Where do I start?!
I have 7 children in total. 3 sons are from a previous marriage 2 (a boy and girl) are my step children and 2 are my youngest from my new partner.
My step children live with me full time.
Their mother has had nothing to do with them since they were 3 and 4 years old.
They are now 9 and 10.
I have been in their lives since they were 5 and 6.
However, in the very beginning, my step son, the older of the 2 was extremely violent towards my own children.
He would spit in their faces, straighten paper clips to stab them, generally attack them if they disagreed with anything and sabotage their things. Even their bunk beds base, so they would fall through.
He is roughly the same age as the youngest of my 3 sons.
My children can have their annoying moments sometimes, But because their father and I raised them to be considerate to others and we were both quite soft natured - so are my 3 boys.
After this initial encounter and the lack of understanding from my new partner, and other issues we didn't try to merge the two families, (living together) until we had a child together and she was a year and a half.
Now my step sons behaviour has improved
He's not fraction as impulsively violent as he was. And hes getting into the routine of family life.
But He still has moments where he threatens his sister and step brothers and even my 2 year old and he can still be very manipulative and also sadistic in his threats.
He is the only child I have never been hard on because he seems so complex. I have told him off a few times and he always bursts into tears immediately even though he knows I'm just going to talk to him calmly about his behaviour. But it doesn't seem to change his selfish and spiteful nature. He's obnoxious and defiant to me and my family, even though theyre so warm to him and we've made the effort to be the constance in his life.
Ive lost sleep and stressed so much about him and what's going on in his head.
I want to be able to hug him and be close because I think he might be craving that from me. But his behaviour and his constant need to dominate my entire focus makes me resent him instead.
His dad/my partner is quite nonchalant. He doesn't really engage with his own children, or mine, only with our babies. So the burden of dealing with the issues of 5 children from 2 failed marriages is entirely down to me.
I imagine my own children having the life my stepson had and not having the love of their mummy and it makes me understand why he is the way he is and I weep inside, that's the only way I can consciously make the effort to give him the closeness kids need. And although he can have a few moments now, when he's quite funny and charming, I don't feel the natural compulsion to like him. I feel awkward in his company. I feel so wicked. But I think most his siblings do too.
One of my sons and he really don't get along, so my son (who is a year older than him) will avoid him and stay in his room the whole time. And he has also been referred to a paediatrician due to extreme headaches brought on by the stress.
I have to fight the feeling that I just don't like my step son and the affect he's had on family life.
Kids have their moments. I don't know if I make him out to be worse than he is in my mind by over- analysing all his behaviour, instead of just dealing with him in the same manner as I do his sister and my own boys.
But he's always expected and received preferential treatment from my inlaws as their first and only grandson and I think that over compensation may have led to his bratty behaviour.
I don't like him but at the same time, I put myself in his shoes and feel so sorry for him.