Young step mum to 4

[Poodledoodle134]

Hello, I just wanted to reach out and see if there were any other people in my situation and feel the same. I’m 24 and became a full time step mum to 4 kids when I was 22. My partner and I are healthy and happy, we are getting married next year and I couldn’t have asked for better Step kids. They are all different ages with the oldest not being much younger than I so I get to experience different parental relationships with them all (if that makes sense?).
Of course it isn’t always easy, kids are kids and as a child brought up with a step mum I’d like to think I know how it feels when times get rough for the kids.

However, sometimes I can’t help but feel lonely, as I can’t relate to a lot of people in my situation and being still quite young myself. We have a break from the kids as they go to their other parents house every other weekend, and when these weekends roll around I find myself grieving the person I used to be in my early 20s. I was in my 2nd year of uni studying to be a paramedic and I dropped out (which I regret massively), I lived in a house share that I loved and I felt I was in such a good place with my anxieties. I now work behind a computer with a job that suits around my kids school. Not my ideal job but as parents we make sacrifices and it keeps my family financially secure. Please don’t think I don’t want the life I have chosen, I wouldn’t change it, I just want to know that I’m not alone! I’ve googled groups in my area, even just for stepparents to go to and talk, but I’ve found nothing.

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you so much for taking the time to read this 😃

Go back to uni @Poodledoodle134
and start putting yourself first

Go back to uni and finish your course. You would still only be a couple of years older than the others on the course. Think of your time off as a pause.

Please consider what you are getting out of this relationship, it sounds like she wins and you lose.

You need to tell your partner how much you regret giving up uni. If they care, and appreciate you you at all, they will make the changes to allow you to go back to uni asap.

They can put in place whatever arrangements they would have had to have made if they had never met you.

If they won’t, you know where you stand.

Like others, I’d be very much against this if you were my child.

if you loved your uni course and loved your flat share, how did this all come about? Why didn’t you maintain those things and still have a relationship?

Why have you given up your whole life for your partner. What has she sacrificed for you.

Your girlfriend and her ex can parent all the kids between them. Go back to university and prioritise your future and creating an easy, peaceful, happy life for yourself.

As previous posters have pointed out, anyone who cherishes their partner would want them to achieve all they can in life and would not be making them parent kids who already have 2 parents. Reconsider if this woman is really all you want out of life.

I think that your "partner" is massively taking advantage of you. She is responsible for her children - she's the one who had them. They are not your children. Truly, youth is a very fleeting thing which you often don't realise at the time. Please don't sacrifice your twenties doing a job that you don't like to babysit some other woman's children.

I agree with everyone else. I gave up my uni course when I met my ex-H (for logistical reasons, not because of children) and it's my biggest regret as life got in the way and the time was never right to go back and complete my studies. Honestly what your partner is asking of you is massively unreasonably, as PPs have said if you split up you'll have no right to see the children you've given up so much for.

Why oh why. You’re still in your early 20s! Please go back and finish your degree and set yourself up before you get married. Otherwise, you’ll find you have taken the much harder/longer road to happiness.

Tenner says as soon as OP mentions going back to college, the partner will start talking about them having a baby together that the OP will have to put her life on hold again.

If you were my daughter OP I would be devastated at your choices, and wondering how much pressure you felt from your partner to drop out of college.

Oh OP. This was such a huge mistake. 😖

I was in my 2nd year of uni studying to be a paramedic and I dropped out

You dropped out to look after some older woman’s kids? Jesus. Get back to uni. Stop being a nanny with a fanny.

Well ops partner really struck lucky didn't she. A live in, free nanny that all so holds down an office job and contributes financially, I am assuming.
Such a sad life for such a young women.

I was having the absolute time of my life at that age.

I think you are mad and I say this as a woman who became a stepmum at 25, but your situation is much different to mine.

Hey OP, I'm 23 and also a stepmom to two little boys. I can't say I've ever completely felt like I'm missing the person I used to be when I was younger as I've always wanted children young and still are planning on trying for my own this year / next year with my partner. But there has been times I've had feelings of missing my freedom until I remember I chose this life. I also have changed my contract at work to fit around school drop offs and pick ups as it's just what works for us I don't see anything wrong with it. I provide for them financially, emotionally and everything in between but everyone's situations and opinions are different and that's totally fine I personally just wouldn't treat them any other way. For me I just see it as I have two bonus children who I love and treat as my own and that's the vibe I get from you too.
I can understand where some of the other posters are coming from as all relationships have the potential to breakdown but it's been years for me now and I love my life as I assume you do too there's always going to be little struggles it's normal. My only thing is I probably wouldn't have dropped out of studying as my partner most likely wouldn't have wanted me to etc but there's always time for you to go back and complete it and as you said you did it for what you feel to be the right reasons. I've been in the same career for 5 nearly 6 years now so this kind of problem never appeared for me, you could always try to meet up with friends or something more often to let off steam / still feel the same way you did in younger years. Try not to be too disheartened by some of the more negative opinions, you seem like a lovely person but there's only so much someone can take too, make sure you're fully happy and you're defo not alone!

Lovely op, I hope you aren't too upset by the comments here. Harsh as it may sound, I do agree with most of them - you shouldn't be in this position and you need to find a way out of it. You are clearly naturally caring by nature, and combined with youth and a new love I can see how the thought of "playing house" was appealing. This is why you feel lonely, you have forced yourself into a role which is unusual and inappropriate for your age and stage. Although of course you can and do care about them, these are not your children. If you and your partner separated you could possibly never see them again. You have no say over big decisions regarding them. The best thing you can do for them is to set them a great example - don't give up on your dreams so young to take on someone else's responsibility.

Good luck finding your way x

Kindly - end the relationship, go back to uni and enjoy your life. There’s no need for you to feel lonely & tied down at your age! It would be different if they were biologically yours - but they aren’t why are you sacrificing your life for this?

Sorry OP but I agree with this (as blunt as it is). They are not your children, this is a relatively new relationship to you in your young age (a few years when you have so little other life experience is not that long), and yet you have given up on yourself completely to cater to your gf’s kids. You are existing solely to cater to their lives yet you have never even lived your own yet?

My honest advice, and I don’t say it lightly, would be to take some years to be single, get qualifications, live with friends, and be carefree. Don’t let these years be taken away from you.

I think you’ve mentioned that some of the 4 step children are close to your age.

My Dad had me very young and when he divorced my Mum a couple of years later he met his now wife. She was young (similar age to you) firstly she was never expected to be a step mum - especially as my younger sister was in her early teens (I was close to her age). I like her, she makes my Dad happy and some 25 years later and a brother later she still makes him happy.

But she finished uni. She wasn’t expected to be a ‘step mum’ we still had parents who parented us. My Dad was responsible for my sisters (as was my Mum)
She still lived her life she wasn’t responsible for any of us and got to enjoy the normal mid 20’s experiences.

Go back to uni, the reason my dad and his wife are still together and happy is that he never expected her to change her dreams and wanted to support her to achieve them, she still lived her life. If your partner isn’t in agreement then you will resent them and the children.

I think that's because there are fewer same sex parents.

I had a woman on my caseload who had been with a guy, he left her. She got with a woman who was a very involved step-parent. She dumped her when the guy was interested again, but he left her when she got pregnant with their third child. She went back to the woman. She was at every antenatal appointment and the birth and was still around for at least a month after the baby, doing what co-parents do when there is a new baby.

I don't know if they're still together now, but I was flabbergasted by the whole thing.

Go back to uni @Poodledoodle134 seems like you’ve been conditioned to think that you’re doing this for the children but it seems like someone’s got themselves a free nanny.

I'm also a step-mum, although a bit older than you. Can you talk to your partner about what you could change to make you happier? Could you go back to finish univerisity in September? If not then, can you make a plan for when it will happen or when you will get to prioritise your career?
I appreciate that you see yourself as a parent to your stepkids, and I do to mine too. I think with the way you are presenting your situation, people want to check you are not being taken advantage of. Does your partner also arrange work around school pickups and drop offs? Is she providing financially for the family? How is she supporting you as her partner?
Have a careful think about what you want and write down some ideas. Then talk to your partner. If you are going to build a life together it needs to work for you too.

Don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm

It is so sad to see someone wasting their youth being an unpaid carer for someone else's kids at the expense of their own dreams.

Even if you have no fixed plans of your own, it absolutely is not right or fair that you take on this burden. Those parents are both taking the absolute piss out of you, surely you can see that?

Go to therapy and address the anger you feel against your own parents if you need to, but don't throw your own best years away!

Come on op. What are you doing?! You have one life and it’s all written out for you now in your early 20s as you have taken on so many commitments.

You don’t have to. You are allowed to change your mind. And DON’T GET MARRIED next year. You’re too young however many children there are and whether your partner is a man or a woman.

If you do stay with your partner you can still go back to uni and study and get a job as a paramedic. It’s her responsibility to sort out childcare for her children and it shouldn’t be you as you want a career.

Someone who really loved you wouldn’t be using you like this.

Hello! I also became a step mum at 24. Though only to one child. I love her dearly and now I am divorced from her father I still have partial custody of her. So I totally get some of where you are coming from. There is no real recognition for step parenting either you get all of the work and little reward outside of those relationships with the children.

However I'm also really worried about you giving up your career for this. How has it ended up that you're the one with most of the childcare burden.

Go back to uni! Its ok to have boundaries for yourself. It sounds like you're being massively taken advantage of.

Oh, OP, this is a mess. Why on earth she is willing for you to sacrifice your education and career for even one of her kids is beyond me.

Is she generally someone who isn't great with responsibility? Someone who always seems to land on her feet while other people step in to help? I know a couple of people like that. Having four kids and then palming them off on someone else would indicate perhaps yes.