To think MN is horrible about blended families?

[kungfullama]

I've seen so many posts recently that just leads to think MN sees blended families as second class somehow.

Threads where ex wives are behaving horribly and withholding contact but are being defended because 'they were left' so somehow have the right to pass their bitterness onto their kids.

Posters screaming LTB at the slightest bit of conflict between dc and stepparents as if conflict doesn't ever occur in traditional families too.

Insinuating that new partners are just flash in the pan 'boyfriends' even when the relationship is long term or they're married.

Blended families can be complicated and the dynamics might be slightly different. But I know for a fact my dc lives are so much better with their bio parents apart and made considerably richer with the involvement of their two loving stepparents. I don't see us as being lesser than a traditional family. Not sure why others do.

What strikes me is that everyone feels that they are doing the best for their kids.

That's a sweet thought but patently not true. Most people aren't silly enough to think blending families is the best for their children, they just think their desire to cohabit is worth the detriment to their children. They just pretend it wasn't a highly selfish act so they can sweep away the guilt.

Doing their best would not lead to all these children talking about their unhappiness with the arrangements they were given. Isn’t this all in the results?

What does family mean? Doesn’t it mean in part that the happiness of children as well as the basics?

One size doesn't fit all.

Some blended families work well and are healthy but I don't mind admitting I'm horrified at the selfish attitude of some 2nd wives on the step parenting board. Some are brazen and have no business living with children. I'm almost glad my ex is a deadbeat so I'll never have to deal with this.

@Willyoujustbequiet , I feel the same way

There is a bit of a rose tinted view of staying in a relationship which is desperately unhappy to 'keep the family together' or of being a single parent (particularly without much of a support network).

People do not generally (not saying never but generally) end healthy relationships where they have children. People leave when they (and often their children) are mistreated and often to protect their children from awful environments.

I was in a financially, emotionally (and occasionally physically) abusive marriage. I hid it all from my children. They would tell you they were happier when their dad and I were together, despite the fact that they they really dislike spending time with him on his own. The truth is I spent my whole life organising them so they didn't trigger their dad and have him kick off. No friends over (theirs or mine). Never making what anyone else likes for tea. Never putting what anyone else wants on the TV. They don't remember all of that. Taking them for a 'surprise sleepover at nana's' when he came back from the pub, vomited and shat everywhere and passed out in the bathroom so nobody could use it. As they have got older (late teens) I am more open with them about why things ended.

When I was a single parent of 3, with no village to speak of (parents elderly and ill), none of my children ever got to do things on a 1 to 1 basis. If I was sick/ down there was noone to hold the fort and prevent that from effecting them (despite the superhuman effort that single parents have to put in when these things happen).

I met my DP 3 years after I split from their dad. We dated for a year before I introduced him to the kids. It was another 3 years before we moved in together as we wouldn't do that until we could move to a house with plenty of space for all the kids.

He is a loving supportive parent figure to them and me to my SC. Before we moved in together we talked about potential challenges and how we would deal with things.

There have been times when there have been various tensions between the children, in much the same way as I did in my bio family as a child and teen.

We set an example of a mutually supportive, loving and considerate relationship that my children would never otherwise have had.

Is the current blended family situation perfect? No. But no less so than the alternatives.

And it's fucking shitty for people in happy marriages to act as though people who get divorced do so on a whim with no thought for their kids and that all step parents are selfish individuals only interested in shagging their partner (not an insult ever leveled at married couples, although I see plenty of parents prioritising their spouse over their joint children).

It's just life, and people mostly trying their best.

What strikes me is that everyone feels that they are doing the best for their kids. Whether that’s staying together when things aren’t perfect, splitting up, staying single, remarrying a child free spouse or one with pre-existing kids, having no more kids or having further kids.

This is incorrect and kind of the point of the answers on this thread. (Which has gone woefully wrong from ops pov). The one sector that aren't doing the best for the kids is blending of families. They are doing what's best for themselves, the complete opposite of the other situations is Lyly e detailef which do do not hat they feel the s best for the kids. The best case scenario is that they might get used to it.

I also find the number of cheating ex-wives to be a statistical abnormality on the SP forum.

I’m also often surprised these women, happy to destroy their DC lives are also desperate to ‘control’ the DC.

I cannot imagine why they’d care.

Another statistic I've learned from the stepparenting topic is that 100% of women receiving child maintenance have false nails and multiple holidays a year.

YABU simply because my new pet hate is people not being able to use the word 'screaming' properly; you've immediately lost your argument.

Blended families occur because the adults want to be in a relationship. The kids either get lucky, or are collateral damage to this.

They don’t work either or only a couple of hours a day. The man is still paying for her house of course as well, unless she has a council house typically.

To the pp who said people don't break up families unless they are desperately unhappy...except for the many many, mostly men, who have affairs and do exactly that. And then spin the script that they were unhappy for years, despite the other party having no idea, despite having regular sex, going on holidays, celebrating anniversaries and participating in family life. They then move in with ow within weeks or months at best, sometimes taking themselves a considerable distance away from their kids in the process. Hard to see how that can be construed as in their best interests.

And @MeowCatPleaseMeowBack

That’s not true on a blanket level though.

On here alone, there are lots of examples of families where this has worked amazingly well. For you (if that is your experience) it didn’t and that’s sad but not something that is helpful to project onto everyone else’s situation. Lots of examples where people have said how their blended family was amazing and their upbringing in that setting was positive.

I can think, off the top of my head, of a number of people who wished their parent had formed a new relationship and miss the family dynamic when it was just them and a lone parent or a few siblings and a lone parent.

I can also think of a huge number who were more affected by the initial break up than anything else. Who describe being utterly traumatised by that. Some went on to resolve some of that trauma in blended families.

I say all this as someone who’s worked with hundreds of young adults who are struggling with their mental health. Not because of personal experience, although my personal experience reflects the fact also that none of this is a one size fits all.

• MeowCatPleaseMeowBack Another statistic I've learned from the stepparenting topic is that 100% of women receiving child maintenance have false nails and multiple holidays a year.

They don’t work either or only a couple of hours a day. The man is still paying for her house of course as well, unless she has a council house typically.*

And don't forget - he doesn't get to see the kids because the ex is controlling, and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the kids don't want to see him because they've worked out for themselves he's a bellend.

You're very fixated on your belief that the initial breakup is hugely more traumatising than any subsequent blending, and you keep trying to turn the discussion that way, but it's not a theory that I think has any validity.

Edit: Ah, just remembered you're a stepparent. Just another example of wanting desperately to think you and your husband didn't do a selfish thing.

Aye, and mum is neglectful/abusive but not so much that she shouldn’t be sole carer 12 days out of 14…

Yes they always have clothes that are too dirty and too small. Often with nits. Act like starved dogs around food. Have zero manners.

They also shouldn’t get as much spent on them for Christmas / birthday / inheritance as they have two homes whereas the new joint child only has them.

But obviously the father doesn’t think it would be fair or appropriate to go to court for full custody despite how neglected and abused they are.

oh and she’s always moved hours away even tho he pays or it’s council 🤔

It's ironic that you would call someone else out for being fixated.

It's obvious you had some sort of traumatic stepmother experience in your childhood, although you haven't gone into detail on this thread, and I'm sorry that that was the case.

Extrapolating your situation to mean every child with a step-parent or step or half-siblings is miserable, any parent who splits up with the other parent and remarries and has more children is selfish and doesn't care about their children, and any child who appears very happy and to have loving relationships with the step-parents, step-siblings and half-siblings is hiding their true misery, is nonsensical.

The ideal situation is obviously for a child to live with both parents, but that doesn't always happen. Some blended families- just like some bio families- are dysfunctional and unhappy. Being brought up by a single parent doesn't get great reviews either.

You accusing me of projecting is very amusing!

I mean this genuinely, have you had some therapy about your experiences?

1 in 3 families are blended families. It must be really very exhausting and depressing for you to spend your life thinking that the lives of 1/3 of families are so miserable and bleak. That all these children see their baby siblings as nothing but a threat to their relationship with their parents and feel unloved. That no step-parent has ever been a positive force in the life of a child.

You obviously believe that this is the case but from the outside it's obviously immediately false that every stepfamily is miserable. Yes, there are complications that might not present themselves with a bio-family but just like bio-families, all the members usually care about each other and want to work out the best solutions for everyone.

I know that I love my SD and that she loves me, and that she loves her sister and her Dad. We don't always agree on everything but we are happy when we are together.

I do truly believe that my parents / stepparents thought they were acting in all of our best interests. They loved each other, and each other’s children. They were prepared to (and did) model patience, kindness, forgiveness, compromise etc.

I don’t think they were prepared for us to never ‘gel’. We didn’t hate each other, we weren’t having screaming rows everyday (there was arguments obviously but they were nothing you wouldn’t expect), but we were never close to what you could consider friends. We just existed in the same space. As adults we’ve never arranged to be in the same place. Outside of bumping into them at family occasions, I’ve not seen them since my teens.
It hadn’t occurred to our parents how excruciating 12 year old me would suddenly find sitting in my pyjamas in front of teenage boys I wasn’t related to. So weekend breakfast family late film nights. Everyone wore their pyjamas I was always dressed. They used to joke about how much I liked clothes / fashion. It never entered their head that was really uncomfortable.
They hadn’t considered my stepbrother being mortified that he had a truly awful ibs flare up while me and my sibling were staying. He was literally begging my stepmam to send us home.
They hadn’t planned for how would it work when my oldest brother and stepbrother were setted together at school from year 9. They spent all Friday afternoon together, were in the same house all weekend, then went back to school together for their first lesson on Monday. Normally you get a break from you siblings at school, then go home and get a break from classmates. They didn’t have that.

I don’t think they acted selfishly as such. I think they wanted it to work so badly that they didn’t fully consider the reasons why it wouldn’t.

The ideal situation is obviously for a child to live with both parents, but that doesn't always happen. Some blended families- just like some bio families- are dysfunctional and unhappy. Being brought up by a single parent doesn't get great reviews either.

I disagree that the ideal situation is for a child to live with both parents.

I think the ideal is for the child to live in a safe protective home where they are loved, cherished, heard and wanted.
Where their interests and needs are front and centre and they are not seen as a burden, interloper, viewed with suspicion, or ‘someone else’s child’ by ppl who actually has the power to chose to be in their life.

It's a good effort at circumstantial ad Hominem but you can't really pull it off. Keep trying though!

Two patterns are very stark in this thread:

1. Almost all children of blended families saying they were miserable but their parents would have sworn they were happy.

1. Almost all adults of blended families swearing the children involved are happy.

The implications are very clear.

Most studies show that the best outcomes are when children live with both bio parents. There is always trauma from divorce or losing a parent. Plenty of step-parents love, cherish, hear and want their step-children, and don't view them as burdens or interlopers. I certainly have never viewed my SD as a burden or an interloper. We've always made it clear that she (and her friends) are always as welcome in our home as my DD always will be.