From Super Mom to Step Mom: How do I fix this?
My DH and I have been married almost 6 months now, and we were dating for a year and a half before we were married. Our relationship started a few days before he went to pick his kids up full time after being in Afghanistan for a year. The BM is on drugs and has exposed SS8 and SS6 to various harmful encounters, and in their eyes, the main person in their life who has raised them is their grandpa, BM's father. The skids live in CA with us during the school year, and they live in MT with BM and her family in the summer.
About 4-6 months into dating (we were pretty much already living together), I realized how stressful it was on DH being a new FT single father and how ill-disciplined the skids were, how malnourished they were, and their desperate need for help with school. I slowly stepped in and started making small changes for DH and skids to incorporate into their life in hopes of relieving some stress for my DH, then BF. After they came back from the summer, we had to re-discipline them, and I automatically just took on the role of mother. When we announced we were getting married, SS7 (at the time) asked if he could call me mom, and after discussing it with DH, we decided they could call me mom if they chose to. Grades picked up in school, attitudes and behaviors were phenomenal, and the skids were getting more active in hobbies outside of the house.
After this last summer, I was sort of dreading their return because I knew it would take a lot of work to get them back on track, but also excited to have them back! They were informed by BM and her family that they couldn't call me mom anymore, which hurt my feelings, and sadly I think I have been allowing it to translate over to the skids. My DH and I have different forms of consequences, I lecture (OK, sometimes yell, but I usually can apologize for yelling and bring myself back to a calm tone) and ground them from T.V. (it used to be for the rest of the day or a week, but I saw this agitated DH, so I shortened it to an hour at a time) and explain to them the behaviors I would rather see them do. DH threatens to spank them, and leaves the room only to go back and do it all over again. He recently told me that he thinks I am too harsh on the skids and I need to lay off, especially when it's the weekends, and that they should be allowed to just be kids and not have to "walk on eggshells" around me.
I feel like I made a HUGE mistake imposing my parental views onto his family, and have told him that I want to step back when it comes to decision making and disciplining. Now when the skids ask if they can watch T.V., if they need to finish their dinner, if they're allowed to do "x", I simply tell them to go ask daddy. I find myself in my room most of the time, and not enjoying my time with the family as much as I used to before he brought it up. He says he wants to be co-parents, I just don't know what to do. It's a huge change going from full on mom mode, to co-parenting with a man who, on the weekends when he's home, spends his time between the backyard, the garage, and inappropriate T.V. watching, spending almost no time with the kids, and me being inside ALL day with them allowing them to "just be kids". WTF does that mean?!
I don't want to seem like I am throwing a temper tantrum because I don't get to do things my way anymore, but how do I fuse his parenting style with mine? If we had our own kid, maybe I would be more loose, but my values about being interactive and instilling good behaviors and manners with my child wouldn't. If he wants the the skids to watch more T.V. and be able to play more x-box games, and he doesn't want me correcting their behavior when I hear/see them being inappropriate, and he's not inside with us, where does that leave me?
Also, he has asked me 2-3 times throughout our relationship if I think of the kids as my own/do I love them the same way he does. When he forces me to answer those questions, I feel like it diminishes the love I have for them, makes me question the relationship I have with them, and doubt myself. Not having bio children of my own, how can I honestly answer that question?
You need to disengage from
You need to disengage from them and let him parent...They aren't your kids and should not call you mom. We come into this with the best of intentions and unfortunately we are nothing more to these kids than the person their father married...
It was a long time before I realized that. Once I did, it got a lot better...You also have to help him realize that you will never love these kids the way he does. You just won't. You can love them, but it is never the way it is for a bio parent.
What jsmom said. Ss11 is the
What jsmom said. Ss11 is the main reason why FDH and I fight. I am going to force myself to stop caring so much. He is the parent and if he wants his son to be successful then he wills have to find the right strategy that gets him there. It's not my job and if something goes wrong in the meantime, or the way I would have liked, oh well.
Before I came to this realization of how things need to be, I was putting all of my time and effort into parenting the way I would raise my own child as FDH requested. He doesn't see things the way I do and chooses not to follow through as much as I do... Why carry the weight of something that isn't yours?
I agree with all the above
I agree with all the above posts, but I also have a different spin. Sks live with me full time- I am a step child myself.
I call my stepfather Dad. He walked me down the aisle. He married my mom at 10 and I stopped talking to my biodad at 16ish. Me calling him Dad was my decision, at an age where I could make that decision. I am so happy I was "allowed to" because it gave me security that I did not have with my biodad. Now with my sks- they asked when they were very little and we told them not until they were older, bc it would hurt their mother's feelings/ if they wanted to ask her first that would be fine. Yes, I would like them to- hell I do more than either bioparent does with them... but they have a mother. and all hell would freeze over if she knew they wanted to call me Mom.
Now with the discipline. In my home my DH and I are equals in this. In the beginning DH and I had the issues you are having... (we are 6 years in at this point, sks were 3 and 4 when I came around). But where I disagree with the ladies is if you are going to live in my house, expect me to care for these children, then I am going to be just as involved as DH is on everything. My parents raised me to have morals and respect for adults-- no child in my home, step kid or nephew, will be disrespectful. I won't disengage. Sure I've thought about it- but at the end of the day DH and I are partners in everything. When he works a lot of over time (most of the time) I pick up at home and vice versa. If I were in your shoes I would have a cold hard conversation with DH that he can't have his cake and eat it to. Either you are in or you are out.... BUT that is me. I could not do half of it and not all of it. It just works for us. Not everyone's situation is the same obviously, but for me this is what works.
Ugh. Been there, done that.
Ugh. Been there, done that. Turned out horribly. If you look at my blog-my ss15 whom I've known since age 1 is now a drug dealer.
I feel into the same trap-cute kid who wasn't getting the proper mothering that he needed-dh did the best he kid, blah, blah-but just needed a womans touch. I stepped in and did a bang up job quite frankly, but then started getting word that I too, was also too harsh. In my case, this was the influence of the inlaws, bm, and ss himself. It got to the point that every time ss did something wrong-people pointed fingers at me. If bm got mad, fingers got pointed at me. If ss was unhappy, fingers were pointed at me. WTF? How did my loving and caring generously for this child make me a scapegoat for everyone?
I started backing off at age 9. I reached TOTAL disengagement when he was 14. I have not spoke to him since 6/2012. He was arrested this week for dealing drugs out of his locker.
Not to say, that your skids are gonna be drug dealers-but I think you need to lay things out with your dh first of all. Does he want you to be a parent or does he just want you to be an adult figure in the household. It seems to me that he cant even decide himself. If you are not a parent, then I'm sorry he has no business leaving them in the house with you all day-you need to spend the day out shopping, relaxing, whatnot and he needs to be inside parenting his kids-he also cant give you the double standard of expecting you to love them as a mom, but then telling you you need to back off on your parenting.
As far as what bm and her family tell the kids-its really none of their business. The kids can call you what they want and what you all agree on in your own home.
I read your post and my heart
I read your post and my heart sank because it was all so familiar. 'Easy going' Dad, check, happy to let someone else put the effort in with his children, check, wants his partner to love his children and 'treat them like your own', check, except when it comes to rules and discipline where he expects you to treat them like HIS own and just 'let it go', check.
In these situations a difficult double standard prevails where Dads are happy to step back and let their kind hardworking partner gradually fill the active parenting role, but rather than true coparenting they want to edit and undermine their partner's authority when it comes to the children. If you already have a good relationship with his children then those children would most likely be a lot happier with a caring, engaged, but slightly stricter than Dad stepmum, than a disengaged stepmum and 'easy going' Dad, and that's what Dad needs to understand. He cannot pick and choose parts of your stepparenting that suit him, and you can't be expected to love his children like your own. It's a completely unrealistic expectation.
In my view disengaging is a last resort, and I speak as a disengaged stepmum, because it's a lot nicer living with children that you care about and being able to exercise appropriate control over your home, than turning a blind eye all the time and trying not to care. If the two of you don't have a similar parenting style then the next best thing is to negotiate with Dad over rules and consequences, actually agree and write them down and discuss with the kids, and then both follow through on them consistently. Those rules and consequences might require some compromise where you learn to be more easy going about some things, and he learns to be more strict about others. This may or may not work, and you have to keep some emotional distance and not invest too much of yourself, ideally what you want is pleasant and engaged, but without putting your heart on the line.
As for his level of participation - with some men the only way you can get them to step up more is to absent yourself and create a parenting vacuum which requires him to come in from the garage/garden or has them in the garage/garden with him. Make sure you have your own time, make plans, go out, don't make the mistake of orientating your life around his children all the time. The won't appreciate it and in the long term it will lead to resentment.
Thank you everyone for your
Thank you everyone for your advice. I have slightly been allowing myself to disengage, but still maintaining authority in my home. DH has been stepping it up like you wouldn't believe, and I am accepting that he doesn't need to do it my way, because they aren't my children. I worry about how he is going to handle this once he realizes I am bowing out, because we entered our marriage with the mindset that I would their mom. But, for my own sanity, I have to keep my heart free of stress. I have been much less overwhelmed, but I have been spending most of my time in my bedroom, it's just where I feel the most comfortable, and I don't have to worry about being caught in between a debacle with the kids and feel the need to referee.
The hardest thing is that I feel like I have been raising them so that when DH and I decide to have a child, their older siblings would be the type of role model I want as his or hers older brothers. I always had this vision of what my family would be, and my goal was to not have it be a broken one. With DH already being part of one, I am doing my best to accept that that vision is so not going to happen anymore. I think accepting that will be my biggest feat.