Hello Step-mums
Firstly I just wanted to say thank you. I've been reading these pages for a while and some of your wisdom has been so important in helping me to make sense of the weird, stressful dynamics that have been going on in my family for more than 20 years now.
I hope it's ok to post here - I'm a daughter / step-daughter rather than a step-mum, but I'm increasingly worried/upset about my mum's situation in her relationship with my step-dad.
I am an only child; my step-dad has a son who is the same age as me (same school year). My mum and step dad have been together since my step brother and I were both 10. Before she met my step-dad, my mum and I lived with her parents. She was a single mum and there was no contact with my dad because he was abusive and violent. When they got together, my step-dad bought a house, which he moved into with my mum and I. His ex-wife and son stayed living in their former family home, which my step-dad continued to pay for. My step brother stayed over part of every weekend and maybe one weekday night. He also came over some evenings without staying over.
When he met my mum, my step dad was in the process of divorcing his ex wife. There was a stated expectation that the divorce would be completed, that they would separate their assets and that my step dad would pay maintenance for my step brother and alimony for his ex wife, as he was the substantially higher earner. It was also stated (explicitly) that if my step-dad were to die before my mum (quite likely as there is an age gap of more than 15 years) my mum would inherit the house they lived in together.
Twenty years on (I cannot emphasize this enough - literally more than 20 years!) none of this has happened. My step-dad is still legally married to his 'ex' wife (she apparently made unreasonable demands about the divorce settlement and he found it too difficult to find a way to resolve this) and they still have shared bank accounts. My step dad has always transferred a substantial proportion of his income to his ex wife and continues to frequently pay ad hoc expenses that she incurs (eg work in her house that she wanted doing, unexpectedly large electricity bill that she couldn't afford).
My step dad has recently announced that he never intended for mum to own the house they live in and that his son will inherit it with a stipulation that mum can live there for as long as she wants. He is also using all of his savings to buy a house (outright, not just the deposit) for his son.
This is the continuation (and hopefully conclusion) of a long narrative of similar nonsense. My step dad feels a huge amount of guilt about 'abandoning' his son. That means that if he tries to set a boundary with his ex wife she says that he will cause / has already caused huge emotional damage to his son and (I surmise) he feels so anxious and guilty that he gives in every time.
My step brother has had emotional regulation difficulties for most of his life. When we first met, he was liable to have screaming sobbing meltdowns if he was unhappy. And very small things, like losing a computer game, could make him unhappy. This kind of behaviour continued until he was about 15. When we did things as a family of 4 we could only do things that he wanted to do. He would often insist we all played specific games or watched specific TV shows and would get upset if we didn't. He was rude and nasty to my mum but was never reprimanded, even for using derogative names to speak about her; behaviour which continued into adulthood. Some of this is normal teen behaviour and normal response to experiencing a (poorly managed) parental separation. But instead of helping him understand and manage his emotions, his dad pandered to all his demands, whilst his mum similarly gave in to him but also wound him up further by telling him his dad didn't care about him any more and that their lives were ruined because his dad was so cruel.
As an adult, my step brother has continued to struggle with his mental health. He dropped out of school after his GCSEs (passed all of them) and spent 2 years basically playing video games. He then did a BTEC and attended a local uni to do a degree. He then worked short ad hoc contracts but kept quitting because of huge fall outs with colleagues / bosses and was mostly unemployed for the rest of his 20s, continuing to live at home and doing a bit of voluntary work. He now has a personality disorder diagnosis, has spent a lot of time doing therapy and has finally been able to start working, at first part time, now approximately full time. Throughout his 20s and early 30s he has lived with his mum, has never paid any rent and has frequently needed his dad's help to bail him out financially with unwise purchases (mostly dodgy cars on finance).
I am glad that in future my step brother will be financially secure, even though he may not always be able to work. I am also glad that his mum has her own house and financial security. I am not for one moment suggesting that my step dad should not have provided for both of them when his relationship ended, or not continued to be a full parent and father figure to his son. However, I find it extremely hurtful that my step dad has not thought to provide my mum with the same financial security. She and my step dad's ex have both worked in similar low-paid roles throughout their careers. The ex is now retired; my mum is still working part time and has a small amount of savings. However, nowhere near enough for a deposit even for a flat. I do not believe that the 'security' of being able to live in a house belonging to my step brother would provide actual security for her, as I think my step brother or his mum would start hassling her to move out so they could sell the house. I suspect my step dad initially intended for her to inherit the house they live in, but met with huge resistance from his ex and/or son, so quietly dropped the idea without mentioning this to my mum.
Our lifestyle in my teen years was extremely frugal. Almost all of our things came from charity shops, car boot sales or freecycle. My step brother had lots of new games consoles, but we didn't even have a proper computer with an internet connection, so I had to bike round to my gran's house if I wanted to research things for school. My mum only has a smartphone now because I bought one for her. I was bullied at school because my clothes were unfashionable and second hand. I always assumed that this lifestyle was either because there was very little spare money as my step-dad was the main earner and was splitting his income across 2 households, or that it was a choice that he and my mum made and were both happy with. It now seems that my mum didn't feel able to ask for more in case my step dad thought she was "greedy". To discover that, during this time, he has actually accumulated at least £200k of savings, all of which will be spent on a house for my step brother, has really shocked me.
I'm very fortunate that I have been able to study at a good university and work full time in well paid jobs with career security. However, my husband and I pay a substantial proportion of our income every month on rent and have slowly accumulated the money needed to put down as a deposit for a mortgage. I am still paying back my student loan as a fraction of my salary every month and worked every summer when I was an undergraduate to top up my maintenance loan. (To add insult to injury, my step brother did not have to pay any student fees at all because his dad was not a "resident parent" so his income was not counted.) The disparity with my step brother, even before learning about the house, is huge.
This all sounds a bit detached and focused on financial issues. But I'm just so depressed by the whole mess. I wasn't thrilled to move away from my grandparents when I was 10, but I largely tried to make the best of it. As an adult, I have always treated my step dad as part of my family - more like an in-law than a father figure but respectfully, politely and kindly. I asked him to do a reading at my wedding ffs. To now discover that he has cared so little for my mum and I that he cannot even see that either one of us might find his behaviour towards her hurtful or disrespectful is just so upsetting. Every time I think about it, I end up crying.
I'm also angry about how much my step brother has been failed by both his parents. Neither of them has ever been able to step back from their own anger and blaming to see the actual needs of their son. He's just been placated (dad) or manipulated and used as a pawn (mum) to stop my step dad detaching emotionally and financially from her. As a result, my step brother is still stuck in the same resentments and emotional turmoil as when his parents first separated. He lacks the interpersonal skills to live independently (really doubt he knows how to run the washing machine or use a vacuum cleaner) and has missed out on a lot of adult life because of his mental health difficulties.
Finally, it's been emotionally damaging to me to see my mum stay in a relationship like that. I have an ingrained fear that it might be self indulgent to buy new things or replace items of clothing before they literally have holes in. I unfortunately spent several years in my 20s in a relationship with an abusive older man, who used, among other things, the income disparity between himself and me (a student and then grad student) to manipulate and control me. Thankfully, I got out of that relationship and also got some therapy, but I think one of the reasons I stayed so long was that I was so used to seeing a similar dynamic between my mum and step dad that it felt normal.
I'm not really looking for advice, just venting I think. But also, I have seen posters here asking if difficult dynamics will get better once their step children are adults. And no, I don't necessarily think that will happen. If the step child's parents are both on board with helping their children become independent adults, then yes, difficult behaviours will probably stop. But if the parents are trapped in an emotionally enmeshed mess of guilt tripping, manipulation and pandering, then no. Nothing will change except your own, and your children's willingness to accommodate the absurdity.