Adult Stepchildren
I am 44 and have searched for a website to vent my frustrations......... All my friends are older that I am and always have had friends that are older than I am but none of them have step children....... My husband is 10 years older than I am...... I have three girls that are 20, 22 and almost 24 and I raised them by myself, they all graduated high school........ they are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination....... the oldest one is about to manage her own store after only 6 months, the middle one is married to a wonderful man that is in the Navy and loves her little boy like he is his own, and the little one is pregnant now with a guy that I don't approve of but that is who she chose to be with and I will accept it in as much as I have to............. But to my step children......... He has four children....two that are 30, one that is 24 and one that just turned 21......... My husband will not accept the father of my youngest child and I will not turn my back on her because I am her mother and I will always be her mother no matter what......... My husbands oldest son, does not talk to his father because there seems to be no give and take on his dads side----- I have tried over and over again to fix this and I cant......... Although they blame me for this although I have absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever I have just stopped trying to fix it......... His oldest daughter is a two faced back stabbing, drama loving bitch and yet I have tried to reach out to her also and she only speaks when she wants something from either me or her father....... I see this, he does not, I also have given up on trying to reach out to her....... she has two little boys and the oldest who is seven has been suspended from pre-K and kindergarten and 1at grade....... has never been disciplined in his life and I now refuse to be around him until either his grandpa or his mother disciplines him so that he listens to what he it told to do......... her little one is three and cannot speak and I get frustrated because I cannot work out what the hell he wants and he does not understand anything anybody tells him to do........ his mother thinks this is cute....... I do not.......... I am lost as to what to do...... help me please somebody.......... I love my husband to death but I cannot do backflips anymore (I am not Gumby) to try to please him and accept his children like I have tried to do for the last 7 years...... any tips would be grateful..........
We were once involved in a
We were once involved in a tit-for-tat.......... we are not anymore. I don't mention his kids anymore. He knows where I stand with them. His relationship with his kids was bad before I ever came along... I feel guilty because I have a great relationship with my three girls, who I raised by myself and am damn proud of how they turned out although again they are not perfect........ I thank you for your opinion and will try and do what you suggest..... everything you say makes sense and I have said it to myself many times but still I feel guilty when he tells me that it is because "I just don't like them and they are not perfect like mine are" Mine are not perfect but I can admit to their faults and acknowledge the fact that they all have the problems that they have......... he cannot for whatever reason.....but again thank you.... I knew there was someone out there that had to have some kind of logical opinion.......
I never thought of it this
I never thought of it this way. asdumed coming from sm and dad was better than nothing. good perspective here.
similar to op. dh was never one top pay attention do when I stsrted helping him out with gifts I thought I was a rock star!
I soon learned otherwise but didn't know it was for this reason!
I loved my sf StepAside but I
I loved my sf StepAside but I totally relate to what you are saying...I remember something similar when I was a kid. It was during my middle school graduation. My mom was bad for the PAS and deliberately hid the date from my father so he wouldn't be there for it, then she of course invited the guy she was (then) cheating on my dad with
Afterwards my mom and her bf presented me with a beautiful ring which I knew with no doubt her bf had bought. I wore it that night only but for a long while after didn't want to wear it. I knew my sf thought I was acting like an ungrateful little brat. I wasn't.
It is exactly as you say. His attending my graduation in place of my father highlighted that my father wasn't there and I really wanted him there. The ring my sf bought me made me feel as if he were almost saying 'see your father is so crappy and even your mother didn't do this that I stepped up to the plate for you'
Humiliating is right. All of it only highlighted a situation that I felt made me somehow seem low-end, unloved by my parent - the opposite couldn't be more true of course and it is some of the things I find hard to forgive my mom for these days. She did right when it came to us accepting our step-father in many ways, but not things like that