Hi, I am writing here for the first time, probably because I feel like I’ve given up in a way.
I am divorced, no children of my own, remarried to a wonderful, loving man with two children (girl – 16, boy – 14). We have been together for 3 years with ups and downs that would fill up a whole book. The kids’ mom had postpartum depression both times and rejected her children immediately and never fully took on a mother role. She spends time and money on herself but always asks for her dad’s time and money for her children. So my dh took on both roles and really just dedicated his life to them. Which from a distance is just noble, but from up close you can see the many issues that arise from overprotection. The past is the past, he did the best he could, and did whatever he had to do. His kids are well behaved in public, they get good grades, etc. So where is the problem? Well, they have both had several issues, the boy is a little hypochondriac, and fearful of almost everything, but he listens and he has the will to grow and learn. The girl is shy at school but in the house she wants to call the shots all the time. It has gotten a little better, though. I must admit that compared to when I met them and his dad was doing all their homework for them and tending to them from the moment they woke up till they fell asleep, there’s been progress. Not without a lot of effort on my part and then on his. To me, doing his kids’ homework wasn’t really a parent’s job, and tucking them in and putting them to bed, and waiting for them to fall asleep was weird at their age. It looked even worse when they went into a tantrum if he didn’t put them to bed.
This behavior had caused issues in his previous marriage when the kids were young, and it was beginning to cause issues in our relationship as well, as you might imagine. That kiiiind of changed, or it comes and goes… so in a way there’s been progress but then he goes back to saying “I need to put the kids to bed” (like they’re 5 year olds) or they now call it “saying goodnight” but it’s the same ritual although for less time… Let me clarify: there’s nothing wrong with being loving and caring, what I don’t agree on is the baby ritual, and much less for the ritual to be such a requirement that most of the time he has to quit what he’s doing to go put them to bed. All of this is always more difficult with his daughter, who pushes and pushes to have the baby treatment when it’s convenient and adult treatment to run the show. I guess it’s kind of natural that a kid would want everything, and I understand that kids will test and test limits, but what’s not healthy is being unable to parent his kids and discipline them. “Discipline” them sounds tough and harsh but I don’t mean having to be loud and mean, just set some rules and consequences, and stick to them. The girl, as I mentioned is shy, she has no close friends, and in an intimate environment she tries to control everyone. She does it in direct ways and in manipulative ways as well. For example: when she’s awake, she wants everyone to be awake. She used to wake everyone up (no matter if it was weekends and holidays) but then I intervened and my dh eventually put a stop to that. Now she does subtle things like playing the piano very loud or playing with the dogs and slamming the walls with a ball justifying herself that she’s only playing. This week she did that. He was too shy to tell her that that’s wrong so they jokingly talked about it with some friends. Now she did it again on Sunday after we had all stayed up late.
The problem is that my dh is scared of really being a parent, he acts more like a friend and even like a son or husband to her. So daddy’s little girl is growing to be manipulative, she lies a lot to justify herself, she gets away with not being cooperative, she is clingy and possessive, and the list unfortunately goes on. My relationship with her has been full of ups and downs as well: she was close for a little bit (although she was really spoiled at the same time and had some very inadequate behavior like waking everyone up with a bell), then she stopped talking to me, then sometimes she talks to me and is friendly, other times she doesn’t… I never know what to expect. I try to remain more or less the same, but of course I don’t feel close through all of this erratic behavior. I understand some of it is part of adjusting to a new person in her life, but even worse, some of it is because I am someone so close to what she must perceive as her husband/son, not really her dad, because he rarely behaves like her dad unless I am insisting. We have read articles, we have asked for professional (although not very constant) advice, we have listened to audio books. And for a moment he gets it. But then he goes back.
Any step-parent here must understand how difficult our position is. But having a coddling father as a dh and a - I’ll say it- spoiled daddy’s little girl as a stepdaughter makes it so much worse. His children live with us half of the time, maybe a little more, because their mom is always on trips or supposedly taking care of someone in her family or she always has something else to do other than being a responsible adult and parent. Now she has a new husband and baby so that’s her new excuse for not having them at home. I feel for them, I really do, because they’re not really getting what they need from either parent.
I try to tell my dh how I feel, I try to read reputable articles and find books to check on my beliefs, but even with that sometimes I get listened to and sometimes I get a lot of justifications from my dh. He is a loving and caring husband, a super nice human being, I need to really point that out. But it really hurts that he gives me no credit because I wasn’t able to have children of my own and because I didn’t have a father in my life. My heart sinks when he says things like that. I lose hope and right now he’s in the mode of justifying that her daughter sitting on her lap on family reunions while the kids and teens play outside is normal, or that her crying because she will be with him one less day than planned is okay, she just loves her daddy.
So here I am, as many of us know in a difficult step parent role, with a wonderful husband who isn’t always empathetic towards me, having to explain to him over and over again why the excessive attention and tending to and acting as a son rather than a father isn’t good for anyone… At times he is great, he behaves like a leader, but it takes hard work from my part, and defending my point of view over and over again, and then eventually he just drops the ball… So I feel like giving up on trying to convince him. I know I am not a parent, but some of it is common sense, and some of it comes from reading parenting and psychology articles and talking to friends who know about the subject… but I get no credit for that most of the time. He sees how different they behave and how different the environment is when he is a parent, but for some reason he forgets it after a while. I guess it’s more comfortable to be a buddy than a parent. I still want to be with him, when we’re alone we get along great. When we’re appart it’s kind of difficult because his dd will nag and cry if he steps away from her for a little bit to talk to me (even if they spent all day together). I feel like I am a responsible adult (even more so than the real parents) and I work hard for the things they really need, and disregard those that are just for spoiling them. But I have come to the conclusion that just being a step mom is a very difficult place, having to go against the flow is tiring and well, I just need to relax and know that their upbringing is not my responsibility. I do have to live with most of the results of children with little or no boundaries but I can avoid some of them.
I had felt alone until I read some step parenting articles, and I saw that there are people who get it… this one in particular defines it better than I can “The stepmother is probably the least-defined role in the contemporary family structure (though well-defined in the movies as an evil, manipulative agent of interference). A stepmom is a parent, yet not the parent. A caregiver but not always a care-getter.”
I appreciate any advice you may have!