'Perfect' blended family but still feel indifferent.

[HatsOffToddy]

Anyone else feel this way?

I have what would be considered the perfect blended family I guess. I have absolutely no issues with DHs ex, she's nice and we get on well, the kids are great kids and we have a good relationship. There's never once been any drama of any sort that I could say would have caused me to dislike being a step parent.

And yet I still don't really feel all that attached and I still sometimes wish I'd made a different choice. Often when I see threads on here it seems a lot of the negative or just lack of emotional connection stems from negative experiences i.e. ex wife making life difficult or whatever. But I don't have any of that and I still just feel quite meh about the whole thing and sometimes really wish things were different.

I enjoy the time when DSC aren't here, and reading the other thread about whether or not you'd be bothered about seeing them if you and your partner split, I honestly wouldn't. I don't feel like I love them although I like them most definitely but not love and not attached in the sense that I miss them or would be bothered if contact was missed for example.

Does anyone else feel quite indifferent like this but can't pin it onto some negative experience they have had?

None of this affects my interactions with the kids. I do genuinely enjoy their company and they mine.

Your blended family isn’t “perfect” at all.

You tolerate your SC but have no emotional connection to them whatsoever. Consequently don’t enjoy sharing your home with them.

Seems far from perfect to me.

@Lassolarry1980

Your blended family isn’t “perfect” at all.

You tolerate your SC but have no emotional connection to them whatsoever. Consequently don’t enjoy sharing your home with them.

Seems far from perfect to me.

That’ll be what the inverted commas around ‘perfect’ implies. It looks like it should be perfect from the outside but that doesn’t mean she loves or misses her DSC.

The word ‘tolerate’ here is meant to imply she’s some kind of monster. She clearly isn’t.

* The word ‘tolerate’ here is meant to imply she’s some kind of monster. She clearly isn’t.*

You read it as that. Perhaps because hit a nerve

I did not mean it like that.
To tolerate does not make you a monster.

I find this really interesting OP, i feel the same. My partner and i have our own baby now and feeling for SD did change dramatically since.

I feel indifferent

He misheard what i said in a conversation earlier today, i said my family had 3 (kids) and he thought i said i dont have 3 (kids, i have one and pregnant with 2nd)
It annoyed me because people assume you have to include the SC in with yours. I feel that takes away from my children. Its just a pure and simple fact, you cant pretend a child is yours when they're not. Can treat well and include of course but its not the same.

I’m both a sm and a sc. My mum and sd split when I was an adult and he has walked away and not been in contact since, I find it really weird as I lived with him from 11 and even worked for him in the family business as an adult.

I have a great relationship with my sm , she came on the scene in my late teens contact with my dad at that point was once every couple of weeks no overnights due to my friends/ponies/work and so she never had a need to parent me. consequently we built our own relationship as adults on our pwn terms and she’s a fantastic friend and Nan to my kids and I appreciate what she does for my dad, even my mum likes her!

I try to make my dsc welcome, decorated their rooms, get food in I know they like and plan some favourite meals over the weekend. My dp has started to get a bit sensitive about me telling them to do things around the house like move their shoes/coat, don’t play rough with the baby and I think it’s a consequence of them reducing contact (social lives) he feels like it needs to be more fun, so I’m trying to navigate the line between keeping basic house rules in place which is important for my ds to see and letting dp pick up after his kids if that’s what he wants. Dss’s coat has been in the middle of the floor in the dining room for 24hrs bit that I’m counting!!