Full-time stepparenting... I feel resentful

[Stepparentz]

So I've been with my boyfriend for 8 years. When we met my stepdaughter had a 50/50 split, but when my partner and I moved in together she was with her mum all weekends (if I remember correctly...), but it's since then moved to 3 weekends, 2 weekends and now we have her full-time. I realise I should've realised this could've happened when I went into this relationship but I guess I was naive. She is a very sweet girl that I love dearly but she also comes with troubles in every-day life, sadly I am growing resentful internally she's taking up all the time I used to have with my partner and also our child. I know it's not her fault at all, I am just speaking my feelings. Has anyone been in similar situations? I really worry I will never get over this.

That would make it a ridiculous self serving echo chamber.
For a start, you need to hear from stepchildren
We understand just fine and can judge all we like, thanks.

You make an awful lot of assumptions in all of your posts don't you.

Not necessarily, I’m a step parent and often am horrified by the response of some step parents.

Like you with she has mental health issues all of a sudden poor woman can't look after her child.

Lets not pretend the situation is the same for step fathers as it is for step mothers. The issue here isn't just that the step child (who under such circumstances usually has emotional/abandonment/trust issues) is suddenly with you FT but that step mothers are expected to become their primary care givers since they're already providing care for their own child/children. They are forced to provide physical and emotional support to a child whose parents are either away working or otherwise indifferent. Step fathers are very rarely expected to provide such care. This is even if the couple are not legally married (as sounds like the case here).

Give over. She did know what she was choosing. She knew there was a baby, knew that the baby would grow into a child. She chose to have a baby herself knowing there was already a half sibling

I would never ever enter a relationship with a man who already had children because I'm not prepared to split my time or look after any one elses child full time or part time.

She knew exactly what she was stepping into.

OP definetly shouldnt sacrifice her own happiness...... so she needs to leave because the only people who dont have a choice in all of this is the children

Exactly. And she still chose to have a relationship with this man and have another child with him. Knowing all of what you have just said.

This is exactly why I would never have a relationship with someone who had a child. Because I'm not prepared to do all of the above.

She shouldnt of had a child with him and moved in with him if she wasnt prepared to help raise the little girl

Can't you actually read what people say properly?
I wrote that 'for all you know she could be suffering with. Illness or issues making it hard for her to cope'
I didn't say that I know what her problems are. In another post I said that regardless if she was the worst or the most wonderful mum in the world, the little girl has a right to be with her father. That means without the OP wanting to somewhat exclude her.

But it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman taking on another person's children. If you choose to get into a serious relationship with a person who has children, and then move in with your partner and choose to make a life with them, then it's also on you to take responsibility for his or her dc"s too if they live with you.

It might help you to understand that even in non-step families, the demands and time you have with your partner/various children never remain constant. I have one child in a non-step family. I didn’t have a lot of role models for how other families operated at the time I had a baby (no close friends or family with young kids) so I didn’t “know what I was getting into” as the pet phrase here goes. When my kid was a baby I had reasonable 1:1 time to spend with my husband. When she was in elementary school we suddenly had less time together due to the changing demands of parenting, her need for different types of attention from us, and her activities. That got tougher and tougher as she got older. Now that she has gotten into high school and her activities are more independent in nature, we have more 1:1 time together again. And with a different kid who liked different things or needed different kinds of attention that pattern might be different. Family life is unpredictable for everyone - you should never assume that things will stay the way they are or that you are guaranteed a particular amount of priority or access. In any family with kid(s), you can pretty much assume however things are this year, it’s going to be different next year!

You have asked for advice on how to deal with the resentment - as much as you might yearn to recreate the family environment you had before your stepdaughter came to live with you full time (seeing that environment as “what you signed up for” and the stepdaughter as ruining things/stealing time away from your real relationships and family), please try your hardest to not create a two-tier family. Don’t ship her away frequently to relatives under the pretense that she needs to see her mother’s side, simply so you can restore what you think you are entitled to. She needs to see them of course but don’t use this as a convenience to remove her. Don’t leave only her regularly with a sitter and then take yourself, baby, and DH off somewhere fun. As much as you see her as an intruder, your DH has been her father for longer than he has been your husband. Kids, especially ones who are in vulnerable situations, are remarkably perceptive at picking up when they are welcomed/wanted or not, much more so than adults think. It’s a key survival strategy. Surely you can think of colleagues or neighbors who give you a cold “they don’t quite like me” vibe without doing anything specifically rude to you…anyone who thinks kids are less perceptive than adults is fooling themselves.

In a household with two kids, one on one time with ANYONE is precious, whether that be time with your partner or with a specific child. Try to organize those 1:1 times for everyone with everyone else, (eg 1:1 SD:dad time, and time for you and partner alone without both kids, as well as occasions when SD may be away with relatives)… and not in a way that singles out the stepdaughter to be removed more often. If you keep on viewing the group of you, your child, and DH as “the way it should be”, it’s going to be really hard for you to get over the resentment. Accept the new situation and work to create 1:1 times or all permutations of sub-group times for everyone, like in any family with two kids.

But how many stepfathers consistently make breakfast, lunch, and dinner for their SC, do their laundry, take them to school, oversee their homework, organise their birthday parties, read to them before bed, take them to doctors appointments, carry the burden/mental load of caring for them day to day?

Why is it that this exploitation, this unpaid labour is acknowledged when the children are shared but not in a case like this? Why are women suddenly being penalised for a child's indifferent and incompetent parents?

I have a 13yo SC with us FT and a baby. I know which one takes up more of my time, stops me from socialising, and makes it difficult for me to return to the work place- and it isn't the baby.

OP has the option to leave. I*t wouldn't be right for the OP to stay and make the child feel second best in her father's home.

This is the thing though. Anything other than a step mum wholesale becoming a substitute mum is considered 'making a child feel second best'. Why?

Why can't a step parent have a caring but boundaried relationship with their step child?

Unfortunately, the hard truth is that in a step parenting situation, the dynamics will be different and the step parent is rarely able (nor is it really appropriate) to love the child as if it were their own. Yet this is the impossible standard we are held to.

OP is not free to leave. She has a child with her partner, so if she were to choose to leave, she would be depriving her own child from being able to love full time with its father. She has her own child's needs to consider. The idea that she 'has the choice to leave' reinforces just how invisible the needs of children of second families become in these scenarios. As if they should be punished for their privilege of having parents who are together.

Also, let's not forget that step parenting situations only come about because the first relationship has broken down. So if we're going to throw around the tired old trope of 'you new what you were getting into', maybe we should go one step further back and start from the equally as unreasonable point of 'don't have children with crap partners'?

It's up to the parent and the step parent involved in the relationship to sort out amongst themselves who does what role in the house. What works for one family doesn't work for another, that's common sense. You can't say well 'how many stepfathers consistently make breakfast', because you wouldn't know!

As I said, every household is different. What should be a priority in ALL families, including blended ones, is that children are given stability and made to feel wanted. Nothing more.

This is exactly why I would never have a relationship with someone who had a child. Because I'm not prepared to do all of the above

Sounds like OP was prepared to help raise her DSD on her terms, but is now resenting that the terms have changed and are now being imposed on her by DSD's parents with no consideration for her.

The problem is that men need to stop expecting their new partners to be nannies with fannies and actually put themselves out in order to parent their own children without passing the buck to someone else.

Of course the OP is free to leave, the step child isn't though is she?

The OP doesn't talk about a boundaried relationship with the SD, she clearly says she is RESENTFUL of the SD being there full-time and reducing time she has with her partner. What do you suggest? OP can't leave because she has a child with the man (who she chose despite knowing he had another child) or do you think the SD should go? It really does come down to that. I really can't believe that people equate the feelings of a child helplessly caught in a situation of not their making at all, and an adult who is in the situation based on their own choices, even if they failed to consider the eventualities.

Be a strong positive role model to your step child. Smother her with love. Show her what a mothers love is so that she can one day replicate that too.

Alone time is meh- you have it before bed time anyway.

Of course she can leave. Why do you imagine she can't?

Bollocks to that.
This idiotic notion that you can have a full time stepchild living in your house and not parent it is just MN bullshit. You can't sit there going, it's not my kid, I'll just feed and clothe and look after my own, her dad's the parent , he can do it all.

I dont believe for one minute you believe what you're saying. If you do, I hope you have no children at all, step or otherwise.

Are stepchildren also allowed to comment?

I was repeating what the PP has said about the OP not able to leave (the one I was replying to). That's not my view.

@Lkjh098 how is it not the baby? A 13 year old doesn’t need to have an adult sitting at home.

Why can't a step parent have a caring but boundaried relationship with their step […]
OP is not free to leave. She has a child with her partner, so if she were to choose to leave, she would be depriving her own child from being able to love full time with its father.

But the little girl existed before she had a child herself. There was always the risk that her SD would live with them.

Again, OP hasn’t mentioned resenting doing stuff for the girl. She resents that it’s not only the 3 of them anymore and that’s messed up. Hell, she resents it so much that she’d rather leave altogether. It’s all about the family life she envisioned.

You never know what’s around the corner. When I was with my ex, his ex put her 13 year old on a plane and sent her to us.

While mine very much does. You don't know our individual circumstances to be making such judgement.

@Lkjh098 you’re the one who brought it up and made it sound like it’s your stepchild’s fault, but realistically most 13 year olds are perfectly fine having working parents. Of course I don’t know your circumstances.