I love him but not his kids - from Saturday's Guardian

[puddle]

I was quite shocked when I read this article and thought there might be a thread on it - as there isn't I am starting one.

If I was the mother of this man's children I would be very tempted to insist that this woman does not spend any more time with them. I am sure that these feelings are fairly commmon - what upset me is that she has put those children in a position where they would know this is how she feels about them - the oldest one is nine.

article is here\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,2030147,00.html}

Fair enough, brangelina. What is so disturbing about this woman is the way she is putting her lack of love/interest for her stepkids into the national media, where they can read about it.Or worse, other kids will read about it and turn it into bullying fodder.
I think being a stepparent must be incredibly hard, actually, and take my hat off to anyone that manages to make a success of it. But don't tell the children they get in the way, ffs, especially when you are the reason their parents are no longer together.

Just wanted to add that I don't think it's right to air your feelings about this in public. I've never spoken about my feelings to my SS as it's not fair to him and I certainly wouldn't splash them all over a newspaper. Internet forums are my safety valve and it's all hugely anonymous.

x posts sassy and puddle.

Exactly, Brang.(my ffs comments directed at the article, of course, not a t you )

Agree with brangelina. I don't really think this is damaging to children either in the long run - she isn't mistreating them, only being honest about how she feels.

Pretending to love them could be more hurtful IMO. I know which I would have preferred, even as a child.

I'm sure it is part of her plan expat, but I still wouldn't be happy for the children to be around someone who didn't want them around. Although yes it would gall me to know that I was playing into her hands.

Actually the more I think about this the more I think she's a cow for writing this article. Some things just don't need to be said, frankly. Selfishness pure and simple.

Yes, do agree about spilling your guts in the paper. Not in the best taste.

I am surprised that her husband is accepting of her being so public! It is one thing to feel like that privately but quite another to publish it.

Being with someone who already has kids is hard, but you chose to be with someone with kids. Surely if she felt that strongly she would avoid all men with "baggage" let alone marry one.

My DP has a daughter from a previous relationship and I really care about her - I am not sure if I "love" her or not but I certainly am emotionally attached to her and am interested in how she is and enjoy spending time with her and always have. My DP and I are not getting on well at all and one of the factors I consider in whether I will leave him is my relationship (and my DS;s) with DP's daughter.

We have only been together 4 years and I have only known her for 5 and have never lived with her as "stepmother" but I still care about her and am quite shocked that a woman who is an actual stepmother is so emotionally detached from her husband's children - has she no compassion?

I think it is up to the adult to behave like an adult. A child in this situation will not feel as safe with a step-parent as they would with a paremt. This make it even more important that kindness is shown by the adult. Feeling are irrelevant to be honest. The fact is you can act in a loving and caring way by being kind and taking care of someone without having 'feelings of love'.

Regardless of feelings it is not appropriate to ever say in a public forum 'I wish they had never been born'. I completely agree that step-parents could do with more support but that doesn't translate into it being OK to be so publically negative about their step-children.

The very fact that she does not love her step-children means that she should be more careful what she says in a national newspaper.

Absolutely agree with Lazycow, that it's up to the adult to behave as an adult.

This amused me: " the best-kept secret of step-parenting is that just because you fall for your partner, it doesn't mean you'll take to their children."

Secret? Is it a secret? I thought it was self-evident.

No-one expects step mothers (or step fathers) to love their step kids. (Well, no-one reasonable, anyway.) But what they do expect, is for adults to take responsibility for their feelings and to remember that when you enter into a relationship with someone with children, you are entering into a step-parenting role and you have a moral duty to discharge that role properly. As with the law, ignorance is no defence imo. You want to have a relationship with someone with kids, go read a few books about parenting, go find out what typical problems you're going to come up against, and FGS examine yourself honestly to see whether you're willing to undertake the responsibility. I think it's quite good that this woman is talking openly about these issues - too many people imo enter relationships with children involved, without having the faintest idea of what they're letting themselves in for and the more information out there about it, the better - with any luck it would put some of the more selfish immature types off.

I don't actually think this woman has said anything really terrible, except the childish thing about being excluded. My main gripe is the public thing - she could have had anonymity FGS.

Agree with caligula's post.

silly jealous bint

I read the first couple of paras and then gave up. It was the "so why is she being villified?" bit that got me. er, because she went on about it in the press?

silly cow.

ack. My stepmother made it very clear she didn't love us, and made it even clearer that her own children with my father were much more important to her. I never expected her to be a replacement for my mother, and would have been very resistant if she'd tried. Overall, initially, she did ok.

But if she'd have made a big thing out of wishing we didn't exist, or said she was jealous when we got the occasional hug from our dad, I'd have reminded her that we had first dibs on him, she knew we existed before she threw her lot in with my dad, and she should get in line.

As it was, we got the message loud and clear without it being spelled out for us.

Well, I'm a stepmother, and I think she sounds like an emotionally stunted cow.
No, on the whole you don't feel the same passion for your stepchild as you do for your own children, but that has a lot to do with the fact that you spend less time with them and don't have the responsibility for them in the same way. It's that responsibility and daily contact that builds the love. Also, you don't want to step on their mother's toes.
However, I do love my step daughter and tell her so. And I didn't have a nasty affair with a married man either. I think that woman needs a nice, big, humbling dose of shame. If I were those children's mother I would be so angry with her. The thought of someone writing about my kids like that makes me utterly sick.

And when my stepdaughter cried for her mother when we were on holiday together, I spent the night in her bed. I've stayed up with her when she was ill, and I've been glad to do it.

aloha- you sound like a lovely person. I don't know about being a step mum but I feel the need to be protective and kind to any children who are in my care. I would want to try to establish a good bond with my step kids if I had any- this woman sounds as though she doesn't have a maternal bone in her body.

She was interviewed on This Morning last year?? and got a hard time I am glad to say

I didn't read the bit about her having an affair with him whilst he was still married.

Other than that aspect of it though (which I think stinks if it is true), I didn't have a problem with what she has written/said. I don't expect stepmothers to love or even like their sc or want to have them about.I can imagine a lot of stepmothers would be happier if the sc weren't around but most of them probably try not to make it obvious for the sake of their dp or from common decency towards the dc. I bet if they're honest there are a fair few who even furiously dislike their sc.

Would you be happy with your children being written about for money by someone who doesn't even like them? I wouldn't! And would you like to have your stepmother write about how she wishes you didn't exist? It's HORRIBLE!

I think having written under her real name (if she did) so the dc could be identified or could identify themselves unnecessary. However the fact that she seems to be breaking a taboo in speaking about something perhaps a lot of other women feel doesn't shock me much TBH (but then as I said I never assumed stepmothers generally manage to love their sc)

I had a long relationship (8 years) with someone who had a small child and not once did it occur to me that XP should put my needs before his need to be a good separated-but-committed dad. It seemed a no-brainer. It didn't make me feel that our relationship was unimportant, but just that he, and i, had our priorities in the right place.

She doesn't have to love the children. As it happened I did, fiercely, but perhaps that is BECAUSE I didn't feel a childish jealousy for a toddler over her father's love for her! But to write about it is repellent. IMO it would have been ok for her to write an article questioning the assumptions that you automatically fallin love with a child, or that you need to love a child in order to make sure that it is cared for , or an honest look at where the 'wicked' stepmother, with all it's images of supremacy battles, jealousy and insecurity for the child come from.

But not to name and diswon you own step-children in a newspaper read by all the frienmds and relations in the wider community.

Horrible.

Blu I think that's the key - presumably you were emotionally mature enough not to feel jealousy of a child.

I think those without that emotional security, or who are insecure in their relationship in any way, are those who are probably more likely to fall prey to this sort of feeling. Jealousy of whatever ilk, is nearly always born of insecurity, isn't it?

I am dismayed this article was passed fit for publication, given it makes the children easily identifiable.
I find the whole idea of using your own undisguised circumstances to promote your sad little hobbyhorse pretty grim tbh.
The little girl mentioned in the article is old enough for someone in her class to have potentially spotted that article, and what the children's biological mother can think of all this doesn't bear thinking about
I only know one stepmother and her experience of taking on her dp's children is so far removed from Alex's navel-gazing whingefest it is untrue. She loves them and they love her.

And isn't it a bit of a fundamental misunderstanding of what love is? Surely love is something you DO as much as something that 'happens' to you, it's a practice and the thing you look for and aspire to, hopefully towards all humanity, especially children. I can't remember where it's from, but I remember hearing a story from another country, something like;

An old man tells a boy that everybody has two wolves inside them, a wolf of anger, bitterness, envy, hatred etc, and a wolf of love, generosity and kindness, and through your life these wolves fight and compete

So the boy says, 'which wolf wins?'

And the old man says, 'the one that you feed'.

So feed your nice wolf!