Yes, I made the choice to be in a relationship / marry a man with a child. Does that mean that my priorities, needs, aspirations now come second to those of the children? Not all the time, no. I am an equal adult in my relationship, I pay half the mortgage, I share the housework and the upkeep of our home. I am not and will not be relegated to second place in the affections or practical priorities of my partner simply because he has a child. I understand that there will be many occasions where the child’s needs come first, and rightly so, but I am important too, in my relationship, and sometimes what I want or need will come first.
And gratitude? I am grateful to my SS for being a mostly lovely child – I do not know his mum, but whatever difficulties she has caused me and my partner (and there have been many!) I can see she must be a good mum and I am grateful to her for raising a child that has good manners and is well behaved. I am grateful to my partner for not expecting too much of me as a step-parent, for allowing me to find my own way, for backing me up when my stepson is cheeky or naughty, for not expecting me to be a second class citizen in my own home. My partner is grateful to me for accepting his son into my life, for dealing with the inconvenience, mess and stress that a child brings, and the additional stress that is caused by his ex being in the picture. I would hope that regardless of how SS’s mum feels about me (and no I was not the OW but she has made it clear she resents me nonetheless), she is on some level grateful for the effort that I put into doing things with and for SS, that when he goes home with stories of ‘me and andtodays did this together, she took me to the shops and bought me a comic, she cooked my favourite for tea’ or whatever, she at least thinks ‘that’s nice’. Because I don’t have to do any of those things. My only responsibility as far as I see it is to facilitate my partner having a good relationship with his son by not getting in the way, anything else I choose to do is extra.
Caorunn asks why her ex would need support in parenting his children. I can tell you that if I chose NOT to support my partner in being a parent it would make his life very difficult indeed. I could be difficult about him having the car for PU and DO, I could refuse to pay for treats for my SS when he can’t afford it, I could choose not to watch SS for an hour whilst he pops to work to sort something critical out, I could refuse to be pleasant to SS while he’s in my home, I could ignore him when he wants someone to play with, when he falls over, when he needs help with his homework, when he’s sad over something and wants a cuddle and a man just won’t do. But I don’t.
But us stepparents do have a big influence as to how happy your children are in our homes, and regardless of how we all got there I think there is a duty on ALL the adults in the equation to make sure that the children are as happy as they can be in whatever the circumstances are. So Caorunn you may feel you owe the OW not even the least shred of common decency, and that is your right given your circumstances, I might well feel the same in your shoes. But I would be very wary that your attitude and actions don’t make the lives of your children any more difficult than they need to be – there may well come a point if you push her hard enough where she thinks ‘enough is enough’ and the way she feels about your children and treats them changes as a result. And your ex, her partner, may not necessarily take against her or leave her, because he might actually understand why she feels the way she does. He may choose to live with a difficult and less than ideal situation for everyone rather than leave the woman he loves. And it will be your children that suffer as well as her. I don’t think anyone’s saying you shouldn’t feel the way you do, it’s understandable, but there could be consequences for your children as a result of how you act, and I wouldn’t underestimate that.
This is of course, just my opinion.
