I'm a wicked step mother because...

[FleaBagLarry]

There have been a few refreshing threads on here recently where some of us have been a bit more honest about how we actually feel!

In light of this, in what ways are you the stereotypical 'evil step mother'?

It got me thinking before, in my case, I'm the evil step mother because my DSC are isolating for 2 weeks and as much as we get on, I'm bloody enjoying the break! I'm looking forward to it being over for DHs sake but for me selfishly, it's been quite nice having a couple of weeks to ourselves. (We usually have the DC 50:50).

I know it's absolutely appalling that I haven't been sat in a darkened room sobbing the entire time! So shoot me 🤷

No one has Covid, no one is ill, just isolating before anyone suggests I don't care they are poorly.

I don't think enjoying a quiet two weeks is being wicked in any way. Many parents feel the same.

Even my husband said it felt like a much deserved break from always having to plan what every 2nd weekend would look like taking into account 4 hours of travelling!
That however if very sad. If not on your part, asa SM, but father? Happy not to have his kids for 3 months? He can't be too attached to them.

I'm a terrible step mother because I once spent about £10 on a birthday present for 10 Yr old, much loved DSS of 5 yrs. Apparently I only did it to make his mum look bad??!!

Happy not to have his kids for 3 months? He can't be too attached to them.
@dontdisturbmenow she didn't say he was happy not to see them! She SAID he liked the break in not having to travel 4 hours at the weekends - two VERY different sentiments.

@Magda72

Happy not to have his kids for 3 months? He can't be too attached to them. *@dontdisturbmenow* she didn't say he was happy not to see them! She SAID he liked the break in not having to travel 4 hours at the weekends - two VERY different sentiments.

Thanks for sticking up for me! Just for reference, ExWife moved the kids away from us and refused to meet us halfway to collect them. We have never ever missed a weekend! But 4 hours on the road every 2nd weekend is a huge stress (where I come from roads are not like in the UK!) and whilst he missed the kids, he didnt miss the travelling!

@SlipperTripper I too have committed the Ultimate Cardinal Sin of saying something vaguely negative about DSC mum. I got fed up of having to accomodate her life choices to the detriment of mine, and sweep the fact that she chooses to be married to a child abuser (currently in prison) under the carpet like it's no big deal.

Tonight I’ll be the evil stepmother who made a lovely dinner that isn’t junk food and an apple cake for pudding. Inevitably I’ll be the bad guy for saying ‘no. You can’t have sweets instead. It’s the cake I made or nothing.’

Some of the stories on here (I’m not going to lie) have me utterly aghast at (essentially) how much entitlement / poor standards there is around SC. It is eye opening.

The funny thing is that until reading this thread, I genuinely thought two things.

1. the entitlement I saw with my ex around his children was quite unique to our situation and therefore it was ‘in my head.’ (Something he would say to me)
2. Therefore, there was something inherently off with me for feeling the way I felt around a host of issues.

I felt at times like I was pushing water up a hill trying to get through to my ex what felt like common sense/ obvious things. This is eye opening and I send a prayer of thanks that I have removed myself from a life of this complete nonsense!

I wonder if this happens in all Step families or whether this is unique only in certain situations/ with certain types of personalities.

I made my Christmas cake at the weekend knowing that dsd wouldn't be with us! I just couldn't be arsed with all the mess as she drops flour, eggs plus the painfully slow measuring of ingredients...

No regrets I hate baking with her

SD went to university and I'm happy she now lives somewhere else for 2/3 of the year (I actually get on well with her and like her but she is very argumentative, messy and has a sense of entitlement that I'm just fed up with...she thinks she knows it all)

I'm also REALLY wicked as I'm not planning to allow full time living with us again, she will be 23 when she graduates and if she wants to come back it will bo on a temporary basis only..

@Missboo1

I made my Christmas cake at the weekend knowing that dsd wouldn't be with us! I just couldn't be arsed with all the mess as she drops flour, eggs plus the painfully slow measuring of ingredients...

No regrets I hate baking with her

I don’t bake with the DSC either. They have a mother for that. And by all accounts she enjoys baking with DSD.

Same with craft activities. I hate craft activities. DSD does loads of them with her mum anyway. If she wants to do crafty stuff here, her father can help her. He hates crafty stuff even more than me. But she’s his daughter. I learned how to play Pokémon cards with my sons; he can do crafty stuff with his daughter.

I wonder if this happens in all Step families or whether this is unique only in certain situations/ with certain types of personalities.

There must be a degree of personality involved but I think this sort of madness really is common. Especially when the SC are the children of a NR father. Men just seem to be socialised to have a greater sense of entitlement that the world should revolve around the things they care about. And too often have a lifetime of avoiding the hard, drudge work of being part of a household.

I have also felt that it must just be me that’s the issue @sassbott. But I think anyone would be annoyed about the stuff I get annoyed about in stepfamily life. Any decent or sensible parent would not tolerate children screaming in the house, for example. But weirdly, when you’re a stepmother, you’re supposed to just put up with it. In fact, you’re evil for objecting to it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Youseethethingis we don't have any children together, he has one and I have 2, so that's 3 between us, we are doing an extension next year to fit us all in and we have brought up a baby, but we both are a bit unsure as that would mean 4 kids but it pains me that he has the one child by her, I mean I could have a baby but it would be out of spite and I don't think I want the hassle haha we said never say never and who knows how we will feel after we have done the house.

I’m evil step mum, because we have an age gap relationship of twenty years standing and there is only 13 years between me and step daughter. Step daughter as an adult asked about inheritance and was very cross to find out that DH and I have wills favouring each other ( there is a private unwritten bequest from DH that his guitars - very expensive antique ones - go her) and didn’t mention if we both die she gets the lot. Was proved right about mercenary ways because since this conversation DSD has had no contact with her Dad since she asked 5 years ago despite him now having a life limiting condition. Sad thing is me and her used to get on very well ... all changed when she started probing the will situation.

We live in a country where children can get part of the house even if they have never lived in it and there being proof, as in this case, that both parties have contributed equally to it. DH didn’t want to run the risk of me being made homeless or having to get a mortgage to buy her out. Wills now changed and if we both go the local dog charity will be very happy. I know I will have the blame over the wills though despite them being DH’s idea after getting legal advice here.

@NameChangerinDespair

I object when all the food has to be so very bland because she is so picky in his house and she still doesn't eat it yet wants to snack on sweets and crisps between meals not on my watch she won't and also when he cooks separate meals because, e.g. she sees a label of a jarred sauce she didn't recognise and therefore refuses to touch the meal. She is 9 1/2 ...

My son is the same and also 91/2, he has SPD, the fussy eating is part of it.

I was a wicked stepmother because I refused to engage with the dramas of my 18 and 20yo dsds.

While they were having tantrums about dp & I going for a coffee on a Saturday morning (but Daddy, there was no milk... Where were you...whine, whine), I just got on with raising ds, returning to my career and eventually leaving.

Dsd1 finally got a job at 30 !

I am evil step mum because I have made different life choices to DHs ex and therefore ended up with different life of my choosing (gasp). I have a career, I also have a business, I chose to return to work after having a baby with DH, I chose to get married. DSS (now nearly 18) moans constantly about how hard done by he is and how DH much love our toddler DD more because of xyz perceived slight forgetting that he had the benefit of his mum at home for years and that he has been taken on expensive holidays abroad many times with DD has never had a holiday. I also have the sheer audacity to suggest he consider something career focused at college and helped him apply after he did poorly in his GCSEs and his mum refused to discuss college choices. Of course she then objected his chosen course and convinced him to switch. He now hates it and wants to change to the course I suggested but its too late. What a shock. Oh and I'm evil for suggesting he could get a part job when he is only at college 2 days a week and because I have said I won't fund him sitting on his arse - his parents can do what they like but the money isn't coming from my purse that's for sure.

DP’s 19yo dd was told last summer: if her 5year stretch of mooching about in the house 24/7 (in her charmed life funded by mum - all the trappings of meals out, wifi, latest phones, holidays, constant new clothes - but very little ability to function, no job, no GCSEs, no ability to exit comfort zone) continues - she won’t be coming on holiday with us all next summer.

She recently announced she is ‘thinking about doing something’

Righto!

DP thinks this is progress, and in the same breath admits she ‘might be just saying that’.

I feel sorry for him (sort of) such is the delusion.

I agree there is something entitled about men who expect their partners to get on board with this bollox!

I blame the patriarchy

I feel sorry for him (sort of) such is the delusion.

I agree there is something entitled about men who expect their partners to get on board with this bollox!

But we see stories time and again on this board of these delusions / entitlement madness. Where does it come from? How does it begin? Really makes my blood boil!

@GalaxyCookieCrumble she has no additional needs and is less fussy at her Mother's ... IMHO it is control and manipulation.

@FoxtrotOscarPoppet that’s what I am genuinely trying to figure out myself!

Because it’s not just a male thing. A lot of the entitlement comes from the mothers also. I’m a mother and I simply cannot get my head around it. It baffles me completely.

My children are my children, of course I love them. My exh loves them. Others around them (friends, family also care and love them). But the only people with any sort of day to day responsibility towards them are me and my exH. Anything else anyone else does with/ for them is entirely optional. Received with immense gratitude.

If there are children in my house - they are treated equally. Held to the same household rules. My children’s friends come over, they know the deal and abide by them, no questions asked. And if they step out of line, one gentle rebuke from me - a muttered apology from them and we continue. And these are growing teen boys! But they respect and know the lay of the land. It’s healthy, it’s respectful and most important it’s an adult setting boundaries.

All of the above seems to go out the window (well it didn’t with me, but there was an expectation that it should) when my exes children were over. It’s nuts!

The only explanation I can give is that his EXW is a complete golden uterus, her children need only her and are unequivocally distraught to be separated for any period of time from her. My ex has matched that level of ‘hysteria’ (for want of a better word) and over compensates massively to ensure her rhetoric isn’t true.

Kids will be upset from time to time. Who cares? It’s astonishing.

@sassbott @FoxtrotOscarPoppet

I must have struck lucky with my DP reading this as there is absolutely no 'entitlement' or expectation of special treatment when his kids are over.

They rarely step out of line anyway to be honest, maybe the odd bicker here and there and he'll just look at them and it stops. It makes him sound like a monster (he's not) but he's just always been the disciplinarian as mum does nothing in that respect - when he and exW were together she would call him at work whenever they misbehaved saying "can you tell YOUR kids off please". And he would come on the phone and discipline them from his workplace. On another occasion (not long after they split), she sent him a video recording on her phone of the pair of them fighting and climbing all over the furniture whacking each other on the head, with the caption "see - this is what I have to put up with from them. Will you sort it please". This video was about 5 mins long and they knew they were being filmed by their mum as they kept looking over at the camera and laughing whilst she passively said and did sweet FA. 🤷‍♀️🙈

In doing this she has completely undermined her own authority and they have no respect for her, but they know exactly where the line is with my DP and they daren't overstep it. Saying all that he also makes time to be "fun dad", but it's a balance, I guess.

Also, he places absolutely no expectation on me at all - it's sort of an open invitation - if I (or my daughter) want to come along on a day out with them at the weekend we're more than welcome to, if we'd rather opt out and do our own thing, that's fine too. He does all their cooking etc when they're here and he takes responsibility for structuring their day, planning what he wants to do with them etc. If there's any need for discipline and I happen to see it but he doesn't, I'll just give him a nudge and he's straight on it. I absolutely do not get involved in it.

All in all, I think I have it much better than most reading some of these .... I'll make a mental note to be grateful more often!

I'm an evil stepmother because I don't miss living with my stepson now that me and his dad are divorcing.

He is 11, and I have been in his life since he was 2 years old. I adore him. But no longer having to parent him has done wonders for our relationship - I take him out all the time just the two of us, we text a lot, and we can be mates.

I am evil step mum because I have made different life choices to DHs ex and therefore ended up with different life of my choosing (gasp). I have a career, I also have a business, I chose to return to work after having a baby with DH, I chose to get married.

I am similar, I dare to reap the rewards of my own life choices and don’t feel the need to compensate or share those with DH’s ex. Unreasonable to the core. I know.

[quote LouJ85]**@sassbott* @FoxtrotOscarPoppet*

I must have struck lucky with my DP reading this as there is absolutely no 'entitlement' or expectation of special treatment when his kids are over.

They rarely step out of line anyway to be honest, maybe the odd bicker here and there and he'll just look at them and it stops. It makes him sound like a monster (he's not) but he's just always been the disciplinarian as mum does nothing in that respect - when he and exW were together she would call him at work whenever they misbehaved saying "can you tell YOUR kids off please". And he would come on the phone and discipline them from his workplace. On another occasion (not long after they split), she sent him a video recording on her phone of the pair of them fighting and climbing all over the furniture whacking each other on the head, with the caption "see - this is what I have to put up with from them. Will you sort it please". This video was about 5 mins long and they knew they were being filmed by their mum as they kept looking over at the camera and laughing whilst she passively said and did sweet FA. 🤷‍♀️🙈

In doing this she has completely undermined her own authority and they have no respect for her, but they know exactly where the line is with my DP and they daren't overstep it. Saying all that he also makes time to be "fun dad", but it's a balance, I guess.

Also, he places absolutely no expectation on me at all - it's sort of an open invitation - if I (or my daughter) want to come along on a day out with them at the weekend we're more than welcome to, if we'd rather opt out and do our own thing, that's fine too. He does all their cooking etc when they're here and he takes responsibility for structuring their day, planning what he wants to do with them etc. If there's any need for discipline and I happen to see it but he doesn't, I'll just give him a nudge and he's straight on it. I absolutely do not get involved in it.

All in all, I think I have it much better than most reading some of these .... I'll make a mental note to be grateful more often! [/quote]

Just to add ... this wasn't for want of trying on exW's part! In the early days of our relationship, when she demanded that DP have the kids on extra days outside of his agreed contact days and he was otherwise engaged and therefore not able to, she would respond with "can Lou not have them then?" Erm. No, she bloody can't because she's not your on call babysitter and she has a life too! She's stopped even asking that now 😂