LGB Step-Mom
my girlfriend and her daughter (almost 5 yr old) have been living with me for about two years. her daughter and i are super close and i love her like she's my very own- but with that i think i've started to hurt my own feelings.
her father has been in and out of rehab 4-5 times in these two yrs, and is not consistently in his daughters life. i have always spoken positively about him. she is extremely attached to him and favors him a great deal.likely from abandonment issues.
as of her most recent visit with him (supervised by his parents), she's been extra defiant throws crazy tantrums frequently, talks like a baby bc he talks like a baby to her, and she purposefully excludes me/ tries to hurt my feelings. for example when i say i love you, she responds i love my daddy. i used to playfully call her bestie and she loved it but now she says you are not my bestie my daddy is my bestie. small comments, but constantly.
she doesn't listen to us anymore constantly acts up and when we correct her she says "y'all are so rude and disgusting. my daddy said you can't be mean to me." she had been calling me momma from time to time- which is heartwarming but i would never pressure her to. and since seeing him she's been saying "you can't have two mommies, it would work better with 1 mommy and 1 daddy." obviously he's been feeding a 4 yr old his opinions.
i know she's too young to understand i am not replacing her father, and i am not the reason her father is barely in her life. but the shift makes me so emotional i feel like it's pushed us apart. it seems to instigate it when we try to explain so i just ignore it. but all day every day i have to hear daddy this daddy that it makes me want to cry and scream bc her dad is truly just not a good person, not a good dad. he chose drugs over his daughter but in her eyes of course he's perfect. he doesn't know how to be a parent he just buys her a bunch of bullshit toys to win her over (but does not contribute one bit financially).
it makes me sad bc i have always wanted to be a mom. it felt like it from day one. and now with the new constant verbal rejection i realize i'll always be described as lesser than mommy and daddy. and i'll never have the experience of my baby calling me mommy and loving me unconditionally.
- gennie's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Comments
5yo is more than old enough to be disciplined for being rude.
Just because her father is a bigoted crackhead idiot POS does not mean you and her mother allow her to emulate the shallow and polluted end of her gene pool.
As she gets older be ready to introduce her yo the facts about her crackhead sperm donor. Kids with a toxic end of their gene pool need those facts. In an age appropriate manner.
I am sorry you are having to deal with the results of your partner's poor choice in breeding partners.
You can have one of your own. One you don't have to make or share with a crackhead dipshit.
Take care of you.
Shes being poisoned against you
Its called parental alienation, and its a very real and toxic thing that happens when one bio parent talks badly and influences the child against another parent and stepparent.
Be the sane parent but also dont allow this behavior. Sure shes "just a kid" but shes a kid that needs correcting when these bad behaviors rear their ugly heads. Yes, do not speak negatively about her dear daddio, but also do not sugarcoat things for her either.
When she acts up there needs to be repercussions and your partner needs to have your back.
I completely agree with the
I completely agree with the others above about correcting bad behaviors which are clearly PAS but I also want to address something else. You say in your post "it makes me sad bc i have always wanted to be a mom" and "i'll never have the experience of my baby calling me mommy and loving me unconditionally."
I say this with only love and respect, because as a fellow SM, I have felt all of these feelings. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that you are not this child's Mom, even if her Dad is a non-existent total loser. This child has a Mom and a Dad and that is the most gut-wrenching and harsh reality to face, but it has to be faced. Nothing is worse than having a child say "You're not my Mom" when you have worked so hard to be just that but she's not wrong.
That is the hard thing about being a stepparent. Society tells us to love these children like our own and that we should take on all the responsibilities of being a parent, despite not actually being one. Stepparents aren't given the same consideration as bioparents and we don't have any rights. Some stepparents become "parents" to their skids in situations where the other parent is 100% MIA, but it's rare.
If motherhood is a true desire for you, I would recommend seeking out other ways to do that, whether it be fostering, adoption, or biologically w/ a donor. Stepparenting often times isn't enough to fill that desire and if your SD continues favoring her BM and BD, then you will only continue to feel the heartbreak and it will only continue to hurt you more.
As a stepparent, I have faced skid rejection, despite being a constant in his life since SS was 10 months old. Skid constantly favors BM (and her GF) and DH over me. I joke with DH that if we were on a sports league and SS had to pick teams, he would pick BM, GF, DH, the mail man, Abraham Lincoln, and the delivery nurse at his birth before picking me. But that is the reality of my situation and I have spent years coming to terms with it. Counseling helped work through that reality and those feelings. I know I will never be my SS' mother and now I spend less time trying to be that person. I have since had my daughter with DH and it is such a different experience. I am no longer chasing the love and admiration of a kid who doesn't love me the same way and I am experiencing unconditional love.
Again, I don't say this at all to be rude or cold. I just hate seeing stepparents go through this and all the pain it causes, especially when I have been there myself.
Yes, all this
I do not have bios of my own and that is a HUGE regret. Even though they say that blended families are the toughest model (thats each bring their own bios from previous relationships) When you crave that mom thing, its not going to be satisfied with the crumbs we get as stepparents. We are good for helping, paying and doing, but when it comes down to it we will never get the love and loyalty (except Rags) that a parent gets.
Sorry you are going through all this! It definitely gets tougher over time.
Leave it alone, thats her
Leave it alone, thats her mothers problem. When she says things like "i dont like you" or "daddy is my bestie' just smile and go to another room/get out of the house.
Her mother wont care and the child will never care about u more than they care about getting their parents validation.
I have gone through this with
I have gone through this with SD since she was 3. She is 8 now and the way she dismisses me, you would think I only walked into her life last year. BM has done a great job PAS'ing her out and well it just sucks. I had no Bio's the first few years and found it very hard! SD used to call me bestie too, and all of a sudden it was 'mummy this and mummy that and mummy said this' and got to the point now where she doesn't tell us anything about her toxic mother and reports about us to her instead. A lot of it made up crap that BM laps up. We stomp out and ignore what we can but it's hard work and I rely on DH to handle all of it as my mental health cannot deal with it anymore.
It's also annoying the unconditional love these skids have for their failed and toxic bio parents. You could have her best interest at heat for the rest of your days and she will still put her dad in top position.. because it's her dad. It sucks and I hope your partner supports you because that's where you really need it to get through it.