When we first got together (6 years ago now... Wow!), he was a guilty disney dad. SD was only 2 and he would let her get away with everything, feed her junk food all the time, let her cuddle up to him on the couch as soon as I left to go pee, etc. (Which is fine sometimes at that age, but damnit, every single time I got up for something...)
Now, he's a normal, functional dad to her. She's almost 8 and he has a strict bedtime, feeds her healthy, says no to A LOT of things, doesn't spoil her, and most importantly, shuts down mini-wife crap immediately with "sunshinex and I are married, SD, which means we need time to cuddle without kids on top of us"
It took a couple of years before I saw a lot of progress, and that involved a TON of fights, arguments, etc. but eventually, what I found most successful, was having a calm conversation where I told him I understood he felt guilty that her mom left and they were split up, but if he keeps parenting her with guilt, she is going to THINK she is a victim who's mom left/parents split up.
I told him because of his guilty parenting, we would never get along (her and I) because she would always be a brat. So essentially, he was making her into a victim AND preventing her from having the very thing he was guilty she didn't have - a loving family.
But it did not come easy to us. Like sunshinex said, we had a ton of arguments and tears, oh, and a few sessions of couples counseling to help address the guilty parent thing. I was seriously about to leave the marriage because if it.
But now 4 years later, he is a dad who parents his kids. They have chores, they have rules around screen time, cell phone use, manners, etc. And now he goes to every parent teacher conf, picks them up and drops them off at school / sport events / etc. He is fully engaged - and not just on the fun stuff anymore - the hard stuff too. He has conversations about their behavior, expectations, etc. And he has also discovered the use of consequences with the kids - like losing cell phone privledges, xbox, etc. But most importantly for us, he started putting our marriage first.
But like I said, this did not come easy. And I was close to walking out the door.
probably came in about 2013 or so, when his daughters were treating him like total cack. This was against a background of around a decade of Disney Dadding - tiptoeing around them so as not to hurt their precious feefees, while they would abuse him and call him the c word. At the time they were mid to late teens, and in the end there was a bit of a showdown and they stopped coming EOW. As you can imagine, I was delighted that they stopped and that he wasn't tolerating their shitty behaviour any longer. They treat him a lot different now, as he just wouldn't stand for it any more.
It took 2.5 years, and my SD turning into a complete brat before my DH woke up and smelled the coffee. At least he's realised while SD is still at an age where the damage can be undone. Unfortunately it took several people from the "outside" commenting on her behaviour and attitude, and her constant clashing with her peers to make DH realise. It also took him seeing my niece (who is half SD's age), behaving much better, and having better independence skills for him to see how behind she is also. 3 years of me saying went straight over his head, even though he now admits I was right all along. We've got a hard journey ahead of us, especially since BM is raising SD feral, and we only have SD every other weekend; it's 2 steps forward, 1 step back all the time. But at least I can see light at the end of the tunnel now, and I'm not seen as the evil step mother any more.
When it was made clear to him that I wasn't picking in the kid, but rather, the kid was a miserable lying little manipulator whom my family didn't want around due to his behaviour either, he straightened out a little and became willing to concede that he was in part to blame for ss acting the way he was.
I gave him a stack of "why it's your fault your child is a brat" and "how to unspoil your child" to cement the idea in his mind that contrary to his belief the sun shone out of ss's arse, his kid had zero special qualities and his attitude had been forged by dh (and bm's) way of dealing with him.
And then leaps back. It's honestly been a roller coaster. Only recently, when SD turned on DH, in part due to him creating the monster, did he realize that his Disney parenting had backfired and that his sweet little girl is not so sweet. And now he's heartbroken. But she's over 18 and away from home. There isn't much we can do by way of parenting. She'll either learn the hard way and become a better person, or the relationship will be strained indefinitely.
We are doing better jointly with SS, in part because I've made a bigger stink and also in part because of our therapist who gave DH a swift kick in the arse.
My story I think is a success story so far (its long)
When DH and I met, his kid was very young and he was newly divorced. He had the standard EOWE and would spend that time full to the max of activities and fun things to do. As just the girlfriend, I didn’t have much say and truthfully had no idea what I was getting into. My saving grace here was, neither did he—so there was a lot of trial and error. He was very open to my suggestions and we talked a lot about how we wanted our household to be run—especially once we became engaged and newly married. DH has always been good about listening and not being defensive when it comes to his kid, which I think is probably the #1 most important factor in trying to illicit change and create a success story. One thing I harped on in the beginning was that as a bioparent, my husbands intentions were never questioned because he’s the parent—and its implied that (unless he does something heinous), that his decisions are always with the kids best interest in mind. As the step parent, you’re working backwards—you have to PROVE that your intentions are good and that you have the childs best interest at heart. Once we level set there that we BOTH we going to assume that the other was coming from a place of what was best for the family unit, it helped keep defensiveness down.
I started reading a lot of parenting/blended family books and articles and would share it with him. He read it and agreed that he needed to steer away from being a “Disney Dad”, guilt parent, best friend and playmate and actually BE a parent. The transition was a little tough, because he is naturally a laid back and go with the flow kind of guy—so putting boundaries in place on his (young) child was hard for him at first. But we saw it rewarded in dividends, especially in the behavior and “brattiness” dept. As the years have progressed, it has gotten easier and he is definitely more of a parent. Now that we have an “ours” baby, he is almost even MORE resolved to keep the rules in tact and practiced with the older child because we know what kind of environment we want to raise our child in (this being in contrast to some of the rules at BM’s house aka—there’s not many rules there)
What was a lot harder was for him to put some boundaries around BM. In the early days, there was a lot gnashing of teeth between he and I when it came to her. She definitely had him living in fear (fear of taking him to court if she didn’t get her way); so the first couple of years were challenging in that regard and we did have to completely overhaul our approach to her. Everything needed to be in writing, we had to follow the parenting plan to an exact degree, unentangle bad habits of her expecting him to still play “husband” to her in the sense of needing him to be Mr Fix It at her house… just a few examples.
I told him early on that he cannot date two women—as long as she called and he jumped-to, then he can keep jumping and I’ll move on. I loved him, and it would hurt, but not as much as having 3 people in the relationship. It felt crowded and it was due in part to his inability to stand up to her for fear of rocking the boat (a phrase I have some to LOATHE). He decided that having a relationship with me was more important than placating her, and we were able to make progress. It was tough because there was still a lot of raw emotion from the divorce not just with him and her, but with his family. So the first couple of years were challenging when we tried to navigate hurt feelings from in laws as they grieved his divorce, and lots of anger from the ex because he moved on after their divorce, and societies villainization of younger—kid free stepmom swooping in. His ex definitely took the stance of being “replaced” by the younger bimbo, even though it was her that wanted the divorce. She played the victim card pretty heavily in the beginning angling that storyline, which was infuriating because it was a total fabrication of the truth—and she knew it. It attempted to throw my husband and my reputation under the bus, he as being unfaithful and me as being with a man who would be unfaithful. We had some damage control to do with his family, who saw through the lies, but still kept a skeptical eye on things.
All of these things happened in the first few years… since then—I think we have a successful blended family. We are on much better terms with his ex, who is now remarried with a family of her own. She and I can actually be friendly and have things in common to talk about when we see each other. It was awkward at first, but it took some practice and just… time. We’d be around each other at sporting events or school programs and not have much to say besides talking about my stepkid. But now we are able to chat about other things and there’s not a sense of dread in dealing with the other household.
DH navigates being the man in middle much, much better now. Of course, the dynamics and goal posts change constantly so you can never be too sure, but he’s come a long way—and so have I! It took a lot of compromise and communication and really for HIM to lead the charge when it came to how we operated as a family unit.
Starting with the paragraph that goes What was a lot harder was for him to put some boundaries around BM. You could be talking about my marriage. We are still working our way out of the twisted threesome that DH has allowed to develop between his controlling ex and us. He has also been afraid to 'rock the boat' but now that the skids are teens he is starting to be a little braver about calling everyone out on their BS. Your story is an inspiration!
My skids were adults (chronologically) when we married. SD was married herself. His kids used and manipulated him so much I almost left him. Turns out SS had an addiction problem and once he had been in recovery awhile he turned into a decent young man.
SD would like to be ruler of the world and knower of all things. DH has (pretty much) stopped jumping at her command, but it’s been a long road. To DH’s credit, he always listened to what I had to say and tried to change some bad habits. Some of which SD really, really didn’t like.
We have the occasional setback but generally we all tolerate each other pretty well.
HAHAHAHA I wish ! I have physical proof of the lies and vile hatred SD spews and DH still takes her side. He temporarily was angry at her when I first showed him, but didn't last for long as I'm sure she manipulated the hell out of him and he fell for it.
For many of the early years of our marriage my DW catered to the SpermClan because she naively thought that if she placated them they would not take any frustrations out on SS when he was on SpermClan visitation. This was the disagreement that we had repeatedly at that time. My perspective was that the only way to protect SS from their crap was to make it more painful than they were willing to experience to do anything but be reasonable and comply with the CO.
Finally I got through to her by pointing out that she had been kowtowing to them for years and they still insisted on manipulating SS and plying the shallow and polluted gene pool drama on him. She finally woke up and started keeping her foot up their asses. It took a couple more years after that to reach the balance of pain that kept them mostly under control.
DW being the caring person that she is would apply her foot to their asses until they got into line. After a year to two years of mostly tolerable behaviors from them she would back off. When I would take exception to her backing off her reasoning was always that she felt that they had grown up and learned her lesson. WRONG! As soon as she would loosen the reins they would immediately go to their historic manipulative bullshit. Give and inch, they tried to take the Empire.
After a few cycles of this she finally learned to keep her foot up their asses and to maintain an effective level of pain to keep them in line. Even then they would push it periodically requiring a slash and burn response to keep them reminded of why it was a bad idea to piss off my bride.
The result is that we raised a man of character, or standing in his profession, life and community. We are proud of the man that SS is. The shallow and polluted end of his gene pool is still wallowing in the stench and slime of their effluent producing lives. Unfortunately the three younger also out of wedlock Spermidiot spawned half sibs are playing par for the course in line with the shit that their toxic spermdonor has perpetrated throughout his life. Even the SpermGrandHag has come to a level of clarity that her son is a POS and has told SS that she is glad that he has had a good example of a marriage and a father figure.
Those are words I would bet everything I have ever had would never exit SpermGrandHag's lips.
My bride figured it out, just as she had every challenge she has faced. Our marriage is the greatest beneficiary of her amazingness. Or should I say, SS and our family are the greatest beneficiaries.
It took several years before my DH finally could see the manipulation from skids (SD IS 60 and SS 58). After the SD tried to cut her brother out of his share of their mother’s inheritance (she passed many years ago) and then demanded DH pay for her kids college, DH finally saw the light, so to speak. It was a long and windy road but we are in a great place with good boundaries. Since the SD was told we would not pay for gskids college, she has gone radio silent. SS calls on special occasions but his wife is like SD and made my DH choose between “them” and me. I am still here sooooo, the DIL has gone radio silent, too. I wish they would treat the DH better but at this point, we are living our lives and not worrying about pleasing others.
My husband did 100%
My husband did 100%
When we first got together (6 years ago now... Wow!), he was a guilty disney dad. SD was only 2 and he would let her get away with everything, feed her junk food all the time, let her cuddle up to him on the couch as soon as I left to go pee, etc. (Which is fine sometimes at that age, but damnit, every single time I got up for something...)
Now, he's a normal, functional dad to her. She's almost 8 and he has a strict bedtime, feeds her healthy, says no to A LOT of things, doesn't spoil her, and most importantly, shuts down mini-wife crap immediately with "sunshinex and I are married, SD, which means we need time to cuddle without kids on top of us"
It took a couple of years before I saw a lot of progress, and that involved a TON of fights, arguments, etc. but eventually, what I found most successful, was having a calm conversation where I told him I understood he felt guilty that her mom left and they were split up, but if he keeps parenting her with guilt, she is going to THINK she is a victim who's mom left/parents split up.
I told him because of his guilty parenting, we would never get along (her and I) because she would always be a brat. So essentially, he was making her into a victim AND preventing her from having the very thing he was guilty she didn't have - a loving family.
Oh that last part is a good
Oh that last part is a good point
Good for him. I never
Good for him. I never understand why the solution to their guilt is to ruin the child's future with permissive parenting.
My DH is one of those success
My DH is one of those success stories.
But it did not come easy to us. Like sunshinex said, we had a ton of arguments and tears, oh, and a few sessions of couples counseling to help address the guilty parent thing. I was seriously about to leave the marriage because if it.
But now 4 years later, he is a dad who parents his kids. They have chores, they have rules around screen time, cell phone use, manners, etc. And now he goes to every parent teacher conf, picks them up and drops them off at school / sport events / etc. He is fully engaged - and not just on the fun stuff anymore - the hard stuff too. He has conversations about their behavior, expectations, etc. And he has also discovered the use of consequences with the kids - like losing cell phone privledges, xbox, etc. But most importantly for us, he started putting our marriage first.
But like I said, this did not come easy. And I was close to walking out the door.
My DH's road to Damascus moment
probably came in about 2013 or so, when his daughters were treating him like total cack. This was against a background of around a decade of Disney Dadding - tiptoeing around them so as not to hurt their precious feefees, while they would abuse him and call him the c word. At the time they were mid to late teens, and in the end there was a bit of a showdown and they stopped coming EOW. As you can imagine, I was delighted that they stopped and that he wasn't tolerating their shitty behaviour any longer. They treat him a lot different now, as he just wouldn't stand for it any more.
It took 2.5 years, and my SD
It took 2.5 years, and my SD turning into a complete brat before my DH woke up and smelled the coffee. At least he's realised while SD is still at an age where the damage can be undone. Unfortunately it took several people from the "outside" commenting on her behaviour and attitude, and her constant clashing with her peers to make DH realise. It also took him seeing my niece (who is half SD's age), behaving much better, and having better independence skills for him to see how behind she is also. 3 years of me saying went straight over his head, even though he now admits I was right all along. We've got a hard journey ahead of us, especially since BM is raising SD feral, and we only have SD every other weekend; it's 2 steps forward, 1 step back all the time. But at least I can see light at the end of the tunnel now, and I'm not seen as the evil step mother any more.
My dh parents his kid now
My dh parents his kid now more than ever.
When it was made clear to him that I wasn't picking in the kid, but rather, the kid was a miserable lying little manipulator whom my family didn't want around due to his behaviour either, he straightened out a little and became willing to concede that he was in part to blame for ss acting the way he was.
I gave him a stack of "why it's your fault your child is a brat" and "how to unspoil your child" to cement the idea in his mind that contrary to his belief the sun shone out of ss's arse, his kid had zero special qualities and his attitude had been forged by dh (and bm's) way of dealing with him.
He realized it was his own fault ss was a brat.
After that, it got better. Slowly, but better.
Mine takes small steps forward...
And then leaps back. It's honestly been a roller coaster. Only recently, when SD turned on DH, in part due to him creating the monster, did he realize that his Disney parenting had backfired and that his sweet little girl is not so sweet. And now he's heartbroken. But she's over 18 and away from home. There isn't much we can do by way of parenting. She'll either learn the hard way and become a better person, or the relationship will be strained indefinitely.
We are doing better jointly with SS, in part because I've made a bigger stink and also in part because of our therapist who gave DH a swift kick in the arse.
My story I think is a success
My story I think is a success story so far (its long)
When DH and I met, his kid was very young and he was newly divorced. He had the standard EOWE and would spend that time full to the max of activities and fun things to do. As just the girlfriend, I didn’t have much say and truthfully had no idea what I was getting into. My saving grace here was, neither did he—so there was a lot of trial and error. He was very open to my suggestions and we talked a lot about how we wanted our household to be run—especially once we became engaged and newly married. DH has always been good about listening and not being defensive when it comes to his kid, which I think is probably the #1 most important factor in trying to illicit change and create a success story. One thing I harped on in the beginning was that as a bioparent, my husbands intentions were never questioned because he’s the parent—and its implied that (unless he does something heinous), that his decisions are always with the kids best interest in mind. As the step parent, you’re working backwards—you have to PROVE that your intentions are good and that you have the childs best interest at heart. Once we level set there that we BOTH we going to assume that the other was coming from a place of what was best for the family unit, it helped keep defensiveness down.
I started reading a lot of parenting/blended family books and articles and would share it with him. He read it and agreed that he needed to steer away from being a “Disney Dad”, guilt parent, best friend and playmate and actually BE a parent. The transition was a little tough, because he is naturally a laid back and go with the flow kind of guy—so putting boundaries in place on his (young) child was hard for him at first. But we saw it rewarded in dividends, especially in the behavior and “brattiness” dept. As the years have progressed, it has gotten easier and he is definitely more of a parent. Now that we have an “ours” baby, he is almost even MORE resolved to keep the rules in tact and practiced with the older child because we know what kind of environment we want to raise our child in (this being in contrast to some of the rules at BM’s house aka—there’s not many rules there)
What was a lot harder was for him to put some boundaries around BM. In the early days, there was a lot gnashing of teeth between he and I when it came to her. She definitely had him living in fear (fear of taking him to court if she didn’t get her way); so the first couple of years were challenging in that regard and we did have to completely overhaul our approach to her. Everything needed to be in writing, we had to follow the parenting plan to an exact degree, unentangle bad habits of her expecting him to still play “husband” to her in the sense of needing him to be Mr Fix It at her house… just a few examples.
I told him early on that he cannot date two women—as long as she called and he jumped-to, then he can keep jumping and I’ll move on. I loved him, and it would hurt, but not as much as having 3 people in the relationship. It felt crowded and it was due in part to his inability to stand up to her for fear of rocking the boat (a phrase I have some to LOATHE). He decided that having a relationship with me was more important than placating her, and we were able to make progress. It was tough because there was still a lot of raw emotion from the divorce not just with him and her, but with his family. So the first couple of years were challenging when we tried to navigate hurt feelings from in laws as they grieved his divorce, and lots of anger from the ex because he moved on after their divorce, and societies villainization of younger—kid free stepmom swooping in. His ex definitely took the stance of being “replaced” by the younger bimbo, even though it was her that wanted the divorce. She played the victim card pretty heavily in the beginning angling that storyline, which was infuriating because it was a total fabrication of the truth—and she knew it. It attempted to throw my husband and my reputation under the bus, he as being unfaithful and me as being with a man who would be unfaithful. We had some damage control to do with his family, who saw through the lies, but still kept a skeptical eye on things.
All of these things happened in the first few years… since then—I think we have a successful blended family. We are on much better terms with his ex, who is now remarried with a family of her own. She and I can actually be friendly and have things in common to talk about when we see each other. It was awkward at first, but it took some practice and just… time. We’d be around each other at sporting events or school programs and not have much to say besides talking about my stepkid. But now we are able to chat about other things and there’s not a sense of dread in dealing with the other household.
DH navigates being the man in middle much, much better now. Of course, the dynamics and goal posts change constantly so you can never be too sure, but he’s come a long way—and so have I! It took a lot of compromise and communication and really for HIM to lead the charge when it came to how we operated as a family unit.
Your story is familiar!
Starting with the paragraph that goes What was a lot harder was for him to put some boundaries around BM. You could be talking about my marriage. We are still working our way out of the twisted threesome that DH has allowed to develop between his controlling ex and us. He has also been afraid to 'rock the boat' but now that the skids are teens he is starting to be a little braver about calling everyone out on their BS. Your story is an inspiration!
My skids were adults
My skids were adults (chronologically) when we married. SD was married herself. His kids used and manipulated him so much I almost left him. Turns out SS had an addiction problem and once he had been in recovery awhile he turned into a decent young man.
SD would like to be ruler of the world and knower of all things. DH has (pretty much) stopped jumping at her command, but it’s been a long road. To DH’s credit, he always listened to what I had to say and tried to change some bad habits. Some of which SD really, really didn’t like.
We have the occasional setback but generally we all tolerate each other pretty well.
HAHAHAHA I wish ! I have
HAHAHAHA I wish ! I have physical proof of the lies and vile hatred SD spews and DH still takes her side. He temporarily was angry at her when I first showed him, but didn't last for long as I'm sure she manipulated the hell out of him and he fell for it.
For many of the early years
For many of the early years of our marriage my DW catered to the SpermClan because she naively thought that if she placated them they would not take any frustrations out on SS when he was on SpermClan visitation. This was the disagreement that we had repeatedly at that time. My perspective was that the only way to protect SS from their crap was to make it more painful than they were willing to experience to do anything but be reasonable and comply with the CO.
Finally I got through to her by pointing out that she had been kowtowing to them for years and they still insisted on manipulating SS and plying the shallow and polluted gene pool drama on him. She finally woke up and started keeping her foot up their asses. It took a couple more years after that to reach the balance of pain that kept them mostly under control.
DW being the caring person that she is would apply her foot to their asses until they got into line. After a year to two years of mostly tolerable behaviors from them she would back off. When I would take exception to her backing off her reasoning was always that she felt that they had grown up and learned her lesson. WRONG! As soon as she would loosen the reins they would immediately go to their historic manipulative bullshit. Give and inch, they tried to take the Empire.
After a few cycles of this she finally learned to keep her foot up their asses and to maintain an effective level of pain to keep them in line. Even then they would push it periodically requiring a slash and burn response to keep them reminded of why it was a bad idea to piss off my bride.
The result is that we raised a man of character, or standing in his profession, life and community. We are proud of the man that SS is. The shallow and polluted end of his gene pool is still wallowing in the stench and slime of their effluent producing lives. Unfortunately the three younger also out of wedlock Spermidiot spawned half sibs are playing par for the course in line with the shit that their toxic spermdonor has perpetrated throughout his life. Even the SpermGrandHag has come to a level of clarity that her son is a POS and has told SS that she is glad that he has had a good example of a marriage and a father figure.
Those are words I would bet everything I have ever had would never exit SpermGrandHag's lips.
My bride figured it out, just as she had every challenge she has faced. Our marriage is the greatest beneficiary of her amazingness. Or should I say, SS and our family are the greatest beneficiaries.
It took a bit
It took several years before my DH finally could see the manipulation from skids (SD IS 60 and SS 58). After the SD tried to cut her brother out of his share of their mother’s inheritance (she passed many years ago) and then demanded DH pay for her kids college, DH finally saw the light, so to speak. It was a long and windy road but we are in a great place with good boundaries. Since the SD was told we would not pay for gskids college, she has gone radio silent. SS calls on special occasions but his wife is like SD and made my DH choose between “them” and me. I am still here sooooo, the DIL has gone radio silent, too. I wish they would treat the DH better but at this point, we are living our lives and not worrying about pleasing others.