I'm a step mother to three who live with us, plus a daughter of my own, with their father.
Very complicated, mother of eldest two sd-13, ss-14 as not been in the picture for 7 years, now lives overseas, has another child with new partner, and has not told new partner's family of her other 4 children living in UK (other 2 kids living with her grandparents and father of eldest)
other ss-10's mother has him during holidays, lives in inner city london estate which is why he lives with us, good schools, nice place etc (she has string of dysfunctional violent relationships so better her son lives with us than in a pretty rocky environment)
so I think I fit in to the not the ordinary situation for step parenting, but who does????
my daughter is 6. I have no family to support me here. my partner is well meaning, has a heart of gold but can be pretty useless practically. Which means I do the lions share of everything. Asked him to take the bins out earlier, bin day tomorrow. He went to bed, and "forgot". ho-hum. will just do that after I've finished doing the laundry, the housework, the cooking, the shopping. Oh, wait a minute, I've done everything. Is there actually a reason he's there at all? Oh, and I work two jobs, he works from home. Yeah, now have a go at me for being a martyr... I've tried "striking" but I can't abide living in a dirty house. The elder children are pretty good about doing washing up, and will do things when asked, and I've gotten to be pretty adept at making lists and asking them to get things done. I couldn't cope otherwise.
When I met my partner, only the eldest son was living with him, I would have run a mile if I knew the others would eventually follow, (eldest daughter dropped off at ours for xmas break, told by mother she'd be back in two weeks to pick her up- that was 6 years ago, she hasn't seen her since) but it is how we are now, like i said, very complicated.
My situation has arisen out of the need for children to live in a stable environment - and my inability to lay my foot down and say, no I don't want them to live here, how could I do that, I mean, come on, I am the adult right??? I have to sacrifice my life for that of the children.
I often hear the song by the buzzcocks in my head "WHat do I get, oooh-oh, what do I get??"
I think my partner thought that when I had my daughter I'd suddenly feel the same love for the others, but you don't. I don't anyway. How can you feel the same about someone elses' children, as you feel for your own flesh and blood? I have had this conversation with people, and seems there are two camps out there, the love them as your own brigade, and the parents who have been step parents. Yeah, I know, I'm going to cop a lot of grief for that, but I'm beyond caring about it. My feelings are just as valid, didn't you know??? So frustrating, I work hard to pay for this that and the other, sometimes treated with disrespect. I really get p'd off when people think everyone can be just one big happy shiney family when the get thrown together. I get through it by rationalizing, that, the sc no more asked for me than I asked for them. We just get on the best we can.
am just having a rough day with it all, the thankless tasks...
I'm p'd off with the absent mother of the eldest two, who had "denied" her children that they even exist, I need to find her contact details, (which the grandparents withhold from us, because we might "upset her life" overseas....ie. bring to attention her life is a lie what a crock of shite) like to shake her life up a bit.
yeah, so many issues going on here, I'm not really looking for advice as such, just getting it off my chest and this place seemed like a pretty safe place to do so.
well, thanks if you could be bothered to read all that, I'm going to finish off this bottle of wine and retire soon but I feel better just to have typed that out.