'd tried to meet someone because now they feel burdened by her.
My parents separated when I was 18. My dad had a long term relationship which I supported but my mum never attempted to date. She was always about her kids which was so lovely and yet I always felt so sad for her. Now at retirement age she's experienced cancer alone, and other tragic personal experiences. I don't live close by so I'm available as much as I can be but always feel sad she never tried to meet anyone again and whilst she has lots of friends she made her life about her kids and not really anything else.
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100% this.

I’m from a blended family and my stepbrother is one of my best friends. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

But I 100% believe our family is the rare exception - I agree they generally dont work.

<Dons hard hat>
I think they largely don’t work because selfish parents assume their DC will be as happy for them about their new partner as they are, and take very little consideration for how their children feel

My SIL snapped up a new man about 3 weeks after she split from her DC, and she became pregnant straight away. Her DC who were 12 and 14 at the time are, 12 years later, so unbelievably damaged from going from a nuclear family of 4 to living with a stranger, new baby and a deluded selfish mother in less than a year. When she announced she was pregnant and keeping it because she could ‘never kill a baby’ I thought ‘oh but happy to destroy your existing children’.

This thread is refreshing to read. The unspoken truth - that moving a partner/new spouse into the family home usually is damaging to the children who have no say in this.

It is true that it sometimes does work - I think in cases where the new 'intruder' is particularly kind and caring. But most people aren't like that. They are selfish and care more about their own relationship or sex life than their own kids. No-one ever asks the kids how they feel or give them any say in it, and put pressure on them to pretend it's all great and welcomed. It isn't. It's usually hugely damaging.

As a 'child' now in their 50s, I still feel bitter and sad over how another person/ family was foisted on us, whilst we were still grieving the loss of our mother. And in the space of less than 6 months, it went from dating to move in and marriage and share your home space with another family/kids with onerous pressure to pretend it's all great. I literally still have to send a 'mother's day' card to my step-mother each year, or else my Dad will kick off and cause a scene - all just to make him feel less guilty about being an utterly selfish buffoon who was so desperate to move a new wife in that anyone would do and no matter the consequence to his own children. Makes me so angry and bitter. Wish I could move on from these feelings but decisions have consequences, kids are vulnerable and pretending it's all great isn't the same as the lived reality that many kids have to go through.