Is this normal?
Hi, I have been lurking in this group for a long time now, just reading posts without commenting. I married by husband when his daughter was 7yrs old. He has full custody, and stepdaughter, now 9 lives 100% of the time with us. I am largely responsible for her care because my husband has a very demanding job and there is no way around it. There is no way I could disengage. There would be chaos in our home. However, my husband recognized that I do not love SD as he does and feels like I could do more to reach out to her and form a deeper bond.
I am now pregnant and very excited about having my first child. I try to get my husband excited too, but it is almost like he is punishing me for not embracing SD more. He is very particular about his daughter, when she goes to bed and what she can look at on TV and who and who cannot babysit her (she rarely ever has a babysitter). But he has been saying that he will not be that way with our child, and that he will be a very laid back dad. I am really gettting the sense that he is trying to "balance the books" so to speak and to make sure that his daughter doesn't get upset about him investing in this new baby. I cant get him to get into preparation for the baby's coming.
Needless to say, this hurts me very much. Is this normal? Do biodads favor their children from previous unions more than their children with their new wives? It pains me.
From my experience, yes it is
From my experience, yes it is normal. My SO babies his older two (my steps) so much, it's ridiculous. They get away w/way more than my two bios (who are his bio children as well), even though they are quite a bit older and SHOULD know better than the little ones. These dads feel guilty that their kids don't have both bios around and try to compensate for it by favoring these kids. It is infuriating, but yes I'd say it's normal.
I wanted to comment too on what your DH said to you-that you could do more to have a deeper bond w/your SD. I think that is BS. You aren't her mother. You will NEVER have the bond w/her that he has or that you will have with your biochild. It sounds like you take care of her a lot and are a good stepmom to her, he needs to be happy w/that and not try to force some bond that is impossible.
I wonder if he was excited
I wonder if he was excited when his other child was born? Some men just arent excited about these things, but love the baby when it gets here and is real to them.
Or maybe he is trying to protect himself, after all the last person he had a baby with isnt on the scene anymore and he has had to rebuild his life and move on. He may have some insecurities about that.
I'd talk to him about your concerns. If he thinks he'll be more laid back with the new one, maybe he is already seeing that maybe there are things he could change about his own parenting which he has learnt from the mistakes with the 1st.
I don't think most men get as
I don't think most men get as excited about the pregnancy. It's not really real until they hold the baby, ya know?
fdh doesn't favor sd19 more
fdh doesn't favor sd19 more than bs3, actually it's the other way around, but i do think it's normal for them to do things differently with the kids from the newer marriage. fdh does things that anger me. he never made a rule or set a boundary or put a punishment in place for sd no matter what she did. she is a selfish and rude little wench. she thinks the world revolves around her and expects everyone to do for her. he knows he messed up by not parenting her and just giving her her way all the time to shut her up.
so i notice with bs, that even though it shows that he is enjoying being a dad more with him than he did with sd, he is way harsher on him. he has even said he doesn't want him growing up to act like sd. i agree with that, but not with how he punishes him harsher for somehting he does at 3 years old than he was with sd at 16. overpunishing bs is not going to make up for never punishing sd. so i do have to remind him of that sometimes.
maybe dh is afraid of changing things with sd because this is how he's always been with her, but knows now that it's ridiculous and he needs to lighten up. you will be there to help keep things sane. it's very different for fdh to have me to coparent with full time rather than be an eowe dad with no help. you will figure out what works best for your family, but there will likely be some bumps in the road on the way to a solution.