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?

I have two daughters. When I met my husband they were 13 and 8.
He had a daughter with his first wife..she was 6.
I like her very much but I dont love her.
Now they are all grown up and have children of their own. My SD has three. They are badly behaved and seem to live on a diet of coke crisps and takeaways.
I don't love them either .And I can't make myself love them.
I feel sad about it but I can't change it

Because her stepchildren aren’t her financial responsibility, and that isn’t something she took on when she married her husband. They have parents for that, neither of which are OP.

Joint finances in a marriage aren’t everyone’s preference, and they don’t need to be. It isn’t actually something you have to accept when you decide to married, and OP and her husband clearly didn’t.

So does DC5 get to go to private school and have cool Christmas presents?

And OP DC are leaning on their SF to provide a father figure which means less time spent with his children. SC feel the loss of a parent when their parents start a new family as the dynamics change. It almost worse than the parent dying as the parent is there but not able to give of themselves as before, time which would have been exclusively yours is split with another persons kid. I experienced this as someone who lost a father as a teenager, and whose mother remarried.

I guess the new joint child won't get private school, medical insurance or fancy Christmas presents either, since it wouldn't be right for them to benefit from inheritance from the twins' dad, right?

I don’t think you can love step children the same. I don’t love my niece the same as I love my child. I don’t love my friends kids in the same way that I love my own kids.

For me it’s biological, it’s part of our genetic make up. We will always feel strong to our own kids over others.

OP’s DC aren’t leaning on him as a father figure. Ultimately they’re just living with him because they have to. I bet that if they just lived with OP and she never met her husband, they could live just fine without having a stepdad.

I’d share the money if you truelly feel this is a lifetime marriage- you don’t need to buy children houses, they need to make their own way in life as an adult and engage in the rich strategy of life, - supporting uni will be enough - use that money to give parity across the children given you have been in their life always and intend to be - it will make better sibling bonds which is what’s important imv - im saying this because I really don’t think you should buy houses for children

I just imagine that having a parent who is alive is better than private school and medical insurance, but I guess it depends on the parent. My brother died when his kids were tiny, and I don't think that his children are luckier than the kids of parents who are divorced, even though my nephews have lots of money which came from their dead father.

How did you see this all playing out when you embarked on this journey? Knowing your children were vastly financially privileged to his, and then deciding to bring another one into the mix who presumably will follow your financial profile rather than their father and siblings’ situation ?

I find the comparison of dead parent to money so unnecessary. It's not a competition, obviously money is never a replacment for the loss of a loving parent but it's not sc fault op first dh died (sorry op that must have been awful)
It sounds like sc are being punished for having 2 parents.

I imagine lots of people don't love their sc the same equal amount as their own but not loving them 'as much' doesn't mean not loving them at all or at least caring about how they feel.

Death is final. It cant be undone. Their father didn't chose to leave them.

Her SC though. Their father has chosen to get married. Live with two SKs full time and have a 3rd child he will live with full time. He sees his existing children really fck all time while doing lots of first and tutoring her kids and creating memories.

He has also made the decision to enter and take his kids into a blended family with huge financial disparity. And then has compounded that issue by further depleting his financial resources by having another child.

There is lots of types of grief in life and death isnt always the worst one.

And surely the issue of how much you love all of the children involved in this situation isn’t really the issue. It’s just that that you, understandably, know your biological kids have a substantial financial advantage over your husband’s kids. Of course your “love” for someone else’s children is different to your own. Separate from you wanting to ring fence finances for your children

OP's DC are much closer to her DH than his children are to OP who has said:

'But there’s certainly a difference between how I treat SC and how he treats my twins: he’s more hands on with them, he’s done lots of firsts with them like teaching them to ride a bike, he tutored them one summer when they needed help with a subject. Whereas I am not as involved'

You’re entitled to feel that way Op. Also I think a lot of people are missing the point that his children have two parents. What if the mother won the lottery? Would she be expected to give your twins money? No she wouldn’t. Your twins wealth have nothing to do with his children’s. Half siblings are different.

That would be different because the step children’s mother isn’t the twins stepmother. She may never have even met them. They are not part of her blended family. However I do agree that the step children can be treated differently. It’s the joint child that will cause all the issues.

Yes, they are not part of her blended family. So why should op be made to feel guilty that her children have more wealth than the stepkids or even be asked to give them money to level the difference?

Exactly, her deceased husband had nothing to do with OP’s stepchildren.
If the stepchildren’s mum was successful, she wouldn’t be leaving anything to OP’s twins. So why should OP have to share the inheritance left to her children by their father?

That’s what I said.

I think levelling up presents for the SC at Christmas is massively different from sending them to private school, paying their university fees, and gifting them a property.

I lost my mum when she remarried. She became a very different woman - not a particularly nice version of herself.

Because the step kids are part of the ops blended family. They live together (not all the time) and have a family connection. They are about to share a sibling.

however as I clearly stated I don’t think the step children should get any of the money the twins dad left. I think that there should however be some parity between the dad’s three children. They are half siblings after all.

What’s wrong with you? What exactly has she said that sounds like she’s above stepmother. Do uou have these same kind of feelings about step children.

Nobody is expecting OP to share the inheritance with her step children. They are reacting to the fact that OP said that she wouldn't allow her DH to reduce his contribution to their household expenses so that he could spend a bit more on his children at Christmas so the disparity between the gifts that her children and her stepchildren received wouldn't be as stark. She was horrified at the suggestion.

It sounds like she is insisting on a 50/50 contribution, despite her wealth, when normally on here, the expectation is that contributions to mortgage, bills, food etc should be proportionate to each person's income. OP's children are with them full-time while her DH's children are not, so that should definitely reduce his contribution.

Presumably she anticipates it playing out as it is. Their father knows and accepts that her children are her priority, and doesn’t expect her to assume any financial or parental responsibility for his. He’s also not suggested that he pays more towards his stepchildren than he will their joint child.

OP can provide more for her children than he and his ex can for theirs, and her DH has accepted that as a result his children won’t all have the same experiences and opportunities by virtue of them having different mothers. If it was a problem for him he could have communicated that when OP put her cards on the table in the beginning, but he didn’t then and he isn’t raising it as an issue now.