Is it okay to admit that you'd leave if DSC ever had to come live with you full time?

[JustGreatThatIs]

Whilst I do like my DSC, I just don't think I'd enjoy a life where they lived with us all of the tjme and so I believe that whilst I'd give it my best shot, it could inevitably lead to the end of me and DH.

[quote Beautifulday345]@JustGreatThatIs well she has issues then, when you marry someone with young children and become a step parent/blended family that’s what you become, completely fine if you don’t want to! But just don’t do it then, stay partners, live separately and keep family lives seperate[/quote]
Sorry, are you the authority on blended families? There is no set way of handling it.

I lived with mine once and it was absolutely horrendous. They weren't particularly bad kids, but they were there ALL the time as they preferred ours to their mums (my DH was granted the residency order) and they were so untidy, lazy and unmotivated. I hated working full time and coming home to find ingredients I'd bought for dinner had been used, washing up hadn't been put in the dishy, mess left everywhere etc... All normal teenage behaviour but I couldn't cope with it. I'm still with DH, but that's only because both kids moved to halls/with their mum when they attended uni closer to where she lived. My mental health took a massive nose dive.

[quote Marmitemarinaded]@aSofaNearYou

Exactly
But you said that when you get together with someone you’ll know personalities and chances of them moving in![/quote]
No I didn't. I said by now I do.

@Marmitemarinaded that 100% sounds like a good decision 🤣

[quote Beautifulday345]@sassbott sounds like he is just your partner though, fair enough. The clue is in the word Step MUM, Step DAD, you are stepping into a role when you become a step PARENT. If you do not want that, stay a partner[/quote]
Happy to be called my husband's wife or his partner. It isn't me who decided stepmum was the term for my relationship.

No, this is not ok. Because that parent would presumably house their DC in a safe place and feed them in this situation if there wasn't a "step parent" in the picture telling them not to.

@SunUmbrella
Why did your father not pay for a safer place for you to live? Or send you food parcels? Or buy you warmer clothes? It might not have been possible to have you under his roof (maybe it was her roof), but it didn't stop him putting his hand in his pocket for you. He could have made you more comfortable sending you Tesco tokens for £10 a week. Think about it. (I'm assuming the council housed you?)

[quote Beautifulday345]@JustGreatThatIs well she has issues then, when you marry someone with young children and become a step parent/blended family that’s what you become, completely fine if you don’t want to! But just don’t do it then, stay partners, live separately and keep family lives seperate[/quote]
Who are you to define my relationship? There is a range of intertwinedness and blending that can happen. It doesn't have to be blended to the extent that everyone loses sight of who they are and their actual relationships to each other.

Because that parent would presumably house their DC in a safe place and feed them in this situation if there wasn't a "step parent" in the picture telling them not to

I disagree. If that parent was a good parent, they'd have done that regardless of who was telling them no.

(And I wouldn't tell my husband no either as I've already said).

Happy to be called my husband's wife or his partner. It isn't me who decided stepmum was the term for my relationship.

Same. Very strange that people think marrying the parent is primarily about becoming a step parent, rather than just marrying them.

@aSofaNearYou

Ah sorry. Your point was relating to your specific circumstances
I thought your point was a general
Well, you have an idea of whether it’s going to happen early on in a relationship ie everyone does

@JustGreatThatIs

This happened to me years ago I was only 23, ex partner 27 he had an 8 year old son Who was very difficult

His mother was useless so he came to us more and more then his school rang ex partner and voiced some concerns and he was called into a meeting with social services and I got home to being told he was now with us all the time.

I was very cross it hadn't been discussed and he was destructive and wrecked everything it was a nightmare

We rented a house so after 5-6 months of hell, child telling me I'm not listening to you your not my mum - no support from ex partner- one day he went to work and took his son to school my best friends husband came with a van I moved out

Best decision ever

Same. Very strange that people think marrying the parent is primarily about becoming a step parent, rather than just marrying them.

I find it odd too, there is nowhere in the wedding vows for the children!

@aSofaNearYou well sorry but marrying a man with young children it is exactly what you become. The more threads I read the more I understand people who do not date people with children already, so many children mixed up in these messes. Can completely see why @Marmitemarinaded would chose to wait until her children are older, it makes so much more sense.

[quote Marmitemarinaded]@aSofaNearYou

Ah sorry. Your point was relating to your specific circumstances
I thought your point was a general
Well, you have an idea of whether it’s going to happen early on in a relationship ie everyone does[/quote]
Well it was somewhat general, I said we all know our own situations enough to make a judgment call. I didn't specify at what point in the relationship.

I know what's happening early on in the relationship. And I know enough about the factors and people at play to make the call that I don't think it's likely for a good many years, by which point my outlook may be different. All those things combined make this close to a non issue to me.

[quote Beautifulday345]**@aSofaNearYou* well sorry but marrying a man with young children it is exactly what you become. The more threads I read the more I understand people who do not date people with children already, so many children mixed up in these messes. Can completely see why @Marmitemarinaded* would chose to wait until her children are older, it makes so much more sense.[/quote]
By default, but primarily you become your husband's wife. What is actually entailed in technically being a "step parent" is not a uniform thing and there are no rules setting out what it has to be like. At all.

well sorry but marrying a man with young children it is exactly what you become of course it's what you end up being called. That's what society has decided the term is. There's not much mumming involved unless you want there to be. I'd get a right bollocking if I tried to "mum".

My DSC have also never expressed any desire for me to be a mother toward them, regardless as to technicalities of what you become when you marry a parent.

I'm friendly, fun and kind and we get on well. But they don't think of me as a step in Mum. Maybe I should tell them they are wrong because that's what I became when I married their Dad.

I think it's a bit odd that people get so hung up on the technicality as well. It's quite a dated title imo.

I can see it being appropriate in times passed when people didn't remarry unless they were widowed and that person literally STEPPED into the role of the other missing parent.

Not so much when the children have two involved parents. What need is there for me to be a step in mother to my husband's children, they have one.

Totally fine to think or feel whatever you like! The time to be cautious is how and to whom you express these feelings.

Look it's quite acceptable to not even particularly enjoying sharing a home with one's own children (when they're older), of course it must be challenging with the steps.

@SpongebobNoPants

Thanks for explaining further! It's really interesting to me, because I've never seen such an arrangement openly discussed. But it sounds like you've reasoned it out very thoroughly.

[quote Beautifulday345]**@aSofaNearYou* well sorry but marrying a man with young children it is exactly what you become. The more threads I read the more I understand people who do not date people with children already, so many children mixed up in these messes. Can completely see why @Marmitemarinaded* would chose to wait until her children are older, it makes so much more sense.[/quote]
One of my DSC stayed with us until they were 30. I felt it was necessary on mental health grounds. But it was the hardest job I've ever done, and that includes running my own business.

Well sorry but marrying a man with young children it is exactly what you become

I completely and wholly disagree with this statement. In its absolute entirety.

If I marry someone, I become a wife. That’s it. Anyone who marries me becomes my husband. The only people I am any form of ‘mum’ to is my own children. In the same vein that the only ‘dad’ to them is my exh. If something happened to me, I have every faith that my exh would step up and become a FT parent. And he is more than capable of doing that alone. If anything happened to him, then family/ siblings are named as guardians. I never forsee a situation where my children’s guardian would be my partner/ husband. And I would have zero intention of doing the same for my partner. If something (god forbid) was to happen to him / his exw, then there is a myriad of family members much better positioned to step up and ‘parent’ these children.

@SpaceshiptoMars they were lucky to have you

@sassbott literally never said any of that. But if you marry a man with young children you should really be prepared to accept all that comes along with that, including the possibility of those children living with their father. I can completely sympathise with those who can’t accept this but surely the adult and least selfish thing to do would be to stay as their partner and have your own lives in the first place. Surely that makes sense no?

[quote Beautifulday345]@sassbott literally never said any of that. But if you marry a man with young children you should really be prepared to accept all that comes along with that, including the possibility of those children living with their father. I can completely sympathise with those who can’t accept this but surely the adult and least selfish thing to do would be to stay as their partner and have your own lives in the first place. Surely that makes sense no?[/quote]
I do consider it. In the same way that I consider him going on to have a affair, or move in permanently with his parents, or change in ways that would make me irrevocably unhappy. All things that might spell the end of our marriage, but that I deem to be equally unlikely.