Support thread for stepchildren

[flippinada]

A place for step children, young and not so young to chat about our experiences, let off steam, and offer/give support.

love I'm so sorry for the loss of your Mum and and as for satying your should be over your Mum's death, words fail me. I'm delighted to read you have a close relationship with your SC, you sound like a lovely stepmum :).

Oh, and this will come as a surprise to no-one (I'm sure) - my stepmonster used to be great friends with my Mum. When my parents split up my Mum poured her heart out to ths woman who she thought was a close friend...all the time she was seeing my Dad in secret and breaking my Mum's trust.

My last post isn't entirely clear..I mean she was telling my Dad what my Mum was saying about him. My Mum had no idea she was seeing him and, as she said later, she would have kept quiet had she known.

You don't expect a friend to do that though, do you?

This thread is so cathartic.

to you all for your awful step-parent stories

Reading about those of you who lost your mum and then your SM's were awful to you is making me cry. I cannot imagine how any person could display anything other than empathy and kindness towards a child that has lost its mother.

Fathers moving on immediately after the mothers death seems to be common. In my own life, I've seen this lots of times. As a mother, if my DH died I would devote myself to my DC and ensure that they were able to cope before I'd even consider looking for someone else. Surely this is parental instinct?

Thinking about you all tonight

Such an eye opening thread, I thought maybe I was an exception being an adult who this has happened to. My brother is 'accepted' by my fathers GF (I will not call her stepmom) also as I think she feels threatened by me, another woman.
My gran, my fathers mother also has the measure of this woman and is in the process of changing her will to leave her estate to the GC's so nothing can go to this woman. My father wil have a big shock. What goes around comes around.

Flip - my paternal grandmother asked me the same. In the hospital, just before she died she told me that she was glad that my dad had me and asked me to always stay with him I couldn't do it though, NC was my only way of avoiding sadness, stress and anger. Life is short, I deserve to be happy!

Plate - I love that your GM is doing that! What a lady!

Platelet good on your Gran!

Finally I totally understand why you would go NC

My Gran was amazing and there's not a day goes by when I don't think of her - I always felt she was totally on my side and looking out for me - my DS was born nearly a year to the day after she died and I'm sad she never got to meet him as she would have loved him to bits.

I just want to give everyone here a massive hug especially FaF and Finally. I'm so glad my dad never tried to get custody of us, I shudder to think what life would have been like if we'd lived with him and his wife.

Other things: the first Christmas after they married, she sent us a box of used clothing (presumably hers) to my sister and I with a card saying she didn't know why we should exchange Christmas gifts when we barely knew each other. my mum opened it and gave the clothes to charity and only told us about it years later. Who does that to a 9 and 12 year old? She still sends random shit gifts, often with price of tags still on to make us think she spent loads but then it turns out they're from TK Maxx or similar. I have no problem with getting stuff on sale it's the 'look how much I want you to think I've spent' that's annoying. I wish she just wouldn't bother.

Her parents both died within a few months of each other after years of ill health. I'm sure this was a sad time for her, even though they lived long lives. My dad badgered both of us to send her sympathy cards saying how much it would mean to her. Which was both annoying and bizarre, given we'd never met her parents have almost no direct contact with her. I was heavily pregnant and my sister was relocating and setting up her own business, so it wasn't high on either of our to do lists. I suspect she just wanted to exert some control and get us to do what she wanted via manipulating my DF.

My Dad is one of those parents who drop the children from his first family. But I am not a child of the first family, I am a child of the second family and I grew up watching him do it and watching my Mum play her part. I didn't even know I had a half sister until I was 11, I remember coming home from a school trip to a puffy faced and crying mother and being sat down by my dad with my younger dsis to tell me about my half sister. He said that we'd start seeing her, she'd come and visit sometimes etc. I was excited about it, I wanted to meet her. My younger sister wasn't at all keen and told me she didn't want to meet her, didn't want to share our Dad - turns out my Mum had collared her first and told her that if our half sister started visiting it would change everything, Dad wouldn't love us as much, he would want to be with her all the time etc. This was no shock to my Mum by the way she had always known about my half sister it wasn't out of the blue.

She never visited we only met her twice. My Mum made it utterly impossible and my Dad let her. The tears, tantrums and sulks were unbearable.

From watching it happen first hand I can see it was pure jealousy of the first wife and desperation for her family to be the one that mattered that made my Mum behave like that. I think she was frightened my Dad would leave us and go back to his first wife if he became attached to his other daughter. I knew at that age how wrong it was but obviously it was out of my hands. To this day there's no contact and it's only since I became a parent myself that I see how horrific it all was/is

I used to get a hard time for posting on the step board, told I was being unsupportive etc but there's certain turns of phrase and described "issues" on some of the threads, not all, that I recognise and remember my Mum using, doing and saying and I know what her motives were. Worse for my half sister and her mother but also bad for me and my dsis who have been robbed of a sibling relationship and our dc who have no relationship with an aunt and cousins. Just so horribly sad.

I'm so glad for this thread. Nickie, I have been absolutely roasted before for suggesting what happened to you was a possibility.

I asked someone how they think their children would feel when they were old enough to realise how badly their parents had behaved to the first family. And said that it may damage their relationships with the subsequent children.

Apparently I was just projecting.

Sending huge hugs to everyone on this thread. I'm not a SD but I have a SB and I am a SM. I am determined to do everything I can to make sure my DSD never feels even a fraction of this kind of pain. I hope you don't mind me posting, but this thread really helps me to see things really clearly from DSD's perspective.

lost, stepmums like you are great.

Am just signing in to come back later, but so much of this thread brings things back for me.

I lived with my DF and SM in the late 70s/early 80s and was utterly miserable but never allowed to breathe a word of it because we were all meant to be playing happy families all the sodding time, and I became the family scapegoat because I dared to be unhappy. My father tried to be utterly 'fair' to me, my DB and SB, while SM openly favoured my SB.

I've had tons of therapy but have still never really got over the sense of being useless and inferior.

Hello everyone. I haven't read the whole thread yet (I will), but there are so many resonances with my childhood/adolescence that I had to post.

This is a long post - sorry x

to all of you - my heart breaks with each of these stories, they feel so familiar and painful to me.

My dad remarried when I was about 10. My SM left her very small children (4 and 6) in their home country (because their DF wouldn't allow them to leave) and proceeded to take all her sadness, anger and guilt out on me and my DB. The atmosphere when we visited was hideous. She regularly ignored us. And if she wasn't ignoring us she was attacking us. There were no photos of us in the house - dozens of her kids. Her kids had rooms of their own, beautifully decorated with toys etc, though they were only there a few weeks a year. My DB and I slept in whichever spare room had least junk in it.

At some point, she told my dad that if she couldn't see her kids, he couldn't see his. And he basically gave in to her

For years I hardly saw my dad. When I did, he constantly cancelled or rearranged at the last minute. And if we did eventually make it their house, it was very very clear we weren't welcome.

My dad and SM used to have the most hideous, volatile rows (which I largely understood to be my fault). Then one day, when I was late teens, I saw my SM punch my dad. I had to stay with them all weekend, my DB wasn't even with me. I'm crying typing this now and it must have been 25 years ago.

In my late 20s/30s, I didn't see my dad for about 10 years. He'd occasionally ring, to tell me about a row he'd had with my SM, or ask to borrow money. I finally saw him again in a psychiatric hospital - he'd been sectioned after trying to kill himself - she apparently tried to persuade him to do so, to clear their debts

They're now divorced, my dad is very vulnerable and ill (we have some contact these days) and my exSM continues to bully him.

I am extremely angry with both of them. This stuff has been a huge part of my ongoing therapy.

Op & Good, so sorry to hear you've both been through this too.

Good, was your SM ever criminally prosecuted for trying to get your Df to take his own life?

These stories really hit home the number of weak men, the old: "behind every great man there stands a woman' has been transformed for me. I actually feel that lots of men NEED a woman to function and whether that woman makes them unhappy seems to be irrelevant, doesn't it?

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/behind-every-great-successful-man-there-stands-a-woman

Lurked for a long time but never posted on here before, so hello all :)

My step-dad is truly the most amazing man I have ever met, the person I call when everything is falling apart, has been there for me from day one and put up with an awful lot of shit I've thrown his way (in my teenage years).

My dad on the other hand, since marrying his wife (I refuse to call her my step-mum), has become as vicious as her. She has a DD same age as me and my dad treats her like a princess.... I on the other hand, didn't even get so much as a happy birthday or Christmas card from him.

MyCats - I always thought that too about women prioritising the children. Partners before my dad's now wife have, his first GF when I was growing up was my rock. Always been gutted they didn't stick it out together

Finally, no, she was never charged. I'm not sure if my dad ever told anyone other than me and my uncle (his DB). And I'm still not really sure how it happened, what she said.

Their lives were a mess at this point - he had "stolen" some of what she had inherited from her dad and she tried to press charges against him, while he was recovering from his suicide attempt. We reckon she's got hundreds of thousands of pounds from him since the divorce (after they reached and settled a financial settlement) - the price of my father's guilt (though sadly his guilt towards me doesn't seem to be worth his thousands ).

It's a sorry tale for all involved

Austen thank you

Welcome to all new posters - I'm so glad that people are finding this thread helpful.

opinioneers - you mentioned having to play 'happy families'. We had to do this too. God it was awful. I remember being on holiday with my Dad, stepmum and stepsibs and my postcards were pre-vetted by stepmum. If I wrote anything that made the holiday sound anything less than wonderful like she made me re-write them.

Oh, on that holiday I was vegetarian (had been for a while). I was quite strict about it and took it seriously. Anyway, I found out some time afterwards from my sister that they'd purposely fed me veggy burgers cooked with meat. She overheard them sniggering about it between themselves. They thought it was hilarious because I'd commented how nice the burgers were. That might not sound like much but it sums the pair of them up pretty well. Spiteful, childish and nasty.

Fudge so pleased you have a great stepdad - mine is too. We're lucky to have him. I just don't understand these men (sorry but it is mostly men) who can move on to other families, just like that. What's wrong with them? (Before anyone wonders, my stepdad doesn't have any children of his own).

for all of you.

Gosh Nicki that is really chilling to hear, I honestly have questioned myself so much over the years, thinking I couldn't possibly be right about my SM, it was too far-fetched! Sorry to hear how it worked out for you.

good your story is heartbreaking

Finally I totally agree. My dad has told me he lives with guilt and regrets, but he's willing to sweep it all aside for a woman he seems utterly miserable with. I love him, I want to be happy, I don't want to see him alone if that would make him unhappy, but... really?!

Seems they'll put up with anything for the path of least resistance, and they expect us to too.

Hi again. I've read the whole thread now and there's so many echoes. Being kept out of the kitchen, never being allowed seconds (I remember my SM really telling my DB off for having too much cereal one morning - it wasn't a ridiculous amount - he was probably 16ish and a "growing lad").

I wasn't constantly made to feel like I was the bad one too, the one who didn't want to do fun things, who ruined it for everyone else. I also knew I wasn't bad, but now in adult life I massively overreact to being characterised in a way that doesn't feel right to me, so I think that feeling of being seen in a way that was so different to how I saw myself really affected me.

I tried to talk to my dad about all this when I was in my late teens/early twenties and he just asked me to understand how sad my SM was after leaving her kids in their home country. He never saw it from my perspective.

After his "crisis", he's acknowledged and apologised for some of what he did, but I don't really think he gets it - and he's now too vulnerable for me to push it any further. I really resent that he thinks he can have a relationship with my daughter, I find that really difficult.

This was all 1980s/90s for me.

It's very cathartic writing this all down - sorry for the long posts. And more for recent posters. It's so sad so many of us experienced this stuff, and are still struggling with it so many years later.

Oh, and my step-dad was ok too. He married my mum after I left home, but he was a good "dad" to me for a bit.

But then he had an affair and left my mum, so not such a great guy after all!

I meant I was constantly made to feel like I was the bad one.

That's awful goodenough :(

I think the feeling that they've 'got away with it' while you are left to deal with the aftermath of their selfish is very hard to deal with.

I think I mentioned this on the other thread..I'm not proud of this but I often feel envy and such sadness when I read people talking about the lovely relationship they have with their own fathers, because I'll never know how that feels.

*their selfish behaviour.