Sensible definitions of 'stepmother'

[SpaceshiptoMars]

Wanting to detach this from the other thread!

So - legally, emotionally, practically, financially.

I'm a childless SM, married to widowed DH with adult children. The younger ones I helped take from dependency (special needs) to almost fully fledged - bar the occasional wobble. The older ones were long gone before my time, and live totally independently and at significant distance.

If I make a will, anything I leave to any of these DSC is free of IHT (within total allowance). Anything I leave to any living blood relatives is not. So that is a very bloodless, shall we say, definition.

None of the DSC would actually refer to me as SM - simply by name alone, or possibly HER

So when (or even if) did I become a stepmother? When their Dad put his family ring on my finger? When they moved in and lived on my cooking etc? When I took active steps to get them into careers? When I became Dad's wife?

And, million dollar question, where does that leave me with the older ones? (The question I wish I'd thought a bit more about from the start...)

@FrDamo well you know who not to leave anything in your will to.

You can also stop wasting your current time and resources on them plus any of their children as they clearly don't appreciate it.

I know someone who is like that in rl. Luckily most people I know aren't that horrible to a person who helped bring them up and still have a relationship with them, even when the person is now their parents ex whether they were married or not.

Technically it’s when you married their dad

But my dad remarried a woman not much older than me when I was an adult who had left home and had children of my own.

Legally she is my stepmother but I consider her my dad’s wife as she was never (and never will be) a mother to me and was not involved in raising me.

Op, in terms of inheritance, you are under no obligation to leave anything to anyone if you don't want to.
I'm not sure if that's the point of the post, but if there are dcs or step dcs who treat you well and some that don't, leave bequests only where and if YOU feel like it. Leave it all to the car's home if that is your instinct.

Apart from husband and wife (or partners) I don’t think any adult had any obligation to any other adult.