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Step-parenting

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Original poster

Bio mum from hell

113 replies

Welshchloe · 27/12/2017 09:18

Hi all

I need some advice me and my fiancé have been living togeather for a year and been togeather for 2 years. He has his 2 daughters with his ex and has them 2 days a week (one week it’s Tuesday night till Thursday and the weekend the other), they are 8 and 5. On Christmas we have them on Christmas Day night and Boxing Day.

My relationship with the girls are amazing (don’t have kids of my own). But the bio mum is one of the nastiest person on the earth and don’t like me because of the way the girls are with me. The agreement they have is a personal one in writing and not through the court she thinks she can change it when ever she likes. She know how much this hurts my partner and does it for fun in my opinion.

When he goes to pick up the girls from hers I stay at home so I don’t see her so it don’t cause any problems.

Me and my partner are looking to get married next year and we wanted to have the girls as bridesmaids but for the last 2 weeks she has been saying that she is not letting them go to the wedding. We are at the point of if the girls can not go the wedding it’s just going to be a quick job at a regestry off with Just our parents and siblings with a meal after.

I know she don’t like the fact that we were togeather years ago before they got togeather but her issues are not my fault.

Has anyone got any advice how I can handle her

OP posts:
laloup1 · 27/12/2017 14:19

Hi Chloe
There's no handling her. There's just coping strategies. The mum of my boyfriend's daughter is beyond hostile with me and I have no hope of it ever getting better. Like you, I keep a really low profile. I have no expectation of improvement ever.
If ever we get married, it will be done very discretely, without her having any knowledge. And if we do, I will be making a massive commitment to his daughter also, so, from my perspective, there's no way she wouldn't be there. So I agree with the others who suggest you arrange it for when they are already due at their dads, or get a court order (sounds like a court order would be a very good idea for fixing access anyway in your partner's case).
I'm really sorry for all the flaming you got on here for your biomum cock-up but also for people questioning your motives for wanting the daughters there and also your logistics around the wedding and wedding night.
I hope you find a way through

NorthernSpirit · 27/12/2017 14:24

Ignore all the pettiness about using the right term.

The issue is the mother is messing around with contact, using the children as weapons and threatening to stop contact.

They are not ‘her’ children. She doesn’t get to control contact. The children have a right to have contact with their father.

As other posters have said. Get a prohibitive steps order for the wedding. She’s out of order to stop the children attending. Get a contact order and it takes her control away. Women like these are so emotionally damaged they can’t see past their own bitterness and they think using the children against the dad gets back at him. Get a court order and if she breaches enforce.

My OH’s bitter EW used the children for years as weapons. My OH wishes he had got a contact order sooner. You can’t reason with these women.

Enidthecat · 27/12/2017 14:26

Now we've got assumptions about being the ow. Based on what?

And a smoke screen? Really?

playitnow · 27/12/2017 14:30

Well, when I am upset at how someone is treating me I try to think of things from their point of view. This helps me.
So from their mother's point of view, it must be hard to see her daughter's going into a 'two parent' set up. Into that (still) conventional and even idealised family set up. It really can't be easy for her. It is very very hard to parent on your own. it causes stresses. Knowing her children are going into 'the happy family' set up with two adults there to alleviate the stress and help each other must be really hard. I find it hard enough that my DH, who I live with, gets to come home at the end of the day and be the 'fun' parent after I have had them all day by myself, trying to do all the house stuff too, with all the stress that entails, and me having to tell them repeatedly, ' no I can't play now, sorry.'
Yes, I am sure she is feeling insecure and jealous and worried. And maybe, she isn't behaving well because of that.
I don't think it is helpful to start thinking in terms of you being the one with the 'amazing relationship with the children' whilst she, you point out in contrast, is the 'nastiest person on earth.'
Because at the heart of all this are two little children who need the adults in their life to be able to treat each other with respect and regard and that involves all of you considering each other. Agree with PP that you and your OH must not be egging each other on in your dislike of these girls' mother.

LineyRunner · 27/12/2017 14:31

"the nastiest person on earth"

Fucking grow up, ffs

MsGameandWatching · 27/12/2017 14:34

That’s a quote. The OP said it...

But the bio mum is one of the nastiest person on the earth and don’t like me because of the way the girls are with me.

kittensinmydinner1 · 27/12/2017 14:46

Enid I think you are talking a lot of sense. But then again I am both a Bio mum (as in the biological mother to my children) and a step mum. I completely understand why the OP used this term in the CONTEXT she wrote it in. This was to enable her to differentiate between mother and step mother. I am a fairly intelligent human being and like you - am able to tell when someone is being deliberately offensive in using pejorative terms. It is clear she was not and in fact even confirmed this herself. Therefore a hundred bloody posts from the professionally offended going on about something that IN THIS CONTEXT is not relevant , to me just shows a lack of basic comprehension and a desire to deflect from the actual question.
The reason for sidelining on the step parent board is usually for one reason only. There are many women who trawl the step parent boards to vent their spleen at ANY step parent or potential step parent they can find. Mainly because they are in a real life situation where their own children have a father with a new relationship- and it is naturally a very painful and frustrating experience.
If the step parent in question has posed a dilemma where there is no apparent justification for the ex wife or gf behaviour, then the reader will instead look for an 'issue' in the post itself.
Step parents - especially step mothers on MN are almost always vilified and will never be seen as women who mostly take on the part time parenting of someone else's children, who often love and genuinely care for them . It doesn't suit the narrative.
I am both a mother and step mother and my children also have a step mother. Who I really like. It really does make life happier and easier.
A little less projection from unhappy mothers who's children have second families would go a long way.

mydogmymate · 27/12/2017 14:49

Well said kittens

LineyRunner · 27/12/2017 14:51

I was addressing the OP.

MsGameandWatching · 27/12/2017 14:52

Apologies Smile

swingofthings · 27/12/2017 14:57

We don't know that OP was ow, however, it is not common to be with someone for 7 years +, have two children, leave them and just happen to meet their ex again and decide to marry them in less than two years.

It is therefore not absurd to wonder whether there might be more to it to explain why the mother might be difficult about the daughters attending the wedding and why she doesn't like OP beyond the fact that the girls do.

MsGameandWatching · 27/12/2017 14:58

For goodness sake, you post about how hard poor ole stepmothers have it, yet the OP was approached perfectly pleasantly about using the term "Bio mum" and and a number of you have leapt to defend it and asserted your right to use it and dismissed that many mothers don't like it. I've seen this regularly on this board. MIt's six of one and half a dozen of the other IMO. The victim playing on this board by a minority is just ridiculous.

swingofthings · 27/12/2017 14:59

I'm a mum and don't find the term 'bio' mum in the context of clarifying they are the mum who gave birth vs being a step mum offensive in any way.

LineyRunner · 27/12/2017 15:02

MsGame no worries - it was a confusing juxtaposition.

Enidthecat · 27/12/2017 15:02

Nobody is playing the victim... I'm certainly not.

Kittens post was great and explained what i was trying to say.

swing unusual doesn't equal affair.

Even if it was an affair it's not a good enough reason to withhold contact or stop the kids attending the wedding.

flumpybear · 27/12/2017 15:29

I'd go through the courts for access and discuss the wedding too - she has no rights to be like that kids are not weapons and they'd love going to their dads wedding - I didn't as a young adult and was really upset ... but they wanted a small wedding abroad with just friends

ohreallyohreallyoh · 27/12/2017 15:57

No its not stop being so bloody ridiculous

Gosh. What is really offensive is the sense of entitlement you have in telling others what their feelings should be in relation to a label they have been given by you.

Bio mum, whether you like it or not, is considered offensive by many mothers in relation to their own children, with whom they are in regular contact, and the same children’s step parents.

Why do you think you can tell me what I should think or feel?

ohreallyohreallyoh · 27/12/2017 15:59

A little less projection from unhappy mothers who's children have second families would go a long way

And yet another assumption. Couldn’t just be that people find the term offensive, could it?

Enidthecat · 27/12/2017 16:00

Think and feel what you like. I will continue to think youre being ridiculous

Op explained what more do you want?

Enidthecat · 27/12/2017 16:02

Why is it offensive?

Should I be offended to be labelled as step mum even though I do 99% more parenting than dss mum does?

Nope because it's just a word to differentiate between the two of us just like bio mum.

GingerbreadMa · 27/12/2017 16:05

Enid. YOU dont have to be offended. But enough people have posted about how and why they find it offensive to quite clearly demonstrate that it is GENERALLY an offensive way to speak of a mother who is active in her childrens lives (like sperm donor for an involved father)

So you making this thread all about how YOU are kool with it so everyone else should be is becoming a bit of a derail at this point...

Enidthecat · 27/12/2017 16:13

"Kool" ?

Im not derailing. Other than not saying bio mum what's been your advice to the op?

Everyone crying about how offended they are haven't actually given op any advice on what to do about the actual problem they have posted have they?

Enidthecat · 27/12/2017 16:15

My advice to op would be to go to court and get an order, plan the wedding on the contact weekend and just ignore negativity from ex.

GingerbreadMa · 27/12/2017 16:17

Its pretty good advice actually, unless you think it'll HELP the OPs situation to keep referinv to the girls mum in a way that many think is derogatory?

And I have offered other advice up thread: such as working out the logistics BEFORE demanding contact over the wedding period: might get a totally different response.

ohreallyohreallyoh · 27/12/2017 16:18

Why is it offensive?

Can you really not work that out for yourself? That it is a term used in relation to children who have been put up for adoption or are otherwise not in the care of their biological parents? That mums who have step mums in their children’s lives have not given up the care of their children? Indeed, like biological mums who give up care of their children, we have no say whatsoever in who has an influence over our children? That the term suggests a superiority on the part of the step mum, of being a ‘better’ mum than the biological mum who has no say over what happens to her child?

And then you suggest I am stupid, or pathetic or ridiculous because I have not, under any circumstances, relinquished my relationship with my children, and want to be recognised as their mother, not their biological mother?