If you could talk to your past self, what would you say about step-parenting?

[SmokeyApo]

Hi all, regular here but NC frequently for privacy. For context, I am not a step-parent, but I was in a long-term relationship with a single dad with 2 kids for several years and I am still interested in the topic of step parenting.

If you could go back to the day you met your SO (or ex SO) and could give yourself a word of advice right before deciding to get involved with a man with DC, what would you say?

I'll start:

1. you have no idea what you are about to get into. It is way more complex and fucked up than you think.
2. this will crush you and your mental health, because you are not equipped to deal with this situation.
3. you have a lot more to lose than him. He has a lot more to gain than you.
4. unfortunately you won't be able to see any of the above until you are in too deep, and in the end it will hurt like hell.

Perhaps someone else will be able to bring some more positive contributions, but those are my honest thoughts!

Don't do it. Go and climb Mt Kilimanjaro instead. You're totally unprepared and have no idea what it means. You don't know what you're getting into. Love isn't enough.

The kids will be fine. The ex will probably be fine. He will behave like a tosser and remind you every day that they come first. Always. Forever. I get you would save them from a burning building but why bother dating if you've nothing left for it? They are children and it's quite creepy the way some men seem to idolise them. Why not just be normal?

Oh.. get him drunk on the first date and ask ALL of the searching questions. How's your ex? How do your children feel about you dating etc. You'll get the truth if it's a first date 😁

If he tells you that his ex is difficult - believe him. Really, really believe him. If he tells you that his children are everything to him - take it literally. They can do no wrong, there are no healthy boundaries and you’ll always come second. Actually, third - if he tells you that he and children are very close to all his family bear in mind that you’ll never be fully accepted to this close knit circle in case it upsets the children. If he says he really listens to what you are saying and he agrees with you - it simply means that. It doesn’t mean that he’ll do anything about it. If he says he will work on the problems - notice the future tense in this statement. It’s a vaguely defined future related activity ;). If he says he takes one day at a time it most likely means that he has no clear plans for the future.
Stay grounded and see things for what they are, not for what you - or even your partner - would like them to be.

I'd say chill out, it's fine. A lot of people here seen to have had more negative experience. If you are all so unhappy why do you stay?

This is nothing to do with roles. This is to do with personalities. I’m not a stepmum but my son has one, his dad is a stepdad, as is my partner. Everyone gets on just fine. Choose wisely, all round

Prepare to make alot of sacrifices and as soon as you say no to something that involves your partners children for example they can't get child care so can't go to a wedding/festival/holiday/Night out/special event be prepared to be branded selfish and guilt tripped and resentment from them against you, once you are emotionally involved you then get emotionally blackmailed to stop doing the stuff you enjoy if they can't come because of their children, just find someone at the same stage in life as your self, if you haven't got children avoid any dates with anybody who has got children so you don't get hooked in and save yourself. Don't just think this will be a one off as your likely to end up going back then it will be to hard to break up come the end and you will feel bad about it

@KylieKoKo I didn’t stay. He’s an ex specifically for all the reasons I’ve listed.

But I stayed much longer than I should have done because I was trying to get balance (I’d get verbal reassurances, nothing changed). I loved him and in my 40’s I don’t run at the first sign of trouble, I tried to work through it. Finally I had a misplaced sense of loyalty mixed with an incredible amount of naivety.

I think it also gets harder, the older you are, to let another relationship go. Well I think that was a factor for me. I’m sad it didn’t work out but no part of me regrets my decision to walk away from his hideous situation and his myopic mindset.

1. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Don’t let the ex control your life.
2. It’s all worth it for DSD and has made DH who he is today

@KylieKoKo

I'd say chill out, it's fine. A lot of people here seen to have had more negative experience. If you are all so unhappy why do you stay?

I personally didn't once say I was "unhappy". If I was unhappy in any relationship, I'd leave.

I listed the things I would say to myself to make my life less challenging and complicated, as per the OP's question.

Life being challenging and finding ways to overcome and manage those challenges in one aspect of one's relationship, does not equate unhappiness with the entire relationship.

Oh my experience is not the same. I decided right from the start I wasn’t going to emulate being a mother to DSS. Yes I cared for him and do care for him, but I’m not his mum and DH did all the parenting. On occasion DSS was in my sole care because he is family and I offered to have him. He lived with us for a bit when he was a teenager, and it was challenging at times
But more due to hormonal behaviour than anything else. He is a very much loved member of our family although not my son, he is my children’s brother.

The ex was very much unstable at the beginning of the relationship, and I never have spoken one word to her. She used to send some corkers to DH. Think she’s calmed down now all her kids have flown the nest and I don’t think we’ll ever have to see her unless DSS gets married and has a wedding.

The EOW red carpet dynamic is a complete headfuck

See this would make me unhappy.

Thank fuck DP doesn't do this, it would grate on me beyond belief.

That even though you think that this is all very lovely there are relatives who will make this the most complex headfuck ever.

Don't bow down to the surprising and often screaming demands of your SD, stick more rigidly to your principles and maybe she won't turn on you 8 years down the line for daring to express an opinion that she doesn't like.

It doesn't matter that you are the higher earner, you now have to fund all the things that the ex wife "can't" because she still works part time and will until your husbands last maintenance payment while all the whole telling the kids that you and your husband are selfish for every penny you spend on yourselves.

Don't try to treat the kids with experiences and opportunities such as long haul holidays and nice restaurants. They will ruin everything that you and your husband would have otherwise enjoyed with their bickering and pouting. In fact when it comes to the SD just don't bother because anything nice you do with/for her just ends up on "the gram" along with all of her vacuous fame hungry attempts to a public audience & you will have no right to request your own right to privacy (how dare you?)

Take a course now in counselling your husband and teaching him how to stand up to a daughter who bullies him into submission because you've got at least 8 years ahead of you where you need to watch her twirl like a shoe pony and get whatever she wants regardless of what your husband or you want.

Wave goodbye to ever being able to plan Christmas Day again. Just do the shopping, do the cooking and wait for everyone else to tell you what their needs are

Not me but my beautiful DSis.

That other people's children are a fucking pain in the arse. Especially his. Don't marry him. He'll drain you. They'll drain you. You'll be miserable. Walk away, find someone without children.

@Mintjulia

Don't do it. Don't sell my house. Don't move in.

This is what I’d tell myself.

@Diesse

I would have walked away. Covid has probably saved my marriage because I don’t see the (adult) children presently and maintenance draws to an end this year. Be prepared to always come second, and for the spectre of the ex wife to always be in the frame.

You lucky lady, we're nearly there with this as well. It wouldn't be so bad but when both kids are near the age of 18 and we're still hearing the martyr routine with exw working 3 days a week it's a bit tricky to listen to it

Well if I was too honest I probably wouldn't end up with my DD, so I would probably just say don't waste your time stressing about trying to improve the many outlooks and behaviours in your SS you think could be handled so much better. It will be like getting blood out of a stone, years will pass and he will hardly change or grow in the slightest, you don't have enough influence. Devote your energy elsewhere.

And of course, set your boundaries MUCH sooner.

That there are genuinely some women who can't get through their own stuff to do what's right for the kids.... to allow them to have two families and settle into it. Allow them to just be part of two families, their fathers family, without the special red carpet EOW nonsense and related entitled bullshit. To just let them be, be cared for and loved equally, and treated like everyone else in the house. But instead use the children to carry on winning points, venting their own spleen, desperately wanting their child to have everyhting regardless of context, fighting misguidedly for loyalities; working on whatever their own agenda is. As someone before says, seeing themselves as 'the golden womb' with golden children.

And that there are genuinely some men who can't even begin to challenge this, who don't want more for their children, themselves and for their 'new' life. Who will be so complicit with the status quo that it pretty much breaks everyone in the process. Including the precious stepchildren. And who would rather stay stuck in the emotional blackmail hole they have allowed their ex wife to create than worry about any other children they now have, or worry that they're about to end up with another ex wife and ex family.

I'm not sure I'll ever get my head around why the 'first wife' and 'first kids' seem to trump anything else going forward, despite how miserable it apparently was at the time. Even trumping a 'new' wife and 'new kids', which is supposedly happy(ier).

I wouldn't do it again. I'm surprised I was so naive. But then I'm more surprised about how other people aren't just cool and adjusted, and just want to beat from a shit situation.

@purplebiscuits

1 run away 2 don't look back.

Yes! This was one of my absolute dealbreakers. You don't get in too deep if you refuse to even go out with a person who has kids when you have none, just, not even a coffee. Or if they lie and say they don't have any, because I'd ask before agreeing any date at all, then you cut them off then.

And of course, set your boundaries MUCH sooner.

Ideally right from the start. Much more rigidly than seems sensible, because every single time I give or compromise it seems to become an expectation or a norm.

I’d tell myself to tell him to come back to me when he’s sorted out all his shit, and undergone serious counselling to come to terms with being an NR father.

And I’d be very clear that living together FT was not going to be on the cards while he was having EOW (red carpet, but weirdly resentfully so) contact with his children. Non- contact time would be fine, but he can keep that screwed up dynamic all to himself.

@willibald I too tried this & ended up on a string of dates with childless men who could not get their heads around the fact that I needed a bit of forewarning re dates in order to sort childcare etc.
Soooo - I decided I'd give the guys with kids a chance. I met many who were still quite obviously jumping to their ex's tune so I ran. When I met exdp he didn't seem to be & so I stayed. I was told all was good, & at that point, in his head, it was.
What I missed at this early stage was a pretty specific dynamic/personality interplay - the exw who treats her divorce as nothing more than her not now having to tolerate living with/having sex with her exh & a man who is so relieved to be divorced & so delighted he's allowed see his dc whenever he wants that he truly believes they have divorced successfully & are getting on well - so much better than when they were married. This is the 'happy story' I walked into. However, to all intents and purposes, in the exw's head, they are still married - he is there to fund her, mow her lawn, fix her domestic appliances, drive her places when she doesn't "feel up to it", take the dc at the drop of a hat etc. etc. & when she realises there's someone else on the scene who may threaten all the above because HER 'husband' is now in love with someone else, she looses her shit, blindsiding everyone & then starts using the dc as sticks to beat her now awful exh with because they are the only playing card she's got left!
At this stage you're in deep, don't want to just give up, & you call on your natural optimism that things will somehow settle down & improve but they don't.
I think beware a man who says he gets on with his ex & that everything is 'fine' as much as a man who says she's a battle axe lol.
I think there are some couples who never truly 'divorce' because they are incapable of separating out the strands of their former lives but this complicated dynamic can be hard to spot initially especially when you're being told everything is fine.
I had a tough divorce myself but established a good co parenting relationship with my exh so I genuinely thought, based on my own experience that fine actually meant fine!

I thought I would be spared this with an adult SS but no:

He tells everyone he hates me - except his Dad and me - but is more than happy to come round for dinner whenever it suits him.

Reminds me all the time it's his house really - no it isn't, you haven't lived here for years and I've lived here longer than you ever did.

Rings every few months after getting letters from bailiffs, expecting to be bailed out overnight - DH will always help him, he's his son after all.
Still plays one parent off against the other, at the age of 35.

I absolutely detest the way he makes his father feel. Countless sleepless nights. It's really tricky criticising SS's behaviour without upsetting DH, who feels responsible for not knowing how to deal with it.

Think carefully!

Don't do it. If I knew then what I know now, I would not have got serious in the relationship.

I think for me it would be that you will really learn who your true friends and allies are as you go down the step-parent road.

I have been shocked by responses I've had from some of my closest friends and even my own sister when I have been struggling with things. At times, people have responded as if I'm evil or launching a personal attack on a young child, which I have never, ever done, even once. Some will shut down the conversation with little or no response because they just think it's distasteful to not just suck up whatever is thrown at you when it comes to stepchildren.

It's to the point where a handful of my friends have recently had their own babies and I have worried about what it will do to our friendships. Will they start considering me as 'the wicked stepmother' or someone who's encroaching on that sacred role of mother? Especially if any of them end up splitting with their partners.

Although on the positive side, I have had some validation from one of my friends who was always one of the most critical of me. She had a baby last year and has since fully apologised to me, and said more than once that she can't believe people can do the things she now has to do for a child that isn't even theirs. So sometimes opinions can change for the better .

Although on the positive side, I have had some validation from one of my friends who was always one of the most critical of me. She had a baby last year and has since fully apologised to me, and said more than once that she can't believe people can do the things she now has to do for a child that isn't even theirs. So sometimes opinions can change for the better

Wow, isn't that interesting. She was judgemental of you until she was able to at least try to put herself in your position. I think that happens to a lot of step parents. So easy to judge when you haven't been there.