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Step-parenting

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Original poster

SD living with us and I can’t cope.

303 replies

User38271438373 · 12/09/2022 10:38

I have been with DP for 8 years. SD (9) came to live with us 6 months ago. I have 3 DC from previous marriage and we have 2 DC together.

Life was fairly stressful before SD came to live with with us but it now feels unbearable and like the straw that broke the camels back. I like and care about SD, she’s a pleasant and fairly well behaved child. The dynamic of the household has changed though and things are now much more full on.

I’m a SAHM so collect SD DC from
school and look after them until DP gets home at 6. DP does morning school run so realistically I’m only looking after her alone for two hours a day.

I’ve DP says I’m being ridiculous (and a big part of me feels like I am too) and that he’s lived with my DC for years. I just can’t cope with an extra child in the house and it’s making me miserable. DP has been more stressed and we now argue a lot more.

is separating the only solution? I feel like a horrible person and a failure and wish I could just get on with it.

OP posts:
SudocremOnEverything · 14/09/2022 08:37

Beinggood2 · 14/09/2022 08:23

👏🏼

Show quote history

applauding a pull yourself together post? 🙄

He hasn’t been looking after the OP’s children. Not in any meaningful sense. It seems that, for men, just being present in the house (when not working) counts as a heroic act of parenting for which women should be grateful.

He hasn’t been looking after his eldest child for most of this time because she’s lived far away. Maybe he needed to make big changes to his lifestyle when she came to live with him so that he could support her, rather than expecting his partner to just pick up the slack.

Maybe he should step up and shoulder a fair share of the child rearing work. Before he ‘ruins his relationship’.

bringincrazyback · 14/09/2022 09:39

allboysherebutme · 13/09/2022 23:25

It will settle down in a bit, the more you make of it, the worse it will feel, also you are being very selfish he'd lived with and no doubt looked after your three children for eight years and your moaning after six months and you said yourself she's a good girl.
Pull yourself together and stop being silly before you ruin your relationship. X

Silly? Have you ever had to live under the kind of pressures the OP has described? In fact, have you even bothered to read the OP's posts properly? Because it doesn't sound like it.

Also, how much worrying about 'ruining his relationship' do you think the OP's partner doing? Absolutely none, I'd wager. He seems perfectly happy for the OP to carry the full load/stress with far too little help from him.

pitchforksandflamethrowers · 14/09/2022 10:37

Christ on a bike. It's mum shaming dashed with a little pull yourself together.

Don't worry about your mental well-being, just smile and wake up and poof your depression will vanish.

✨Look everyone we have found the cure to depression ✨

So simple how did we not know this. 🙄🙄

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