To not love my SC the same way I love my biological children?

[annasdltn]

I have 7 yo twins. Sadly, their dad, my first husband, passed away when they just one.

My husband has two children from a previous marriage, aged 9 and 7. While the official custody arrangement is every other weekend, he has a good co-parenting relationship with his ex, so we usually see them more often—about half of the school holidays and most weekends, at least for a day. We’ve been together for four years, lived together for two, and got married this year, so I’ve known his children since they were small. They’re genuinely lovely—kind, polite, well-mannered.

I’m now pregnant with our first child together.

Here’s the honest part I’m struggling with: I often see stepparents saying they love their stepchildren the same as their biological ones, but I just don’t feel that way. I care about my stepchildren, I’m happy when they do well, and I want good things for them—but it’s not love, and it’s certainly not the deep, instinctive love I feel for my own children.

There’s another layer to this. My late husband was very successful and left a substantial inheritance to me, with the understanding it would go to our children. That includes a property portfolio which I still manage (same business he used to run but on a smaller scale) and other assets generating income. Because of this, my twins attend private school, have private healthcare, access to more expensive extracurriculars and a very comfortable lifestyle overall. Each of the twins will have access to a very substantial sum of money to buy their first house in their early 20s. They will not be taking a loan for university. These benefits do not extend to my stepchildren. Of course, I contribute to shared family time—holidays, outings, housing, weekends together—and the stepchildren do benefit in that sense.

So, AIBU for not feeling the same love for my stepchildren? Isn’t it biologically normal to feel more love for your own children? Or are other stepparents really managing to bridge that emotional gap in a way I just can’t?

Whatever. You obviously have similar views to OP.

I don’t have a step kid/kids so maybe take my statement with a pinch of salt . But I don’t think you even like your step kids at all . They get different Christmas gifts, I presume cheaper. You took your daughter to a show when one was ill. Does your husband know how you feel about them? You sound like you’re saving your first husband’s money for your twins so in that case your new baby should not have anything either. I’m kinda surprised at this actually.

I think your overthinking this. (Your first husband is basically subsidising your household as it it aswell which isn't necessarily bad if it gives you a life you deserve)

Your step kids are not going to automatically resent you financially because there poorer & alot can happen in 11+ years (your own kids becoming unwell, step kids getting into lucrative careers, ect)

Keep your feelings to yourself basically & worry about the kids you have dayto day

Lots if posters saying love for biological children is different to love for step children. How does it work when a child has been adopted I wonder? Is the love different again?

I dont have step children, but I was one and it was hard. If I had step children I have always vowed that I would treat them the same, because its about duty and responsibility more than anything else. To me anyway. And children are children. But its complicated and so many factors at play and easy to say what I would do in a hypothetical situation.

But in OPs situation, I can't imagine being comfortable with such a disparity.

This is a slightly strange thread, part humble bragging and half coldness. I can’t really understand whether the question is actually about feeling or doing.

Of course, you will have stronger feelings for your biological children but that doesn’t need to be made obvious all the time. If you are spending 10x as much on your own children’s Christmas presents as the stepchildren have and they all open them together, that isn’t going to go well. Also, do you go skiing and your two have private instructors and his go off to ski school? Again, weird and not very nice!

And as for prioritising a show over a medical situation, I would cancel a show in a heartbeat to take a friend’s child to the doctor if they needed to go.

Ultimately, even if you don’t care about your step children very much, bringing a blended family up with the feeling of above and below stairs isn’t going to be health for any of the children.

Read my posts.

Wow, just how sick do the steps have to be before one of the three adults charged with their care and well being thinks they are important enough to worry about!

rash- could be sepsis or nettle rash, let’s wait and see

unable to weight bear on ankle - just a sprain, walk it off

abdominal pain and vomiting - appendicitis or dodgy prawn curry, put a bucket by the bed and let’s wait til morning

(Waiting for updated drip feed that at least two of the adults are paediatric consultants……)

I don't really get all this not-related-by-blood so impossible to love as much as blood relations.
After all, none of us are (hopefully) related to our partners by blood and yet we love them very, very much.
I have friends I love as much, and more than relations. I haven't step children, but if I had, I can imagine loving them very much. In a previous reply to you, OP, I said it would soon become embarrassing for your twins to be treated differently eg at Christmas. Isn't it also embarrassing for you?
Your dh may not be giving your twins the financial support that you can, but he is giving them emotional care. Teaching them to ride a bike is nice. They will remember who did that. And his kids presumably are being nice about it, not jealous of the time he spends with his non-related kids.
I do understand how protective you must have felt when you lost the twins dad. It must have been awful. But money is truly not everything. And if you have enough, and more than enough, why not share a bit?
The gift of time and self confidence and kindness is equally valuable, I think. Your twins are being given that. You might be equally generous.

@Newbutoldfather , what if your friend had made the appointment assuming that you'd be free to take the child?

It's normal, understandable and fair. You must respect your late husband's wishes re: his children. Carry on being a kind SM to your SC. What you are doing is fair and right, and as long as ALL thr children grow up with love, they will be ok. Your SC are not entitled to your late husband's money. I guess, the question remains. What will you do when your youngest is school age? Private or state? I think either one would be fair as you are doing the graft of managing the properties.

I totally get big ticket deferred items like houses and university fees being a point of financial differences but I really react badly to the idea of things like gifts and days out being on different levels for the different kids. Now you're a blended family I would eg set a an agreed household budget per year for kids' presents that comes out of the shared household finances. What next, your kids get fillet steak for dinner while your SC get boiled potatoes? Psychologically it will do nobody any good to experience a first/second-class citizen divide within their family on a day to day basis. Even the children in the more privileged position.

I think the chance to feel love for stepchildren is reduced by the fact that they have a parent already. When you adopt a child, they are your child. There’s no other person there apart from you. If you have a stepchild who thinks the world of their mum and their mum is very much involved in their lives, it puts a distance between you and the child that some people seem to think isn’t there or shouldn’t be there but it is.

@NormaNormal ,

‘what if your friend had made the appointment assuming that you'd be free to take the child?’

That is very hypothetical! A friend isn’t quite the same as a partner.

But if they said they were worried about their child and desperate and had made an appointment, of course I would help out!

OP posted on here for opinions so you can't censor what people say because OP's first DH died.

It feels as though the benefits of OP's relationship with her new DH all flow one way, towards OP and her children. She has said that her DH does a lot of 'firsts' with her children, teaching them to ride a bike and tutoring them in areas where they need help. There is no such reciprocity on OP's part towards her step-children. She has said that she doesn't have that sort of relationship with them.

OP is obviously extremely wealthy but is determined that none of this wealth will be used to benefit her step-children in any way. She says that she won't contribute more to the household costs than her DH does so that he could afford to spend more on his children to make the wealth disparity less stark. She won't even do that so he can spend more on his children at Christmas. She has also said that she wants her children to be close to the new baby but doesn't care whether her step-children have a close relationship with their half-sibling.

In OP's household, her step-children are the clear losers. They have to share their dad with OP's kids but OP ensures that there is no 'trickle down' of household wealth towards her step-kids.

As they grow older, the step-kids might vote with their feet and stop visiting their dad and half-sibling if they feel like the poor relations in their dad's home.

What is her DH supposed to do? It's not his money, he has no option to even things up.

I think it's a tricky situation, but in reality your twins are only financially benefitting through their losing father. Few people would trade places, so hopefully as your children all grow into adults they'll be able to see it fairly.

I do think you need to be as deliberate as you can to treat them all equally aside from the financials. Going to a show when a SC was ill seems a bit questionable.

I should add that my father died when I was little and my mum eventually remarried to a man who had no kids. So I have a smidgen but not the whole of this experience, from the other perspective. My father left a decent amount of money and a paid off house to my mother. When she remarried, I had to accept that everything she had became my stepfather's, too - that's how marriage works. And that was hard at first because lots of what my mother had was, to my mind, actually my late father's, given then to her. It didn't sit right with me for years knowing that my father's legacy was now something my stepfather was the current recipient of. (He didn't come to the marriage with nothing, by the way - but still.)

BUT over time I realized that this sort of clutching onto different threads of money doesn't make you happy. I've let it dissolve into the idea of our family, rather than feeling possessive about it. What's my mother's is my stepfather's, we are all one family and we all have enough and share whatever is needed. That took a certain letting go of a version of my grief and I found a huge peace in it.

To me, if I were you, I would let go of the idea of anything being your late husband's. What your late husband left you is wholly yours. Remove that bracketing from it. And now you have remarried, what is wholly yours is also wholly your new husband's, because marriage is about an us, not a you and an I. So they're family assets, to be shared with the whole family. There's a sort of zero sum/scarcity mindset that I feel doesn't really serve anyone in how you're thinking about this.

@Newbutoldfather ,because the actual parents had more important things to do?

"If I didn’t take the SC then they’d have to wait as both parents had important things on at work that can’t be cancelled. "

I'm honestly starting to wonder if OP is a creative writing student experimenting with a retelling of Cinderella from the stepmother's perspective...!

It’s common to not have joint finances in blended families. Your mother chose to combine assets, but that isn’t going to be the preferred choice for everyone. Her financial responsibility is to her own children, not those of her husband.

She also may not be able to share that money set aside by her late husband, even if she wanted to. If it’s in a trust she may be able to authorize funds being released to benefit only their children.

I don't agree. One was not dependent on the other. They were clearly financially privileged prior to the loss of their father. The earlier poster was commenting on the meanness and unkindness displaced by the OP which is nothing to do with the fact that she was sadly widowed at a young age.

🤣

I'm a SM & I completely disagree.

I dont think she comes across as a lovely step mum at all. Nor do I think she sees her self as part of a blended family.

The fact she doesn't value their joint bc relationship at the same level between her children and his is a clear indication.

Her children are benefiting from her SKs father being with them full time. In essence stepping fully into the deceased father's role. Thus taking away from time he has to be an active parent to his own children.

The level of financial disparity, is such that it would absolutely no difference if he contributed less to their joint child to provide more financially for his BC to even up the opportunities they will have in the future versus his joint child with the OP.

The SC will always have more because they inherited from their father which is completely right.

But the life the OP will be able to give her next child will also have been heavily influenced from the fact she inherited from her dead husband.

For blended families to work, they need to have the focus of relationship building in the centre.

That means acknowledging the benefits and the reductions the kids have by creating that family unit. And trying to balance it were possible.

The issue isnt even the two sets of children they brought into the relationship its the fact they choose to bring another child into the relationship who now has the same biological relationship to both sets of children.

Its a completely imbalanced situation and family structure.

It is very sad that their father died. And I’m sure that they would give everything to have him back. However being able to afford private school, private ski instructors, debt free university and fully paid off homes puts the op and her children in a privileged position. One in which spending a few extra pounds at Christmas would have zero impact on their financial position and yet save a lot of resentment.
and as I’ve said in previous posts, I absolutely think that the step children should be treated independently and the money left to the twins by their father should be spent on them. The issues arise when the half sibling is born who shares a father with the sdc and will be treated significantly differently.

Oh absolutely. If the money is set aside in trust then that is a specific setup. I've said above elsewhere that I understand the more pure inheritance big ticket items flowing to OP's two existing children with her late husband.

What I don't understand is why she wouldn't seek to achieve equilibrium in the day to day using not money left in trust, which of course wouldn't be hers to use, but whatever her own means are. Even if those means come from a business she inherited from her late husband, it's now HER business, not his, ie it's her household income and to me, when you marry someone you become a joint going concern and you budget as a household without discrimination between members of that household. If you don't want that joint venture aspect of life then nobody is forcing anyone to get married!

I’m sure ops children would prefer less money and a dad that was alive.