Ex refusing use of the term “step-mum”

[Iamadaddoinghisbest]

Hi everyone,
this is my first post, so really hoping for some helpful responses here…

I met my current partner (now wife) 18 months ago and we got married a couple of months ago, around 12 months after getting engaged.
we moved in together around 6 months after initially meeting and made sure to integrate my 6yo daughter into the process to make sure she felt able to discuss any concerns and feel included.
My daughter stays with us 3 nights per week and is very happy in her home life with us.

My ex partner (mother to my daughter) has, since the beginning, expressed continual disapproval of our relationship and at numerous occasions attempted to control how we live in our house:
-commenting on where we do our shopping
-dictating routines in our house
-insisting I don’t choose clothes for my daughter to wear
-involving my daughter in communications to me “tell Daddy he never returns the right clothes” etc
-constant judgemental behaviour and constant messaging even after (on a number of occasions) telling her I don’t want us to message each-other other than on handover days or in an emergency.
-insisting that my wife doesn’t kiss my daughter.

Currently she is now insisting that we cannot use the term “step-mum” or any other variant (bonus mum, extra mum etc) that implies the use of the word mother for my wife.
My wife and I have never pressured my daughter to use any of these terms and at all points explained she can call her whatever she feels most comfortable with. She wants to say Step-Mum because she has friends who also have step step parents so we have just allowed it.

Her mum is insistent that this is forbidden and even told my daughter “just because Daddy & xxx are married doesn’t mean that she is your step mum” and offered no explanation to her.

My daughter came to me to discuss this and was clearly confused and upset and now if the opinion that my wife isn’t actually part of the family but just a “friend” of mine.

Looking for some opinions on this.
My wife is legally my daughters step-mum so I don’t feel she has any right to contest anything here regardless of whether she likes it or not.

Have you seen the number of incorrect assumptions that people have made and thrown at this man for literally no reason?

• He cheated on his ex with the new wife
• He abandoned the ex when DD was a baby
• He left the ex in dire financial straits
• He refused to marry the ex for financial benefit
• He rarely sees his DD and the ex does all of the parenting

And all that is before we get to the unnecessary judgement over every other aspect of his life that he's mentioned.

That's why I'm "rushing to his defence" not because I'm a handmaiden but because people are literally making stuff up and doing wild mental gymnastics to justify a controlling and bitter ex and paint this Dad as the bad guy. I'd say the same if it was a woman, but it wouldn't happen to a woman on here.

Ok, I think you should explain to your daughter that the correct word to describe your wife is “step mother” (I don’t think you need to add this, but if you like you can add that this does not mean she has any legal rights or responsibilities for her). Then I think you should say that as her mother does not like her referring to your wife as step mum it would be kind of her not to do so in front of her mother, for the time being. Keep it chilled, don’t make too much of a big deal of it. There’s really no need for your daughter or you to get upset about this.

Exactly. I defend men, not regardless, but when the treatment of them is egregiously unfair and illogical (and particularly when people make up a load of bollocks in order to try to make them the villain)

These handmaiden accusations are lazy and stupid, and an excuse to treat both men and some women with a total lack of logic or reason.

Kids want to do alot of things their peers are doing, it doesn't make it ok.

Respect the boundary your daughter's mother has put in place. It may well pay dividends if you need her to support you in the future.

Yep, referring to your dad's wife as your step-mum is exactly like vaping down at the park, or swigging vodka behind the Co-op

OP is obviously letting his daughter run wild. Calling her father's wife 'step-mum' and eating organic vegetables. What is the world coming to?

@LadyTiredWinterBottom2

Respect the boundary your daughter's mother has put in place. It may well pay dividends if you need her to support you in the future.
This isn't a boundary.
This is an attempt to control a relationship that is not hers to control.

The relationship between the child and her father and her step mother is not for the mother to dictate. As long as there is no abuse she really needs to stay in her lane.

This is a total misunderstanding of the use of the word boundary

It's not a boundary. It's control.

When you coparent you can't have it all your way. As her x had married the woman IS her dds stepmother. Its controlling to insist she doesn't use this.

Not calling stepmother for mum is a boundary however op has repeatedly states his dd calls the stepmum by her name.

Boundaries are about yourself, not other people

Its perfectly normal for a child to refer to the people that they live with by names like mum, nanna, aunty etc etc if the female carer is not the child's birth mother, they want to say this to their friends, its more natural, its not unusual. They want a narrative for themselves and other people

You phrase it as if the child is being naughty or doing something wrong.

Don't be surprised when your partner leaves you. I would not put up with that after 18months. Not meeting kids, fair enough but why has he not met any of your family? That's really odd.

Good job he isn't you then hmm?

FTR, not that it's any of your business... its because i'm a DA survivor, So my social life is kept entirely private/separate from my domestic situation through necessity. Luckily, my partner understands that.. he's a first responder and seen how this stuff can pan out.

And yet you thought it was your business to comment on OP's timescales?

If you don't want people to comment on your business then don't put your business up on a public forum. He may put up with it now but he won't always.

I still think it's odd. I'm a DA survivor too but I wouldn't hide my partner away.

I see massive red flags if my family member didn’t want to introduce their partner after 18 months. ESPECIALLY if she had DV in her previous relationship.

I am a stepmum and I am also a step daughter. Never are these terms generally used with us. I’ve been legally SM for 8y to my DH 2 children but I go by my name. My DM’s Husband of 20y is referred to by first name also. There’s no issue in either set of relationships but my DF is still alive and my stepchildren still have their mother.

This!

What do you mean "take it on board"?
First, it's none of any else's business and only he knows the dynamic of the relationship and how it progressed.
Second, it's very much subjective and a matter of opinion, as illustrated by posters thinking it's perfectly normal not to introduce a partner to family for a period of years, and plenty of us who got engaged and married in a similar timescale and are very happy with that decision.
Third, what do you want him to do about it? Get divorced because some Mumsnetters doubt the longevity of two people they've never met?

Mum's house mum's rules/Dads house dads rules. Explain sometimes mum and dad don't agree and that's ok. She gets to decide what she calls (new wife) when she's with you. If mum has different rules, that's ok and follow them there. Keep it child led and child supportive.

Note:you don't get to decide for your ex, you don't get to control what she says, thinks or does just like she doesn't with you. It works both ways. So don't die on this hills. Make the current situation ok. Support your daughter to advocate and chose for herself with you, but it's ok and not upsetting you/new wife to be something different with mum.
Just love her, and it will be ok. As she gets older she'll be able to adapt to these things better herself, give her permission to now and it's a skill she'll learn as she grows.

Our family wizard for communication (app). You can't stop ex from communicating, but you get to chose to not check and respond to messages until handover day. Stay in your lane. And I do think you'd be benefit from mediation. Or just have boundaries, you have to stick to (even if she doesn't). If you don't respect them, she won't. Make that peaceful life for yourself. Remember you don't have to respond to anything unless it urgent. The less you engage the less antagonism.
Live your life and your ex will eventually learn there's nothing to gain from one way communication, it's hard but she'll learn eventually.

Of course "let daughter decide", but because she is only 6, she isn't able to advocate for herself. You need a blend of "Discuss it with ex" with a focus on what your daughter wants to do.

I mean, it comes across that he’s quite tonedeaf, clearly you don’t think it’s an issue but as evidenced on this thread plenty of people do.

1. kind of is other peoples business if he’s asking them if he’s being unreasonable. Or perhaps you think anyone who doesn’t think it’s sensible to progress a relationship at that speed with a small child involved shouldn’t comment?
2. yes, you are right, some people think it’s a problem and others dont.
3. suggest he considers that plenty of people do think it’s not optimum, including the child’s mother, and simply to be pragmatic and put the child first he may do well to reassure her that going forward he will listen to her concerns and not simply dismiss them. It doesn’t mean simply doing what the other person tells you to do, but it does mean treating them with respect and having a grown-up conversation. That’s what you have to do when your co parenting, it’s really difficult. If you treat the other person with contempt and minimise and dismiss their concerns, you can’t really be surprised when the relationship is further damaged and your concerns are treated the same. Furthermore, I suggest you chill out a little bit

helpful?

I think you're both playing games OP. Not convinced by the "confused and upset ".

Read the op. They are not asking the daughter to call her stepmum. The daughter wants to call her that.
(And wind your neck in, rude, rude ,rude)

👆🏻 Get a parenting agreement in place that covers off all do’s and dont’s it just saves arguments long term your daughter deserves not to be in the middle of this. But you may have to accept that that agreement may outlaw the use of the term ‘mum’ in any context if that’s a hard boundary for her mum.

That being said though, I have always simply been referred to as my first name by my SS12 (I met him at 1.5 years old). If someone specifically asks our relationship or assumes I am mum then we will correct them/explain and use the term step mum nowadays that we are married. I didn’t meet SS until 9 months into my relationship with his dad and we didn’t get married until 7 years later so the term step mum was irrelevant in our house for a long time.

Equally SS had a stepdad already when I met him so he probably kind of just assumed the same applied to me regardless we just didn’t talk about it.

I appreciate technically she is DDs step mum but maybe it’s advisable to just slow things down a touch and have her referred to as first name for now.

I’ve never really understood the eagerness to label people in children’s life other than immediate blood relatives.

No enforceable parenting agreement would ever include that a 6 year old child is forbidden from referring to her stepmother as her stepmother in conversation. You cannot set a "hard boundary" for how someone refers to someone else when you are neither of them.