Support thread. For current step-parents.

[brdgrl]

If you're a current step-parent with children who live with you at least some of the time, and fancy offloading or a rant or have a question you want to ask others who are currently in your situation and you want to do it in a safe place, and you don't want to ask a non-step-parent then why not ask in here.
:)

The defensiveness is awful...what really winds me up is that DH will simultaneously not notice wrong-doings, and inflate his response when they do something they're supposed to. So if they don't do something 9 times out of 10, the only one he remarks upon is the 1, and then it is laid on so thick with pride and gratitude it's sickening... Or if they do something good or helpful or kind (keeping in mind they are older teens), he's falling over himself so much, it sort of spoils the moment.

It's not positive reinforcement, which I am all for - it's pure inability to see things in perspective.

that's awful mums rush!
He should support you they need to learn independence and I bet he won't bother if they don't.

DP is very supportive of dsd being told to do something. But he rarely tells her himself as he forgets and he barely manages to keep his own life going :p
It's the look of it yet horror and shock she gives me (and anyone else) if you ask her to do anything she doesn't want to do, like last night it was 11pm and her bed time is 8pm but it's the holidays, so I asked her to get ready for bed and she was like 'what??!!' with that look on her face and it just grates at me!!

abject not it yet

Ive actually been left bewildered at some of the things he's gotten defensive over, me suggesting an over tire sd (we were out all day) go to bed as it was getting on for ten! My suggestion left he clinging to him for dear life!

Thought I'd pop in as I've just written my first post on here. I'm Eden, 21, BG is 33 and his DS is 7.

First night staying with the BF when he has his son round too. Thought I might have to drive home at 12am as I thought DSD would not settle.

Feeling a bit pushed out this morning, keep forgetting that our relationship is not just us but another little person.

Don't worry eden, there are times when I feel left out, times when I feel dp should stop focusing on his computer as he's leaving me to entertain the kids, times when I feel bad as he's very focused on me but many more times when we have the balance right and we all have a good time together :)

Its such a balancing act isn't it.
I feel sorry for DP at times. His DD wants 100% of him all the time. His DS constantly has to fight his sister for any of DPs attention.
If DP spends too long with me I can literally feel the vibes coming from DSD - she's like his guard dog. She would spend 24/7 wrapped around him like a koala if she could!
So I back off and leave them all to it, feeling sorry for DP, sad for DSS, annoyed by DSD and her manipulation and so fucking relieved that my own children are secure and well adjusted enough not to do this to me.
Its not easy!!

Kaluki, I get what you mean, my little cousins are like this- the boy, is 6 and the girl is 4.
When I see them, he will quietly say 'will you play with me?' and I'll be like of course! And then she will get jealous and jump all over me and sing in my ears and literally make it impossible to play with him. I try and tell her that I'm playing with him, but that she can join in if she likes and she will either get upset with me or got to my little brother and be say 'alita, look...' as she cuddles him etc :P trying to be all manipulative. while she's she's climbing on me, he will say' it's ok alita, you can play with her instead...' and it's so sad :( I love them both to bits but she is so attention seeking, and I have no idea why as her parents do not encourage it in any way that I can see.

DSD 3 who lives with us can be a bit of a pain like that too- she doesn't get how she gets all our attention all of the time, so she gets grumpy and attention seeking if we are giving her sisters attention. Obviously we try and include her as well, but she gets lots of alone time, so we want them too as well. They like playing a game which she can't really play because she struggles to read, and it's very complicated. She doesn't like playing with one of us as she gets fed up as she doesn't really get it, and then she starts messing it up, by making lots of noise or getting in the way or jumping on daddies lap for cuddles... I guess children will be children!

Think I'm falling in love with my husband all over again, I watched him pandering to sc this morning, including making their beds!

Grr just had a stupid poster on another thread pull out the critique for being a step parent.... because I asked advice on how to sort out a problem with dsd and it came up that the problem probably started with her mum and dp can't really be bothered to sort it out and thinks it's a non issue and I got a message along the lines of why do you think your in charge of the parents etc etc when it's nothing like that at all, and as you all know, some of us actually fulfill the mother role for our step kids and deserve a say In their upbringing! makes me angry that they assume we all see them once a week and try and take over everything!

Ugh, I really don't know why some people post such negative comments. We should start a support for current sp who have to put up with shit from non sp

The thing is Alita if neither mum nor dad are in agreement with your opinion you do have to let it go. By all means have an opinion but what I learnt was not to be invested in the outcome. Dsd wasn't my child no matter how much I cooked, cleaned, did for her - and once I realised that I just needed to detach and accept how things were it became a lot easier.

Thing was it wasn't like that. her mother wasn't involved, she only has supervised contact and makes no effort to ask about what's going on with her.
DP didn't disagree per say he just can't be bothered. its the fact that she just wants to watch films when not at school and has a massive strop if told she needs to play with toys or draw instead. DP can't be bothered to argue as he's happy doing his thing if she's busy with a film. obviously we take her out and play with her too but you can't all the time. His feelings are that when its just me and her it's up to me and I don't think it's healthy so I wanted advice on how to get her to do other things. He hasn't told me that he's happy and to leave it, which would be different, he just doesn't have a problem with film watching himself, but as I am her carer 50% of the time he and I agree that we parent on equal terms and dsd treats us both the same and has never indicated that she is unhappy with this, it is agreed between us that we both have a say in her care.
so basically it was a totally unfounded critism based on assumptions.

Hi, can I join too? I'm stepmum to 2 DSSs (8 & 10) and new mum to DS (3mo). I've lived with DP and DSSs for just over 2 years , DSSs live with us full time and see their mum every other weekend.
In general we get on great, both boys are very loving, eldest especially is always cuddling us and telling us he loves us. But since I've been on mat leave and doing much more childcare things have been getting trickier, with the added factor of new baby.
Both boys have been great with new DS and adore him, but it's obviously changed the dynamics and I try really hard to keep everything and normal and stable as poss. But DSS1 has been showing more and more cheek and lack of respect. He'll answer me and his nan back in ways he never would to his dad and acts like a stroppy teenager when I reprimand him for anything, throwing his arms around, rolling his eyes, muttering 'for God's sake' under his breath etc etc. Anyway, I've just lost my temper with him after he'd cheeked me for the third time today and his nan says he's been cheeky and rude to her several times too. I shouted at him that I wasn't prepared to put up with his cheek and his attitude, he should show both me and his nan the respect he does to his dad and that he needed to have a good look at his behaviour. He ran to his room in tears and is still there. I jyst feel I needed a debrief, some feedback on whether that sounded OTT and how I approach the follow up discussion now! (Obviously will discuss with DP too but he's still at work...)

seems fair enough to me mirr, it is your home.you and his nan are caring for him and he was being rude to you both. when he has calmed down I would explain why I lost my temper, why his behaviour isn't acceptable and what will happen if it happens again so losing out on something. if there is one thing I have learnt it's that I am happy to now be the bad guy sometimes if it means that ds and sc see that sometimes things need doing and everyone has a limit of what they will put up with. he will recognise that he went too far and hopefully that will prevent it happening again. I royally lost my temper last week so I feel your pain

Thanks super. I had a long conversation with DSS afterwards and feel some headway may have been made (tho more by the shock of me yelling at him as I'm usually 'good cop' and have never properly yelled at either of them before). I have then spoken to DP, which DSS begged me not to which I think says volumes, and tried to be as unbiased as poss. DP is now downstairs reading the riot act whilst I'm upstairs feeding DS and putting him to bed. Not sure how popular I'm gonna be! The words of support are helpful tho, thank you!

I used to really worry about stuff like this pulling them up about things, making sure jobs got done and all that ended up happening was I ended up really Naffed off most of the time, now I can accept that I'm not always going to popular or fun buts it's necessary and things seem on a more even keel. am glad dh is supporting you and hopefully that will be an end to it. just keep in mind your doing a good job and popularity is overrated .

Mir that's totally fine... I assume as he lives with you, you care for him, cook and clean for him etc at least some of the time, kids should learn to respect their care givers! I wouldn't hesitate to pull him up on it, I'm sure your dh is supportive of this too. You can't care for him without dp if he is going to behave like that if you cant discipline him. Obviously this is a difficult adjustment for him, but it Is still important for him to have boundaries! If he is rude to you, you tell him off :)

Thanks super and alita. Yes, I do the majority if care giving, their nan DPs DM helps me out by doing their tea some days and having them for an hour or two whenever needed.
DP mostly expressed his disappointment in them tonight. DSS1 has given me big cuddle at bedtime, said he's sorry and will try to make tomorrow a better day. I feel strangely empowered, think it's been somewhat overdue tbh!

That's good Mirrhi- I actually find that although the process of what I suppose is a melt down as dsd has asd, or even a smaller incident in which she is told off is obviously unpleasant and extremely difficult at the time but it does lead to a very well behaved dsd afterwards once she has had her punishment, and been through the negative experience herself. She then becomes apologetic, once she has calmed down and will happily pay her reparation cost :P which is usually a chore or some school work practice she doesn't like doing (I prefer to make these things fun and try to get her to enjoy them, but she already hates them no matter how much you try and dress it up, she struggles and therefore she hates things like reading even if you try and make it fun.)

This threads gotten a bit buried...

I've come to vent a bit, had what was a lovely but difficult day. We took all 3 dsds to a country fair with dps parents. I was good, except dsd 1 who I get on well with for the most part, was driving me nuts!
She is just so argumentative- even when she has no idea what she's talking about, pestery and then moany (particularly when someone gets fed up of the annoyingness)
We have lovely chats, read books together and have a cuddle and a laugh a lot of the time and she is otherwise a lovely child. But this drives me nuts- she will argue with about 50% of statements made by anyone- some examples from today would be: me: I saw one of those somewhere else. her: no you didn't. ??? Nan: ooh I've been wanting one of those for ages her: of you haven't they're horrible and then other things like people saying they like something and her going on for 5 minutes about how weird they are...
I try to just ignore it, but it annoys me that no one tells her off about it, they just stop talking to her or sometimes dp laughs - which is fine if that works for them, but there were times when today dp must have noticed I was fed up after she made a smart arse comment after every single I said for about half an hour, and he didn't say a word.
Dsd 3 sometimes does similar things but she is always told off about it or at least reminded not to do it- but dsd 1 is 11- a year older and unlike dsd 3 does not have asd which is part of why dsd 3 will argue- because she genuinely thinks she is right.
She didn't used to do it when i first met them and gradually has done it more with me- I think it's because now she is fully comfortable with me, she now treats me like she does everyone else. The adults ignore it but it does annoy her sisters a lot and causes arguments. DSD 3 sometimes gets quite upset. I ignore it or make a funny reply to be sporting for the most part, but it doesn't stop me getting fed up- it is rude, disrespectful and I felt it ruined the atmosphere of the day for me and as the others don't tell her off I don't know quite whether to or not- but I do need to avoid snapping at her, which is what it's going to boil to. It's just beyond a funny joke.
Yesterday I took them all shopping without dp- wouldn't let her have a packet of mints to herself but got a packet of sweets to share- she then refused to have any, and spent over half an hour repeatedly saying- you're all going to have bad breath (cos I wouldn't get mints) and making other comments of the same type- this was upsetting dsd 3- but it was the sort of thing where I couldn't make her shut up, because that's a reaction which is what she wanted if that makes sense, so I ignored it after the initial 2 minutes, but she still went on and on, really loudly for the whole bus journey... This was after she moaned the whole time cos she hates shopping, after telling us her mum wanted us to get her some clothes so she needed to go shopping :p
Right rant over.

Just to add part of the reason I get annoyed that she isn't told of is that dsd 3 is told off- so it's not fair at all.

Sounds like it's attention seeking- but I can understand why it's so infuriating! Dss can argue the paint off the walls!

Had a fairly civilised day yesterday, dsd has been down for a week, and it's been fab seeing her/catching up. Not so fab that she swallowed her tongue stud with dinner!

Ds had his birthday yesterday too, and we had the usual green eyes from dss, and attempting to revert the coversation/ attention back to him. Ds was given a stunt scooter, and dss spent a while banging on about wanting to get one, and pestering dp to order him one- he ended up being sent upstairs to find his remote control car (birthday present, so 2 months old exactly) and dp was fuming because he's lost bits. Now today I've had non-stop sillies, and some extremely blue language to squash.

I've noticed with dss we have to reach the pain barrier of a weeks stay, and then he settles again. That week point is extremely hard to get through. This morning we buried our old dogs ashes, and dp and I both joked about making it big enough for dss- dp is finding the sillies wearing too.

Still we've made it through, and bed time wasn't too trying- we have at least discovered why dss' hair never smelt or looked clean. When here he's been washing it with the cheap conditioner I use for nit combing! No wonder. Hair re-washed, and complains he smells like a tramp Soap is still a really rude round here then

ready, I think you're right, especially as particularly when dp is on pc she is like It and will get all in my face and stuff, playing and giggling, but it's a bit much for tired pregnant woman especially from an 11 year old:p

lol at the tongue piercing and the conditioner! dsd 3 did the same a week or so ago, she didn't realise the shampoo bottle had been put on the shower floor and used 2 different conditioners :p

Anyone got any advice on how to teach dsd to wipe her bum after doing a poo (or a bloody wee for that matter)!! She is 8 so dp feels it is inappropriate for him to help her and show her and I don't see that it is my job.

She says Dm shouts at her for doing it at home and whilst i tell her I am cross with her and definitely don't shout. But my whole house stinks as she has stuffed it in her laundry bin and left it there. I asked her yesterday if she had wipes herself or needed clean knickers and got told she was clean. Didn't push it but brought her washing down and nearly put my hand in a huge pile of poop. Having washed her clothes I have had to run the washer through empty cos it stinks and even hanging it on the line it still smells.

I have had strong words with dp over this but how do I goon with this?! O could understand if she was under 5 but she is 8!! How the hell do you get to that age and not know to wipe your bum after you poo??!!!

Sorry not sure I need responses just need to vent before I blow up at dp!!