Blended family - how does it work?

[Sera9]

Hi
I’m a newly married step-mum but have known my step-kids for 3 years and I also have my own child.
My ‘vision’ for our blended family is that my husband and I will be a united set of parents to all the children ( respective ex’s have new spouses and will also be parents). By united, I mean that we talk to and about the kids together and see them together and help them together, make family decisions together - like parents would. The other sets of respective parents would also do that and if we all needed to communicate about the kids for their wellbeing and development or arrangements we’d call or text and speak as a group.
My husband has other ideas. He likes to talk to, message and see his kids without me. He talks with his ex wife and makes arrangements about seeing the kids or their needs without me. She thinks nothing of late night calling and calling and calling or messaging whenever ( honestly about nothing - I’ve lost my driving licence, my sinks blocked, I’m buying the boys football boots and don’t know where to get them from - she is married!!) Weekends are booked up 6 months in advance with either his youngest coming to stay or him going to watch football ( every weekend). I have missed out on many occasions of a Saturday night show or concert because he has always made his own arrangements a priority. No exaggeration- I get to the weekend after working 60 hours and feel like there is no relationship time or downtime literally ever. I’ve spoken to my husband so many times about this and I’m even seeing a counsellor because I’m just very down in general. He just threatens the divorce word. He also drinks heavily. Anytime I say that my counsellor has suggested something for him to change too ( like setting boundaries with his ex or changing how he communicates solely with the kids without me)- he shouts me down and threatens divorce.
Now I understand that I am not a legal parent to any child but mine but I feel like I share my parenting and my child with him but he doesn’t reciprocate. It’s like he lives a double life sometimes.
we never see the older kids of his (age16), maybe they come over twice a year but he sees them in his ex wife’s house for an hour every fortnight when dropping the youngest off and messages and calls them whenever he likes. I never see them or bond with them because of this. My thinking is that if anything happened to my husband ( he is older), I’d never see the kids ( or maybe I would once I’m an old lady and they want some inheritance). It just seems wrong to me.
my 16 year old sees his dad every other weekend because he thinks it’s important to see both parents - despite his dad doing him wrong in the past.
To get to the point I feel really left out. I feel like I don’t have a family or a husband who wants to create that family with me.
I’m doing more harm than good trying to ‘get through’ to him. I’m vulnerable and desperately want a family unit, I have past trauma of rejection and abandonment and this whole situation is just dragging up lots of triggers. I just feel too weak to leave and very scared of being on my own and feeling like I’m an unwanted failure.

I'm so sorry, OP.

You must have known that he was like this before the wedding, though? Sorry, that isn't helpful but I don't understand why you married him.

It’s not a failure to accept reality rather than wasting your life hoping for a fantasy. Honestly I’m staggered you married him but you can make a better decision now and divorce him. Don’t wait for him to threaten it again, just see a lawyer and find out where you stand, you probably have to wait till you’ve been married a year to file, you used to.

He’s not going to change. His ex isn’t going to change. He’ll carry on drinking, ignoring your wishes, excluding you, threatening you.

You’ll feel so much less lonely when you’re not praying for scraps while he does what he likes with no thought to you.

Please find your resolve and leave him. I promise you can do it.

Your vision of a family unit is more appropriate for a situation where there are no other parents in the picture.

don’t let him keep dangling divorce as a possibility to keep you quiet. You aren’t happy. He drinks. You share no children. End this relationship before you accidentally get pregnant and end up tied to him for a lifetime.

He also drinks heavily.

I could have stopped reading there.

You absolutely cannot raise your child in this environment.

Yes I know 😔
A functioning alcoholic is how I’d describe him. Not a day drinker or violent or incapable of holding down a good career but drinks far far too many units, which I don’t want to be around to pick up the health consequences of later on - not meaning to sound selfish but I’m tired of worrying about the health consequences for him. It’s been like that for decades not recently, I see that now and understand why he was divorced.

You are obviously looking for a perfect family unit which I assume you didn’t have with your ex and you are not going to have it with your current husband.

You should probably do the Freedom programme so can break the cycle.

This relationship is not good for you or your DC

This is the same advice my dad gave me- you are right. It’s so hurtful when you still love someone but know that it cannot work out. You wish they’d want the same things as you, he was full of love for me before marriage and couldn’t please me enough. Now, if I ask him to drink less than 20 units a night, I’m controlling . If I ask for him to create a real blended family with me and put me above his ex wife in the priority order, I’m fit for divorce. He tells me I’m messed up, I’m wrong, I’m crazy. Guess I’m just looking for reassurance that I’m not any of those things and that my thinking is not messed up about this issue.
Having never been in a blended family situation before as a spouse, I’m unsure if I’m expecting too much or being unreasonable.
I’ve said other women wouldn’t put up with this situation and he thinks I’m wrong. I’m sure others wouldn’t.

@Sera9 why did you marry this man? He sounds like a prick!

You know what you need to do, op. Don't waste any more time.

We never lived together before marriage - stupid maybe but we’d spend half the week together at least - for a couple of years. I think the drinking was sociable and fun at first and I didn’t realise it was a daily habit. He’d not necessarily drink at mine during the week, as I didn’t.
Yes there were issues with his ex back then - she started inviting my soon to be mother in law and the family to hers on many occasions- much to her new husband’s displeasure. Spiteful acts really but I thought they’d all change and accept me once married or at least a year after marriage let’s say. You are spot on that there were signs - I ignored them and thought it would all be fine and that after marriage he’d see me as his wife, love, priority and future and he’d work with me to build our family and future together. Stupid, naive me.

I’ve been told by him so many times that other women would be fine with his behaviour. That I’m deluded for thinking my way. I’ve told him he’s gaslighting me. He doesn’t know what that is apparently.
Older women at my work have said I need to be tougher on him.

so am I right that other women wouldn’t put up with this - even if they were over 40 like me? I’m not great at being tough - my tough is quite soft I guess.

I wouldn't put up with that, and I'm over 40. What does age have to do with it? You aren't happy and he won't change, end of conversation.

As your husband, he needs to prioritise you over his ex-wife. To value you and want to spend time with you. To work as a team and make decisions together. If not, why did he marry you, sex, free house keeper & childcare?

Having said that, I think your idea of co-parenting is unrealistic. Your dh has children who want time with their dad. Quite possibly they will NEED time with their dad alone. They didn't ask to have you in their lives. The older children are nearly grown up and quite reasonably will only ever see you as their dad's new wife, and not their parent.
I co-parent with my ex, and if I need to communicate with him (never about trivia like football boots), I will do so without reference to his new woman. Urgent things like school issues or healthcare are none of her business.

You can't create an instant family like that.

Also, the ex-wife is allowed to invite her ex-MIL to her house. They have history together, they may be friends. The ex-MIL is her children's grandma. It is a good thing that she tries to maintain a good relationship. Just because their df has remarried, does not mean the children should lose out on contact with their gran.
Blended families are not easy.

I understand but she only ever does this from Christmas Day to New Years Day. She never allows us to have the kids on Christmas or birthdays and I had the idea to invite my mother in law for Christmas to ours so the kids might want to/ be able to come to ours too. The ex wife stated to make sure she’d invited her in January for the following Christmas to hers. Funny how that started doing that after I came on the scene. So 1. We have no chance of seeing the kids on Christmas because even if we’ve said to the oldest to come to ours, they won’t because grandma is going to their mums house. Mum feeds them with “ it could be her last Christmas, you should be here…” 2. I don’t get to bond with MY mother in law. She has a new mother in law, she needs to concentrate on her at Christmas and her own parents. The kids should be with us seeing their grandma from their dad’s side every other Christmas. Grandma has realised it was weird and said to off her own back that she hates going there and is not doing it this year.
The ex is a selfish and manipulative person - tries it with everyone even the kids.

I agree with what you are saying.
Can I ask though, if one of the kids had head lice and the step parent noticed and the ex husband saw too and reported it back to mum ( after step wife treating it), would you continue to treat it and check it until it was gone? As a mother, I would thank the step wife and treat it along side her help with the days the child is there.
I received a “well I can’t see them, they don’t have them here” and mum never treats it. So the child has had them for over a year, scratching every time they come over, with adult lice and eggs. I was treating it and combing it for ages and reporting it back, they did nothing their end except say “ they must get it from you”. Hmm when they stay one night every 2-3 weeks… In the end, I have now stopped bothering and I’ll let school report it if necessary. I was good enough to be the only parent parenting properly then, otherwise the poor child had nobody helping. So I disagree with one point- step parents are important to include in the conversations about certain things to do with the kids’ health and wellbeing. If I’d stayed out of it, nobody else noticed the scratching or looked for the lice ever. I think good step parents should be involved, not making parental responsibility decisions obviously and not influencing the children against their parents wishes but I’d say part of the open conversation and kept in the loop. It can only be a good thing for the children. Her new husband is fully involved and I mean fully ( they make all the decisions together and my husband hears about them second hand by being told not asked.

So it all suddenly changed when you got married?

Why don’t you invite your mother in law at different times/weekends?

OP, this won’t change, you and DH expectations are different, he showed you how it would be before the marriage and (gently) you should have walked away because you clearly wanted something different.

everyone else seems happy with the situation bar you, DH doesn’t feel the need to make you happy so really you only have 1 choice which is to end the relationship.

BTW - I’m in my 40s and this relationship package wouldn’t have been for me. But what ‘most women’ would do is a bit irrelevant as most would have walked on earlier when they saw the status quo.

And 💐 for you because it sounds shit.

I think women over 40 are far less likely to out up with shit than younger women @Sera9 . That was a strange question to ask. Is your H telling you that you'd never get another man at your age and other women your age would be glad to have a man?

Don't fall for that BS. It would be far more peaceful to just live with your DC, surely? H sounds like an absolute nightmare that would be a liability to anyone.

Thank you for your reply and care.
MIL lives the other side of the country. His ex wife never invited her for Christmas while they were married, just started when I got on the scene and she started to tell the kids they had to be at ‘their real home’ for Christmas with their elderly grandparents as they may die soon ( been 4 years and still going strong). My dh has never had them once for special occasions. I tried to encourage it but in his eyes I’m always blamed.
It’s a mess and you are right when you say dh doesn’t have the desire to make me happy. As long as he has his sport, beer and texting his kids he’s happy. I do crave a family and a deep marriage. Before marriage he always said “ tell me if anything I ever do upsets you because I want you to be happy and I want to do things right.” I said exactly what I wanted from a marriage- ie family unit and to be a team together, kids together if we could.
Yes there were red flags re the kids and his ex but I just thought that because he’d only been divorced for a year and hadn’t been in any relationship, that once time moved on and we got married and things settled down with him getting used to not being the resident parent and her getting remarried, that it would all work out. Obviously I was silly and too afraid to walk away and be on my own. I’m going to have to walk away, as painful as it is to realise something you wanted was not as expected, I’m never going to change anything. It’s like I’m invisible and taken for granted - good for one thing only…

On the head lice question, I would have expected the father to deal with his child in his home. Or at least help them if they are young teens. So your problem again is a DH problem.

It's sad OP but your dh and his children don't want the life you had imagined. I think, like previous posters have said, the best you can do is leave and take your own child away from this mess. Focus on your and your son's happiness for the next few years, while he is still at home

My advice... run for the hills with your child and don't look back. I would be looking to annul the marriage (if possible) and get as far away from him. I've been there and you will never be satisfied if you stay. You will always be second to his alcoholism and selfishness. Please, for the sake of your child and your happiness, escape whilst you still can.

Why in earth would you think that women of any age would put up with an alcoholic husband who gets verbally abusive and regularly threatens divorce if you dare to question or challenge him on anything?

No woman wants a relationship like that.

Quite frankly he'd be doing you a favour if he did divorce you; you sound miserable and what's worse is that you're making your child love with this horrible man ☹️

A couple of things stick on for me

You only been together 3 years and married
The older kids don't have a relationship with you.
The younger ones have a hobby with dad is involved in and your not happy with that.

You actively want to parent children without considering they already have parents and you have been around for a relevantly short amount of time.

You want to recreate a family unit that is normal when it reality you can't do so when it's blended.

Hes a drinker and had only been divorced for a year when you met.

I think you had a lovely dream about this blended family but the reality is they never work like the dream.
You can't force the kids to have a relationship with you. Your DH never put any time or effort into enabling this relationship and now, frankly, it is too late. No teen is going to bother with anything more than a cordial relationship at this point. DH has the right to see his kids in a manner that works for him and them, that's the important relationship. I'm sorry to say.
This ex sounds toxic and unhelpful, so does your DH. And I'm not sure what you are getting from this marriage. It doesn't seem a lot. He's gaslightling you it seems, he doesn't support you and doesn't discuss these things either. He drinks heavily.
Honestly take a long hard look and ask yourself if this is what you want for the next 20 years.
This isn't the man who is giving your dream to you OP

You speak the truth. I also expected the same, looks like I expected a lot of things and got disappointed. I guess calling it quits is probably for the best, as truly devastating that is.
I really am sick of working all week in a demanding job and then dealing with this every weekend. I’d suggested family time last night, he agreed but then put the football on his device during it, after having had sport and football on three devices all day long! That really speaks volumes. Today will be football and going to his ex’s to drop dc back while staying to catch up with the older dcs there without me. He saw them yesterday there too. I’ve not seen them for over a month, probably won’t see them until August. Like he’s got a separate secret family.