4 year old daughter doesn’t even recognise her half brother as a brother or even his name...
for kindergarten next week the kids get to do story time where they talk about there family. You bring in a picture and the teacher asks who is this and this person. So we have our annual holiday pic which my adult ss (now 21.5) is in and my dad. My daughter can say her dad, brother, mummy and granddads name...
i point to her half brother and ask “who is this?” as we need to prep the kids by asking them so they know to answer next week, my daughter stares at pic confused. Then i ask her “do you know who that is?” She replies instantly with “NO!!” That everyone, sums up the non-existant relationship that does not exist despite living together for 4 yrs of her life since the day she was born.
yes its a result of piss poor daddy guilt parenting and refusing to address the usual blended issues... there are some kids in class who do not speak any english, my daughter does speak some english but behind a bit with her language/verbal speech despite being such a chatterbox. If i tried to show pics of my daughters half sisters that she hasn’t seen in 1.5 yrs almost, she isn’t going to recognise them at all.
so i’ve been updating hubby who is overseas till next week of her school and development etc, told him about this family activity and since ss is in all our most recent family pics its not like i can crop him out. We didn’t take holiday pics last year as i was overseas as my dad was very sick and admitted to hospital so looks like it’ll be an old pic of me, hubby, my daughter and son.
there isn’t any blame on me or my kids for not recognizing their half siblings as they’re half sibling by name, not in relations at all (they certainly don’t behave that way). So meeehhh not gonna correct my kid and drill into her, her half siblings name and who they are so hubby gets to dream of the imaginary 1 perfect happy family...
i predicted this years ago that the day was inevitable that my kid(s) would not recognise their half siblings and if told would say they don’t know that person. Did anyone care?? Of course not!! Hubby claimed to try address the issue of his kids with ex and us blending but it was always “i’m stressed (of nothing imaginary stress syndrome) or the classic “i need time to be a decent human being and be respectful of my siblings, stepmum and accept the reality they exist”.
my dad has less contact with my kids and they recognise him as granddad and say his name easily... will this change skids or hubbies behaviour to address things?? Nope, don’t think so but i am not stressing about it. It is what it is... its on them for failing to maintain a relationship unless they can look like brother or sister of the year in front of family and friends...
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We have the same issue with
We have the same issue with my son's half siblings. He reacts to SD the same way he reacts to any other child, and his adult SS is so unfamiliar to him, he doesn't recognise him at all...he's just another person.
But then DH gets all mushy when he smiles at them, as if there's love and familiarity there, when there isn't. My son reacts positively to most people; DH is putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5.
My stepkids love to play sibling of the year when they bother to spend time with my son, but visits are so few and far between that there's no relationship at all. They're just putting on an act in front of their father to make themselves look good. They're thick as thieves, yet don't bother with my son. If they don't want to bother with him, then whatever. I just worry it will hurt my son when he's old enough to understand, and wonder why his "siblings" love eachother, but not him.
every day
i thank my lucky stars i didn't have an ours kid with Chef. Now MY adult bios would have accepted a "half" sibling but not Chef's ferals.
I read somewhere that in alot of blended families mummy can
have more kids and existing kids accept them but god forbid their dad has more and they do not recognise them as siblings.. it’s to do with their perception of loss of inheritance implying daddy owes them for life.
Yes
as the recent video OSS 23.5 posted on FB shows. He believes that dads should take care of their disfunctional first family and offspring till the day they die.
Bex_s and thinkthrice its such a shame isn’t it...
I saw a steve harvey episode about blended families and one of the mums said society already views stepmums as evil and the enemy and so by default stepparent and subsequent siblings are just seen as competition to eliminate and not other people to love and connect with.
my husbands family if they saw my kids behave this way about their half siblings, well it’ll just confirm what they knew all along about my skids... thing is hubby sabotaged any relationship from happening when he refused toaddress issues, gaslighted me as overreacting about things and that things were fine when not.
Then guilt us or try pressure me and my kids to suck it up with his 3 ferals. I have limited time with hubby as it is and do my best to work with his crazy schedule while my skids don’t so any limited time i have, I don’t want it ruined by having tolerate shit skid behaviour.
whenever i’ve said to hubby if you claim they are sorry for stuff they belive they never did wrong like answer back to me, disrespect us etc and they continue with it and i’ve told you that you should make them go home as I won’t spend a holiday with them being ruined, are you gonna drop them off at the train station you picked them up from?? He suddenly replies with “i won’t ask them to come then” so how friggin hard is it for him to just grow some balls and sort this issue out
It is such a shame. What has
It is such a shame. What has the potential to be a great family just turns into a mess because of selfish skids, who see their siblings as competition and not family.
Thing is they do not see the bigger picture.
In our case bio mum is a psycho narcissistic pas borderline personality disordered woman, she does everything to alienate her kids from hubby, hubby explains your mum abandoned you and you are sabotaging any future family you have and they do the talk we’ll change daddy but nothing as usual...
Shamds, are you married to my husband :)
My DH, I and our kids recently (unfortunately) ran into estranged SD while in town. The kids didn't recognise her at all. They had absolutely no idea who she was. The frosting on the cake was SD pretended she didn't know us! She didn't even acknowledge DH, who she has been chasing to regain their relationship,and laying the guilt trip on him as though her actions and estrangement were his fault, but refuses to ever acknowledge me or our kids even if DH brings us up, like we don't exist.
I'm glad my kids don't remember much of her. She is a piss poor influence and person and it is in their best interests to have a life well away from her. DH, on the other hand, cannot cut the cord, and falls for her crap about changing etc. But when push came to shove she showed her ass. DH was very quiet on the topic, didn't want to discuss it at all. But it was made very clear by myself and the kids that the person we ran into was nothing in our lives.
This seems to be a common scenario. Our husbands are not
objective, lucky for me my inlaws see through the crap and question me about things and skids, they’re just gobsmacked because the treatment of me and my kids is pretty much what hubbys family got.
to them we are family so they can’t get how skids can be like this. I try to focus on my life and not skids, i do not prioritize them over myself and hubby has been made clear of it. He doesn’t like to comment now about his kids because the truth hurts. I don’t think he will ever man up and tell his kids. I reminded him if he thought we would stay married like this with the way things are, don’t be surprised if i’m gone and ask for a divorce one day because its because of this and you claim you stand up for me but really don’t
Good for you Shamds
I'm glad you stand up to your princples. I am very pleased your in laws see the truth in what people your skids really are, and support you and your kids.
Mine are the opposite, and due to theis I do not have anything to do with many of them (aside from a few wonderful ones who are kind and not blind). DH and I have distanced ourselves significantly (thankfully most live in another country) from his family who supported BM and the skids, and chooe to ignore boundaries and factual damage they have caused us. Needless to say, none of the nasty in laws recognise our kids in any way. It used to bother me when they listed their grandkids (both in blood and marriage related) on social media but our kids never once made the list. Now I'm over it. Our kids are better off without them and have plenty of my family who love them and spend lovely quality time with them, and our kids are thriving and have achieved more at their ages than any of the inlaws have in their entire lives!
I don't ever think our DH's will ever be able to man up and be an actual parent to the skids. Mine surely has not shown any indication that he will ever tell the skids what he should. My DH has expressed that he knows youngest skid is a sociopath and he knows ay word is a lie, but he still falls for it, and expects me to also be that naive and stupid. As for older skid, DH is honest that he has failed somehow in his parenting. I wonder if he can ever acknowledge that the genetics of the abosolute scum of the earth with which he bread with (though older skid is anot actually his, BM cheated the entire relationship without him knowing, got pregnant by someone else, which is a big secret and no one including BM and skids know DH knows, he only found out many years later, and blackmailed him into marring her - his mistake and stupidty, I grant him no excsue considering he never asked for a paternity test nor refused to be with such a revolting person, both inside and out) as well as the pathetic snowflake parenting, made for the absolute failures that the skids are.
I have also told me DH that if the people he brought into our marriage, affect myself or our kids again he could be facing another wife leaving him. All due to how he has allowed BM and skids to ruin too many times in out lives, and the excuses he makes for them.
I'd blame your DH for this.
I'd blame your DH for this.
My DD has three younger half siblings (we don't call them half but I do here for clarity) and most certainly not only they recognized her at all times they are very close. They also don't live close by.
My exDH was teaching his kids about their sister from the day one. and when she was not around he'd make an effort to teach them. When older of her brothers was born my ex had her picture by the crib and was telling him "look that's your sister" and so on.
She now has great relationships with them. Now my DD isn't feral or dismissive of her siblings but if she attempted my exDH wouldn't tolerate it.
So it was and is your DH job to build these connections as these are all his kids. It's his job. He failed it. I like my DDs siblings but it's not my job to build a connection. She is my kid but her siblings aren't mine. so it's up to the parent. Your DH clearly doesn't care so you can't do anything about it. Just focus on your kids
Thats exactly right livingoutloud. Like alot say here,
you can’t care more than the parents do. It absolutely was hubbys job from day 1 to build those connections and state the basic expectations and rules for skids with us and in our home/family, hubby failed to. He thought we’d wing it and everything would fall into place.
then our daughter was born and when she was 5 weeks old hubby snapped at ss after i was in tears at how i and my daughter were treated by them, it was like we were such an inconvenience and ss claimed he was incapable of any affection to our daughter when all hubby asked was he not ignore everyone as its rude, hubby admitted ss was like this since the divorce and his mum abandoned him after the pas against hubby she instigated. Hubby was used to it but i or others should not be subjected to it.
nothing has changed. Recently a few months back hubby stupidly tells me to give his kids a chance because apparently they apologized to him but stated they didn’t know they did anything wrong like being rude to me and my kids, out of line, answering back and no respect of our privacy and boundaries and since they apologized why not give them a chance.
i told hubby very clearly that i had long ago disengaged from his kids and what he failed to realize is i have no blood ties with them. No biological connection, any relationship is based on mutual respect and pleasantries and since they are not pleasant to be around then there comes a point where you lose any hope, willingness or motivation to care about them yet alone maintain a relationship.
They bring no positivity to my life so i have long ago disengaged.
Yep very common for stepkids
Yep very common for stepkids to either not care at all or pretend to care about half siblings. My SD12 goes between the two. Sometimes she could not give a shit about DH, myself or DD. Other times she sucks up to Daddy and pretends that she loves and misses DD soooo much, but no she doesn't want to get pictures or video chat and see her. She has met her 6 month old half sister ONCE.
I'm pretty sure she will make sure to be around for birthday parties (that's the only time she will see us, for a party!) And I am secretly hoping my daughter will rebuff her affection and give her a look of "who TF are you?"
I told one of my hubbys sil who is also a stepmum (blended
Family too), i told her yrs ago that sometimes it feels like arguing about this is a lost cause and i need to wait for my kids to grow up and say in front of family and hubby very clearly and firmly “thats not my brother or sister, I don’t know them and haven’t met them so don’t call them that!!”
Maybe that will have more effect, who knows ??