It is what it is, but it could be better....alot better. any advice?
We are the yours, mine and ours family. I have 2 biodaughters with my ex husband(bg1,bg2) my husband has 4 children with his ex wife (sd1,sd2,sd3 &ss1) then we have 1 daughter together. I am at a loss lately and have no other stepmoms to ask for advice. So here goes my vent or plea of help, now please keep in mind I do love my step kids very much when they are behaved. My sd1 is 11, she is daddys lil girl and can do not wrong to him, she is clearly very angry about the divorce still and proves it by acting out. She terrorizes her sibliings to the point of them gettin into trouble them claims inccocents to daddy. I clearly see this little girl is ANGRY and depressed, she tells me constantly she want to kill some sort of animal cause its fun, she seculdes herself from everyone, tells everyone that she hates them and thier annoying, refuses to go to social events or any sort and if forced to she cries and freaks out till daddy gives in, plus at 11 she is getting d's in school. sd2 is 9 and she is very girly, she follows me around and does everything she possibly can with me then turns around and lies to her mom about me (typical). sd3 is 4, she is not your typical 4yr old, she is going to need speach classes because she was never forced to talk (her sibliings would do whatever for a grunt) and she throws massive fits plus what scares me the most is she has no common sense or fear. She jumped off the top bunk on to hardwood floor and laughed when she landed on her butt. now here is the one that scares me the most, I actually refuse to watch or be alone with SS1 because he lies so bad. He walked in on my birthday and saw my cake, asked his dad whos cake it was, his dad told him and SS1 walked away. Then turned around not 30 seconds later and said to dad "You said I could have that cake, now give it to me" but this is not the worse lie, he use to tell his mom that I told him things and then she would call and freak out. He has figured out that mom believes anything that comes out of his mouth and dad does nothing about the lies. So I do not watch him, I fear he will get some sort of bruise and say I did it, then mom will call the cops and I get to go to jail. I am a very laid back person, I raise my bio daughters in a way that I hope they wil be amazing adults. We go to church, respect others and use our manners. My sk's are not raised this way, they compete over everything and if they loose they beat each other up. They know all about sex and adult matters, so I switch my bio daughter visit with thier dad so that there would be no exposure to these adult matters and unhealthy behaviors. I actually have to hid my BD's toys on visitation weekend so that SS1 does nto break them. He comes over and breaks all the toys but his own then does not let anyone play with his. During all this my husband does nothing. SS1 is ADHD and now takes meds, the only diffence I see is he zones out on the tv. now here i am lost. I need help. During spring break I was forced to have all 7 children by myself, dad was working and I had asked SKid's mom if she wanted to cancel the week long visit since he was working and she wasnt,I truly feel that if one parent is not able to have the children then the other parent should have them if they are not working, the Skid's mom said it was my responsiblity to take them since I was his wife/thier stepmom. So I ended up with all 7 and a vehicle that hauls 6 passengers. I embraced it, set my rules, made chores and set boundries. All 7 children excelled. all the above behavior stopped. Then they left and went home. Came back a week later for a weekend and IT WAS GONE! all the progress GONE! It was actually worse I think...They actually beat each other, kicking in the head and punching no matter what I did, I seperated them and did everything i could. No one listened. I actually cried that day from being so frustrated. Skid'd moms buys them whatever they want...REAL blow dart guns with real blow darts and sends it to our house. Dad laughs because the skid's mom is being petty, i freak cause one of the kids is either going to get shot with it or get hurt. So I get to be the bad guy because both parents want to be the disneyland parent and give them anything they want (dad has guilt, mom has anger). I am stuck in the middle. How do i get out? I have tried to tell my husband that i no longer want to be forced to watch the SKid's that their behavior is too much for me. I want to have a relationship with the skid's but on OUR own terms, not anyones elses. Its not healthy for any of us to be forced. I always end up feeling like I am so horrible for saying that. I am so lost as to what my responibilties are as a step mom. maybe I just need to talk with you guys. what would you do with these skid's? I know they all need counseling, but neither parent will take them. Trust me I tried.
You are not going to turn
You are not going to turn this into a lovely family let go of that idea. You have no rights never try to assert any. You will get no credit for how the good kids turn out but will share the blame for any bad kids. But they're hope for the present:
I wrote this a long time ago and I hope this helps with your problem. It may not reflect your exact situation but you'll get the idea:
The situation with my step-kids finally got to the point where I decided that my efforts to raise them was futile.
First I told my wife in private what I was going to do and why.
Then I stopped investing myself, time and money in their upbringing. I realized that by conscious choice I could cease being responsible for them or their actions. Neither would I take credit for how they turned out, good or bad. I simply stopped interfering in their lives. This is not to say if they would start a fire on the living room floor I would not intervene. But if they did not do the laundry as scheduled I ignored it. Nor did I do any of their chores. If the trash overflowed in the kitchen - well tough. Mom dealt with it when she got home.
You will be absolutely amazed at the look on a kids face when s/he realizes you don't care enough to even tell their bio-parent they did something wrong. And you'll be amazed at their future behavoir and attitude towards you.
I stayed friendly enough and taught one how to drive when she was old enough. But they could no longer blame me for the consequences of misbehaving just because I saw the misbehavoir. I never told. If they were caught in a infraction it was not my fault. They began to realize that they were responsible for their actions because of what they did not because I caught them.
I would talk to my wife in private if I had issues, but once she made the decision I backed her up 100%.
Once the kids realized I was no longer the ogre they thought I was their attitude changed. I was not their friend, but neither was I the enemy. They came to realize that I had not done those things to irritate them. They in fact missed the things that they had come to depend on me doing. Permission to go to the mall when their Mom was not home? "Sorry, can't do that".
Their mother slowly came to realize that I wasn't overreacting to their actions. In fact I wasn't reacting at all. She came to understand that she would have to control the situation and she did.
With that things got much easier around the house.
Billions of kids grew up in the world without help from me and turned out just fine.
SD11-means step daughter age
SD11-means step daughter age 11
BD-means bio dad
SO-means significant other
See FAQs for more acronyms