Don’t want stepson all the time

[Sky1248]

I want to see if I’m being unreasonable at all and all comments are greatly welcomed!

I have been with my partner for nearly 7 years and when I first met my step son he was just turning 2! He was always very clingy to his dad and I always tried which sometimes I loved having him and sometimes I dreaded it!

we now have a 3 year old and 9 month old together and sometimes I appreciate the times it’s just me my husband and my kids however my husband is saying he wants our stepson included in everything and wants to invite him to absolutely everything! Even my 30th meal I said don’t worry about inviting him as he’s quite rude to my family that were coming but my husband was adamant he wanted him to come.

i have no person issue with my step son I do find him a bit spoilt and he has such a better life with his mum always doing nice things so I don’t know why my husband always wants him with us.

am I unreasonable to say I sometimes want to do things without him and just our kids?

If worse comes to worse, an adult can leave the ”family home” and start again.

Again very simplistic. I have two children. I cannot just uproot them because a teenage boy poses a danger to us all. In our situation DH sees DSS outside of the home.

I said your partner is a shit and selfish parent for being a relationship that their child is considered 'just there and nothing' to a person they have chosen to live in a home with them in a family unit with other children.

Your right your attitude is rampant with SMs. I often wonder why it is that men seem to be so much more accepting of their children treated and spoken about the way we see up and down this board on a regular basis.

I ve come to the conclusion it usually boils down to the fact they aren't particularly bothered parents, who understand child development and the impact living in these types of situations has the potential to have on their kids.

And more importantly, they are more concerned about keeping the person they are sharing their bed with and running a household there for their own needs.

No you said

In fact a bigger issue in blended families is the amount of bio parents who shack up with people who hold the type of toxic shit we see on this board who are at a base level incredibly self and shit parents, and all these kids end up stuck in the middle of it all

‘Shack up with people’ (step mums). You're speaking about the ‘people’ who hold the toxic shit we see on this board who are at a base level incredibly self and shit parents’.

You do realise that step mums don’t go around slagging the step kids off to the dads face? Or maybe they are able to have an adult conversation where the dad takes on board the step mums POV that it’s not always sunshine and roses when the step kids are over.

They understand that it’s not all one way and compromise.

Yes. You married a man that had a child. Your kids are not more important than the son he had without you. To thier dad, they are all equal and you are being a MASSIVE asshole.

Honestly? Yes YABU and I think this is only going to get worse as your stepson gets older if this status quo is maintained. You are perfectly entitled to feel how you feel BUT as someone who has both grown up with step parents and is now a step mother (they live with us full time btw), you have to put aside "my kids" "his kid". You become a blended family. It's "our kids". You married a man with a child. That's the gig. Ask yourself this: if you ended up separating and met a man who was disgruntled about the time you spent on your kids, would you be happy with that?

Despite how you feel you treat your stepson, he will pick up on your feelings. He may play up more because of it. Step kids need to know that no matter how much they push, you're not going anywhere and you love them. My daughter made life very hard for my partner in the first few years. He never gave up, just treated her gently and with kindness and patience. Now, seeing them sit together, joking and laughing together, building their own relationship just makes me so incredibly happy and grateful for him in our lives.

Creating an "us/them" situation could also drive a wedge between this boy and his siblings down the line.

I'd suggest a rethink and an open dialogue with your husband. Making room for another child doesn't take anything away from yours. They get daddy home 24/7 so of course he won't ask them as much, they probably tell him quite a lot in the moment. The fact that he puts so much effort into his first born shows he is excellent father material, I personally find a good dad incredibly sexy.

@Rabbiehdbek

You do realise that step mums don’t go around slagging the step kids off to the dad's face?

That's a mighty claim. You are saying that NO SM flags their SC off to the dad's face. That's an impossible claim to validate.

You are massively unreasonable!! It's very sad you feel this way. An I would bet your stepson is very much picking up on your vibes towards him. You can possibly say he doesn't know but as an adult who has once been that child, I can tell you, they know you don't like them! You need to get your shit together and make an efford. This is NOT on the child, this is so on you! You are the adult!
Imagine your child was excluded!! I would say, you would never dream of doing this and here you are trying to exclude your stepson.

You do realise that step mums don’t go around slagging the step kids off to the dads face? Or maybe they are able to have an adult conversation where the dad takes on board the step mums POV that it’s not always sunshine and roses when the step kids are over

Hmm....sure, dad can take SM's views into account. But where those views seek to exclude a child from a previous relationship, you would hope dad would seek to at least find a suitable compromise. Unfortunately, as many of us are well aware, new partners are frequently put first and step children removed from the equation. Often a slow process that takes place across a number of years or sometimes more sudden, a dad trying to prove to his new partner that she is his priority.

I don't think any parent expects everything to be 'always sunshine and roses' when it comes to parenting. But you can't expect a child to just disappear because the relationship with SM is complex, difficult, requiring work.

op i had a chat with my partner last night about this as we both have children mine live with me and his dont and i asked his opinion. He said as its my birthday he wouldn’t expect his kids to come along and we could celebrate separately with them and family same if it was his birthday. We dont involve our children in all our celebrations its ok to have adult celebrations.

Also just to add i dont always take my kids along to things either so im talking about all the children.

@Butterfly212 neither of your points validate anything other than you want to and do compartmentalise.

Actually this doesn't seem at all unreasonable:
'I actually feel he is more bothered about my stepson having fun or making sure he’s happy than our children. He wants him for tea twice a week and then every other weekend.'
'He also face times on top of that to which my step son gets much better attention than anyone else.' But he doesn't live with his dad, he doesn't see him first thing in the morning or when he goes to bed. He isn't always there to talk through problems or help with homework. I'm not seeing how he gets much better attention.
My stepson lived on the same street and would be with us every weekend and pop in at any time during the week. There were times I would feel a bit left out, to be honest, but discussed this with my OH as well as accepting that I was the adult and had to accept that things couldn't always be as they would if there wasn't parenting involved.
If you're really struggling with these feelings, it might be a good idea to find an impartial counsellor to talk things through with. I believe Relate can do individual counselling, although maybe you could address this as a couples/relationship issue.

'toddlers and babies are known to be women's work and not require time to bond with dad, he's a great guy to prioritise eldest.'

Sorry, did I get off at the wrong century?

@TheDarkHouse

It isn’t ideal, or easy, for an adult to uproot - even less to uproot their children.
However - I do think it is simple: an adult has more agency and power than a child.
An adult can make changes a child can’t.
An adult has more rights, but also responsibilities, than a child does.

I’d love to know where the child is supposed to go for love, belonging and safety if not home?
Or, is it like someone upthread said ”such is life”? Some children end up as someone’s step-children and tough luck if it’s someone who views that child as a nobody or if they set the bar at ”tolerate”.

Step-parents didn’t choose the step-children. Some choose to work hard at the relationship, others don’t. Relationships are never one way, but in my view the main responsibility of the quality lies with the adults.

I can’t imagine loving a man so much that I would choose him over my children or that I would stand by while he ”tolerates” my children.

As other step-children on this thread have said, it’s certainly been eye-opening. Both to hear what the ”honest truth” is as many have put it, and also to see how difficult it seems to take in the child’s point of view and experience.

Most importantly though, it sure has validated the feeling of being an outsider in (what should be) your own home, feeling tolerated, whereas love and belonging is something that’s for others.

I’m general. It’s bloody obvious I’m not talking on behalf of ever step mum out there.

It also wouldn’t be classed as slagging then off if everything they are saying is true. They can say SS is rude and ignorant if they are. That’s not classed as slagging them off.

Tea twice a week and every other weekend is hardly "always"!!

I dont think you have understood what im trying to say to OP im talking to her about the 30th birthday party. If no kids are going then theres no issue.

>>. whereas love and belonging is something that’s for others.

Boy, Dark House, you nailed it. I’ve had this feeling all my life about many things (being helped, having my feelings matter) and I think a lot of it comes from extended family dynamics in addition to step family dynamics - but this feeling regardless of where it originates stays with you for a long, long time. Decades later, hundreds of hours of therapy, tens of thousands of dollars worth, I can finally see how I internalized this childhood message and how I ended up in a first marriage to a narcissist (therapist’s call not mine) who exploited my sense that other people had rights I didn’t. Yes - the things you learn in childhood persist a long, long time and have to be fought against the rest of your life. Especially when you have no adult to tell you things are wrong.

Children are vulnerable and damage-able in ways that adults aren’t, and in a divided family where one half isn’t around to see how things happen with the other half, a kid also has no one in their corner when things are bad. This kid doesn’t even have a sibling in the same divorce situation so he is alone in it, completely,

Feeling waves of unspoken resentment from an adult in your home (or what partial living arrangement combination passes for one) - because your dad wants to FaceTime you, or asks about your life in the limited time when you are with him....that is sad.

Another kid who may grow up feeling that they are putting on airs and making demands above their station, simply by daring (oh the cheek!) to be worth their dad’s time.

(Now, as an adult, I’m not close to my parents or younger half sister. Quite happy to focus on my own immediate family (lovely second husband and our child). What a surprise. And my half sister complains endlessly that I’m not the kind or sister she wants, not supportive enough, not close enough emotionally to her. Gee. I wonder why.)

Sorry. Meant to attribute that very insightful phrase to MenoMama.

Yeah that’s the point I’m making. He probably doesn’t enjoy it because of how horrible she is and how unwelcome she makes him feel. Which shouldn’t be the case.

This!!

That's actually hateful.

Because I am intelligent enough to read the posts and that mistake was just pissing me off.

You'll try to justify anything won't you?

Vile.