What do you feel guilty for?

[notnowImreading]

I feel guilty about pretty much everything, particularly my own feelings. I've been following George's thread and reading the ignominy heaped on his GF for not liking his daughter and, while my situation was not the same (need to be clear on that, don't want to be labelled a child-hating harpy from the off), it has really made me feel guilty about the times I've wished for more time alone with my husband - or even just alone as a way out of the situation.

I have found being a stepmum hard, especially not being a mum myself. I've always done my best in the interests of my stepdaughter and tried to put her first, but I haven't enjoyed it and I feel so awful that she must have known that.

My SD was always quite hostile towards me, demonstrated through sighs and silence rather than by outbursts - she directed those at her dad. I actually love her quite a lot, but am ashamed to say that I allowed myself to be cowed by her very strong, stubborn personality (I'm a more complaisant, self-effacing type in RL) and allowed her to dictate the terms of our relationship. For example, after being ignored whenever I spoke to her for a long time, I spoke less and less, expecting little more than functional responses. Now I think that I should have kept trying harder and harder, that it must have seemed that I didn't want to speak to her.

My SD had some serious issues when she came to live with us full time - anorexia, school phobia, low self esteem - and her mum lived abroad so she was in that awful teenage position of needing loads of love and security while rejecting any attempt to offer it and lashing out. That's with her dad as well, not just me.

Her mum came back to England for her final year of school and she has been living round the corner for nearly a year - she's like a different person now and is so much happier, calmer and friendlier. It shows me how much she has been missing her mum for the past five years and how much she needed her. It makes me feel terribly guilty that I couldn't supply even part of that for her. I'm delighted that we've had this chance to sort out relationship out and hopeful that when she moves back in with us later this year (she's 18) we can keep up the good work. I know she's going to be devastated when her mum moves away again though.

My SD is an almost adult now and we do genuinely get on well, so maybe all is not lost. I just still feel dreadful about how her teens must have been for her. They were pretty awful for us. She refused to come to our wedding just two years ago, which shows how much she resented my relationship with her dad at the time. I think if it were now she would come. That makes me sad too. She missed her dad's wedding.

I don't really know why I'm rambling on so long. I feel that I have been a crap stepmum, despite my best efforts and that I'm enormously lucky that things finally seem to be coming right. Which also makes me feel guilty as I know the improvement's down to her mum, not me.

I expect other people feel guilty too. I'm hoping I'm not the only one.

Hi Notnow.
I feel guilty for my own dc. I feel bad that they now have a stepbrother and sister through no choice of their own and that my time with them is now overtaken by the stepkids and their many issues. I am rectifying this though by booking a week away just me and my dc to visit our family abroad in yhe summer and I am trying to take more time out with just us.
I also feel so guilty that I don't love my step children. . God knows I have tried but they aren't the easiest kids to love - they are very spoilt and badly behaved and at times I have come close to disliking them. I resent them for how they treat their dad and the fact that they make me see him as weak when he won't stand up to them and I lose respect for him when he is with them.
And yes, I do resent the fact that we can never have a holiday on our own or even plan a wedding like a normal couple because their contact order is so rigid and I feel guilty for that.
But I always say that the good outweighs the bad. I have never. Met a man as wonderful and devoted as DP and I am lucky to have him. I just hope in time we will all feel like one family and not like two half families but I have heard that this takes years and years!!

Thank god someone replied! And thank god someone else admits not loving the SK. I hope things ease for your family. I've always felt sad that I didn't have kids of my own before living with my SD. I thought that feeling like a mum rather than like a girlfriend would make it easier. I can definitely see now how it might in fact double the guilt. Have a lovely time on your holiday - sounds like a great idea to me.

I have to say, I had a hug off my SD recently for the first time in about 8 years and it really made me blub - I don't know about you but the first signs that they might not hate/despise/pity you makes you pathetically grateful. I do love her. However, it hasn't come easy at all and was definitely buried under layers of frustration, sadness and sometimes even fear. The idea that you can love someone who doesn't love you, just because you should, is a big stuck to beat yourself with. Use that stick a lot.

My sdc are very affectionate towards me which makes it worse that I can't love them back. I never show it though - I'm a good actress.
I have an older dSd from a previous relationship and I think the world of her but she was such an easygoing sweet child. These two are more of a challenge!
My mum said she felt the same about my step brother and sister and though she is very fond of them now she still doesn't love them like she does us.
I'm sure it will all come good in the end!!

I can relate.

And just to be sure that you know - you are nothing like george's girlfriend!

I feel guilty about my own DD, as Kaluki says. She doesn;t deserve to have a manipulative older sister who she never knows from one day to the next if will reject her or love her. She wants so badly for DSD to love her and tries so hard. Watching her get knocked back is so sad.

I also feel guilty that in the beginning, I was annoyed about the amount of money the DH gave his ex. It was extortionate, and he decided to cut it back without my input, but now his relationship with his DD has deteriorated massively follwoing the cutting back of the money (this was a catalist rather than the underlying reasons of which there are many) I wish I had said something like "Darling, I'd rather we had nothing and you gave her your last penny if it keeps us all together"

I was fairly naive to start with about "loving" DSD. I embraced step parenting very quickly and treated her as I treated my own DD. But now that DSD is hurting my DH (and my DD) I can see that what I feel for her is nowhere near what I feel for them. I feela bit guilty about that.

Parenting is one long guilt trip in my eyes. But when it is your own you are told constantly that what ever negative emotions you feel they are perfectly "normal" and that it is merely the fact that being a Mum is hard. When you are a stepmum it is still such a taboo to admit that you struggle to love your step children.

Add to that the fact that if you do proclaim to love them, you are "overstepping" and you have a pretty tough road to travel.

You sound like a great SM, and your DSD sound slike a credit to you.

I feel guilty when I'm doing stuff for me when it's dsc's weekend with us. I try to give both kids love and affection when they want it and encourage them to grow as people but there are times I wish I could just be own my own, (I have no Dcs of my own) and just see my childless friends without the guilt. We've been together 3 yrs now n sometimes I think I stay cos I love the kids so much n dont want to screw their little lives up more. ESP in light of v close relationship with dsd. The first time she said 'i wish U were mum'I had to go outside n cry. I felt so guilty about that too?!

I don't encourage the closeness btw we are just v similar and clicked after a v tricky first 6 months when me n DP were first together IUSWIM. I try v hard not to overstep these days thro good advice on here and reading the other threads to get a better picture of what I should do and not do! :)

Do you know what Lost - I think it is having dc of my own which stops me bonding with them. Before I had my dc I used to flat share with a friend who had a young dd- I adored her, really loved her (still do in fact - she is my sons Godmother and we are very close) but since the boys came along I feel like all my maternal love is theirs and I can't feel it for anyone else!
With my older SD we had a more sisterly relationship - she had a good relationship with her Mum and was quite clear that she didn't need a mum.
I think DPs kids are damaged and quite needy and that makes me want to run - which makes me feel guilty.

Kaluki I get what ur saying and honesty think if I had my own, my love would get directed to them more, but I don't, so I guess I feel guilty for actually loving them as they're not mine and I know others haves been flamed on mn for saying they do! It's a long road I guess and I have lots to learn I'd I'm to survive the life of an sm. (sorry for that outrageously long sentence!!) x

Mmm. Not sure I do feel guilty about much really! I didn't try and 'Mum' my SC and one of them I didn't like much for a while, but I've always tried hard to be kind and reasonable and offer them a safe, comfortable home. I actually like and get on with my SC's better now they are teens.
We're probably a bit better off financially now than when I first met DP and money was always very tight and perhaps now we can be a bit more generous, so I hope the SC's don't feel that they have missed out on things. DSD sometimes comments that DD has more clothes/shoes etc than she had as a child.

I already said this on the other thread, but being a stepmother IS hard. I mean, look at it. For many if not most people, it means more work, less money, less time, less privacy. Less free choice and fewer options on everything from dinner choices to holidays to homes. Less time alone, less time with friends, less time with partner. Less freedom to be oneself, to speak one's mind, or even sometimes to speak at all.

I love my DH. I do love my DSCs and see them as my family, but I don't love them "as my children". I do not always like them (although to be fair, I think that one quite often doesn't 'like' a member of one's family at certain times!). I don't feel guilty about that, though.

I feel sad (not guilty, and obviously would never change it if i could!) that having my DD changed my relationship with DSS. He was almost 13, so I know it would have changed anyway, but before DD, we talked all the time, would cuddle up and watch tv together, he'd fall asleep on my shoulder, that kind of thing. Now that he is a sometimes vile teenager, I miss that. Like I say, I know it was about to happen anyway, but I do worry that he might have felt a bit of a loss or like I no longer had as much time for him. :(

Like Kaluki, I feel more guilty about what it all means for my stepdaughter. Because of the DSC's school, we are committed to staying where we are for the immediate future. My entire family lives on another continent, so she doesn't see them nearly as much as I'd like her to....all her cousins, her grandparents, an entire support network of family and friends. Here, she has only us - me, DH, her half-siblings. There are other things that come with that - I have fewer job prospects here, and the expenses of travelling 'home' once a year at least - so that impacts on what her life is like, too. There are also a few areas where I feel I have compromised in ways that decrease her quality of life, in order to minimise change for the DSCs. That really bothers me. I try to use that as my barometer for what I will and won't compromise on, but it isn't always that easy.

oops! sorry, that last paragraph should have said "Like Kaluki, I feel more guilty about what it all means for my DAUGHTER."! Rather different - sorry.

I feel guilty about the misery I have caused by falling in love again and for not having much money :(

I didn't come out of my divorce very well financially. Not all XH's fault, some of it was due to the housing market plummeting, but he did massage his earnings so that he gets away with paying me very little in maintenance to bring up our DCs. Over time I've had to learn to make peace with that, or I'd go mad. DP doesn't earn particularly well, so I have never expected him to support me financially (although I'm not supporting him either - he pays his way with the bills etc.) However, he is bitterly angry about the fact that because XH keeps me short, all my money goes on bringing up the DCs from my marriage. That means there is never anything in the pot for us (me, DP and our DS). So when the DCs get taken on holiday by their dad (for a week, once a year) it causes the mother of all rows in this house - DP expects the DCs to tell their dad to give me the money instead, to feed them etc.

I've tried to explain to DP that I can't dictate what XH does with his credit card (which is obviously how he pays for these holidays) any more than XH can tell me how to spend my money.

I have spent hours over the years wondering whether I should have just stayed single after my divorce. Then the DCs wouldn't have had to cope with living with a step-parent and I wouldn't have made my DP's life so miserable. I kind of think being lonely and miserable myself would be preferable to having ruined other people's lives. The only bright spot in all of this is our gorgeous DS, which is why neither of us will walk away from this relationship.

I feel guilty that so much of my emotional energy goes on DP, his kids and his ex wife and NOT on my DS because I've made sure DS fits in with OUR lives whereas our lives have to fit around DP kids and ex.

I feel the only real choice I have over my own life is to walk away from DP and even DP agrees with that.

Whites.
Your DP is being very unreasonable.
My ex did the same re the CSA - he has had numerous pay rises since the claim and has no mortgage so he has a lot more disposable income than me. He buys the dc toys and takes them away and enjoys being the 'fun parent' which drives me mad.
DP never has an opinion on it though - he sees it as my business and not something he can control.

Whites- I am sorry but if your current dh is not paying for your dc's from your previous marriage, then he certainly should not be complaining about the fact that you are. Perhaps he perceives this as unfair but you cannot be made to take the blame regarding how much or little your ex pays. He should be grateful that you are able to support them yourself.

whites Your partner is being very unfair. I think you could be right when you suggest it would have been better to be single, this is incredibly unsupportive. If you are supporting your children despite getting no help from either your ex or your current partner then you are one amazing mum

I feel guilty for sometimes not having the will to deal with the permanent cycle of - I'm angry with my mum - I feel guilty for feeling angry with mum - my mum is amazing - oh my mum is not very nice to me - I'm angry with my mum - that has been going round and round for two years.

Some days I just want a calm, angst-free day. We have some days that are lovely and they give me hope, but I do find the amount of emotion in the house all the time quite dizzying. I myself am an emotional person so I feel guilty for not being perfectly responsive to DSS.