Blended families - not all they are made out to be?

[InNeedOfSleep10]

Inspired by scrolling one too many ‘perfect blended family’ posts on social media, am I being unfair to suggest that the reality of blended families must be a lot different to what people suggest? Surely it’s hard work and not the dream set up many make it out to be…

I read the threads on here about blended families and think, "Why the hell does anyone choose this?"

You could equally say that about having a husband, a wife, in laws, parents, siblings or friends going by threads on here...

i can speak from experience... its awful! if i could go back in time, i would go back to a day in June 2013 and not meet my now DH! the only thing we ever argue about are the children. I have 2 he has 4! thank god we never had a child between us because it would be an even bigger living nightmare.

i do wonder if i had met him sooner, when his kids were younger, i may have had some input into their lives and behaviours, but alas, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

hats off to those families who manage it! you derserve some kind of award!

I was sort of lucky, I grew up in a blended home. Lived with 'D'F and a step mother who was absolutely bloody horrid so I ended up excluded by them and neglected, their children are their world but family days out, holidays, meal out etc I was left out of and sent to grandmothers or baby sitter ( my own Mum lived thousands of miles away), I was only 8.
My family is a blended one, we each have a child HOWEVER I am both the kids Mum, they are siblings and grew up together, in the same house, with the same rules.
D(S)S is as loved as if I had given birth but he has lived with me since he was 5... now 25 and still here at home.
DH has worked out of the country for 6 months every years for 15 years.
It hasn't always been easy and at times it's been fucking awful, hard work and I have wanted to walk away, but I understood that it isn't the children's fault and when it was awful it was a DH problem ... he got sorted 😂
I couldn't hurt a child the way I was hurt.

I totally agree, in the beginning when she 2 I felt lonely and thought I’d like to be with someone but after years of dating when she wasn’t with me I realised I’d hate to move someone in. Now she is mostly with me I really enjoy it. We eat out, listen to music she likes her own space too i don’t want to disrupt that.

It’s not an ideal family setup. Abusers and truly evil stepmothers aside most people get into blended family situations with the best intentions and soon find out that the dynamics mostly work against the children and the step parents equally. The best way to blend families is with honesty and an acknowledgment that it is not perfect scenario and everyone is doing the best they can. I always say that the best blended families are those whose original parents are ‘happily’ divorced…. Any resentment or hurt that is held onto by unwilling parties to a divorce whether it be because of affairs or other contentious reasons are more likely to result in unhappy blended families. It is not a situation to be entered into as lightly as some people seem to do.

My DDs have had two blended families through their dad. The first was a little girl 2yrs who became like a sister and then exh had a baby with his (then) wife. It was lovely all happy families, his wifes family treated dds like family. Then he cheated on her and the family got ripped away from them. Wife stopped speaking to them (as did all her family) their sisters and their cousin went to same school and we all live on same village. It was awful. They are close to their half sister but sadly the step sister broke contacted with all that side of family when she was about 15. Ex then got together with ow and suddenly they had a new step sister and two step brothers. Plus a new half brother the following year, they never got as close to their new step siblings who were a bit older and moved out within 2/3 years and don’t have any contact now.

blended families are tough on kids , losing the family at the drop of a hat or being treated like a second class citizen by the extended family. Seeing their dad playing happy families without them, not being included on holidays.

i wish parents would think about the impact on their kids first.

We are a blended family and it is often happy full of laughs, at other times rows, arguments, jealousies. It's absolutely no different to when I was younger in our nuclear non blended family.

The interesting bit is when there are arguments then can be divisions along original parent / family lines so that's when the blended bit betrays itself

I would have been more than happy for my parents to have found a new life partner following divorce, and my children expressed they were happy I did. I do think it is crucial the children are all reassured how much they are still loved and not favoured over the partner/step children/ new children, that is where some blended families end up being disastrous

My ex has stayed with the woman after me so my DD only has one sister but it got tough for my daughter when puberty started and she did not to do the same things as an 8 year old so there were lots of arguments. I would hate step children. I like kids but it’s hard enough when your own child is dealing with hormones, mood swings etc wouldn’t be for me.

I had a very positive experience. My stepdad is my dad, he's wonderful. I'm really glad my mum met and married him. Life was much happier after he came along compared to when my biological parents were together. My partner is from a blended family, he has 2 step-brothers and 1 half-brother and they get on far better and are far closer than a lot of fully biological siblings I know.

There are so many factors though, like if the two biological parents are involved or if one has died or is absent. The age of the children etc

Thats pretty much what my SD19 has commented on when observing her boyfriends nuclear traditional family. She says they argue and fight with love and it doesn’t leave the room. In a blended family, family disagreements tend to always have a 3rd party involved even though they are not physically present.

Love this comment.

I would do it with my own children if I was genuinely happy about it. But I don't think I trust other people's standards of what is an acceptable level of happiness.

However it's hard to judge with the cost of living so high.

I say this time and time again on these threads and it’s based on supporting lots of people with mental health challenges as young adults. It’s controversial though. The issue isn’t always the blended family, very often it’s the separation of parents in the first place, where the kids experience disrupted attachment. Lots of the people that I support actually talk about their blended family being a source of comfort and care.

I think blended families are a pain in the arse, of course social media will spin the positives!

I don’t think I would have minded, I’m still good friends with one of my mother’s ex’s and she bought many happy memories to my childhood. It would have been nice to not have to worry about them enduring old age on their own, I’ve seen friends who have had great relationships with their step parents, visiting for family meals etc each week being common as much easier for a couple to create that kind of home: host etc

I was "lucky" in as much as my ex H was a cruel psychopathic controlling gay arsehole,so the kids were over the moon when I met second DH. They used to ask when he was coming round. He paid attention to them,took us all out, they had their first holiday abroad with him. They used to send him father's day cards, addressed to "the new old man". DD who is only 13 years older than him said on Mother's day, she wants to take him somewhere special for father's day, because of all the things he's done for her.

.

It worked for The Brady Bunvh
Yes, I am so old it wss a progrMme of my youth!

This!

I think on the whole blended families must be really hard work for everyone involved and without a shadow of doubt for the benefit of the adults only. No child would choose to have non-family living either them - actual family is bad enough!

but YABU to think it’s only blended families that fake happiness on social media. No-one posts about family arguments or drunk husbands or lack of sex unless it is an anonymous forum.

a prime example of this is the mum who posted on MN that she was having an awful Easter because the partner wouldn’t post about their daughter with Easter props and they had a massive argument. But she wanted to post fake happiness for everyone to see.

A bit like this comment really! What on earth has it got to do with the question?

We blended families are hardly going to post if everything is peachy, so you won't hear all the positive stories

The only people who ever think it’s fine are the adults who created the situation.

But you did choose it?? You had a child, split up with the father of that child. You could at that point have thought oh well, that's my lot in life, one child, I'll focus on taking care of them because one or other of their main people won't be living with them full time any more, so they need additional support from me. Then you could have had nice boyfriends for 16-odd years but just not lived with them.

The blended family didn't just fall on your head, you chose it for your child.

When blended families post troubles there is almost always a nightmare ex stirring the pot somewhere.

Blended family can mean such different thjngs. Ours works well, but one of my DDs has commented that from witnessing a friends blended family she'd be wary if there were exes around. DH was widowed when we met and my ex saw our girls once or twice a year (when he had a new girlfriend) at most. So we didn't have the other parents, the switching homes, multiple opinions etc that many do.

And tbh I think the thing that makes our blended family work well that many families (blended or otherwise) is that DH is an active parent and partner. Having been on his own with DS1 he knows what it takes and he wasn't looking for a housekeeper-nanny-shag when we met.

Often on here when you read nightmare stories it's either they have a DH problem, or it's an ex causing grief.

I think it’s very different if the children are half siblings or completely unrelated. The former seems to work a lot better than shoving unrelated sets of kids together. Money also pays a crucial role. Having enough resource so that none of the kids are asked to give up space or share definitely helps make things easier.