Being a stepdad - advice please

[moderndad1234]

Hi everyone,

Very new and really just needing a little advice. Not wanting to badmouth either my stepson or his mum/ my fiancee.

A bit of background to keep everything in context. Both me and my partner are 25, my stepson is 5. Ive been his stepdad since he was 18 months. We've been engaged for 18 months and I have a reasonably good rship with his bio dad as we do "change over" on days where my stepson either goes or comes back from his bio dads house.

Both me and my fiancee are extremely family orientated in becoming a family, morals, values etc. Both very loving and id do anything for her. By and large we are a perfect match even when it comes to parenting.

Unfortunately I feel one of the negative sides to our rship is double standards in discipling our stepson. We mostly use the super nanny/ jo frost method of time out which works wonders.

Throughout the years though discipline has been an issue. I believe in a firm but fair approch as jo frost says. I am patient and understanding to a point, which i feel is fair. But then when i do discipline or get fed up the moaning and nagging i feel that my fiancee instantly sides with my stepson, even though 5 mins later she could be telling him off for the exact same thing.

In all honesty it really hurts when my partner sides with our stepson and doesnt support me, it creates an 'us' and 'them' feeling and i end up resenting both of them. Not only that but now my stepson see's he can come between us and get his own way. I try to speak to my partner but she clams up or becomes defensive or takes things i say out of context and makes me sound bad.

I believe me being a stepdad from him being so young and us planning on having more children then i need to be on an equal footing to my partner. My thinking is that if i amto provide for him and love him as my own (the good bits) then i also need to be able to discipline and point out to him when something isnt right (the bad bits) i dont think my partner would be with me if i took the attitude that he wasnt mine biologically so this means if im to be a dad then i need to be allowed to in the full meaning of the word.

I want my stepson to have boundaries, morals and grow up to be a good person. I would always rather speak to him quietly and come to a positive conclusion but sometimes children dont want to.

I love them both with all my heart but this double standard is really hurting both me and our rship. I really want to be the best dad i can because i do look at my stepson as though he is my own, and i know my partner wants me to be a dad, but i just cannot do it if my partner resents me so much when it comes to discipline etc.

The only time i take a backseat is when it comes between my partner and my son's bio dad, as i say its hard enough to raise a child with 2 parents and alot harder with a third parent. I try not to rock the boat in that sense unless my partner needs my support.

I hope i sound reasonable and and insight would be appreciated.

Yeh, you end up just swallowing alof your anger and pain and you feel sometimes like no one is there for you, esp. not your partner... I read a couple of books, that really released me from feeling bad/guilty and feeling like I'm a crap person. In reality, I get on great with every other kid in my life, the kids friends/friend's kids all chatty, hugs, kisses when you see them... Then you get the death stare from your partners dc - every time you see them... Amazing how quick your self-esteem dives in this situation because I really do my best for my dp's dc, even though they couldn't give a shit about me. It's only now really that my dp is trying to overcome the behavioural issues. Fingers crossed.

I have been in the situation of your DP so can perhaps offer some insight? Fwiw, I think you are being an amazing step-dad and your DSS and DP are indeed very lucky.

My DH was stricter with my DD (his DSD) than I was, and I often took it as a criticism of my parenting. I also worried he was seeing her bio-dad's genes coming through and wouldn't like her. And he's stricter when he's in a bad mood and since that's usually with me, I interpreted it as getting at me through DD.

None of that was true. He is just naturally slightly stricter than me. We now have two children together and he is stricter with them too. And, interestingly, I don't like that either because I am just very protective of them, think they're wonderful and want to defend them. Turns out that's just my instinctive approach.

However, I now try really hard to hold back from interfering with any of his disciplining (I used to do the undermining thing and it didn't go well) because I've realised that his way is not wrong just because it's not exactly the same as mine. In fact, we have very well behaved kids in large part due to him and I really appreciate that! But it was hard for me to admit that DH's way might sometimes be better than my mothering instincts, especially as I was the one doing the main day-to-day care and therefore felt I ought to be better at it. Now we work as a team and things are much easier.

Personally I would keep any discussions to how you can help each other in terms of discipline and avoid any sense of criticism or blame for where things are now. It sounds as if your DP does have a bit of an 'us and them' mentality (sadly inbuilt in a lot of mums, including me ) but keep on with the message that you're working together and hopefully you'll get there.

Best of luck!