AIBU to hate being a step mum?

[PurpleSalem]

There is so much context to this story but here is a very brief overview!!

I have been with my partner for over three years… he has a 6 & 8 year old I have a 5 soon to be 6 year old.

It’s never been plain sailing let me tell you that!! The ex on his side has done her very best to poison his kids against me to the point where the 8 year old didn’t see her dad for months.

Obviously she takes everything her mum says as gospel (totally understand that) but it’s just soooo hard to bite my tongue and live with it.

Feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time.. like I’m not welcome and I’m just basically a frigging slave to the kids who don’t even like me!!!

Anyway, yesterday I bit back.. and i feel so guilty as I usually just keep it inside. After listening to her argue and be nasty to everyone all weekend I just lost it. She was telling me how I couldn’t tell her off as I’m not her mum blah blah to which I snapped ‘if I’m not your mum and you don’t want me to look after you.. cook your own food and was your damn clothes then!!!!’

The 8 year old is so clingy with her dad, talks to me like absolute shite and then goes back to her mum to say ‘oh SM has done this said this etc…’ and it all turns out to be lies!!

Her mum obviously then jumps on any form of problem pasting it all over social media/ tik tok etc slagging me off.

Sigh, sorry to rant.. just at my wits end :(

Poor kids - and I include the OP's 5 year old in this.

I don't think it will help the OP's stepkids much if she moves out - the useless dad will move another woman in pronto to do the domestic stuff for him/give him a shag so they will still be in a miserable position but it would probably be way better for OP's own child if she moved out and got him out of this shitshow of dysfunctional, inadequate adults.

YABU to shout at the child obviously - it should be her dad cooking and cleaning for her, so I don’t know why you’re doing it or getting annoyed about it.

But blended families are incredibly difficult.

Why did you choose to move in with DP?
I think these relationships are better when people live apart.

Can you imagine another 10+ years of this.

Just live apart.
Then you can decide whether to continue the relationship or completely separate.

I’ve also been there op, my dh’s kids’ were similar ages and attitude to me. Dh treading on eggshells around them and I have to tell you it went on for 15+ years. Looking back I should have left. Dh more than pulled his weight with both his kids and mine, but wouldn’t discipline.

I now have a good relationship with two of the three of them. The only way it works is if you are both absolutely aligned. If not, so much damage can be done.

What attracted you to a man who decided to have kids with a weed-smoking benefit cheat that's never worked a day in her life? Life's too short, leave.

At the end of the day, it’s the father’s job to make sure the child doesn’t speak to you that way. He’s the one failing, both you and his DC.

No one can tell you what to do but for the love of god do not have children with this man.

This. Your child is at the most magical age and the chance to enjoy that is being hijacked by so much noise from others. Move out (or move him out) and enjoy your little one.

Why did the relationship end with the mother of his v young children

Bio mum hasn’t worked a day in her life, is a benefit cheat & smokes weed around them.

And that's the person your partner chose to have children with.

Not specifically this OP but I refuse to believe the men in all these blended family threads are worth this amount of stress and aggravation. Is being in a relationship really so important that you would disrupt your own children's lives in such a detrimental way?

I would be so disappointed in my child if, at 8 years old, they felt emboldened and entitled to tell an adult that they couldn’t tell them off, for whatever reason.

Stepchildren (and it’s never usually the stepmother’s children, it’s the father’s children) are given far too much power in blended families, as evidenced by the fact that your stepdaughter didn’t see her father for months, because she was not happy about you being in his life. This is probably why your partner is hesitant to discipline his daughter.

There is not a chance I’d expose my own children to a child like this.

And it never usually gets any better. I’ve seen enough threads on MN over the years about grown adults in their 20s and 30s still at it, and causing issues in their father’s relationship.

Don’t walk away. Run away.

I have absolutely no experience of step parenting. In this situation OP my instinct would be to have a heart to heart conversation with both children & tell them exactly how you feel. I would highlight how much I want to help them & let them know I would never try to replace their mother. I would expand on it by telling them all the things I like about them then ask them the things they like about me or what they would change. I also believe there is nothing wrong with letting them know how difficult it is to be a step parent & asking them to help you to help them. It sounds like a difficult situation OP but I'm sure with patience & communication you can get to a place where everyone is happy going forward.

They must stink of weed if their mother is constantly using it around them. Has their school raised a safe guarding concern with their father and social services?

Unless he's got a sold gold cock Id break up with him and move on. Your own child is at such a sensitive age with many more character-forming years of childhood and adolesence ahead of them, why would you want to blight those critical formative years by living with such unpleasant and defiant children?? What about YOUR happiness and peace of mind?? Its not worth it, throw this one and his problematic existing family back into the pool, dont sacrifice the best years of your and your childs life to this shit show. Your primary responsibility is to your own child - I dont see how living like this with the people involved is compatible with the best interests of you or your child.

Thats if its even true

I really think it's good for kids to learn where the line is. My kids know they can push me to a point and no further. Its not a bad thing to point out to her, sharply, that you don't want to be her mum but you are looking after her, when you don’t actually have any obligation to, and she needs to speak to you with a bit of common respect.

Well what can you expect from a woman who spends her time smoking weed and has never worked a day in her life? I would question what attracted my partner to a woman like this in the first place tbh.

@PurpleSalem I would make things clear with your partner: HE id responsable for HIS children so he makes supper for them and does everything involving them. You take care of your child. And any rudeness from the 8 year old should be dealt with by her father; severely and immediately. If he's on board it mught work. If not I would leave because it will just worse. In a few years she will be on tiktok slagging you with her mum.

I don't know what you mean. Doesn't look like the OP is coming back anyway.

She didn't ask to be here. She didn't ask for her parents to split up. She didn't ask for her dad to live with another woman. She didn't ask for a step mum or sibling. She's had no choice at all in any of it.

Giver a break and maybe live somewhere else.

This is not the child’s fault. She dislikes you and sees you as a baddie. Her mum and dad broke up. Now she has to put up with you. Is how she will see it. She sounds a spirited child so doesn’t keep quiet about her views.

And so it can be with blended or families that have been broken. Children will, very often, blame themselves for their parents breaking up. And if she does feel this way will be doing anything to try to get her dad back with mum. Or make you feel hurt.

Firstly, once you have children, they come first. Before any relationship with a new man. Before living with a new man and his children. He left his children when they were five and three.

There is nothing natural about step parenting. It is entirely unnatural. Many do it and many do it successfully. Many don’t.

She will see that she irks you. You are letting a small child manage you. Don’t expect her to be all reasonable, goodly and without problems. Her parents have given her more problems than a child should have to try to manage.

Be patient. Talk kindly. Explain you are not replacing mum. Gently does it.

I have voted YABU because this is not really the child's fault - she's still very young - and you shouldn't have spoken to her like that.

However, if the mum is writing bad stuff about you on her socials then I would threaten to sue her for libel.

SO unhelpful

And how’s the op going to do that? It’s extortionately expensive to do that.

Yabu to be with a man who has children if you hate being a step mum 🤷‍♀️

Poor kids.

There’s a lot of adults out there desperate for a shag no matter what the cost to the kids.

Snapping at an insecure young dc isn't ok and you should apologise for that.

Why on earth isn't their df parenting them, though? Of course you shouldn't be left to cook and clean for them, that's totally unreasonable.

S m here although I never wanted to refer to myself as such ever, from day one partners children refer to me as dads partner, they have a mum already . It is harder than parenting your own children because you are accountable to you and your children without other adults sniping at you. partners children are adults and now, the mistake I made was not sitting partner down and sharing my concerns. It is his responsibility to ensure that his children respect adults - especially the ones that take care of them.
it’s not the children’s fault- this is on the dad every single time.