To those SPs on their knees. I quit step parenting a year ago and it’s bliss!

[IQuitStepParentingandILikedIt]

I know my pov is quite rare so I wanted to share about the most peaceful year of my adult life.

DSD and her abusive mother made my life hell continuously in large and small ways. I was ready to leave DH last Christmas due to the unhappiness I felt trapped within.

Instead, I told DSD (17) and her mother that neither were to come into my home again. Ever.

There was the predictable slew of abuse etc but nothing they weren’t returning my decade’s worth of kindness with anyway, so I took it on the chin and blocked them on all platforms.

In this one year, my mental space has opened up so much room for creative pursuits, friendships, lovely outings and holidays with DH and our DD. No drama, no abuse just peace and safety.

I’ve just had the most calm, warm and beautiful Christmas ever and I don’t regret my decision one bit.

As women, we are held to saintly standards and expected to love another man’s children, carry a huge burden of domestic labour and mental load to meet their needs. We’re expected to allow step children to get away with overstepping our own boundaries and often feel like strangers in our own homes. Weekends interfered with, plans changed, no thanks from anyone ever despite the enormous sacrifices.

Best decision I’ve ever made.

Sad it had to be this way but DSD and her mother wouldn’t even meet me half way so I was out. And it’s bliss.

Congratulations on your peace

I'm finding most of the responses on this thread baffling.

Why is it so bad that the DSD's contact hours take place at her DM's house? Surely this is better for DSD too rather than splitting her time between 2 houses and having to share one of those homes with a SM & half sister?

DSD probably prefers this and it's fairer on the younger sibling too who now doesn't have to witness dysfunction.

Because it doesn't fit with the step parent script, which says once you become a step parent you have no rights only responsibilities. Forget any logic or critical thinking, just go with hyperbole and wild assumptions then you'll get closer to understanding the thinking.

the dsd gets dad to herself, quality time but that still ain't right - bizarre

step mum gets quality time one on one with dc of their own

the mum has a boyfriend to visit - which makes this situation work with a solution

”As women, we are held to saintly standards and expected to love another man’s children, carry a huge burden of domestic labour and mental load to meet their needs. We’re expected to allow step children to get away with overstepping our own boundaries and often feel like strangers in our own homes. Weekends interfered with, plans changed, no thanks from anyone ever despite the enormous sacrifices.”

This is soooo painfully true!!!

I laugh at people telling op to leave her dh so he can be a parent to his older child, op is not stopping him she has stopped his 17 year old not a child by any means from coming in to the house, if she leaves her dp and he gets 50/50 of there child who will then protect her dd from his older dd, the 17 year old is accountable for her own actions no matter what went on in her childhood, well done op its your home to.

The stress caused by pushed boundaries in your home and life is not to underestimated . You are a woman in your own right and deserve to be respected . Sometimes in life people will continue to treat us like crap unless we put our boundaries up ourselves . We are not the other parent , they have those already

blame shifting onto the step parent at its best right here.

But if you’re happy with that, you do you I guess.

that was the point of the thread, OP is now far happier and instead of being on the verge of splitting with her dh, they’ve stayed together.

I am not talking for everyone who has criticised the DH but I’m not sure why it is such a win and why she is standing by DH who doesn’t seem to have done much parenting or getting help for DD if she has ended up behaving like she has due to an abusive mother.

How heartbreaking that after 25 years of marriage, you are walking away.

However, my experience of parenting my DH’s children from his previous marriage is completely different.

The birth mother left to be with her lover, who was also married and who decided he didn’t want to leave his wife and family. My DH was left with 2 children and we met roughly 4 months after the split, and were friends for about 6 months, before things progressed to dating etc.

BM was absolutely vile and evil and quite disinterested in her DC unless it was to try very much to cause problems between myself and the DC or myself and my DH. She was also extremely racist.

I have never once, in over 30 years, introduced those now adults, as my stepchildren. My family have accepted them as my own DC. I love them just as I love my natural DC, just as I would love a child that I adopted, or had to use someone else’s eggs, or any other scenario. It’s a different love, but it’s love.

We have had ups and downs and some of the downs have been so bad that I never thought I would make my way through them to be able to ever have another up. But even through the most trying times, when I wanted to scream with frustration, I would go for a walk, or sit in the garden, or just remove myself in some way and take stock.

But I never quit.

Because through the racist abuse, the tantrums and the vitriol, there were vulnerable little children who needed understanding and support. Who had their whole life turned upside down. Whose mother had left, without even a goodbye.

I am not perfect. My DH is not perfect. But we are both determined and stubborn and we both wanted to be the best parents that we could to those children. I didn’t want to stepparent them, I wanted to help my DH to raise them and parent them.

When I committed to my DH, I committed to his children. His exwife was a nightmare but now the kids are grown, we have time and distance from her. Plus, they see for themselves what she’s like, and how manipulative she is.

So for some people, stepparenting doesn’t work. For others it does.

But a very close relative told me that if you love someone, then you had to love their children too, and to consider those children as not part of your family or as interlopers in the relationship, would slowly destroy the marriage.

I think being open minded about the DC, and the relationship that I could have with them, plus being genuinely interested them, really helped, and I think them being primary age did as well. Plus they lived full-time with us.

So now we are grandparents and we have had more children and they’ve all been treated the same. And I’m so grateful that I had sound advice from the beginning and started as I meant to continue.

Oh OP I salute you and wish you every happiness!

As stepmums, society expects us to sacrifice our physical health, mental health, financial security, boundaries, and the wellbeing of our own children because “you knew he had kids”, and if we dare utter a word of complaint then we are turned into the villain, the wicked step mum. Its interesting that step-fathers aren’t treated the same way, in fact when my husband told his friends he couldn’t go out one evening because I was working a late shift and he was looking after my son, he was met with “well why are you looking after someone else’s kid?!”. Even as a mum, I am allowed to say that sometimes parenting sucks, that my son’s attitude is driving me up the wall, but I am also allowed to correct behaviours that i feel are unacceptable - another thing I am not allowed to do (in the eyes of society) as a step mum. I can pick up after them, drive them around, cook for them, clean for them, buy and wash their clothes, help with homework, contribute financially, but I am not supposed to have an opinion on their behaviour 🙄 and if they turn abusive or their mum and her family turns abusive then I have to just stand there and take it.

Ignore all the posters bashing you simply because you are a stepmum who has decided to no longer lie down and let SD and her mum walk over you and abuse you, they have no idea how difficult it can be to always be the bad guy in everyone’s eyes.

Wishing you a future of happiness and peaceful Christmases!

Did you read the sentence that went:

So for some people, stepparenting doesn’t work. For others it does.

I thought that made their stance perfectly clear! They acknowledged that it sometimes doesn’t work!

Edited because I was too busy watching television instead of what I was typing!

Yes, I see what you mean! Well, families come in all shapes and sizes and I think each situation is unique. It can’t all be The Waltons and Brady Bunch, as that’s not real life. And life is too short to be unhappy.

Well done OP and lovely to hear that you're happier.

As some on here know, my SD colossally and monumentally cyberbullied me after her dad tried to pull her behaviour into line. When I backed him she went mental on twat-tok at me, he also had the accusation that he'd chosen me over her. NO, she was being a brat and putting our home security at risk because she wanted more likes on "the gram". Apparently I wasn't allowed an opinion on that according to her even though I own our home.

He asked her to apologise to me, she refused so here we are 2 years on having had a lovely family Christmas where she wasn't invited.

She's 23 now, a law unto herself after years of her mum saying "don't listen to your dad" and grandma doing an awesome job of alienating her own son's child (work out that psychology if you can) DH is a good man and DSS thinks I'm a marvellous step mum.

There is no reason whatsoever why step mums deserve any less respect or comfort in a family setup than anybody else. Yet the minute they speak up for themselves it's obvious on here that the first wives club throw all their armoury at them.

Bravo OP, bravo from a fellow adult fallout stepmum

You keep saying this. I have to do this, I have to do that. You don't have to. You can walk away from this family at any time. You never had to join it in the first place. All you had to do was look at this potential love interest, meet his kids, decide "nope" and be done with it. Even now you can just walk away.

The kids had no choice. No choice in their family breaking up, no choice in you joining it, no choice in how much or how little you were allowed to parent them, or how involved you'd be, no choice in how well their parents coparented. No choice. None.

So why is it the grown adults making choices we're supposed to feel sorry for again?

Sorry @Chocolatebuttonns , that was supposed to be @Feralgremlin

@herewegoroundthebastardbush I mean context is important.

I'm a adult sk and the damage my parents divorce was their responsibility to fix.

The fact people can't grasp that actually a step parent does not have to live as some sub human that doesn't deserve politeness and to be treated as a human being in their own right is because people assign blame and accountability not on the parents who caused the damage, but on a step parent for existing.

I certainly didn't give a fiddle about having a sm and a sd, and that's because my parents kept adult matters to the adults and possibly because I could differentiate between fairytales and real life.

Some thing people seem to struggle to do.

Thanks for acknowledging that. I find it so frustrating how readily people apportion blame for trauma to children caused by blended families on step parents but totally fail to acknowledge that the parents are responsible for bringing children into the world in incompatible relationships, the subsequent divorce/separation and re-partnering.

So why is it the grown adults making choices we're supposed to feel sorry for again?

In these situations I very very very very rarely feel sorry for the child’s actual parents. Even for stepdads my sympathy is limited because they very rarely have to put up with things like a lazy wife or the stepchildren’s father making cheeky demands of his time on his days. Stepmums a lot of the time have the whole bag to deal with so yes I do feel sorry for them most of the time.

It's because OP can't emphasise with how the 17 year old step daughter and her husband feels.

If they were to break up, how would the OP feel about having a future partner who despised their child? Who then banned their child from their jointly owned house?

That's the situation the OP's husband is in and it affects how you feel about your partner. This is an undeniable truth.

Ask yourself, could you love someone who hates your child?

Ask yourself, could you love someone who hates your child?

So what happens if the person hating your child is the 17 year old SC as in OP's case?

It seems a lot of posters seem to have not grasped the fact that this 17year old is causing suffering to a younger child. Ask yourself would you want someone doing that to your child, in your home?