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Not_Having_Fun's picture

Submitted by Not_Having_Fun on Tue, 09/04/2012 - 3:08am

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I have just created an account & thought I would introduce myself. I'm a stepmom & also a bio mum. My SD is 9 & my bio son is 9 months.

Thank you so much for providing such an honest forum I can go to! I thought I was a terrible person for having bad feelings towards my SD but now feel better knowing I am not a monster & others have similar issues! It's not all in my head!! I'm sooooo grateful to have found this site!

Rags's picture

Submitted by Rags on Tue, 09/04/2012 - 8:16am

Parenting is often said to be the hardest job on Earth. The person who came up with that one was obviously not a Step Parent. Parenting BioKids is little league compared to parenting Skids. Or so I hear from people who do both.

I have only a Skid so I have no direct comparision between the two.

All parents occassionally will have issues with their children and the associated emotions and feelings that go along with those problems. As my own parents told me on occassion as I was growing up .... "We love you but we do not like you very much right at this moment."

Love is unconditional but liking someone is highly conditional and directly dependent on that persons behavior.

As for loving your Skids.... do the actions of love and over time you will love them, but, you may never like them if their behavior is not likeable.

Steven Covey discusses this in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I have found that he was correct in saying that if you do not love someone then love them. He goes on to explain that love is not the emotional feeling everyone thinks it is. Love is action. If you do not love your SKid then do the actions of love. Tuck them in, read to them, talk to them, play with them, do the sames things you do with your own child with your Skid. This also means that when they step out of line you discipline the behavior that they are ezhibiting. Over time the actions of love will result in the feelings of love.

Early in my marriage I was struggling with the changes to my life and wondering if I had made the right decision to remarry. My wife and I married 4 years after my first divorce was final. We met 9mos before we married. At that time Covey's book was a best seller and I was working on my career so I got the book. When I read the portion on developing the feelings of love through the actions of love I had an epiphany. I adopted those actions as a daily part of my life and from that day forward my wife and our son (my SS) began to have an amazing relationship that just kept getting better. Sure we had some struggles, trials and tribulatinos like all marriages have and all parents and kids have but we never lost track of the commitment we had to each other as a family. My wife and I just had our 18th anniversary and our son just turned 20. Every day is just annother amazing day in our family adventure and in our marriage.

I am a lucky guy to have learned this lesson and I try to show my wife and my kid my love through my actions.

Try it, you just might find a glimmer of love for your SD-9. Once you see that glimmer you can build on it from there.

Not_Having_Fun's picture

Submitted by Not_Having_Fun on Tue, 09/04/2012 - 2:58pm

Thanks for the welcome people!

Rags - that is AMAZING! I'm right at the point where I feel like 'giving up' as SD is very unlikeable & I have started to wonder what I've gotten myself into. My DH & I have been married 2 years, living together for 3 & together for 5 years. We have 50/50 custody of SD & things just seem to be going downhill. I feel like i'm being forced to love someone who I currently do not. I have always shown her love, respect & care but for perhaps the last 2 years I've started to feel I just don't want her in my life. It sounds horrible to me but it's me being honest. I will take what you say & hope I can have a relationship as you did/do. I don't want to live in misery every second week. I just find it extremely hard to show her love of late & feel I'm being fake & forced which in turn I think makes me resent the situation more? I am lucky in the fact my SD is not nasty to me & has accepted me very well but she has a LONG list of things that make me just not like her! Even DH is at his wits end with her. I'm also extremely lucky to have DH's support & understanding & I can communicate openly & honestly with him about SD. I don't know what I'd do if I had to hide from him how I'm feeling! BM is an absolute nightmare & an abismal mother which doesn't help the situation at all. MIL has decided its my fault DH & his ex didn't reconcile despite the fact the ex was the one to call off marriage councelling, the ex cheated on my DH at least 3 times, the ex fleeced money from my DH to the tune of around 40k & the list goes on. DH & his ex stopped marriage councelling almost a year before we started dating. MIL has refused to accept me, written me attacking letters & never visited our bio child despite the fact she lives 1/2 hour away...... I guess I've scored a mixed bag of crap!