It would ruin my relationship if my step children ever lived with us

[PickledOnionsOnToast]

I just had to say that.

Does anyone else feel that way?

I don't think about it often but when I do I genuinely can't envisage ever wanting to stay in my marriage if my step children had to come and live with us full time.

I could honestly not be doing with being "mum" to both my DC and my SC and all that entails and I doubt very much I would ever be happy with the situation.

When did family stop being an obligation? And just because legally we can leave any relationship for any reason doesn't mean that's the right thing to do. OP says she doesn't have an interest or desire to take on SDC. But it's not like all mums are mums because they have an interest and desire to be, it's because they have to be. Finding parenthood interesting and desirable is a bonus, not a minimum requirement. And if you were prepared to be a full time step parent when you got married then I believe you should be expected to do the same after you have your own DC. Even if it no longer interests you.

I am not yet a step-mum, but one in the making as my partner and I plan to live together and are slowly blending our families. I can only envisage a tragic or traumatic situation leading to him having full custody (it’s 50:50 now) but I would 100% not leave the relationship if he did.

As you say, you’re not a step mum and haven’t lived with a child who’s not your own.

Teaching isn’t in the same universe as being a live in step mum.

But she would put him in the position of choosing .

Absolutely she has the right to leave and take her DCS and she can - but the answer to him saving his marriage is to not have his other 2DCs.
What does that do to someones mind when trying to do the best for all.

I do not see the situation is simple - it is impossible and there are no winners.

BeyondReef : I don't fail to grasp anything the situation is difficult for everyone involved - I have not vilified anyone but would feel incredibly sorry for all concerned. Rather than be so condescending - try to see something from anything but the mothers point of view. In this case, the impossible decision is being left to the father of 4 children. He effectively does choose between two set whatever he does.

@bubbleblower85

If you now say all cultures believe children are blessings then why the need to be snarky about my cultural background?

And no, just because I don't have your negative attitude towards step children and blended families doesn't mean I don't know what I am talking about.
Your blended family might have not have worked but that doesn't apply to all. It's narrow minded to think your experience is the only experience there is, and thinking any one who isn't negative about step children and blended family is smug says a lot about you.

And you are doing quite a bit of smug moralising yourself.

I wasn’t snarky about your cultural background. I was snarky about your attitude.

And actually, there is a substantial body of research that shows that step families are much much more complex than you are making out.

You are still moralising. I hope you never find yourself in a shit situation where everyone expects you to martyr yourself entirely and still tells you you are ‘morally wrong’ for not being happy. Because that’s basically what you’d be doing to any poor woman who finds herself in the situation the OP describes (and has realized she couldn’t live with).

Oh well… it depends on the dad, the children and the ex.

My first partner after divorce has 2 amazing kids that got along with DS as a house on fire, their mum was also lovely but I think we had that bliss because our parenting styles were very similar and the kids had grown up with similar rules and expectations to mine, so we blended so well that even after so many years I melt when I see them and they still make a big fuss about us. Sadly their dad was very a very jealous person so that was not going to be.

Current ones… partner has a lovely heart but is the worst Disney dad I have ever seen, as a result his kids are entitled, snobbery, ungrateful and occasionally violent (they are teens) and the mum goes out of her way to sabotage our plans if I am present so… I have made the situation much better for everyone by reducing my contact with the kids to an absolute minimum:
1)DS doesn’t get to be treated as irrelevant every time his kids are around.
2) The mum’s dramas and tantrums are now relatively infrequent and most importantly,
3) The kids have their dad totally to themselves during contact.
3) DP has the chance to fully focus on bonding with his children and take care of them as a responsible parent should do, rather than expecting me to plan days out, organise holidays, cook for them and entertain them, while he does fuck all, just to have the kids throwing everything back at my face.

So win win.

BeyondReef : I don't fail to grasp anything the situation is difficult for everyone involved - I have not vilified anyone but would feel incredibly sorry for all concerned. Rather than be so condescending - try to see something from anything but the mothers point of view. In this case, the impossible decision is being left to the father of 4 children. He effectively does choose between two set whatever he does.

I can see that it would be hard for the father to learn that the situation is intolerable and his wife can no longer live with him.

He objectively doesn’t have an impossible decision because his wife is not asking him to choose. She’s choosing for herself. He’s not being asked about living with the children from his first relationship. He will continue to live FT with them. She’s making her decisions based on that as the default.

So what he has is a new situation where he has some children FT and will work out a contact arrangement for the other children. It’s a sad situation and one he probably wouldn’t like. But there’s no ‘impossible choice’ for him.

I have quite clearly not just thought about it from the (step)mother’s perspective. I’ve thought about it from the children of her marriage to her husband too. There is a very real possibility that being positioned by the entire world as ‘the children who should just be grateful they still have a mother’ might well be utterly awful for them. It may well be in their best interests for them not to have to live in that situation all the time.

So many people just want to focus on the (theoretically) bereaved children and their father and don’t really appreciate that it may well be an atrocious situation for all of them. This OP merely realises that she’d almost certainly find it intolerable and have to leave.

The responses all about her duty and responsibility and the guilt tripping over her simply acknowledging that this would be a change she couldn’t live with indicated exactly why the actual experience might be truly horrific for her.

My DSDs live with us. I love them to bits, but yes, it's really hard.

The girls are here as a result of abuse, they didn't choose to be here. Dealing with residual trauma makes the situation hard already (any child making a big move from one parent to another is doing so for a reason, none of which are likely to be a walk in the park) but when you then have to unpick and rebuild rules, boundaries and general lifestyles, it's a pissing nightmare - for EVERYONE.

I won't be leaving my DH, or the girls. We're in it together, muddling through. But I can 100% see how it could make you feel like that. It's bloody hard, and overwhelming at times.

Teaching isn’t in the same universe as being a live in step mum.

This is true. I'm also a teacher and before having the kids live with us full time I thought my background as a teacher meant I understood what it was like to look after someone else's children and genuinely care for them. It is so so different! People comment on step-parenting threads all the time when they aren't step - parents, and they really don't have a clue what it entails.

But clue enough to know they’d never want to sign up for it in the first place.

Do your children not live with your dp so therefore stepfather
So you think its ok for your partner yo live with his step children but not for you ?

Completely understandable. Some situations are untenable.

My two sdds came to live permanently after finishing uni. After two years of daily spite, verbal attacks and misery, me and ds left.

At least you are honest with yourself from the start.

Oh sorry just read there your shAred dc
Still i find it strange as theres always a chance sdc could end up living with their dad so something to bear in mind

@Donutday but you know the stepchildren are there when you enter the relationship, its not a surprise

@Tiredtiredtired100 I am a teacher, mum and step-mum. I sorry but you have no idea. I put energy into children that aren't mine, as do you, but they'll never come before my own. Neither will my step child.
And teaching other people's children is nothing like having them in your home. Please don't compare a job to changing your whole lifestyle.

OP agreed, our marriage would end I think. Its not something I thought about but have recently.

The problem is with step parenting I knew there would be bumps challenges ect things I never expected was

1. To have to give away family dog due to SD hurting the dog and the dog not being safe from attacks (the incident witnessed by her mum who informed everyone else - we have family gatherings and yes that includes mum.)

1. People in entire family to know SD was nonneotypical on some level and kept as dark family secret because any suggestion other wise DM would blow up . Later to find out that it was DM was so adverse to getting DSC help because she "didn't want DSD labelled as a nutter" - like being non nerotypical = nutter 🤯. Which btw she's not and before anyone jumps me - she's in therapy and under specialist care because of me pushing and having arguments with DM and she's kinda come around

1. Bed wetting age 13 would still be a thing and DSD is completely unfazed by it.

1. People making nasty assumptions on my intentions with DSD before they have even seen us together or know anything about us.

1. To see dad guilt come out in weird and wonderful ways because he didn't fight for point 1. And now sees how damaging it was for her and that he should fought harder.

None of these issues I could have foreseen. If any of you mystic megs out there would like to give me lottery ticket numbers that would be grand.

None of these issues I could have foreseen. If any of you mystic megs out there would like to give me lottery ticket numbers that would be grand.

People who have never tried step-parenting have no idea of the multi-faceted issues you end up dealing with. Try reading through the posts on this forum and imagining if it were you having to cope with this kind of criticism, day in, day out, in real life.

When parents split, the way they parent their children can change, even without the introduction of new partners. Without two hands to the pump, standards can slip and indulgences be made out of both guilt and exhaustion. As the years go by, those children can turn into mini-mates and mini-wives.

A few years on, now add a new partner to the mix. The new partner is not only the family outsider from the start, but the children have become used to all sorts of allowances and excuses being made for any bad behaviour. They are also used to constantly being granted adult privileges. Well, maybe if you are a teacher, you get to bring classroom discipline with you for both those kids and your new partner - or maybe not!

Unless the parent is prepared to make significant adjustments to that parenting style, living together as a blended family is going to be utter misery for any new partner. Many of the problems on this forum come about because the parent and their wider family are not prepared to adapt, and expect to simply bolt an additional person onto their existing family as if they were a spare part for the washing machine.

And this IMO is why stepmothers often have such a bad reputation compared to stepfathers.

if someone posted here that their DH said he would leave if her kids lived with them full-time the resounding response would be to LTB. In fact most kids do spend more time living with the mother than the father, and incoming partners are expected to accept that and rightly so.

But a woman posts that if the man’s children came to live with them full time and it would end her marriage and she is met with a chorus of “that’s completely understandable/yes it would end my marriage as well,” etc.

When you marry a person with children you do so in the knowledge that they are their full-time children. Not just when it suits you. Yes most children have a relationship with their other parent or in fact spend more time living with their other parent, but the fact is, they are full-time children to your partner, and as such they have every right to come and live there full time if they wished to do so.

If you can’t handle that, then you shouldn’t marry a person with children.

Not everyone wants to be in a relationship with someone with kids, I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t judge someone who didn’t want to be with me because I have DC, but if you choose to be with someone with kids you can’t then start to put stipulations on when that person should and shouldn’t have kids.

If you can’t handle that, then you shouldn’t marry a person with children.

You shouldn't have kids these days if you can't happily accept that their Dad may well leave you, and then your kids will be raised by a succession of his girlfriends.

See? How does that sound? Judgy enough for you?

If you can’t handle that, then you shouldn’t marry a person with children.

What many if the handwringers on here fail to understand is that things often change after you get married (or have a baby). Those two events can bring out the Disney dad in someone who was fine before. They can also bring out the male entitlement in ways you didn’t anticipate. Often both together.

The ex might have been fine when you were ‘just the girlfriend’ but become a nightmare when you become his wife and/or a mother to his children too (children that aren’t hers).

You don’t know this in advance. And it’s a horrible change that can make your life miserable.

Sure the SC are always his children but a situation where they come to live with you FT is likely to be in the category of things that trigger further deterioration in your well-being. It’s bad enough being blamed and scapegoated for not simply being grateful that your stepchildren are in your life (even if they’re hurting your baby and stealing his stuff). It would be much worse if that were reinforced with a whole ‘poor motherless children’ narrative.

And plenty of stepdads do really prefer it when their SC go to their dads. They’re just not posting on MN.

if someone posted here that their DH said he would leave if her kids lived with them full-time the resounding response would be to LTB. In fact most kids do spend more time living with the mother than the father, and incoming partners are expected to accept that and rightly so.

I think this is just because MN tends to be more understanding of women than men in general. It's the same on most subjects, a woman posts she's understandable, a man posts he's just wrong no matter what.

I don't actually think anyone is wrong, man or woman, to have their own personal feelings and limits regarding a situation.

I would never say to my husband "if your children live here I'll leave". It would be an evolving situation likely that would lead, I imagine, to me no longer being happy in the relationship. That isn't the same as saying "it's me or them" as lots of poster's have made out, it's never something I'd say.

Funny that lots of PPs think people should be obliged to remain in a relationship that no longer makes them happy though, you don't see much of that on the relationship board.

As PP said, after having my DC I do realise that it's not a role I could play for SC as well 100% of the time, not happily anyway.

And teaching is really nothing like having to take on a full time parental role of children who aren't your own, in your home, every day.

In a teaching role you have some authority to discipline a child. A step mother or dad for that matter has absolutely 0 right to do this.

As highlighted by this board. Repeatedly.

Comparing apples to mangos again because they are both fruit.

Also give over, with this you married him so you must have been able to see the future and except every bad thing that happens and have zero feelings on it.

Being a mum is hard (your allowed to say that) saying being a step mum is hard is like your murdering kittens. And now apparently if you leave your also evil.

Funny how all routes point to the evil step mother route 🧐 it's a boring narrative tbh.

In a teaching role you have some authority to discipline a child. A step mother or dad for that matter has absolutely 0 right to do this.

As highlighted by this board. Repeatedly.

Comparing apples to mangos again because they are both fruit.

Also give over, with this you married him so you must have been able to see the future and except every bad thing that happens and have zero feelings on it.

Being a mum is hard (your allowed to say that) saying being a step mum is hard is like your murdering kittens. And now apparently if you leave your also evil.

Funny how all routes point to the evil step mother route 🧐 it's a boring narrative tbh.