Step family contact after divorce

[Anonforthisone1]

If you had been in a child’s life since they were one. Raised them completely for over a decade of their life. Family insisted on be called nanny and gran etc. step grandparents had frequent contact like sleepovers. Was incredibly active in raising child You had children with relationship that you have eow contacted with would you still have a relationship with said child (when this is what the child actively wants and actively asks for all the time) or would you basically drop them and decide you no longer want to see them other then a hi during drop of or the odd two min phone call.with other extended family wanted zero to do with said child. Not talking about joining in on the eow contact but even maybe seeing for occasional sleepovers or a day out every couple of months. Seperation has been around two years.

It is on her though, ultimately as the parent she is the one responsible for her child.

She clearly knew that in the event of a relationship breakdown that her son losing his relationships with her ex and his family was likely. It doesn’t matter if they pushed, she could have (and seemingly should have) said no.

@Anonforthisone1that must be hard when there are 2 half siblings who are still invited along. I guess it is more about how the ex feels about your sister & not actually much to do with the child. I think it’s quite common unfortunately & I suppose step parents & step grand parents will never 100% accept a step child in the same way as a blood relative. But it must be horrible for the eldest. Perhaps as a family you can try to redress the disparity.

I know of only one person who when their marriage failed kept in contact with the step child doing visitation and such and even that tapered off as the step child got older.

This is why blending families is a lie. It’s not blended ever. If a divorce happened 99% of those children will never have any contact with the step family again apart from maybe bumping into each other.

They treat the child as family just as they do the partner. Once the partners gone the child’s gone. Which is why despite protests if people must blend their families they need to not expect or encourage this whole fake granny fake aunty bs expecting that their child will be treated exactly the same because push comes to shove divorce/death/inheritance 99% of the time they would be left out or forgotten in a second.

People who welcome other child’s stepchild often do so because they think it’s best for their relationship with their child. It’s unusual that the genuine connection lasts after the breakup and the mum was naive to take the offer at face value. It also makes them look good to others.

Having some contact with stepparent can also be difficult. Say the stepchild goes once every 4 weeks while their sibling goes every week. That’s still rejection and sometimes cold turkey is kinder.

If the mum broke up when the child was older, there’s no guarantee that the breakup would be easier for the child. Even if the mum paid dad for the contact time so there was no financial cost, dad isn’t unreasonable to want to focus his limited contact time on his children and shouldn’t be made to feel bad that mum agreed to the riskiest kind of blending where everyone pretends to be biological family as long as the relationship lasts. Blending is for the benefit of the adults. Sometimes the kids win too but it’s obviously conditional on the relationship continuing.

I like what Cher from clueless dad said ‘you divorce wives, not children’

if safe to still have a relationship to some degree with ex step relatives then I think it’s in the child’s best interest for the parents to facilitate this but not constantly

It's the norm after a divorce for the non parental spouse to stop contact.

A stepparent is just mom or dad's spouse who helps with the kids. Once the marriage or relationship breaks down, so does the role of childcare.

It's an artificial role.

You could end up with kids going to different custody situations multiple days a week and that's just not good for the kid.

It's also awkward when the ex moves on with another partner. Then there's no bio connection to anyone. What if the new partner has kids they don't get on with?

I think blending families is very difficult, doesn't work very well for the kids much of the time, and you can't force bio exes to step up if they don't want to so don't even bother with step exes.

If they choose to stay on the child's life, it's a bit different but that can be problematic when a new partner enters the bio parent's life.

Also not in your sister case but how many step parents are we going to have to split contact with in some cases.

Friend A 4 children three baby daddies. Do dad 2 and 3 need to have contact with the priors making dad 3 need to take on four children for visits when he only has one with the mum?

That also takes time away from their actual parents, time from mum, mums family and time with their fathers side of the family if involved.

Poor kids being dragged around for all these blended failed families.

Sure, but it’s ones of those trite feel-good movie sentiments that doesn’t reflect actual reality in the majority of cases. A bit like advocating for world peace at a beauty pageant.

This happened to my son op, my dad’s wife was in the room when I gave birth and called him her grandson for 11 years. When she split from my dad she dropped my son like a hot potato, it broke his heart.
Im married now and my husband has a daughter and my husband’s family are lovely but I won’t ever blur the lines again, I am my sons family and even though I have been in my husband’s daughters life for 12 years I won’t allow the term step mum or dad or grandparent in mine or my sons life. I know the damage it does when it all goes wrong.

wrong thread