Evil Stepmum’s Greetings Card Collection

[KumquatSalad]

Here on stepparenting, we are developing an exciting new range of greetings cards to help express your feelings to the evil stepmother in your life.

Come share your designs with us. There’s a large untapped market out there to be captured. 😁

@KumquatSalad

In fact, they’re direct quotes. From MN.

I can't believe all of these cards are direct quotes from this site. When you read them all together it really brings home what we as SMs are subjected to!

[quote SpongebobNoPants]@LouJ85 my partner has always paid more then the calculated CMS amount, mobiles phones, insurances for electronics, every single haircut or pair of glasses, all of their uniforms, school trips etc.
But it’s still never enough for her.[/quote]

I can believe it. Especially if she's as entitled as my DP's ex. It genuinely kills her that she can't dictate how he spends his hard earned money anymore.

Sadly, IRL, so much of the BS pedalled out on these threads (hence the cards) is also told to SM’s. So much so that when they say enough (as I did), I was told there was something wrong with me. I was ‘not normal’. Etc etc.

Sassbot, your situation is so like mine! Everything you say resonates with me so much.
When I said enough is enough and they knew the reasons why I had had enough, people were actually offended My ex was, his family were, and his ex was! I told them straight why my life was miserable while I was with him, and one of those reasons was that I’d had enough of being taken for granted, had enough of my life being controlled, had enough of being spoken to like shit, had enough of being a mug, had enough of my children being second best, had enough of running around for ex, had enough of an ex wife nit picking at me, etc etc... All of the stuff that many stepmums have to put up with. I am my own boss and I do not want some other woman telling me what to do. My ex was lazy and spineless.

I am an EXW. I am a mother. I co parent with my exh (who was with the OW). Civilly, boundaried and he pays me not one penny. He sees the children on a loose structure but we both remain completely flexible. Sadly, I acknowledge one thing- women like me are exceptionally rare.

Again this is very much like me! I co parent with my ex and everything is flexible. He pays me nothing for the children and hasn’t been in a job since we split up over a year ago.
His ex gets nothing financially from him anymore either. She isn’t bothered either, but when we were together she made a massive song and dance about MONEY.
I used to make sure ex got up and went to work, and I would never stop him paying maintenance. In fact I fully encouraged it. What did piss me off was when we fell on hard times one payment was late and she took it out on ME like I had orchestrated it.

Now he pays her nothing too, and luckily for my ex she’s totally cool about it. It just proves so much about her attitude towards me and my children. If he was unemployed for over a year (he was unemployed for a a while) while we were together she would have been pissed off about it and still expect money at the same level. Now we’re not together she doesn’t want a penny. It’s quite funny really.

@Watchingbehindmyhands that is a very hard situation you describe - I wouldn't not acknowledge that for one minute.
However, & as you've said yourself, the blame for that lies firmly with your ex & not those women. As a father HE made crap choices as to who he let into his children's lives & HE made the decision not to pay proper maintenance.
As I said upthread, my exh ended up with the OW. I never blamed her for the problems in my marriage I blamed my exh. HE was the one who was married & had commitments. HE was the one who cheated. No man cheats unless they want to. Likewise, no man reneges on maintenance unless THEY want to.
If my exh's now dw ever did put pressure on him to (unreasonably) cut back on our kids financially, the issue would not be her demands but rather my exh's lack of balls in saying no to her.
There are many very 'bad' dads out there but instead of laying the blame for their shoddy behaviour squarely at their feet society still takes the stance that it's the fault of whatever woman they get together with - when it really isn't.
It's like saying men wouldn't cheat if women didn't insist on luring them away from their wives!
Your ex has obviously made some very bad choices along the way & for that I'm very sorry as I know it must be very hard (& I don't mean that to sound condescending) but they are HIS choices & while the women in question can be 'blamed' for their behaviour, ultimately their behaviour was/is being allowed by your ex who could just have easily found a nice woman with a rational outlook but HE chose not to.
My dc's sm was the OW but life is rarely black and white & while she was the OW she is also a nice person & treats my dc very, very well & I personally think there is a lot of misplaced blame in these situations. If I'd chosen to get bitter & difficult & blame her for my exh's bad behaviour then I'd have denied my dc a nice sm & a happy life at their dad's house.
Fwiw I would judge no mother being a sahm parent out of necessity. It's a bigger societal issue that women often find it hard to work post children due to low wages, high childcare costs & little support & it's something that really does need addressing.
However, the exw's that I are others are instancing on here are women who generally have very supportive exh's/exp's; men who honour their emotional & financial commitments to their dc; men who see their dc on a very regular basis; men who are often paying 2 mortgages & putting dc through college/university with no support from their dcs mother; men who often end up sacrificing their future happiness because they are not allowed move on by their exw & subsequently their dc. It is THESE women we are talking about; women who refuse to work because they don't want to & because remaining financially dependent on their exes keeps those exes toeing the line & keeps those exes firmly rooted in 'the first family is the only real family' dynamic which is toxic for everyone including the dc.

And @funinthesun19 your post very much resonates. My exdp's exw rumbled away a bit when we got together but when we got serious she lost it in every way. Financially this showed up in her demanding more money every single month despite exdp & I not mixing our finances. She placed her own morals on me, assuming that like her I'd be happy to live off exdp. All she saw was her cushy lifestyle under threat causing her to reveal her true colours in all their glory!

@Watchingbehindmyhands What is it you would like us to concede? Either you truly believe these cards are accurate and SMs do deserve this kind of treatment from posters on here, or you are engaging in whataboutery.

A thread formed by one group of people to address the hardships they face and raise each others spirits does not need to acknowledge the hardships of every other group of society as well. As I said before, if you have negative experiences as a single mum based on the stereotypes thrown at you, you should make your own thread! This one was one created by a group of SMs, all of whom know they are reasonable people and don't behave the way you have described, to highlight the ridiculousness of the kind of responses they get from society. They shouldn't need to talk about the experiences of an unrelated separate group in order to be allowed to have that conversation.

And FWIW, because this seems to be how you have interpreted the thread, this isn't purely about "Step mums vs first wives". Some things on here come from the ex wives, but not as many as come from the partners themselves, and many and more come from society at large (ie family and friends and MN posters). I don't have an axe to grind due to my partner's ex, she's fairly reasonable all things considered. I am here primarily to lament the things said to step mum's by anonymous posters on here, not anything said to me by my partner or his ex. With that in mind, why would it be necessary for me to also talk about what people might say about my partner's ex elsewhere? It's only even vaguely linked.

My exp instigated financial proceedings to have spousal maintenance reviewed due to change of circumstances. His EXW bitterly contested the proceedings advancing, judge approved the review.

In the first hearing they both self represented, and as part of her commentary she expressed that I had a good job (clearly gleaned from my work social media). It didn’t matter that I didn’t live with her ExH, her expectation clearly was ‘well your new partner has a very good job, she can afford it.’

The judge clearly told her that as I did not live with her exh my income was completely immaterial, and as such it was completely outside the remit of the financial proceedings. It was a non starter.

What left me flabbergasted was the degree of entitlement. That somehow my income should enable her to sit on her arse and live a nice cushy lifestyle. She didn’t have much respect from me by this point, but at this point, any fraction of respect/ empathy I tried to have for her was squarely removed.

I view her entirely as a parasite, with absolutely no redeeming morals. And that’s in insult to parasites. Because I think they probably make better mothers than her.

And I say that as a ‘first wife.’

True colours indeed! I don’t know what him being with you meant she suddenly needed more money. It’s not like you were liable to pay too so his own income didn’t go up . Some people are just really bitter and money seems to be a way of trying to gain some control and it also shows them up for how greedy they are.

I have no doubt that my ex’s ex wife was just bitter about me and my children. The fact that now he’s no longer with me she’s totally cool about money and totally cool about her ex husband when she knows exactly what he’s like just shows that all the problems she had were all directed at me. And to be honest, thinking back, he got a slap on the wrist from her in comparison to the shit I got from her.

That post was to Magda. Sassbot too!

@Watchingbehindmyhands with ref to My children’s experience of step mum’s has been pretty dire. I acknowledge this is, in the main, the choices my ex makes and his lies. Interestingly enough, always women who don’t work and who are, on the face of it, comfortable with his refusal to pay maintenance.

I think you've answered your own point there. I understand you have acknowledged the fault mainly lies with your ex but the relevance of it isn't that he's a liar and a shit dad - it's that he's going to attract women whose moral compass is already lacking enough that it allows them to get together with a man who by his own volition doesn't want to support his own children. So what you describe as several shit stepmums is actually a self-selecting sample of women who already bad news as opposed to you knowing e.g. 5 separate step mums in 5 different relationships all exhibiting that kind of behaviour.

I do get why it would colour your view of step parents but in reality what your experience demonstrates is shit people who happen to find themselves in a step parenting situation with your ex, not that step parenting inherently brings out the worst in many SMs.

I have never denied there are bad step mums, of course there are. Just like there are bad mums, bad dads, bad grandparents and so on and so forth.

However, i think most stepmums are just trying to navigate and impossible path. Its the hardest job ever. Its awful and its not very rewarding in most cases. This is not always because of the children involved, either.

For me, the money was always an issue. We had the same as other posters that dps ex really ramped up the "we are so poor" act when dp got with me. She told her child "daddy is taking Trust on holiday, daddy is buying trust a house, daddy cant afford to buy yuo xyz because of trust"

When actually in the first few years dp was so skint paying her maintenance plus pretty much everything else, that it was actually me taking him on holiday, me putting down most of the deposit for the house, me buying things, not him, because he couldnt. He walked away with less than 4k from a house that he alone had paid for. She was having a bloody laugh thinking he was rolling in it.

As time has gone one, every time we have had a new house (only once!) a new car, a holiday, a weekend away or whatever she has text asking for more money because "if you can afford xyz youre not paying enough" - every single new years day for 7 years she text dp asking why he hadnt paid maintenance and every new years day for 7 years he replied to her explaining what a bank holiday was. It has been relentless.

When dss moved in with us for almost 2 years - she paid less than £30 a week in maintenance for him, no extras - not even £20 for spending on holidays we took him on. Absolutely fuck all. We only once ever asked for a contribution for uniform and got told "you have two wages coming in you can afford it" and yes, that was true, we could, but it was a massive double standard.

Shes got more front than bloody blackpool and i cannot imagine ever being so self centred, greedy and rude.

God I can't believe this pointless (and dull) thread is still rumbling on!!

God I can't believe this pointless (and dull) thread is still rumbling on!!

Aww clearly it’s touched a nerve.

Well then sod off & stop reading!

Actually that post by watching has given me some insight as to how some posters can claim they know of several shit step parents and therefore conclude it's the norm when literally none of the step parents I know IRL are like this. It all stems from the NRP's behaviour - shit step parenting doesn't occur despite of how an NRP behaves but because of it.

@Littlefluffyclouds13

God I can't believe this pointless (and dull) thread is still rumbling on!!

And yet ... you felt the need to open and comment on this dull and pointless thread.

@Magda72

Well then sod off & stop reading!

This.

shit step parenting doesn't occur despite of how an NRP behaves but because of it.

I do genuinely believe that if the NRP is a hard working, helpful person with a spine amongst many other good qualities then the stepparent will find it much easier to be a better stepparent.
The way the NRP behaves ultimately affects the whole family and how it will all pan out. My ex seemed to think that him lying in bed and having no ambition for anything was acceptable and that I would just plod along raising his first child for him and it would all be unicorns and rainbows for me. His ex couldn’t understand why I didn’t see her child as one of mine. She really needed to look at her ex husband for those answers. It was a recipe for failure and that’s exactly what happened. I did the basics and I did like dsc, none of it was their fault. But I didn’t go that extra mile because I thought what is the fucking point?

@Littlefluffyclouds13 oh dear. What happened? Did some of the posts touch a nerve? Please come back and elucidate so I can ensure future threads inspire you. Because this thread is here. For you. Evidently. And shame on every other poster for not knowing that.

Ladies, 100 lines for you all.

I shall make sure that I am not dull and pointless for lfc.

@Littlefluffyclouds13

I totally get what you're doing but it's so unfunny and just comes across as a bit nasty.

Doesn't touch a nerve at all. Just think it's unpleasant and can't believe it's boringly rumbling on.

You on the other hand sound very touchy!

@Littlefluffyclouds13 how about you do something less dull and tell the posters on this thread from last week how terrible they all are for not always having sweet loving thoughts about their own bloody children let alone someone else's:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4142467-To-want-to-sell-my-kid-light-hearted-fun?msgid=103876285

Maybe if we SMs post a lighthearted thread to vent some frustrations we'll be allowed to let off some steam without people stopping by just to have a dig?

Oh wait...

@Littlefluffyclouds13 what exactly do you find ‘unpleasant’ about it? I’m intrigued. Can you pin point what it is?

Doesn't touch a nerve at all. Just think it's unpleasant and can't believe it's boringly rumbling on

yes, it is quite unpleasant to have all these things said to you on a regular basis, actually. It's funny because i dont see you commenting on vile threads and trying to stop it.

Ahhh, yes. Unpleasant because people are finding humour in unreasonable stupid things that have been said to them.