I consider my FSS's family. I would walk through fire for those boys. As far as my fsd thats a different story shes like her mother monkey see monkey do..But those boys are MY boys I love them with all I am.

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Sir Winston Churchill..

I consider mine to be family. Mine live with me and truthfully I am more family than their own bio-family is on either side. Both DH and BMs family live a distance away from us. DH family is spread out in TN and Chicago. BMs family is in Iowa. The only bio-family that they have near is DH and a cousin (dad's age although he has kids, but live about 30 mins away from us). On BMs side it is BM, an aunt and their step-Gpa. THey have an uncle that lives about 4 hrs away and has kids. No one makes an effort to spend time with the kids outside of holidays and bdays or to celebrate report cards on BMs side. DHs side sends cards and money and do the occasional phone calls, but that is it. So, it leaves my family the Steppers as the only real family that is here for them. They buy gifts for any and all occasions, give cards and money, we do family dinners with the extended family pretty regularly and the kids are made to feel welcomed and included. So, yes they are family to me.

I think you feel that way because of the distance and that you have had no real significant period to bond with SS. That is actually quite normal. Even if he lived closer, that relationship would take some time to develop. When you factor in the distance the time is just not there. It is understandable and besides some things are just out of your control when it comes to skids when you are NCP.

Step Mother's Motto this week is:

You don't have to LOVE me, you don't even have to LIKE me... But you will RESPECT me.

Our house is so quite and different when SS is not there. On the week the week btw our current Wed. visiation we feel so lost not seeing him. We are trying to change that but, Yes SS is my family he is my son. I understand how you would feel disconnected being so far away and not getting to see them.

you do not know these skids. your H made them, and knows them, and has a blood tie to them so of course he loves them. you are a complete stranger pretty much who has to learn to care about them. with them living so far away, i don't know how you could be expected to love them like if they lived with you. you should do what's in your heart...if they live so far away, you can care about them as best you can but don't feel bad that you don't feel bonded to them...you haven't been given the opportunity to bond with them.
Go easy on yourself, it's not your fault.

my skids will always be family to me. Even though we are far apart right now, they are still apart of my life. I hang their pictures on the wall of this house that they have never been in, with the pictures of my bio kids, and their father and I. There are alot of memories in those pictures, and the new ones that my MIL sent to us, went up the day they got here. I look at that wall of pictures and think, WOW, what a big family we have, and I love seeing their smiles all together. I look at my little boy and see parts of all of his brothers and sisters, in him. No matter how far away, or the things they do/say to make me crazy, or how much time goes by,or whatever happens, they are part of my family."~waiting on the world to change~"

My SS is an only child in our home. He is my son and has been since he was 15mos old.

Best regards,

I can understand where you are coming from. My husband legally has 3 children. The 2 oldest he adopted when he married his ex. Then they had one together. The oldest boy I have met once and we have been together for over 4 years, he is now 19yrs old. The oldest girl I was around for the first couple of years and then she stopped coming for visits when she became a teenager, she is 15 years old. I haven't seen or spoken to her in almost a year. So, no I don't consider either of these two my family.
As for his biological child she is my family, she now lives with us full time and we are both extememly happy. Even when we got her EOW I still considered her family, we have a very close relationship and since I don't have any children of my own and probably never will, she is the closest thing I have to a daughter.
I look at it this way, with the older two I am their father's wife and they are their father's children. I don't fit into their life and they don't play any major part of mine.

And probably not the same as some others. My skids, my husband, and my own children are all my family. Sure I feel a different love for my biokids than I do the skids but in the same sense I love them all just as much as I possibly can.

Here is why I struggle. My oldest son is not the biological child of my ex. My ex is however the man he calls dad and has since the word could be spoken. He loves BS12 just as much as the son I did have with him. Divorce should never sever the bond of a man and his child only the bond between a husband and wife.

That being said I would really, really struggle if a woman came along and encouraged my exhusband to severe that bond merely because he didn't take part in his conception. It is not fair to either of them.

I think if your SS wasn't such a handful, you wouldn't feel the distant feeling. Your inability to bond has little to nothing to do with the fact he did not really "father" this child...he is still his "dad". I think your resentment is more towards a BM who has now been proven to be pretty much a troll of a person.

Children are gifts not burdens, he didn't contribute to his DNA's origination and he can't change that fact. Is it possible to forgive the sins of the mother and try to embrace him?

"For every ailment under the sun....There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it; If there be none, never mind it." ~ W.W. Bartley

Melis, like you, we live 15 hours away from BM and SD. There's NO way we could ever get custody if we even wanted to, (BM, while a hysterically emotional manipulative b***ch, is not unfit) and we only see SD during holidays and summers *if* DH isn't deployed. I've spent a grand total of 10 weeks with her in three years. She doesn't look much like her father, although she used to, and all either of us see when we look at her is her mother. No bond here.

Maybe it's easier for me, because DH understands me totally. I'm very reserved emotionally; don't make friends easily and am fairly distant with my own family. He loves his daughter, but doesn't really feel like he knows her anymore. He certainly doesn't expect me to be insta-mom; he expects me to set a good example for her and (very importantly) expects her to respect me as an adult in our house. It makes visitation tolerable.

I used to feel VERY guilty (and still do, sometimes) but... She's not my kid. I treat her well because it's the decent thing to do. I'm not going to have kids of my own, ever, so I think it's because I'm really not a maternal person, not because of anything she does or doesn't do.

I love all of my kids my bio and my future stepkids which are really my bonus kids. I wish I saw both FSKs more but currently it's just every other weekend. That is supposed to change in the future because FSS wants to live with us full time.

I definately think of them as family. I always have from day one. When I married my husband, I married his kids. Although I had not given much thought to how hard my future was going to be as a stepmom, I kept on going. Unfortunately, my family does not treat them the same way they do my bio children. It bothers me that they dont but I dont say anything. There are extreme circumstances as I am sure there are with many of you. I just feel that the kids are innocent bystanders to their parents' very screwed up lives. I hate to read so many blogs and comments on how the stepchild is disliked. I am sure they are giving you reasons to dislike them. I guess I am lucky that my steps were small enough for me to get my bluff in on them. Divorce and children are such a complicated mess.

Hell to the NO!! Too much has happened recently for me to view them as my family. Perhaps that will change over time...

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. - George Carlin

But I have only been in their lives for less than four years. I met my Fskids when they were 2 1/2 and 5, so they were still really young. I think I struggle with the idea of the kids being our family sometimes because we do not get to share all important events or holidays with them because of the schedule with BM. We are just learning to accept this as a part of our life and value the time alone we have together. We talk about the kids a lot when they are not home and I take care of them like I would if I had children of my own. We are getting married soon and the kids are a part of the wedding too. They are really excited to be a part of the wedding and to gain a stepmom.