How do you get past the resentment?

[OhMelville]

Just that really. How do you stop every little thing the SC do or say bother you? I know I will get flamed and I know how unreasonable I am being. But I can’t help how I feel. When SC is here everything revolves around them. They are messy. Demanding of their father’s time. Whinge and complain about most things, and just take over everything in general. We have joint DC so no point saying to leave as this isn’t the answer nor what I am looking for. I’m just curious how other Step Parents navigate their feelings?

Thank you so much everyone that’s posted and specifically to those in similar positions and can relate. I know I’m in the wrong for having these thoughts. I know I probably need counselling. Each week it’s becoming a bigger and bigger issue with my DH. I’ve taken on board all the tips and suggestions mentioned and have plans to keep myself busy this weekend when the DC are here as a start until I can fix my mindset which I know is the main problem. It’s been so useful hearing from other step mothers and knowing you’re not alone in these thoughts! Again - I know I am being unreasonable and if this was a friend telling me how they felt I would think it was awful of them. But I can’t help it. I’m really trying here.

I'm coming to realise the resentment is there because of my dh. It's him who's made 99% of the mistakes and caused the problems. I guess it's easier to feel that hurt and in my head blame it on sc when in fact it is a dh problem!!
I hope your plans help you come to terms with things. It's not an easy situation at all and so much harder than you ever imagine it to be.
Stay strong. We are all in this together.

Why leave their dad and subject them to stepparents? The way stepmothers get the blame for the fact their parents couldn’t make a relationship work for the kids is ridiculous. If you didn’t want someone who doesn’t love your kids raising them - don’t end the marriage with their dad!!

God Knows why mothers end marriages with the fathers of their kids when they know an indifferent stepmother on the scene is likely. (See, it works both ways)

Haha the 1800's called, they want their old fashioned and frankly ridiculous idealogy back 🤣🤣🤣 i won't dignify such a pathetic post with a detailed response, if you're not a troll I feel sorry for you and hope things get better for you

I’m reflecting back to you your own attitude towards stepparents, who have no responsibility to the children’s welfare, yet somehow get the blame for the fallout of a breakup - which is always crap on kids and surely this must be taken into account by the actual parents who are responsible for their child, and make the decision to deprive them of an intact family in the full knowledge of the potential consequences. ‘You knew what you signed up for when you left their dad’ (as stepmothers are so often told ‘you knew what you signed up for when you found out he had kids’).

🤣 I pity you

Deep territorial mother lion instincts. You want your DH to favour your cubs, they are a threat.

Protective instincts: when our children are tiny it is common to view older children as very critically, from ‘boisterous’ pre schoolers who might knock out tiny toddlers over in the park to teens who will ‘eat our kids alive’ when they start Yr 7

Maybe some jealousies and insecurities around your DH’s attention

Kids are annoying, messy, whiny. They just are. We are more tolerant of our own

SC have real reason to feel the need of reassuring attention. They see Daddy being Daddy to children that he lives with every day and night. If you have feelings, as a mature adult , over the attention he gives them, imagine what it is like for them.

Why? My kids have an intact family.

Intact doesn't mean happy. People leave relationships due to domestic abuse, coercive control, infidelity. Families can be happier apart. Most people are open minded enough to see that there are many ways to live life, you think there is 1 way, stay with your partner no matter what. People who are that closed minded and inflexible and unable to appreciate the complexities of other people's lives miss out on so much of the richness of diversity. That's why I pity you, but I don't expect someone so closed minded to understand so I'll end my side of the conversation now, I've learned long ago you can't reason with ignorance. I still pity you though.

Pity me for not understanding complexity? Or for not a) marrying a dick and b) subjecting my kids to the trauma of divorce and indifferent stepparenting?

What’s hilarious about this is you being the person who thinks stepparents have to suck up the blame for not loving children who aren’t theirs!

Jesus wept. Intact families. What a load of utter bollox.

Families are whatever we want them to be. My family is no less intact when it’s just me and my kids than it was when there was a husband present.

And your need to exercise some kind of moral superiority over those of us who had the misfortune to ‘marry a dick’ suggests to me that a long hard look at your own situation is required. Happy people rarely feel the need to tell the rest of us how shit we are.

My parents split when I was 10 and both remarried.

I just really wanted to be a full part of both families. I probably wasn't that great to my step parents tbh but I still wanted to feel included.

After my mum died (I was a young adult by then), my step dad stopped inviting me for Christmas so I no longer got to see my half sisters at Christmas. Nobody invited me when they scattered mum's ashes. I still actually have a good relationship with both my stepdad and half sisters, but these things still hurt many years later (and I have never been invited back for Christmas, though we usually see them at some point over the holiday).

By contrast my step mum (there were no subsequent kids that side but she already had her own ) has always made a huge effort to make me feel like I matter (even though we didn't always get on), and has also made a lot of effort to be a lovely grandmother to my kids.

If you can, try to alter your mindset to think of them as part of your family. That means a team approach with your DH to address any actual issues that are stressing you out, and also try to find ways of enjoying family time with them when they are there.

You can't control whether you love someone but you can control whether you make an effort to include them and be nice to them.