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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Child free and feel inferior to partner’s Ex

14 replies

ApFlack · 18/08/2023 12:46

I’m in a relationship with a man who has children with his ex partner. I have never met the mother but I am feeling insecure and inferior to her, their family history and shared children. Almost I’m not a real grownup in comparison

I feel that their life was a proper one, a family with an adult house set up. I am child free and have a life full of friends, hobbies and holidays. I have a nice house but I’m rarely there to do DIY or make it seem like a beautiful home. I am a girlfriend not a wife or a mother and feel somehow immature and illegitimate

I am trying to make sense of this problem as it clearly comes from me.

Is this how child free people sometimes feel? Am I just jealous of her and her place or standing as a mother? I don’t want to feel this way so if anyone can help I would be grateful xx

OP posts:
GreyCarpet · 18/08/2023 13:10

Is there an age disparity between you and him?

She may well be looking at you and feel inferior because of your freedom, hobbies and holidays. You might have more to offer him than the drudgery of child rearing. In her eyes...

This is a real comparison is the thief of joy scenario, tbh. She is her and you are you. You cannot be compared. Your relationships with this man cannot be compared.

Thisisworsethananticpated · 18/08/2023 13:18

I agree your life sounds great

why does this relationship make you feel so shit abiut yourself ?

maybe you are just fine ✔️
bit this relationship for some reason is triggering you ?

WrylyAmused · 18/08/2023 13:41

I totally empathise @ApFlack .
I'm in a similar situation and have similar feelings.

I've been in several very long term, good quality cohabiting relationships, good career, nice life, friends, hobbies etc. Never married by choice, child free by choice. And previous partners have been in the same situation as me, so it never arose before.

Current partner was married (she cheated & left), then had a child in a subsequent relationship (child's mother left, just general incompatibility, they co-parent well).

I will never be a wife (would be a terrible idea for me financially), and will never be a mother. I never wanted either of those things, but even though my opinions haven't changed, I do really feel somehow lesser in this relationship.

Maybe it's something about there being things he's shared with other people that we will never share, a sense of there being an imbalance between us in terms of certain life milestones and key events, even though I never wanted them...

He's lovely about it, does his best to be reassuring, but doesn't really understand why I feel this way. I don't either. But despite how lovely he is, I quite often daydream about leaving to be with someone who has similar life experience to me, simply because I find it a problem, and find it hard to visualise a future with him long-term (& we've been together 4yrs, living together for 2).

I wonder how it feeds in with your relationship with his children as well?
I like his child, I think it's mutual, and we get on fine, but I don't feel like we're a family unit, there just isn't that depth of connection or sense of unity there that I experience in a family, and because obviously his child is his priority, it does leave me as the outsider quite often, whether that's reality or only in my head...

No real solutions, but you're not alone.
Watching with interest, maybe someone has a different approach to consider!

SleepingStandingUp · 18/08/2023 14:01

How old are you all? Would you like children? Has he ruled it out? Does he talk about her alot?

Loubelou14 · 18/08/2023 15:57

If it helps from the other side. I have children but my boyfriend doesn't. I don't think any differently and envy the experience he has had. He's had lots of holidays and I envy the times he had with his ex. I think it's normal to feel left out of that part of their lives but we love each other for who we are now

Thegreenpotter · 18/08/2023 16:50

If you are young and want children perhaps it bothers you that he has already experienced all of these first parenting times with someone. I know it would have me. That why I would never have dated a man with children when I was child free.

GreyCarpet · 18/08/2023 16:52

Thegreenpotter · 18/08/2023 16:50

If you are young and want children perhaps it bothers you that he has already experienced all of these first parenting times with someone. I know it would have me. That why I would never have dated a man with children when I was child free.

I don't think I would have done either for the same reasons.

ApFlack · 18/08/2023 17:33

@WrylyAmused - interesting to hear you feel a similar way - thanks for your honesty.

I’m too old now for children, I didn’t choose not to have them, more it didn’t happen. So this life experience is exclusively for them in the current set up and it feels intimate

@SleepingStandingUp They are very enmeshed, it’s not a recent split but they’ve carried on in a family manner for a long time as there have been no other partners.

I think that if I’d had my own children I would feel I had moved on from being a kid myself. I’m mature and responsible with a good job but it’s not the same.

It is comparison for sure and low self worth but the feeling like a child part is particularly difficult to manage

OP posts:
ApFlack · 19/08/2023 08:46

Has anyone dealt with this to feel better?

OP posts:
MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 19/08/2023 08:55

They are very enmeshed, it’s not a recent split but they’ve carried on in a family manner for a long time as there have been no other partners

I suspect it's that that's causing all the anguish, OP. You sense that he hasn't detached from his family to be properly with you and you feel like you're just an add on to his already established life and family intimacy.

Can't tell you if other childfree people feel like this because I have never been in that situation. I notice though that you said being childfree wasn't a choice, do you think that deep down you feel children are something you have to be a proper adult and you've failed somehow at that?

Unexpectedlysinglemum · 19/08/2023 09:00

I think counselling might be a good ideas.

In terms of feeling grown up, you can really be an amazing role model as a step mum if you want to get v involved.

If the marriage part is imp to you have a conversation with partner about how you want that security and feeling of being a real family together one day

Unexpectedlysinglemum · 19/08/2023 09:01

Friends hobbies and holidays sounds like a lot more fun than DIY, I bet the ex is a bit jealous of you living your bets life!

billy1966 · 19/08/2023 09:02

OP,
Get some counselling for yourself.

You need to feel good about yourself in a relationship, not like you are not good enough.

You absolutely are.

But take your insecurity seriously and do something about it.

You deserve to feel good about yourself and have no reason not to.

ApFlack · 20/08/2023 07:20

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain yes I maybe feel like an add on, a bit like the other woman in a sense (but I don’t believe he is cheating). A lot of fun and kind of pretending to be in a proper relationship when his real family is elsewhere

I feel a little like a failure - for my parents and wider family (although there has never been pressure to do anything other than what makes me happy). Although I’ve never had a burning desire to be a mother but it’s interesting to hear that @WrylyAmused feels similar about something they never really wanted

OP posts:
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