Is it normal to not like my step kids

[Thenoideanurse]

I’m a step parent to 3 children; ages 7, 9 and 10. I have my own daughter at 13 too. We all live together. We have my step kids 6 day and they see go to their mums for 4 days. I treat them largely as I do my own daughter with the exception of important decisions anything medical or relating to school I make sure their dad makes those decisions but day to day they get treat like my own daughter. Their behaviour is questionable they will often swear and shout at me when enforcing rules as they just don’t behave and I get at least weekly you can’t tell me what to do you’re not my mum from the middle one. Which we have explained I’m not trying to be but still trying to stick to rules causes issues. Me and their dad have been together for 5 years we have all lived together for 3&1/2. Is it normal to not like them? I absolutely dread when I’m at home and their dads at work because I know they misbehave. Their dads so supportive but I feel like I’m constantly going back and telling tales because they just cannot behave when I'm looking after them. It’s always been difficult as their behaviour is hard to cope with but in the last year it’s been really bad. Any advice how to get on better?

@CamillaMcCauley But the reality is that, for a whole host of different reasons, the "perfect" nuclear family with 2.4 children hasn't worked.
I do think that people who tend to make comments such as yours - about the step-parent model being "deeply flawed" are often making thar judgement from such families. Of course I stand to be corrected here?
I can only give my view from my experience of course and that is leaving my coercively controlling ex-husband when my two children were young.
I was on my own for some years, but when I made the decision to start dating again, I decided upon looking for men that didn't have children. For me, being a stepmum was something I didn't want, nor could afford, and I didn't want my children to have to blend with other children from a separate family.

I wouldn’t continue to expose my children to all of this.

Why are you minding the kids so much?

No smug married here; I left my emotionally and financially abusive ex several years ago and have majority care of our kids (he’s an every-second-weekend dad, and TBH, I suspect I may eventually have my daughter full-time, as she’s not very happy during her time at his house).

I have a very nice boyfriend of a couple of years who I have no intention of introducing to my kids until
they are old enough to be dating themselves. Moving in together would be only with full approval and enthusiasm of my by-then near-adult kids. (BF has a grown child now out of home.)

My ex rushed his new girlfriend onto the kids and it hasn’t gone well despite her being a perfectly nice person (too nice for him IMO but that’s another story) with no kids of her own. She now appears to be stepping back and doesn’t come around to his on the kids’ weekend anymore.

Being 50, I’ve seen a few divorces among friends now and am yet to see a genuinely successful blended family. On the whole the kids seem more miserable than the parents but the parents are also somewhat miserable that their kids haven’t taken to their new love story in the way they hoped.

@CamillaMcCauley How long did you stay with your abuser?

I was in that relationship for 10 years but not sure how that is relevant.

How does your daughter get on with her step siblings?

Presumably you really liked them before you decided to all live together?

I'd be moving out!

Their behaviour is likely to get harder rather than easier as they move into the teen years and given you do not like the DC your relationship will inevitably fail. Wouldn't you rather cut your losses now whilst your relationship with your own DC is still ok?

It’s in neither the OP’s interests nor mine to justify the difficulty of leaving an abusive relationship, a situation with which far too many women are sadly familiar. In short, my ex abused me, not the kids, and I left as soon as it was practical.

There’s a pretty big difference between expressing strong reservations about a family structure in general and attacking someone personally so I won’t be engaging with your posts any more.

How long did you stay with your ex before you finally divorced him @Youshouldbestrongerthanme ?

Why would you put your one and only child through this. They certainly can’t be happy in such an environment and it’s your one and ONLY chance to give her a good childhood. You are sacrificing that for people that you one day might probably never see again.
I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t put your own child first?

@CamillaMcCauley I left an abusive relationship for the sake of my children and lost everything, including our home.
Life was harder than you could ever imagine but at the forefront of my mind was knowing that a toxic home environment in which a partner was mistreated was never the right thing for them.
An abuser never abuses "just" their partner; that's a complete fallacy. Kids see, they know.
That's why I find it somwhat ironic you are so judgemental of the impact on the children re step/blended families.

No you are not their mother but you are the responsible adult in the home . And so you very much do get to tell them what to do . They are children you are a grown up and you are all housemates. Rules set down that apply to everyone, even visitors like help clear table , put away shoes, etc.

Nothing to do with step parents but all to do with family . But just asking why do you and your DH have a 60/40 arrangement? Maybe this should be revised to give them more time with their mother.

@Peakypeck My kids were 3 and 6 when I left. Within hours of leaving he had changed the locks on our marital home and we are still in privately rented many years on. It was far from a "practical" decision, but it was the best one for my young children.

My kids were not much older than yours so you don’t have much to criticize in terms of my exit timing. The abuse did not start immediately (as is usual, as you probably know) and I actually only found out about the extent of my ex’s lies in the last weeks of the relationship (and even more after it ended).

You made the choice you felt was best for your children at the time and so did I.

I think you have been a lot more scathing of me personally than I have been of the blended family model and I wonder why you feel the need to do that. At any rate, my situation is not the subject of this thread.

yes and you presumably stayed with him for a number of years, with an abusive man, so odd to have a go at @CamillaMcCauley for staying with her abusive husband for 10 years.
As for being of the opinion that in many many instances blended families are more mangled than blended…. She’s not alone. The evidence on mumsnet alone indicates that in many many instances it is very depressing

@Peakypeck My point is that it's ultimately more damaging to children to put practicality first rather than allow them to live with an abuser.
And it's simply not true that children don't see it - they do. I should have left slightly sooner tbh, but my youngest was just three.
We were very lucky to be able to to live with my parents following the days after I left because we had nowhere else to go. My little boy saw my mum and dad cuddle each other and he was absolutely wide-eyed; he'd never seen grown ups hug before.
So trust me - kids see. More sometimes than we like to believe.

Huh? Did anyone say otherwise? You picked up that poster for having a generally dim view on families blending, which if you stay on mumsnet long enough… is very warranted

@Peakypeck Because I'm making the point that a traditional nuclear family, in which one parent is abusive, can absolutely be more damaging to children than a blended one.

I feel I am reading this about myself!!! In the exact situation as you! so much so i question my past decisions haha!!! People say it gets easier as they get older…. I can only see it getting worse personally !

Good for you, but staying with parents wasn’t an option for me owing to my dad being in the final stages of dying of cancer at the time. My kids had also seen adult affection; please don’t project whatever your situation was onto me.

Again, I’m not going to get into the details of my situation. You may judge your choices as right by you and your kids and I judge my choices as right by my kids. I’m afraid you simply don’t know enough about my circumstances to be able to judge me fairly.

Either way, what I would hope we could agree on is that we made choices that centered the children IN OUR OWN SITUATIONS. The issue with the OP (and many other blended families) is that the decision to blend families is often not made centered on what the kids want but on what the adults want. Then the adults are surprised when one, two or more years down the track, the kids are acting out or are depressed from bottling up their feelings.

Op a 7,9 or 10 year old swearing is very worrying, I can’t think of any curses that age should be saying (I don’t like cursing at all but find it starts in the teen years)