Well, to be fair, circumstances can change. A friend of mine married a man with four children – all of whom lived with their mother two thousand miles away. The established routine was, the children flew in for a month visit during the summer, and otherwise it was just phone calls and presents at the appropriate times and, of course, child support.
All of which my friend was fine with.
But then the mother got into trouble (drugs, using then dealing, then jail) and all of a sudden she was full-time stepmother to four very upset children (naturally) who somehow blamed HER for the fact that their mother was gone…
There’s a difference between being excluded from obligations and being left out of family photos when you are standing right there. That’s just cold. A mother-in-law doesn’t chose to enter a family, either–the family of her son and his wife–but we don’t excuse her from acting politely to her daughter-in-law. If the oldest son is an adult, it’s reasonable to expect him to accept that his father’s wife is part of his father’s family.
I mean, seriously? If someone had posted “At Thanksgiving dinner every year, my mother-in-law orders me out of the room during family photos”, you’d think the mother-in-law acted reasonably, and that if there’s any wrong-doing at all, it’s on the husband for not protesting and the wife for expecting anything else? I agree that the husband needs to get on the same team as the wife, but I also think the oldest son, especially, needs to recognize that he can’t have a relationship with his father without accepting that his father has a wife.
I don’t think I’d ever agree to be a step-parent. I could marry someone with kids and be their friend or baby-sitter, or something like that, but I’d leave all decisions up to the biological parent. I’d never go beyond the ability to say ‘Your mom’ or ‘Your dad’ says you have to do this. If they don’t agree, I wouldn’t try to force them. An expectation of more would be a deal breaker for me.
The exception might be very young children with a parent out of the picture who would grow up knowing me as their parent.
I’m sorry, how does a 16 year old order someone out of the room for family photos? Who gives them that authority or says nothing when it happens? (hint: the OP is married to this person).
A MIL is an adult. the OP’s dispute is with children. The situations are simply not the same.
As it relates to the oldest child, the OP has already said he’s cut them out of his life, so that’s not even relevant. he’s not at family events at all.
Not to start pissing in your cornflakes after you stopped pissing in them. There is more.
Inheritance. If your husband dies his family will try hard to make sure you (and your husband beforehand) do not take anything. Essentially you will be under tremendous pressure to relinquish his ‘half’ of the assets and give to his children. If you own a house, they will even want you to sell and give up half of it or ‘buy out’ ‘their’ half. That’s even if they think you should get half (like if he makes more money than you). Be prepared to defend yourself in court.
More on inheritance…if your husband’s parents leave an inheritance, they will make sure you cannot touch it. If your husband stands by you they will just leave it all to his children. However, any inheritance you get should be passed onto his children if you die.
I actually suggest you tackle this problem head on NOW. Insist on a will with your husband. How he wants todivvy up assets if he dies and you survive will be…interesting to hear.
Sounds like the kids are adults now…but if you are a step parent and your spouse dies… be prepared to be asked to take on the children. I knew a woman whose husband died and their mother wanted child support from her. They went to court and he lost.
On the other hand, if your husband dies and you fall ill/destitute…expect no help from the kids…financial or otherwise. “You’re not my mother”.
Kids do well in school, kids are great. Kids don’t do well…it is YOUR fault. Why aren’t you helping them more?
College costs? Well, of COURSE you will pay, right!
etc etc.
For the love of yourself people, don’t marry people with kids. If you have to then have these serious discussions up front before marriage.
I have 2 children and 1 step son. The step son is the oldest from a previous marriage who is now 28.
It turned out well though it was stormy at times. We are actually pretty close now and a few months ago at a BBQ at my place he actually got all sappy and told me I was great. It made me feel good. The fact he just had his first kid probably helped make him sappy
That being said, Step parenting is hard and usually thankless and your advice quoted above is good. If you are a step parent and the other parent is in the picture then DO NOT overstep your authority. Be as much of a parent as the CHILD wants you to be. If that isn’t much…then be a kindly ‘uncle’. If it’s alot then give it to him/her. However, do not allow the child to vacilate…do not allow the child to allow you as a parent in some things one month then pull it away the next. Children love consistency and so usually will respect you on this but if you allow them they will run rampant over you.
Short version - be as much of a parent as the child needs you to be. No more, no less. THAT is your responsibility.
Earlier you said that since he was 18, an adult, when the OP married his dad, the OP shouldn’t expect to be in a family relationship at all, that she would never be a stepmother because he was an adult.
Please note that this is not some rule of life - it’s how some things may turn out in a shitty situation.
My father died last October. He did not leave a will. Because he died unexpectedly, there was a lot of financial stuff that hadn’t really been handled - for example, my stepmom’s name wasn’t on any of the house mortgage/ title paperwork. So my brother and I signed over our interest in the house to her. I can’t imagine taking away her house just because the paperwork wasn’t in order. How would that have been respectful to my dad’s memory?
My dad was a smart guy, adn one whose opinion I trusted. He loved my stepmom and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. That means that she is also in my life forever. She is my son’s grandma, just as much as my mom and my husband’s mom are, even though my dad never even knew about his grandson.
I’m sorry for those of you who are having a rough time step-parenting. I won’t pretend it’s always been an easy road, especially with my step-dad as we’re further apart politically and actually lived together during the tumultuous teenage years, but I love all my parents very, very much. They’ve all contributed immensely to my life. I hope you guys will all get to that place eventually - sometimes it does take some growing up on the part of the stepkids.
Her problem is with all the kids, first of all. Since the adult child doesn’t participate in family events, clearly it’s not the adult child shutting the OP out of family photos. And I do think that expecting a young adult to treat you as a parent – when you’ve never been a parent to them, AND they hate your husband, is asking quite a bit too much of reality.
The other complaints seem to concern the younger children. Again, I ask, who’s the adult here?
I think it’s a little unrealistic to expect your 17 year-old stepchild to treat you as a parent if he or she was 14 at the time you married. It’s not unrealistic to expect to be treated courteously , but that’s a different issue.
The family photos the OP is excluded from- what kind of family photos are we talking about? Are we talking about exclusion from a formal portrait of husband and kids , the Christmas card photo or everyone at Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner? That's an issue for the husband. Is it that the Sweet Sixteen or graduate wants a photo with the bioparents? That's a different story entirely, and I think the OP is unrealistic to expect to be in those photos. As she is to expect to be at the graduations if there are limited tickets and I'm wondering who exactly she thinks should be the last to hold the new baby if not her- the biodad , the biomom or the other set of grandparents?
The OP reads to me as if she wants a relationship with her stepchildren that I have only seen happen under very specific circumstances- where the bioparent is completely out of the child's life ( whether due to death or other reasons) and the stepparent came into the picture before the child was a teenager.
No one’s asking to be treated like a parent, but it sounds like the OP would like to be treated as part of the family. Which she is.
It sounds as though your husband is trying to please everyone, ex-wife and kids and you, and because you’re the gracious one, your feelings end up last. Your husband needs to realize, however, that his emotional obligations to his ex-wife ended when they got divorced. He owes her respect and generous, good-natured co-parental coordination. He owes YOU, along with his kids, emotional priority. His job isn’t to make his ex-wife happy, just to make her job as a mom easier.
But pictures? There’s no reason you don’t get a picture with everyone. But you can’t expect to be in every picture, either. Kids want photos with mom and dad-- that’s just the way it is.
I’m not envious of your situation… I met my stepson when he was 6. Now he’s 8 and we have a great relationship. But it’s been difficult to know when to push for my inclusion and when to step aside. We still always take multiple sets of photos. Dad and I keep the ones with me and him and son, and biomom usually keeps the ones of Dad and her and kid (sigh).
You came in this thread to argue that the kids were too old for her expectations. Now you are arguing that they are too young to be expected to be socially gracious. I don’t think you can have it both ways.
My SIL is a stepparent. In the course of 10 years, she went from being fun, happy and in love to being bitter, cynical, and negative. Between the custody battle, anger over child support, and repeated rows with the ex-wife over every possible issue involving his 3 kids, she’s a completely different person today. She’s not just angry at the ex-wife, she’s angry at the 3 kids, for siding with their mom during the battle.
Honestly, as much as I love her husband and all the kids, including the 2 they have together, part of me wishes she’d have never met him. They’ve all succeeded in making each other completely miserable. I want my old SIL back.
For those who are in love with people with kids, I will caution you to think long and hard about whether you have the mettle to handle being a stepparent. To say it’s thankless is underestimating it. At its worst, it can be soul crushing.
To the OPer, I repeat the advice to get to counseling. These small grievances will fester if you don’t address them now.
I feel for you. I think you have some good input from some other posters.
It sounds like when you first married the kids father they were in school and now they are not. Are they adults living thier own lives now?
I was a stepparent for about 10 years , the kids went from 7 to 17 and didn’t live with us except for stepdaughter who lived with us for a couple of years.. They were with us every weekend.
At first I was just a friendly participant. Mom’s new boyfriend. I went where they went and tried to be nice and have some fun. I didn’t assume any parental responsibilities and would just talk to thier Mom at night when she asked for advice or there had been some issue. They were good smart and polite kids and that seemed to work.
It’s not clear to me if your husband and his ex get along. Mine did not, so there were no family events they both attended. If it was a school activity we sat in different places from her ex and his new wife and generally didn’t speak.
The family photos thing is a mystery. My ex had a tradition of having her picture taken with her kids once a year at some photography place, often some theme, and I never ecpected to participate. Around the house and on trips to the coast there were lots of pictures taken and I was included, not as Dad but just as part of this event. All this to say that I always understood that I wasn’t a parent and never expected to be, but I always expected to be treated with respect and consideration as a person who was participating in thier lives. They didn’t owe me anything as stepdad but they owed me basic respect and consideration as a human being who was part of thier lives, and as an adult in the household. I remember the stepdaughter and I having a conversation in which she reminded me I wasn’t her Dad. I acknowledged that but reminded her that as an adult in the hiusehold I expected basic respect and when I politely asked her to do something , like the dishes, or normal stuff, she would do it without a fight.
I know that if there were family events and I was intentionally and repeatedly left out of photos my feelings would have been hurt and I would have felt I was being treated with much consideration. At that point I would have gone to thier Mom and told her how I felt. If the situation was reversed and my spouse was being left out I would insist she be included. If they wanted a separate picture with just Dad and kids, that’s fine, but she wouldn’t be left out. I’d put a picture framed picture up of kids , step Mom and Me that they would see when they came over, not to force it, but to make my feelings clear.
Basic respect and consideration for another person that is part of your life. When they come to their Dad’s house, they are also coming to YOUR house and you have every right to expect some consideration from them, and expecially from your husband. Just as they should expect that from you. The graduation thing seems very hurtful and inconsiderate. Unless there were strict limits by the school dad should have insisted that you go regardless of what the kids said.
It seems the kids are adults now with their own lives. Neither you or thier Dad can make them feel a certain way toward you but you both should insist they treat you with some consideration and respect. As others have suggested , talk to your spouse and tell him how you feel. You and your feelings deserve to have some priority in his life. More so than his ex. If the kids visit on a regular basis you might find a way to talk to them as well, or to talk to them with him. I remember my sister writing a long letter to her husband’s adult daughter and things got better as they undertood each other’s feelings. don’t say, “Oh it’s okay” when you feel bad and it isn’t. That’s on you. Airing those things isn’t easy, but it’s often worth it.
No, I said that three years isn’t a long time when it comes to imposed emotional relationships, and while a parent-like relationship might be possible for the younger children – eventually – as for the oldest child, that ship has sailed. The youngers, are acting their age. Unlike the OP.
The problem with the shitty manners of the teenaged children is their father who permits those acts to continue unremarked and uncorrected. Yet the OP chooses to direct her ire where it doesn’t belong (on the minor children and/or estranged adult child) as opposed to where it does belong, on her husband and other adult family members who are actually present at these group family events and ALSO do nothing to include her. The children, it would seem, do nothing more than mimic the behavior of other adults present. But to the OP, it’s the kids’ faults entirely, for being ungrateful little shits. In reality they are the smallest shits in a family of shits, but they do make a handy target. Who made them that way? Their father that’s who, the shittiest of the whole lot.
It’s really not hard to understand. Or in other words, I agree with doreen completely.
That’s because you are clearly a decent human being. I had to call my father and warn him to draw up whatever legal documents necessary to prevent my sisters from “tossing his wife into the street” if he pre-deceased her, which one of them told me they plan on trying to do.
I finally had enough and told my father that my husband and I would no longer be flying home for family holidays because my sisters (one in particular, who is the ringmaster) are so rude, mean and nasty to his wife* that it makes everyone in the house extremely uncomfortable … and he allows it to continue. Shame on them for being petty little bitches, but shame on him for not telling them he won’t allow them to speak to his wife in her own home the way they do.
*We were all adults in our 20s and not living at home when they married 20-some years ago, so she was never really a “step-mother” to us.
