Hello everybody! 

This is my first post so hopefully I can get some advice.

I have a 4 years old SS, living with us full time until June. BM is far away (we don't know where) and only calls once in a while. SS is a cute and affectionate kid, but the relationship between me and him is what "bothers" me: I don't know how to deal with it.

I would like to start off by saying that I am awkward with kids, I like them, sure, but...I think that I might not be very maternal.. I only have nephews which I love with all my heart and animals, so I didn't know how it was going to be like while I was dating my now husband, because we would live in separate places, and once we got engaged and started living together SS wasn't with us. So having a toddler in the house full time was definitely a change for me...a hard change. 

He is very attached to me, but can be clingy sometimes, to the point where he cries when his dad comes home, or if I close the door he bangs on the door because he wants to "see me". When he's alone with me he started picking up the habit of either hiding on the stairs and staring at me while I am sitting on the couch or something, or peeing and pooping in his pants so I can change him, even though he is potty trained. This drives me crazy. I don't know if it's every toddler, but today I had the whole day with him and he pooped on himself 3 times, always in the hours when his dad was gone. If I sit down next to my husband, he comes in between us and if my husband tells him to sit next to us, and not in between, he starts desperately crying because he wants to be next to me. If his dad hugs me, he cries and pushes my husband away so he can hug me. He also copies me on everything, but this honestly doesn't bother me that much. It's the fact that I can never be one second alone, the two days where I have to be at home with him. My husband sees it and finds it weird too: I suggested to send SS to some kind of play therapy or something, but DH always says yes and then never does it. I find it extremely hard to have a good time with SS alone or family time. I crave alone time, I am not used to all this clinging. I am really starting to be extremely anxious before "family time" and I already have general anxiety so it doesn't help.

On top of that DH does something that is very... weird to me. While I was in the bathroom tonight DH was putting SS to sleep and told him to say I love you Daddy and I love you (my name). I couldn’t hear SS from the bathroom but I guess he told me " I love you" because DH told me "you have to say I love you back! Say it!" Like he was forcing me to say it. I stayed quiet. He told me again to say I love you back to SS. I told him I don't like being forced to say I love you and of course, he took it as I don't care about his son. I really feel like I am forced to be who I am not. I had a long conversation with my husband one day, after he told me I should act like a second mother to SS, and I have explained to him clearly that SS is not my child. I am not his mother. I don't have the patience that a parent might have. He brought a 3 years old toddler in the house and expected me to love him like a mother. I told DH I don't like being a stepmother. I told him the truth. I also told him to stop forcing love, that if it comes then it should come naturally. He seems like he still doesn't get it...