Were you also a stepchild and does that help?

[Unblended]

Were any of you also a stepchild?

I want to share what I finally learned from being one and how it helped me disengage from my DP’s life with his children, but also ask if it has helped you engage with another woman’s kids in any meaningful way?

I did all the usual for a while - not living with DP but living with him more than his children did. This made his life a lot easier and
mine a lot harder when they were around. They did not like me, their mother hated me
DP just let them all be hateful to me. Eventually I hated them all and then I hated myself. I took the Mumsnet Creed and LTB.
Then we recommended as GF and BF and I swore I’d never again be stepmum.

I have a stepmum I didn’t appreciate and believed I disliked. And she worked hard for us, toiling in the background at home while my dad did the whole Disney routine EOW. She obviously dreaded the visits and would make an effort admirably, but with an undertone of despair. We were gleefully rude and bad mannered with her and my dad was delighted for her to be bad cop.

My mother passively bullied her too, banning her from school plays and not letting her in the house at drop off. She had a nicer bigger house, courtesy of my dad’s money that my mum believed belonged to her alone forever. My mum basically taught us that SM was stealing from us.

I only realised a few years ago how unappreciated my stepmum was. I told her and she cried so I asked what I could do. She said it would be amazing for her to not to have us visit anymore, just for the last part of her life. She would come to us but no longer would host.

I was super angry because her bio children weren’t being banned from their dad’s home. But then I realised this was a lesson. She was showing me her scars and baring her pain in the only way she knew how. After decades of anxiety about our visits and my dad putting her on ceremony to make extra beds and get special food in for our special meals, she just wanted to relax in her home.

She could never express her feelings to my dad as he’d just tell her she was being mean about his children. And of course he still blames her whenever he lets us down.

Why am I in this forum saying this? It’s because I’ve used that experience as the basis for a big decision to see DP’s kids very rarely. I don’t like being around them. They are rude and ungrateful and even sometimes violent to me and to all adults. With me in particular it’s laced with resentment that I know I felt and they will say. ‘You’re not my mum, stop interfering, we’ll just do what we want with dad.’

DP has- no idea how to make it stop. I can only see the negative parallels with my own stepfamily not-of-choice?

Did you have a better experience and have you found a better way?

Wow. This is an incredible post. Thanks for sharing.

That’s some rare straight up honesty and accountability.

I thought my step mum was a bitch until I was stepmum and I suddenly had a new found respect for her. I realised she wasn’t evil she was just struggling to cope with how we disrupted her life and disrespected her and never appreciated how she tried. She did try in the beginning and got nothing back from us so it’s no wonder the trying stopped and she pulled back. Not so much my brother but I was awful to her. Didn’t listen, openly hated her and now I’m an an adult I don’t understand fully why. I do however fully understand the misery she must of felt and the endless arguments she must of had with my dad. Some of the things / rules she had I’ve actually adopted. The same ones I rebelled against.

I was a spoilt horrible daddies little princess. My mum despised my dad for reason I now understand.

in answer to your question yes this experience affected how I step parented. With each and every decision I considered the following a) how I felt as a step kid and there for how my step kids felt. B) how their mum felt based on how my mum would feel as a single mum c) how I felt as a partner. I tried to find middle ground amongst all 3 in each and every scenario.

my step kids weren’t bad, they weren’t openly hateful of me. One did ignore me a lot. I struggled so much with how their parents had failed to parent them with the basics wnd tried to fix that. I honestly hand on heart did my absolute best. I saw my role in their lives to keep them safe, comfortable and to help them be the best young men they could be.

my partner would always remind me how they weren’t my kids but in some instances treat them as your own. usually when it came to money, washing cooking and cleaning up after them 🙄

it’s a thankless job and one I think I will spend the rest of my life avoiding. It was one of hardest things I have ever done in my life and despite trying my upmost I always felt I failed. It’s difficult to stop the hatred and resentment from boiling over to the kids because truthfully, it isn’t their fault. I had to remind myself of that all the time.

Yes I was and yes it did. Our SM was vile, we weren’t rude or disruptive or disrespectful children but she made it very clear from day one that we were not welcome. Spineless, useless father allowed this, despite the fact it was his house and his money. She went mad if he spent a single penny on us or if he spent more than two hours a week with us. She really was dreadful and it completely destroyed my relationship with my father, but, in hindsight, she did me a favour. When I became a SM myself, I had a very clear blueprint of how NOT to do it. To be fair, DSC were never rude or disrespectful to me, they were good kids and my DH wouldn’t have allowed it anyway, but I took the view that they came first. He was their dad and they never asked for me, I wasn’t their choice. Consequently we all have a lovely, very positive relationship which has lasted for decades, we still all holiday together etc. I love those “kids” even though they are adults now with their own children, who I also love. I’ve been very lucky.

Thank you for this post OP, it is very honest and thought provoking.

My mother remarried and my step father was an awful, bullying, abusive man. I spent my entire childhood walking on eggshells and left home as soon as I could. She left him after 30 years.

My father remarried several times and moved abroad. I never met him again after their divorce, so I can't say that any step mothers have had an impact on me apart from them being the reason for my fathers abandonment of me.

What I can say is that I think "blending" families, or even just remarrying is probably one of the most harmful thing you can do to your biological children whilst they still live at home, and that's a really uncomfortable thought. Who doesn't want to try and recreate a family set up, live together, be better of financially and have the support of a live in partner?

I don't know a single adult child of a "blended" family that doesn't have some deep rooted resentment at best and at worst permanent psychological trauma from the experience.

Looking back as adults we can probably see that on the whole our step parents were in no win situations, but the damage is done when we are children because we don't have the emotional maturity to look at things from an adult perspective.

Very similar experience. Terrible sm, who even created a conspiracy theory that I wasn't my dad's daughter. Hated every minute of me being there and no I wasn't a spoiled little princess. Very harmful for a ten year old.
I knew what not to do when I became a sm. First thing I knew to do was to be a mum, get to know them, and love them and I did. As soppy as it sounds, the answer was love. I don't view them as my dh kids with an ex, they are persons on their own, they are wonderful little people and I enjoy every minute of them. I have mine with dh too and view them as equals. They are half time with us and genuinely have two mums. There's a special role for us and be supportive in the life of a growing person. Their mum doesn't resent me for this, and the horror stories I read here are rare I think and certainly hope...

I was a step child and my dad had a few longish term gfs while I was growing up.

I hated the ones who tried to Iove me "as their own" and forced involvement in my life and did stuff for me before I got to know them.

I got on much better with the ones who were friendly but more distant and allowed me to build a relationship on my own terms. This is what I did with SC and it's worked well.

In my experience, swooping in and trying to treat children as your own that aren't comes accross as overbearing and leads to resentment on both sides.

Yes I had 2 step parents and have been a step parent, am a step parent and one of my children is a step parent. My partner of 20 years is step parent to my children and is very close. I am really attached to my step child and I see him as part of my partner rather than ‘another woman’s child’. His mother is fantastic and helped my own children to see that parents can separate and still have a positive relationship. Being a child of divorce in the 80’s was very difficult and being flung into new relationships, expected to accept these new people was traumatic. The children should always, always come first. I’ve had long standing MH difficulties related to being a people pleaser and feeling desperately unsure about my relationships. If you get involved with a parent expect them to put their children first and if you can’t go along with that bail out.

Good comments on expecting the bio parents to put their own kids first.

Still, I think fathers often assume this to mean they can a) take barely any responsibility and leave it SMs b) tell SM kids ‘come first’ over her and c) have no idea what that means. When we met, he gave his kids everything they wanted and very little of what they needed. Putting them first didn’t extend to getting out of bed by 10am and leaving me to do the breakfast/leaving them to play Nintendo and have crisps for breakfast.

I have saved my own mental health around this by totally disengaging. It’s a shame. As soon as I came on the scene and was rly good with both of DP’s kids (they are also SEN and I have worked in SEN ) first exw targeted me for alienation and then DP felt inadequate, got mired in shame and started to swear black is white.

I was criticizing his kids if I tried to help. Then I was rejecting them and disallowing them consistency when I disengaged, in his view. I took a break from the relationship soon after I disengaged from the kids. Since we reconnected he’s not asked me to see his kids, so he has accepted my views and even apologized.

I thought of my stepmom a lot when I fired myself from that job. We were feral kids. She taught us a lot, like how to eat politely, how to address adults respectfully and feminine hygiene.

She was the only adult concerned when my mum sent me swimming on my period and didn’t buy or pack any tampons.

My dad claimed he was putting us first by shoving her below us in the hierarchy. Really he was putting her last.

Brilliantly since I let my DP have to actually put his kids ‘first’ by ensuring all consequences of their upbringing flow directly to him he’s really grown as a parent. He’s had to. What he can’t do yet is tell me how he would ensure they behave nicely towards me. All he now réalises - this in itself a huge step for him - is that his kids have major problems. He sees he has to accept his own part in that but not yet at the stage of being able to.

What Im querying about myself now is why all this still makes me so incredibly angry. I know I can’t go near these kids again until I can accept their reality and meet them where they are (and until I’m confident they will no longer be so incredibly disrespectful at the level of lowest-possible expectations. I’m talking about things like shouting and shoving).

I feel sorry for them but I don’t want to help them or help DP with them ever. I think it’s cos I’ve learned there’s no point. This does make me sad but the alternative for now would be worse.

You did the very best job here with max empathy for everyone. I take it you didn’t get a gold medal either. As you say, it’s thank less.

One thing this all taught me tho is to be really appréciative and supportive of my exh’s partner and my kid’s relationship with my partner. The things I can control I do very well as I’m sure you did too. We can give ourselves some gold stars.

This is lovely.

You have a good supportive DH here and you’ve been able to stand on his shoulders. This also sounds like a situation with very clear expectations and excellent boundaries.

I think you’re right.

I think I couldn’t’ bear to SM any longer because seeing these kids struggles and being reminded of my own bio parents’ behaviors resurfaced so much childhood trauma. I would hear the latest exw saga and sometimes have a panic attack.

I had step parents on both sides, and very different experiences.

My dad left when my brother was 6 weeks old, and married my stepmum 3 months after the divorce finalised. They very quickly had 2 children together, she had 2 from a previous marriage. We were always treated differently than the other 4 that lived there full time - at Christmas they would buy them laptops, phones, games consoles. My sister and I got £1 lipgloss and clothes that didn’t fit. We were fed, but only what was left after the other portions had been allocated, and any family holidays they had we were never invited on.

My stepdad, mums husband who she married 4 years post-divorce, is a wonderful man. We were raised by both of them, with a united front on boundaries etc, never treated differently or segregated in any way, and after a period of adjustment - he raised us as his own. We’re all very grateful.

I think it’s meant that my relationship with my stepson is stronger, we’ve worked really hard on strengthening it on his timeline and in a way that worked for him. We operate as a family - what’s ours is the whole family’s, and if there’s something that benefits us it would always benefit him too. He is the only child in our household, but he is rightfully the centre of it, and not a single step in our relationship was taken without his needs being the priority.

My dad and stepmum’s set up taught me what not to do, and my stepdad really is the example.

My mother remarried. My stepfather is an amazing man and I am grateful I have him in my life. I wouldn't change that at all. I wasn't a perfect teen, but I was a normal teen.

I have two stepson, adults now, and I would choose them as brothers to my DD, every single time, over and above me having more. They are brilliant young men. They lived with us a 50/50 until their mother wanted to retrain, so spent more time with us to enable her to do so. I wasn't the perfect stepmum, but I'm not the perfect parent either. My biggest tip for life in general is not winding yourself up with imaginary scenarios because emotion will take over.

Introducing someone new into your children's life will impact them. But also, the whole relationship breakdown, divorce, not seeing the other parents, money issues, parents who refuse to have amicable relationships, that is far more damaging.

That impacted me more than having a stepfather. And it is the reason I worked hard in ensuring my DSSs DM and DF worked together. If all the adults work together as a unit, there are less issues.

I think that one of the problems is that many of the factors that determine whether or not you have a good relationship with your step child are out of your control.

Factors like their mothers attitude to you (unless you've been deliberately unpleasant), how well the children were adjusted to the split before you came along, distance between homes if mum moves etc. There's also the fact that some peoples personalities clash with neither party doing anything wrong.

Despite this, step parents, particularly step mothers, are blamed when things go wrong.

I’m a stepmum and was complaining about some things to my best friend, who had a stepmum growing up. The things I do for my SC are the things she hated her stepmum for. It’s weird to think about.

This is a really interesting thread -- thanks for starting it. I'm a stepchild and stepmother. I struggle in both roles, but find that being on both sides of it does help me manage how i feel!

I found my stepkids' complete lack of interest in me hard to manage, but was able to remember how little interest i'd had in my stepmum when i was younger. Sadly my stepmum has distanced my dad from me over time, and it's helped me to resist (a little!) that urge to have 'time alone' with their dad. Making sure we don't withdraw too much (even though that's tiring and hard as we have them all the time).

Very interesting thread!

I was stepchild and am a stepmum. My parents had a very dysfunctional relationship and I think growing up with that in early childhood was a lot more traumatic than them actually divorcing. Apart from some times after that when I didn't know where my dad was or when I'd see him again, that was pretty hard.

I might be unusual in that after they split up, I actually really wanted them to remarry. They were both so unhappy and I thought a relationship would fix that (it wouldn't).

But, I did have a great experience with my stepdad. He was just a nice, slightly aloof guy who was interesting to talk to sometimes. We weren't close and he never acted like a parent to me, but I can see he must have made an effort to have those little chats sometimes and make me feel 'seen'. Actually, the years that my mum lived with my stepdad were the only years of my life that I felt like I had something like a safe and stable home. That was all him, because my mum was just as troubled and abusive as ever.

I think probably the biggest thing I've taken from that was that sometimes the presence of a nice adult, not forced upon you, can be a good thing. I was very laid back when getting to know DSD and gave her space to come to me. And that worked well for us. That hasn't avoided a whole other load of drama, mainly between DH and his ex and their co-parenting. But that aside me and DSD do have a consistent and warm friendly relationship, I know she trusts me and that I am interested in what she has to say and that I enjoy her company. I am proud of both of us for that.