Can’t do wrong from right. ANOTHER Christmas post

[Iswallowtoothpaste]

We do alternate christmas’ between ourselves and DSD’s mum. This year has been our year to have DSD (8) which we’ve all been really looking forward to. It’s lovely when DSD & DD get to spend Christmas together.

Unfortunately all DSD has done is sulk and cry and protest that DD got more presents than she did. They had the same spend on them give or take £5. Out of my own pocket.

Her mum rang and she couldn’t get away from all of us quickly enough. Cue very angry mother on the phone who thinks that we’ve ‘under done’ DSD this Christmas. A lot of people I know do give their SC’s less as they’ll also be getting presents at the resident parent’s house but I’ve always given DSD the same as DD. I go out of my way to make sure they’re treated similarly.

I just feel as though I can’t do anything right. We were all getting along so much better too. I’m 17 weeks pregnant after 2 M/C’s and it’s just started to become common knowledge.

I posted on Facebook an hour before we picked DSD up to tell her and her mum had gone stir crazy about this too. How dare we post about OUR happy news before telling DSD. We told both DC’s together.

I don’t want the drama and I just want to be left alone. I don’t know whether there’s a bit of jealously at play but DSD has recently been very cold towards us both. Trying to make out that she’s been badly done to at any opportunity. At the moment it’s like she’s hard wired to find fault and we’re both finding it quite exhausting. We just want her to be happy when she’s here but can’t help but think that she’s being influenced otherwise elsewhere and being made to feel as though we treat her second best.

@HeckyPeck it's not exactly being a 'mole' if they're talking about something they saw on SM. Once something is published on SM I think people assume its public knowledge.

Silly @Iswallowtoothpaste for expecting something she posted to 150 people to stay secret.

OH has recently started putting his foot down about travel arrangements as it’s 6 hours of driving for him every weekend when they could be meeting halfway so perhaps it’s that she’s pissed about and then this has now added to it.
Put is foot down? What does this mean? They had an arrangement agreed, ut because he decided to have another child and is struggling financially, he decides unilaterally that he isn't going to do all the travelling so his ex has no choice but to start doing dome travelling, costing her more, plus the inconvenience just so that his daughter can still see her dad.

Then you announce that you're about to have another child even though he can't afford to do the travelling to see his eldest child. And you are genuinely surprised that she would be pissed off.

She will be getting less maintenance of what is probably not close to be half what the child is costing, having to spend extra on fuel to help him and that is him 'putting is foot down'.

I understand why she is unhappy and yes, I expect the ex has said something and the girl has picked up on it. She's hurt that there are changes taking place and these changes are affecting her negatively.

Think about this logically. Your DSD is eight years old. Her dad lives six hours away with a new family. He makes excuses to her about not affording the petrol to pick her up but apparently he’s fine doing everything for his other daughter without complaint and can even afford to have another child.

I think her kicking off at you about the presents is a sign that you guys need to rethink everything regarding the current access agreement. Your DH really needs to make more of an effort to see her in her home town by herself 1-2-1 even if that means booking a b&b or hostel once or twice a month. Once he’s regained her trust you and the other girls can be added to the mix.

@swingofthings what the fuck? So what if the ex doesn't like the 'inconvenience' of doing a bit of the driving. She moved away!

And you have spectacularly missed the point of the thread which was about the ex picking apart the OP's life with her DP and bullying them both, and you have...picked apart the OP's life and written a horrible, nasty post.

Fair enough if she moved away but then why did you oh agreed to do it in the first place? It doesnt make any sense.

I still think that agreeing to an arrangement to then decide that it won't happen any longer out of the blue is not right. It would be like her saying that from ow on DD can only go three hours later because mum's has another commitment, so that that.

There are enough posts about SM rightly compali ING about mums changing arrangements out of the blue without consulting dad, why is it acceptable the other way around?

Of course you didn't mean to cause trouble by announcing the new baby on FB , just remember next time that walls (or Facebook timelines) have ears and tell the relevant people first IRL

I expect your step daughter counted the presents and thought that she was hard done by because she had less in number. Kids don't know how much things cost. You've clarified this now , so let it go. All is well.

As you say , your step daughter has had a difficult year, as have you. She probably feels insecure that her father is having another baby and that this new person might push her out.

I'd be super kind to her when you see her (as I'm sure you always are) and let her Dad deal with her Mum

People are losing the plot here a bit.

I can't see why it matters if it was on SM before the DDs were told. Nobody told them before OP and her DH anyway.

Another poster said she should be discussing adding another child into the mix with DSD..? Children from non blended families are rarely consulted about family additions (because it's not their bloody decision).

Her DH is maintaining a relationship with his DD despite the XW moving three hours away and still some posters decide to bash him. I can't see what the OP or her DH did wrong in this situation, just a lot of angry unhelpful replies honestly.

Another poster said she should be discussing adding another child into the mix with DSD..?

I don't think anybody said that it should be discussed with DSD first did they?

Yet another step mother bashing thread. So many bitter women who don't bother to read the actual facts and just pile in.

Makes them look very, very stupid.

I don’t think that you should have necessarily told the children before you put it on social media as you were going to see them in an hour (as you said, they are 5 and 8, it’s not like they were teenage or adult children who might have seen it before you got the chance to tell them!) and I think it’s nice that you told them together. Adults quite often find out about pregnancies before children, and you hadn’t told your own daughter either so it wasn’t a case of leaving your step daughter out.

I do think you should have told her mum before you put it on Facebook though, just to be on the safe side. My partner has two little girls with his ex wife and if we were to have a child, apart from my very close family she’d be one of the first people I’d tell once it got to the stage of telling people as I think it’s only fair and it will obviously massively affect hers and her children’s lives.

So I do think it’s worth apologising for that (I know you’ve already said you’re going to!) but other than that I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. It sounds like you did everything you could to give both girls a lovely Christmas

Or another 'let's blame the ex for the SD being unhappy because we do everything perfect so it can't be anything to do it our actions' thread.

Personally I don't think posting the announcement before was wrong in any way. It was a private post and the girls were told soon afterwards. I expect its not what annoyed the mother, more the decision to have another child if OP's partner has been telling her that wouldn't do all the pickups any longer because he couldn't afford to. That timing is probably what got to her.

As for the presents, could it be a misunderstanding? The disney box go for about £100 baby Annabel about £50 whilst the other prese t got for half the price, so on the surface, yes, it would seem that only half was spent on dsd, but maybe some items were bought on ebay, who knows.

In the end, this little girl is feeling that she doesn't get as much atte tion. It's easy to tell her that she's wrong, but perceptions are strong and telling someone that thy are wrong to perceive things as they are rarely results in them changing their minds. It's also common to assume we treat people the same way when we're not but are not conscious of the difference.

Either way, the best approach would be to listen to her and try to understand why she feels that way rather than telling her she's wrong and then blaming her mother.

I remember being told my DF was having a baby with my SM by my DM. I was nine. It was like a massive punch in the guts. I thought he was incredibly weak, uncaring and a coward for not telling me himself, but yes, I felt replaced, I felt hurt, I felt sad, I felt angry. And I did not know what to do with all those feelings, so I acted out & did some quite odd things in retrospect.

I can understand if DSD is acting up - it's a lot of emotion for a little girl to handle appropriately and it's so hard to tell adults what you feel when you are worried they may be cross with you but you are absolutely floundering.

Now I know you were the ones to tell DSD, and that you already have a DD, so it's not the first half sibling and not quite the same. But do try and have a lot more compassion towards your poor DSD. Suddenly she's outnumbered. She's caught up in an adult world, full of adult emotions and she's old enough to understand some of it, but not really old enough to have the maturity to deal with it, or her own confused feelings. The present issue is a red herring imo, it's all about her fear and confusion. And the fact she will have conflicting emotions towards her own DM - the wish to protect her, and the fear of her rage with your DH, and is torn between her love of both parents, and her anger with them both as the source of her unhappiness. It's probably easier for her to blame your DH than her own DM.

Things are rarely what they seem, and she is dealing with so much more than your DD. Give her a break.

I think the FB thing isn't worth worrying about unless her DM had already told your DSD, but maybe since someone is telling ExW what you two are posting you will reconsider future posts.

Sorry you are having a crap time - being a step parent can be hard - I know, I am one and you sound like you are doing a great job - just look past the superficial arguments to what is really going on - I'm sure it will help you to understand and feel less personally attacked.

Ignore the baby comments op. We didn't tell the DSC first as my pregnancy was high risk, my work and parents knew but children didn't until 20 week sacn in case something was wrong.
You told both chidlten together at same time so treatment was the same. Which is important thing.
Ignore ignore ignore and that behaviour needs a telling off, being ungrateful for gifts is not okay.

I wouldn’t have spoken to the mum at all at Christmas. I’d have waited until after Christmas to announce the pregnancy and to the kids first, but what’s done is done.

It's your decision to announce your pregnancy the way you want and it wasn't the ex's business to bash you for it. I doubt very much that at 8, your SD would be upset that it was posted on FB. In our case, I told the ex first, asking to not tell the kids until 3 months (in case of a possible misscarriage), we wanted to announce the pregnancy to the kids ourselves, but she told her sons who then told SD (from ex #2), so kids didn't find out from us. Nobody was upset though, except for me and I stopped communicating with the ex, because it's none of her business. So next time, put the ex to her place.

About presents, some kids are just selfish. Example: I made a nice cake for SD's bday with raspberries, just the way she likes. She even said: wouw, you should open a bakery. 2 weeks later, I made a cake for SS's bday. It was actually a simpler cake, but what do I hear? "Oh, it's better than mine!". Kids seems to compare and want things they don't get, it doesn't feel good when you spent time thinking of them, but it's just like that. Just forget it, it passed. And it's not the ex's business what you do in your house, unless there's abuse.

It does sound that she's influenced by her mother. My DP has 3 children and all of them were excited. if the mother has an issue and expresses it to the child, chances are that the child will have an issue too. It happened to me in my previous relationship. My former SS was asking to have a little brother, but when my son was born, his mother went crazy and his attitude changed too.

I say, talk to your SD, reassure her, maybe you can read educational articles on the internet....Don't pay attention to the ex, let your DH deal with her and take care of yourself. Posters here only tell you to think about others, but you also need to think about yourself. You have the right to have a child.

There's something magical about pregnancy and birth that affects people around us, positively or negatively, at some point things will calm down.

Was there any real need to announce at Christmas? Its a lot of stuff all at once for both kids to process. I guess ideally you'd wait until January and tell Exw 1st to give her a chance to process herself and then tell the kids. Perhaps plan 121 activities (both OH and you) with each child to reinforce to them their relative bonds with each of you and give them an opportunity to talk.

Your DSD is eight years old. Her dad lives six hours away with a new family. He makes excuses to her about not affording the petrol to pick her up but apparently he’s fine doing everything for his other daughter without complaint and can even afford to have another child

This ^

From the ex's point of view you didn't have the decency to tell her yourself despite the huge impact it's going to have in your existing child. Not to mention you're telling her you can't afford the ones you have then actively planning another.

I'm not surprised the little girl was upset, adults wants coming before children again.

Some of the responses here have been very harsh!
I don't understand the issue with FB post tbh, the kids aren't on it and you were telling them an hour later? Don't really get why ex wife would care that your FB friends knew before her daughter if daughter doesn't know this.

I have a 9 year old stepson and currently pregnant with my second. TBH if he was told people on FB already knew before him I don't think he'd give it a second thought.

And in terms of presents, we spend the same on SS and DD (4) for xmas, but she appears to have much more as he is into playstation and football stuff which is way more expensive. He gets this and he would have had a telling off at Xmas if he had started counting his presents compared to his sister!?

Try not to let it get to you, ignore and rise above. Step parenting is hard at the best of times.

Totally get where your coming from on all points. I'm in kind of the same situation but just put it down to that we are very different people/mothers.

We had to sit my 8yo dsd down as well and explain how lucky she was 2 houses 2 Xmas 2 holidays. Some kids get nothing etc. It got ridiculous to the point she would compare how many chips she got on her plate compared to her 5yo brother.

Dsd will get better but her mum won't. Just have to learn to ignore her ( I'm still working on that bit🤣)

Oh and about the Facebook post. Do what u like it's ur baby the mum has no input or valid opinion. If the dsd was older and had her own Facebook then I'd see the issue