I hate my step kids!

[Tappergirl]

They live with us full time, are parasites, and have ruined my relationship with my husband. Now though, I blame it on him for being spineless and taking every spat as my fault. I dont want to walk away but I can not see another option :-(

brd, I think you are making a mistake here. I understand that you feel that step parents get a hard time, but I have no idea how anyone could possibly defend the op and some of the ways she has talked about her step-children and about and to other posters on this thread.
My last few posts have been entirely about spousification, and the ignorance about it on this thread. I have three times acknowledged that it may not apply in the OP's case, but as does happen in threads, a side issue was raised and the ignorance about it demanded a response.

Oh, and a post about the general obligation of parents to adult children, which again is an issue that transcends the particular situation.

I also said that I think the Op should not be assumed to be the one to leave the home in case of a split, which I don't think was a defense, particularly.

I don't think anything I have said can be classified as a defense of the OP, except that I have said she should not be the victim of personal attacks, of the sort which are not meant to be permitted on this site. There is no way anyone can see Walter's post above as anything but an attack and MN should treat it as such.

What a tragic post. You are married. Therefore they are your children. You won't leave because of your equity in the house. They gang up against you and hate you just as much as you hate them.

May be they are trying to drive you out knowing you have a good job and strong financial means unlike their dad?

You only live once. You can either change yourself and become a loving, kind, thoughtful stepmum they can turn to for support and advice or you can continue the status quo and continue to lead a miserable life.

That or sell up and get a place on your own terms.

Someone mentioned upthread about this board being "opt-in" only.

I think that would be a horrifically bad idea. That people are still defending the OP and spouting nonsense about "mini-wives" is proof of that.

This thread is bad enough, but can you imagine if the step-children in question were young children and all the OP heard were people telling her how right she was and talking about "disgusting" mini-wives. I would really fear for those children then.

There are lots of people out there with blended families (I'm one of them), I think it's good to have a wide perspective on things.

I see no evidence that Brd girl is defending the op (at least not in her last 10- 20 posts) my understanding of the situation is that someone else (maybe the op) mentioned mini wife syndrome in regard to the ops situation and then lots of posters started saying it was made up or asking what it was etc. Brd knows a lot about it and she has responded to that providing correct info on what exactly it is. I'm pretty sure Brd said that she didn't know if it applied to the ops dsd or not as we haven't had enough info. Then people continued to focus on mini wife syndrome and rather than saying oh I don't think the ops dsd has this (Although some posters did) a side debate on what it was and it's existence ensued so Brd continued to explain about it and assure people that it does exist. This is Brd defending the concept and her previous statements not the op at all!
I also think the dsd doesn't have mini wife syndrome but I do think it exists as a pattern of behaviours and I think Brd has provided plenty of evidence for that.

However that has nothing to do with the op.

Does she come home for the holidays, brd? Did you take her to university? Do you store her stuff in the holidays? Did she go off with a laptop (paid for by you), clothes, belongings, everything she needs?

She has just finished a Foundation Year living with us; next year she will be away in another city and living in halls. My DH is taking her to uni, and we are splitting the cost of that trip/transport with her. She will have a bed here when she comes home, and we will be storing her things until such time as we move ourselves and are no longer able to do so. She has a laptop which I purchased for her during her A-levels. She has clothes, belongings, everything she needs and then some.

Will you be supporting her or letting her come home if she doesn't get an immediate job?
I doubt it. Since my DH is not working at present, and we have two other kids in the home to support, there isn't likely to be much there to offer her, and she would be as well-suited to provide for herself as her father or I. But if we were in a position to help and she actually required it, we would - and that would be our choice, not our obligation.

We are classed as on a low income, so she got the maximum grant. She also is receiving a bursury from the university itself. She also had EMA money which we required her to put aside for university, and we required her to get a job in the summer after she finished school.

Alita the OP has admitted, on other threads, things she does in front the DC so I am pretty sure they know she doesn't like them.

it is about a poisonous, destructive family dynamic which results in children that are emotionally and socially deprived.

They are certainly getting that living with the OP!

Walter is spot on.

Yes I've read the whole thread.

Yes I grew up in a "blended" family.

Message to DH: LTB

When your DH is working brdgrl you will have to help your DSC if they want to go to uni.

Also, if the government get their way and stop paying HB to under 25s where the hell will your DSC live if they don't have a job or are on a low income?

You may be right alita but posters are shocked by it alongside the OP's vitriol and saying so, then being told repeatedly by the OP and others that is just another step mother kicking exercise. This is certainly what I am responding to, that every time someone says something that doesn't blindly support a SM right to feel the way they do, no matter how shocking and bizarre, they are shut down immediately with accusations of bullying and SM attacking. THAT however is widespread across this board.

So while posters claim not to be directly defending what the OP has said they are, by the fact that they won't allow others to argue against it, without reducing it to victimisation and bullying.

brd, you have assumed that the sd has mini-wife syndrome; I have no idea where you got that from, so all the links to it are entirely irrelevant.

No, Mary, I absolutely have NOT. NOt for a second. I have said so repeatedly. But someone ELSE brought the subject up, and it was met with a chorus from posters who said that there was no such thing. I do not know if it has anything to do with OP's DSD or not - but it is certainly real, it is widely accepted by professionals, and it may be relevant to other posters.

If someone posted on a relationships thread and the phrase "PTSD" was mentioned in regard, say, to their spouse, and then another poster said that PTSD was a made up thing or "the latest buzzword", I hope that people would speak up to correct that misinformation. It wouldn't matter if the spouse in the OP suffered from PTSD or not - what matters is that it is a real thing that affects families and children, and denying it is harmful and just plain *factually wrong!

If other posters who DO have issues around spousification in their family read this thread, they deserve better than to be told it is a fiction by a lot of people who think that anything they personally haven't any knowledge of must be therefore untrue.

Support for adult children is not an obligation.

When your DH is working brdgrl you will have to help your DSC if they want to go to uni.

a) my DH is unlikely to work again in sufficient hours to affect that situation
b) no, I won't. I can choose to help them. I don't have to.

Since I have already said that we are a low income family, I am also not sure why it would be assumed that we could help adult children.

If the adult DSC/DC need financial support, they'll merely be in the same boat as us!

Two years ago, our combined salaries were a four-digit number. And the first digit wasn't a 9.

Not everyone on MN is in a position to support other adults who are equally capable of supporting themselves.

I think debating about uni loans and how much support they should be given is a bit silly as it's different in different people's situations. loans and grants differ a lot depending on parental income, the course, the uni....
Btw I think any parent whose child is given tje basic or a very low loan who refuses to help their child is awful because the only reason they are given less is because the government expects those who can afford to, to support their child through uni, so on the letters it actually says 'loan contribution x' and 'parental contribution= what's left over from what Is classed as how much they need to live'. So the parent should be helping them, they are still classed as dependent. On the other hand, it is the child's choice to go to uni, not the parents... but I don't think it's right to deny them support.

Will you be supporting her or letting her come home if she doesn't get an immediate job?
I doubt it. Since my DH is not working at present, and we have two other kids in the home to support, there isn't likely to be much there to offer her, and she would be as well-suited to provide for herself as her father or I.

Support for adult children is not an obligation.

Chilling.

Families can provide graduates with a roof and a bed and breathing space to launch themselves from. I don't see how she is as 'well suited' to provide that for herself as you are. Getting started is hard when you don't have that.

Unemployed under 25s are at real risk of homelessness in the UK now.

I always don't see it as a choice to help me ss. I have entered into my marriage to create a new family. That family consists of me dh, my 2 dds and my ss. So as far as I'm concern he is as entitled to my help and support equally as my 2 children. My dh feels the same regarding my dd.
Maybe, perhaps I wasn't clear. My position is exactly the same regarding my DSC and my DC. They are all equally entitled to support as children. When they are adults, they will receive help (or not receive help) based on an assessment of their individual needs and our ability to help.

Since I have been essentially the sole earner in my home since I married DH and used my income to provide as well as we possibly can for my stepchildren, your (rather judgmental sounding) comments are way, way off the mark. In brute honesty, my DSC have had far more from me, materially, than my own DD, mostly because we have tried to maintain a standard of living that they once had for them, even when it has meant cutting corners elsewhere in the family budget.

I don't see how she is as 'well suited' to provide that for herself as you are

No? Would you care to explain to me how well-suited I am to provide that for her? On my salary and with a family of five, I am doing what I can to keep a roof over OUR heads. I really wonder how much insight you can possibly have into my financial or employment situation. Since currently I am a contract employee with a contract that ends in January (I am hopeful that it will be renewed, but it is by no means certain and this hangs over our heads), and my DH is not a young man, and we don't own a home, we are at risk of homelessness.

I don't feel happy about saying these things about my personal finances, but I don't want to seem to be avoiding the question either.

As I said in the first place, every family's circumstances are different. Blanket statements about how parents are awful if they don't provide for adult children are really, well, stupid. There's no more eloquent way to put it.

Support for adult children is not an obligation.

It may or may not be an obligation and we could argue about that all day long, but for most students coming out of uni the only option is to come home.

My daughter has come home now because she can't survive on the zero hours contract she has been on for the last 4 years. Obviously the student loan has stopped now and it takes time to look for a job with a wage good enough to allow them to leave home. The only options she has are homelessness or throwing herself on the mercy of the state and tax payers money. I would say that gives us a pretty clear obligation to give her somewhere to stay and food to eat.

I don't begrudge it for a second.

I know this is a bit of a side issue, but the fate of adult children is obviously on my mind at the moment.

At my daughter's uni was a student who could only get the minimum loan, but her parents wouldn't/couldn't help her. She had to get a virtually full time job just to scrape by and was almost never at uni. As far as I know she either failed or got a lesser degree than she was capable of.

The children of better off parents who maybe have large financial commitments are being penalised by this current system. Some universities don't allow students to have part time jobs. What are supposed to do? It's not that simple these days.

The only options she has are homelessness or throwing herself on the mercy of the state and tax payers money. I would say that gives us a pretty clear obligation to give her somewhere to stay and food to eat.
Do you hear what I am saying when I say that these are the options of many parents as well?
The children of the poor can go to university, and it is a horrible myth that keeps down the underclass when we are told that no one can finance a university education without help from (their presumably affluent) parents.
I did it and so did my DH. And yes, recently.