Regret not making an effort

[PolarBearHugs]

My children don't see their father and I often hear of people having wonderful step dads who took on the child/children (my own father was one of them and raised my sister as his own) as their own and I now regret not making an effort to meet someone when my children were younger. I don't have much family and feel sad for my children not having many people and feel like I made a mistake not meeting someone. My children would have definitely liked and benefited from having a father figure that they missed out on. Did anyone else stay on there own after a split? At the time I didn't want to meet anyone and the ship has sailed now.

No positive addition here but a warm hug to you and the children.

Trying to meet someone for the sole purpose of them being a father figure to your children is not the right reason IMO. You say you didn't want to meet anyone at the time so you did the right thing in not. Don't feel guilty about that. It's your responsibility to be a Mum, not to provide a Dad, that's their Father's job and if he's failed in that responsibility then that's on him, not you.

Thanks. Hmm yes I know but I often wonder if the women who met people quickly weren't actually ready either but just forced themselves. My mum was pregnant with me just over a year after having my sister. I often hear of women meeting someone very quickly and I regret wasting so much time on my ex when I could have met someone else (we was back and forth for a while after the split)

You need to do what is right for you and there is no wrong thing here. Some people like to be in relationships and they don’t stay single for long. Others take time to find the right person and many don’t want to share their lives with another adult.

My personal view is that women are put under an awful lot of societal pressure to conform to the mother role following separation. On one side they are told never to introduce a new partner because they should be a mother first and foremost. Actually this pressure is to be just a mother which is ridiculous. The other pressure, which is financial as well as societal, it to be in a couple. You can’t win.

At the time I didn't want to meet anyone and the ship has sailed now.

I get where you're coming from but the bottom line was you didn't want to meet anyone so you made the right decision, so you don't need to regret it. Whatever benefits may have come from meeting something - and they're very hypothetical benefits because this person could also have brought a load of problems - they wouldn't have been right for you as you didn't want anyone.

However it's interesting that you say the ship has sailed now. Do you mean because your kids have grown up so there's no need for a father figure? Or do you mean you can't meet anyone now, for some reason? Because if it's the latter, and you do actually want to meet someone now, don't dismiss the possibility because of some idea it's too late for you. If you did that, it would be something you'd more legitimately regret down the line, when you look back and see it's something you did want but you still didn't make the effort to do it.

Step families can be really difficult OP, your DC could just as easily have resented a partner/father figure or they may have turned out not to be a good step parent and had a negative impact on your DC's childhood. I agree with the PP who said you have no need for regrets, you did what felt right at the time and may just as well have saved DC from years of misery as deprived them of something good

For every successful stepfather father figure there is at least one other example of a partner who brought nothing positive into a child’s life. You see it on these boards all the time. You made a valid choice not to have another partner and you couldn’t possibly know what the impact might have been on your children if you had wanted to and managed to find partners. Relationships fail. Partners turn out to be abusive or unreliable or just uninterested in children or have complicated family set ups or children of any age who don’t welcome step siblings. The possibilities go on.

Edited to add a missing word.

Don’t beat yourself up @PolarBearHugs I’m sure you did the right thing.

My mother married 3 times so, I had 2 step dads when I was a child.

One molested me, and the other was an abusive bully.

I wish my mother had had the guts to stay single. My childhood would have been so much less traumatic and maybe we’d still be in touch.

I think for every positive story there would be a negative one. One of my childhood friends was abused by her stepfather and ended up in care. Focus on all the good stuff.

Thanks all. Sorry to hear some of you have abusive step fathers. I guess it’s hard as I’ve only ever known good ones I see friends sending birthday wishes to their step fathers saying how thankful they are to have had them how amazing they are, makes it hard.

My children are too old now for a step father they are approaching teens. So more for that reason. I wish I had tried when they were little.

My children are too old now for a step father they are approaching teens.

Approaching teens is still pretty young and it's not like teens don't acquire and acclimatise to step-dads. I think it's telling that you're still coming up with reasons why you don't want to meet a potential partner, and that's fine, but it means you can own that decision as your choice, not have regrets or put it down to not making the effort. You still don't seem to want one, and as some PPs have said, that could well be a good thing for your kids anyway. If/when you do decide you're ready, I hope it works out, but don't waste time regretting.

Yeah I get that but I meant someone who brought them up from young. They are secondary age now. My mum did get another bf when we were older but never considered him as a dad or father he was always just mums boyfriend. I more meant someone that they’ve grown up with and never known any different if that makes sense.

So meeting a man when they was 12 months is very different from meeting a man when they are 12. Just a different relationship.

It’s more likely that a new man would have bought complications and a whole set of new problems. I think the kids dodged a bullet. And their father is their father figure. If wasn’t adequate, that’s on him, not you.

Yeah probably just doesn’t help that they’ve made it clear they wish they had had a father around. My son was asked at sports day why his father never comes.

My son was asked at sports day why his father never comes.

Sorry that happened. This isn't usual though, lots of dads don't go to sports days as they're at work, and it's odd for any other kid to notice. I really hope it wasn't a teacher who asked?

There will be these moments, like your sports day example, that raise the issue, but I don't think it means overall that they wish you'd met another man who'd stepped in to act as their father. As others have said, this goes wrong probably more often than it goes right, and doesn't replace the bio dad anyway, they'd still have their moments of wishing things were different. You're bound to feel sad for them, but don't put it on yourself, you've been there for them and they'll appreciate that down the line if not always during teen years.

He’s had a few comments about it but tbf the boy who asked him is autistic, but it’s not the only comment he has had. I don’t think it’s unusual though there’s a “joke” at the moment of saying your dad left for the milk that kids say to each other, I heard other kids saying it on the bus the other day to insult each other so having an absent dad is something that is teased for maybe my area though.

Sorry, that's really horrible. I could understand this more in the past, but with my secondary-age DC, there's so many different kinds of families they don't have such a stock sense of the standard two parent hetero set-up and it's sad and cruel that it's picked up on for your DS. But then sports days aren't such a deal at their school either, no parents go to them since primary anyway and that was only a fun thing, so I wonder if your area is more trad/small-c conservative. At least your DS will grow up more sensitive and in step with the wider world where teasing people for things like this is unacceptable and there's more understanding that the world needs all kinds of different families.

Blended families are too complicated for me so I stayed single for my kids and I think that they benefitted from the stability that my conscious decision provided.
I suspect that there are at least many crap stepfathers as good with the majority of being in between. While my kids may have benefitted from a stepparent, they could easily be damaged by one too and that's not a risk worth taking.
More importantly, I am not so sure that I could be a good stepparent myself. Parenting my kids has been difficult at times but they were mine so I had proper control over how problems were dealt with and I think that I probably had more patience because they were my kids. My kids are also biologically programmed to forgive my weaknesses.

I wouldn’t have dated a man with his own children (selfishly) so no blending as such. My mum met my dad and he had no children so it’s possible. Most parents are together at his school so maybe that.

You find a lot of sons and fathers lock horns in the teenage years, it's far from plain sailing.
I have been single 10 years since husband died and feel incredibly proud of raising two sons alone. They are 18 and 20 and say they are glad l never introduced anyone else, as am l, it would have been a complete nightmare during those turbulent years.
Women are more than capable of raising kind, decent young men alone.

So you'd have ruled out men with DC, and presumably men who wanted DC (i.e. more kids with you), then you've have had to find the good guys left from that limited pool of men without DC who didn't want DC but did want to parent your DC. Dating is hard without those constraints, plus the childcare to facilitate it, and the not irrelevant fact that you didn't want to do it anyway.

This isn't to judge any of those choices - I think you were probably wise - but just to show again that it really wasn't about a lack of effort. The great stepdad you're imagining at DS's sports day feels like quite the chimera, compared to all the potential aggro that a stepdad (and indeed as PP says, a bio dad) could have brought with him, so while it might have had some benefits, you are enough and have nothing to reproach yourself for.