Your feelings are normal. It's hard to feel something you don't feel, especially when it's not returned. Being a stepparent isn't easy for anyone. You just need to find what makes you comfortable in the situation. You can tend to their needs and be the best step parent you can be, but the love may or may not come.

A lot of times it's difficult to love someone that you do not like, especially if they're not your own blood. We all have that annoying uncle that tells stupid jokes and is constantly getting on everyone's nerves, but we still love him even though he's not that likeable of a guy. However when it's someone else's children, that's a different story, and it's harder to bring yourself to enjoy the company of someone or feel loving toward someone who you just don't like. It is not wrong or abnormal for you to feel this way toward your SS. Also, what your DH may not understand is that yes, some women can feel motherly toward their stepchildren, but it's pretty hard to feel that way toward someone who doesn't SEE you that way. You are completely right, it is a little much for him to expect you to feel and act motherly toward a child who doesn't place you in that type of a role.

I have a question...are you physically unable to have children, or are you saying that you will never have children of your own because your husband doesn't want more kids? If that's too personal and you don't want to answer I understand...I'm wondering because this exact same thing is happening to a friend of mine. When they got married he said that he wanted kids, but now it's been 3 years and no kids in sight. Now he says that he doesn't want them, and when people ask the two of them if they have any children, he says "We have a DOG". It's a really sore spot for my friend and the cause of many arguments every week because she wants children more than anything else, and her husband is unwilling to give them to her now or any time in the conceivable future...but promised her children before they got married. She's actually thinking of getting a hysterectomy and just getting it over with because if she's not going to be able to have children she doesn't want to continue to deal with her female problems. She also has started to mention divorce. I am very concerned for her because I feel if she allows her husband to force her into a childless life, and she chooses to enable herself to never have kids, I am afraid she will resent her husband for the rest of her life.

Sorry if that was a little too much information or if it doesn't even apply, but I really get concerned about the issue of not being able to have kids because of the husband going back on his original word. I hope I didn't offend because that wasn't my intention.

*~So sayeth Nymh~*

Is it possible that there's a little resentment over not having children of your own that could be in the way of your feeling more affectionate towards your stepson? If so, that's a totally human and understandable response.

I would've loved to have had another baby, but between his three, my one and the one we have together... well, let's just say that five was more than enough. And I do love my skids, but I have to admit that there are times that I don't like them very much. (Same goes for my bio kids, too, by the way! Totally human emotions and not, in my opinion, a step thing.)

It doesn't make you a bad person to feel the way you feel. When you consider that your husband (if I understand the situation) has pretty much made the choice that you will be childless, well, why is that fair? By that same token, why can't you then choose for him to be "childless" on certain weekends, when visitation is unscheduled but BM needs a babysitter? I don't understand how he can say that YOU can't have children EVER, yet you are not allowed to say that HE can't have his child over THIS WEEKEND, for example.

I think you are in a tough spot, that your feelings are totally human and valid and that you're probably not going to feel maternal towards your SS as long as you are being denied a child of your own. It's like having your husband tell you to go lose twenty pounds while he's dangling a pail of double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream just out of reach.

~ Anne ~

I have always felt in a motherly way about my SD's but the were little more than babies ( 1 and 2)when they came to live with me- and they are my daughters and I am their mommy- But like I said they were very young and I have raised them with my husband. With up until recently no contact with BM- I think the age you came into the picture really does play a role in the emotions you have for him- Now he is an annoying teenager- even if he was your real son guess what he'd still be an annoying teenager- I know that my own mother didn't like me that much when i was that age.