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.

At least you'll be prepared when your husband abandons your daughter for wife #3.

Men who get together with single mothers generally piggy back on to the domestic set up of the woman and become another child to add to her list. She’ll be carrying the mental load for her kids so what’s one more meal to cook, life to organise? After all, they’re her kids and the systems are usually in place.

Step fathers get to be the extremely hands off cool adult.

Step mothers on the other hand are expected to sacrifice weekends, their own money, emotional labour, holidays, peace for children who often don’t behave and whose mothers do everything they can to make her life difficult.

It’s a bum deal and the sooner step mothers can start pushing back against these weighty, life force draining ridiculous expectations, the better.

But @LardyCakeAgain but if the issue of a teenage DSC is behaviour and moods then a stepfather of a teenager where the NRP only has EOW or indeed less as contact becomes less formal, will cop that behaviour more than the stepmum

lol!

Ffs.
Why should Op put up with abuse in her own home? Maybe dsd and tue ex will learn some repsect. Maybe they won't but she should feel safe in her own home.

I remember your original thread, andci salute you. Happy Christmas!🎄

No I’m right - it’s a busted family and a sad situation.

I am also right that your DP’s home is your DSD’s home - making your child feel at home in both their parent’s homes is post divorce parenting 101.

You may well have reached the end of your tether for good reasons, but this is a poor outcome and your DH shouldn’t have gone along with it.

You say he feels endlessly bad about it, which will place great strain on your marriage and your daughter’s future security.

From your description I can see it’s toxic either way, but there is little to celebrate here.

Wondering how you 'welcomed' the DSD and what the circumstances were of the break up with her mum. I get the feeling you were not entirely honourable in this mess. I hope your DH doesn't dump your child in the same way.

If this was an joint older teenager of the family not a DSD what would you do?

Honourable shmonarable.
You are not the target audience m’dear.

The point is. Don’t take it ladies. Life’s short and it’s yours to protect. Don’t waste one more millisecond on anyone who disrespects you.

She wouldn’t have turned out this way if she was mine and if she so much as started behaving as she did, I’d have nipped it in the bud the first time, not allowed her to become an actual danger to those around her by literally never giving consequences for her actions.

But surely as DH is a parent he should have nipped it in the bud, you are targeting the wrong person.

He should have, you are right. But for reasons stated earlier in the thread, he didn’t.
So here we are.

And you don't think the DSD's broken home and living with her apparently abusive mother might have had something to do with her "going off the rails"?

Presumably your DH had the DSC when you met him? Was everything sweetness and light up to and until you married and procreated with him? Or did you perhaps have some warning you were not going to like having these kids of your partner's in your life, and maybe... Remove yourself, rather than "fuck those kids, this is the man I want, I'll get them out of the way somehow."

It's a bit like those people who say schools could be so wonderful if there just weren't any children... The OP's DH, and yours, is the father of those children. They are part of him, he is part of them. They didn't just fall into his life like cuckoos, he had a major role in making them the way they are by what he did or didn't do. You can't divorce the man from the father, and you can't just dismiss his first kids as practice runs, "first pancakes" to be unceremoniously binned so he can now parent your DC.

Well you can. OP and her selfish husband have. But it's inhumane.

So neither your DH or DC have a relationship with DSD as she no longer wants to see DH? Well that’s a bit rubbish!

I don’t see anything wrong with saying that she can’t visit your house. There’s only so much disrespect one can take

Simplest way to avoid all this? Don't get together with a man who already has kids. There are plenty of them about!

Ban her teenaged daughter from the house, obviously. I mean that's what her DH has done so obviously it's acceptable. As long as she has an abusive relative she can live with instead all's Jake as far as these two selfish people are concerned.

YoU go Girl!!1!

🙄

How charming….
You might reap what you sow…..

I think you’re being unreasonable. He did choose you - he could have broken up with you so that his DD could still stay in his home. You made him choose you and your child, when you chose to have a child with a man with an existing kid in the first place.

So you've chosen to have a child with a deadbeat dad?
And youve made it hard for him to see his own child he abandoned for you, you're sure winning at life

Well done OP.
I'm getting on a bit - so many changes happen over the years. I would guess that once the DSD is away from her DM living her own life with her own family she might decide she want more time with (and possibly money from ) her DF. And things move on, nothing's set in stone.