Looking for other people's experiences with being a step parent.

[Lafoosa]

I recently started seeing a single dad, he's wonderful with his children which is great.
We've both got 3 kids, so 6 in total.
It's not at the stage yet where this topic has really come up, but it is something I'm obviously thinking about because if the relationship goes well and progresses then we'd both be step parents to each other's kids.

At the moment we've met the kids, but we don't touch each other in any way or give any indication anything other than friendship is going on while the kids are around. Just while we're in the early doors.

So my question is more, what is it like being a step parent? My kids are 2, 4, 6 and his are 3, 5, 7. So all very similar ages, and all very young still.

I had a stepmum as a child but she was really abusive so I don't have a positive experience of my own to draw from, but I know being able to love someone else's kids won't be a problem for me.
I've got a different stepmum now but she came into my life as an adult, so it's not the same dynamic at all and I'd say it feels more on par with having another auntie.

What are some positives and some difficulties you've experienced as a step parent? What are some things to keep in mind?

I know we aren't at this stage yet, but I like to go into things at least a little prepared and I think it's important to consider it now.

Exactly what @7175McGee said, I thought it would be like having another niece or nephew and I was the cool Aunt who took them for fun days out.

Nah. It’s hell on earth. Ten years in, still hate it, gets worse, not better.

I started out in this naive position! These poor children traumatised by divorce. I will help them, like Mary Poppins. I will be friendly with the ex wife, she can't be that bad.

I had an amicable divorce with amicable coparenting. I thought this was how things worked. Bahaha. I stepped into dysfunctional toxic sludge and am effing drowning in it.

Three years in and I've gone a week barely speaking to my partner because his alienated, weaponised 8 year was once again sh*tty with me and, after I quietly left the room rather than take any more (because I am passive and detached, not someone who disciplines someone else's kid) my partner asked me 'to apologise' to him for not 'encouraging family time.' No, bozo, that's your job to see I'm treated as I should be.

I am dealing with:

An ex wife who interferes constantly with visitation by planning activities for the children during my partner's access times and telling the kids in advance that daddy will take them. She also insists on all sorts of apparently unavoidable coparenting events during my partner's free time - never hers - and not a week goes by that I don't see my partner because someone is getting a cubs badge.
Oh, she also went back to full time work after telling a court she was too disabled to work (or something) and getting mega global maintenance order despite them doing 50-50. So she's loaded.

Two children with behaviour issues who are Disneyed, go to bed when they choose, ask for and get presents costing hundreds of pounds that soon discard and not as a reward for anything, eat what they insist on and are asked - before I am, because I never am - where they would like to go out to eat or what activity they would like to do that day. I bought one of them a £6.50 sandwich he chose the other day. He discarded it and asked for a different one. I said no. He spent an hour saying 'I'm hungreeee! My tummy! His dad got him a Nando's.

A partner who has no sodding idea that adults have more power than children, or should have. My partner plans weekends with the kids and then turns to me and tells me the plan. I am just now some sort of angry sex accessory.

Being accused of attacking a child ,who my partner must then defend from my attack, if I say eg 'it wasn't really on, was it, that x child refused to say hello to me when he walked into my home. Could you make sure he practices basic manners and respect.' What a bitch I am.

Dreading having to say no, and work out how to say no, to the next suggested 'blended' family holiday. They're always shite.

Banging my head against walls as I ask for our relationship to have status in the children's eyes because we are the actual adults who do the actual work and spend the actual money, then being accused of being jealous of and putting myself in competition with small children.

So anyway, I've stopped communicating with the stupid arse lest I totally lose my mind screaming at him and decided he can keep his ruined children and the coercive ex all to himself. They are clearly his priority in life. I am not.

I don't blame the kids one bit. This is a parenting and partnering fail.

Absolute hell on earth. Totally agree. I don't recognise the person I have become.

Is there some sort of stepmother deprogramming centre we can go to in order to be returned to our former selves?

Completely agree. Its never the kids that make it fail. Its the man and his parenting.

I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom and come through the otherside. But only by massively detaching and my DH accepting that’s the only option. I almost had a breakdown trying to please everyone and eventually snapped and said look you either accept x, y and z or we divorce. I have since totally given up and just focus on myself and our kids and I feel like myself again. It’s funny how readily everyone accepts you’re totally depressed and miserable but struggles with the idea of prioritising yourself.

I still wouldn’t do it all again given the chance.

Same. Driven to ultimatum. Not in my nature but sure it wasn’t in yours either. comforting to hear about actually.

I’ve said if you want a blend you have to show the kids how important I am to you and how to treat me with respect. If you want a girlfriend you have to prioritise our couple relationship over any extra parenting your ex throws at you last minute and stand up. If you want to not try either but keep pandering to coercive ex wife and all-powerful kids, then you want to be single.

I’ve given him a week. I don’t care enough anymore to pray on one outcome or the other. I have a nice life without him.

That’s exactly how I felt and I still feel now that if it had gone the other way and he had agreed to divorce that would have been fine.

ExW can be an issue but DH and I are largely on the same team about that. My issues were DSC treating me and my kids really appallingly. I mean breaking things, being violent sometimes (he once hit me in anger and DH said firstly he hadn’t seen and secondly that it wasn’t “that hard” because it was an upward blow - funny he could identify blow he apparently hadn’t witnessed…) I was constantly told if I was just a bit nicer; created a more welcoming environment; cooked his favourite dinner more often it would all change and I was basically responsible. DH made it my problem and I shifted it back to him.

Not long after funnily exW started to make the same complaints and so did school. So it wasn’t me at all..!

OP - I’m sorry but 6 children are going to be a huge challenge, even if you don’t hit any of the usual step-parenting difficulties, which are documented earlier in the thread.

I have no children, DH has a son - and that was hard enough at times. We came through it and DSS is grown up now, but it really tested us

My kids would have accepted a new stepparent at the current ages of the kids.

However kids become teenagers and things can completely change- especially if money and attention doesn’t stretch to everyone. There’s so many stories on here where kids turn against the stepparent when they get older but the adults stay together because they are attached. I struggled with my own teens’ behaviour, I’m not so confident that I could cope with 3 others- even if they were on the easy side like my teens.

How did you shift it back to him? How did he realise that he had to treat you with respect and get his kids? How did he ensure that all this actually happened?

One of my partner’s children has hit me. He also has hit his parents and loses friends after hitting them. The other simply is very disrespectful and has verbally bullied my child. I’ve had a lot of ‘why don’t you work on your relationship with them.’ Like you @SprinkleofSpringShowers it’s been made my personal problem. But as in your case, it isn’t.

The hitty child has been excluded from school for violent behaviour and the rude one is the class bully. So clearly it’s all my fault they are aggressive lol . They likely have ADHD and it was me who drove my partner towards getting them diagnosed. Their schools agree. But I’ve had enough of responsibility without authority.

My partner’s trump card in his mind is that my child treats him respectfully so he must have superior step parenting skills. But my child has been raised to treat everyone with respect.

I’m a part time stepmother so my presence in my partner’s family is intermittent. So that may be a reason my status and role are not established with partner’s kids.

But it’s the same with my kid. He spends eg one weekend a month with my partner and doesn’t have any issue adapting to there being another adult in the house. This is because he knows adults are in charge. My ex’s girlfriend, who doesn’t live with my ex, adores my son and takes authority with him easily.

When my partner’s at my house with my son I ask my partner what he’d like to do that day/cook for dinner. With the child in mind but the adults choose. When my partner’s kids are around he turns first to them to negotiate with them, always, and I’m expected to trail along after them. I’ve taken to saying no I don’t fancy that and going home and now the bullying stepchild has learned to choose things I won’t enjoy so I will exclude myself. (The hitty one actually adores me underneath it all and will sometimes respond better by saying can we include her. I’m the only adult in his life who’s ever shown him a consistent structure and expectations and he values this.)

When I’m with my partner’s kids I feel like I’m paying off other people’s debts. My partner and his ex did not put enough hard work into the child raising bank and they now have a big job on their hands to make up for it. But I don’t! I put my entire self into raising a respectful child while also working full time, getting him diagnosed and treated for his neurodiversities (he’s autistic with a few other things) and ensuring an amicable divorce. I now have a lovely sweet pre teen who makes my life easy and I deserve to enjoy the benefits of my investment.

I am never putting myself through any of this again.

You didn't mention how long he's been looking after all three of those little kids by himself, but with their ages, he's very eager to unload them off of some unsuspecting woman.

It will happen slowly, but before you know it, you'll be responsible for everything while he's back to his life of leisure with you being the livein nanny and housekeeper.

Live in nanny and housekeeper indeed. But unpaid. I hope not for OP’s sake but if I had my time again I would hang with my partner and his kids as a houseguest and not lift a finger to help with childcare or housework. When asked to help I would ask how he perceived my role in his household, why, and how he planned to reward me for contributing my time and energy. IME the first time you wash up or load the laundry or drive then somewhere or babysit without understanding fully what your personal boundaries will be you are doomed.

Op this is not what you asked as I am not a step parent. I am a stepchild. Stepdad came into my life age 5. Stepmothers age 8 15 and 32.

My stepdad never parented me he was another adult but not my parent. I think that helped a lot. I was expected to listen to him but it was rare he had issues/boundaries.

Stepmother 1 was awful full of criticism and always came across as if I was an awful and rude child. I wasn't I was just the one who reminded her of my mother.

The ones at 15 and 32 were lovely women the last one made my dad very settled and happy. He never found anyone else after she died. Again they did not try to decide anything.

My daughter will get married in October 25. My mother is dead my dad is to frail to make it to the wedding (not even sure he will be alive then) so for grandparents there will be my stepdad.. and his "woman that he sees" (not his girlfriend you understand 😀) my children have called him granddad all their lives as he is their grand father.

So yes stepparenting can work but I think only if you are not their parent but an adult thst respect has to be shown to.

I am also a stepchild and can share what my dad, in retrospect, did right.

My stepmum’s house, her rules, her behaviour expectations. All kids (they had their own later) treated equally. He always, always backed her up. Fussy eating? No dinner. Table manners - SM taught me all mine and I am grateful.

Adult partnership had primacy. Dad still always holds my stepmum’s hand on walks and always sits next to her at dinner.

’Dad can I do/have/get out of?’ I will ask your stepmom.

Yes this enraged me as a child sometimes but it set me up for how I expected to be treated as a SM.

SM was very kind to me and we did our own things together, like her teaching me how to do hair and make when I was a teen. Teaching me to cook and lay table and clean house. But also she was careful not to take my mother’s role. We called her auntie, so this was clear. She just said, with dad’s support, this is how we do things here whether you are here or not. I run this house.

In this way, boomer stepmums had it easier regarding lines of authority.

My partner is not my dad. He is a unit with his two kids having single parented them a lot on his own before I met him. He’s much more of an involved father than my dad was so it’s not natural for him to defer to me as head of the house. I’m basically an outsider. It’s hard. Sometimes impossibly hard. I would like us to incorporate the best aspects of my dad and stepmum’s setup though.

I am a step child on both sides, and have had 2 step mothers. I think there is something intrinsic within most women to deem another woman's children a threat, when they impact her, and the closer the proximity, the higher this threat. How many women on this board were dying to move in together and when they blended the families it was an absolute disaster. Of course a lot of it depends on the man (most of whom seem to be rubbish parents) but one poster said this and it literally sent shivers down my spine:

"if it was only the four of us it would be perfect"

Ie the woman, her dc and her partner. It's the partner's dc that ruin this perfect little family. I remember my dm saying this about my step siblings, and I remember my second step mum looking at me with real contempt at times and I knew she could see my mum in me. If I did things that her dc did, she would find fault in me but not in them. If I ate my dinner she would tell people that I was greedy, eating her out of house and home etc. As a teen I used to borrow my dad's socks for sport (which he knew about and was fine with) and she turned that into me stealing stuff from their house.

Another poster said:

"I would never again date a man with daughters"

and I think this really sums up the biological drive for 'competition'. I had been estranged from my dad as a young child, and didn't have a close physical relationship with him. I would have hugged/kissed him when I left, but that was it. However my step mum perceived me sitting across from him at the table as trying to compete with her, and I heard her once telling her sister that I was "lying across him on the sofa so she couldn't sit near him". This was simply not true at all, I didn't feel comfortable being physical with him at all, so would never have sought to be close to him. My brother OTOH was very physical with him, would have slept in bed in the mornings with him, but she never seemed to have a problem with that, I was the threat. And she was the type of woman who adored children, was a childminder and was happy to always be around children and help anyone out with childcare etc.

It's only as an adult I can understand where her behaviour stemmed from, I was very confused as a girl/teen. Her dc had the first dgc, and when I was pregnant with my first her behaviour really escalated and my DF basically said it was too high risk for him to pursue a relationship with my dc, so sadly he lives 7 miles away but has never had a relationship with them, or subsequently me.

@Humbughumbug i just told him if he wants to accept that behaviour in his home he was free too. But I wasn’t going to any longer and neither were my (our) children. So we’d have to divorce. We were basically hostage DSC’s moods. DH expected to defer ALL parenting of our joint DC to me, he didn’t participate at all in household chores whilst DSC was there and devoted 100% of his attention to DSC. Then on top of all of that I was expected to set time aside to show additional kindness to his kid (on top of doing all the stuff I do for him as an extra child in the home - including making separate meals because he only eats crap). I had turned into a house elf!

I also made the point our own children would start to feel resentful.

So I basically said he needed to get on board with my boundaries of maintaining the sanctity and safe place of our home.

We do everything separately now. We are either like passing ships or
sometimes DH gets an Airbnb. The only person benefiting from forcing us all together was DH. DSC didn’t want to spend time with us. He has no interests in being socialable. He just likes an adult about to meet his needs at any given moment.

Now DH desperately struggles with his behaviour - turns out it wasn’t me, DH just wanted to avoid facing up to facts and dealing with it.

@poshsnobtwit excellent post, maybe it just boils down to no one really likes other people’s children?

its interesting nobody comes to that conclusion when people struggle with their own kids. Some people will do anything other than conclude they haven’t parented very well and their children are unlikeable.

For a successful blended family, you and your DP need to be in the same page with regard to the big ticket items:

• approach to DC discipline
• engagement with EX's
• living arrangements (when you get there)

If you're not agreed on any of those three items, the relationship won't last.

@Humbughumbug @SprinkleofSpringShowers it honestly reads as if you both are in highly abusive relationships having endured years of controlling behaviour by the expectations of the men as to how you have to behave and accommodate their children.
It really reads as horrific. All these expectations heaped on you all so that you get to keep this "man" in your lives.
You both deserve so much better, as do your children.

I do think this is part of it. There's something biologically hardwired. When my own two DC were tiny, I often really resented DSC being an additional drain on my - at the time - very limited mental and physical resources. I was on my knees with PND, a newborn and a toddler, and this extra child just seemed to me like a big, fat cuckoo in the nest - taking more than its fair share of what little I had available to give to me own children.

Of course, when you look at the wider picture, that was the fault of my DSC's parents, who were leaving all childcare to me and shirking their own responsibilities.

I have to say, some of that anger is coming out in the wash now towards my DH for how he was during that time. Which is just another example of how this shit never ends and is in no way really worth the mental and emotional toll it takes.

I wish someone would do a proper study into how diminishing it is for women to become step mothers. I'd love to understand what happens on a psychological lever when you're manoeuvred into a position where you have absolutely no power, yet everything is your fault.

I can definitely see that side of things. I do think my DH (and I’m sure others) have taken advantage by pushing the notion of “the children must come first” and “you knew I had a child” which has disguised the absolute BS ive been expected to withstand. It’s used as a cover all for absolutely anything and everything you’re expected to endure/do for them. Society pushes this view on you too though. If you dare complain it was all your fault for getting involved.

My DH has come round now but I think he had his guard so far up he couldn’t think logically. We have had some couples therapy and I have told him how awful he has been to me over the years. All my complaints which he viewed as a “me” problem have become real issues to DSC in their wider life and relationships. I just saw it coming.

If I’m being totally honest my downfall was having kids. Prior to that I was able to remain independent and get out the house indulging in hobbies all weekend. Before we moved in I used to just stay in my spinster pad all weekend and keep out the way. That just seemed a luxury though as I was basically running a house and only using it 6 nights out of 14!

I think your first consideration ought to be whether it’s in your children’s best interests to gain three step siblings, very close to them in age, and a step dad at a young age.

I think a family of six kids is rarely going to be a good scenario for the kids (too many kids to have any chance of getting a decent amount of their parents’ attention), and that’s before you add in the complications of a blended family.

Oh yes, the guard up thing.
if my boyfriend’s ex flags a behaviour issue with one of the kids he enthusiastically works on it with her (they tend to agree a strategy then stick to it for a few weeks before failing to continue). If I flag sth I’m an outsider criticising my partner’s precious children. He must defend them. Thing is no one defends me. I do not expect the children to change overnight or hold them in any way responsible. What I would like is empathy, validation and support.

Ive told BF that if he wants me on his parenting team then when I’m around I’m to be treated as a co-captain. If I am to be called judgey and critical I am not on that team. He can run it entirely alone. I’ll just not visit when he has his kids.

@SprinkleofSpringShowers the cynic in me believes that is why men often have a child with the poor softy they lasoo into a relationship with them and their children. To ensure they feel invested and stuck.
I would tell any woman to run and be very suspicious of any man with children.
Utterly thankless.