yep, he's an asshole.

Wow. I don't even know how I would deal with this. Wow.

Yep. He is an asshole, and MIL is a bitch. She wants to play favorites? Fine. Keep her out if bs life. Period. No holidays, no family photos, no bday invites. And if hubby doesn't like it, he can sit them out too. Get some photos made of u and bs, and then send then to mil, and hang them on the wall at home. Jackass.

I bet in a few years when your SD wants nothing to do with grown ups, your MIL will take a sudden interest in your son. Ditto your husband. You just wait until your son is at the adorable Little League stage of life like my two are and his daughter will be hanging at the mall with her friends - then let's see who he favors.

Honestly, my ex-husband was NOT a baby person but once my boys got old enough to swing a bat or throw a football he is way more involved. The same might be true for your husband.

Also, my ex-MIL totally favored another set of grandkids (not mine), but when the set she liked got to the point of adolescence she became all about my kids.

I know that it sucks - especially the part of your husband not backing you up - but it seems like every kids kinda has their time in the limelight with different people. So until your MIL and DH come around, that limelight will have to come from you. I bet your BS is adorable right now, so it's really their loss.

I have found that a lot of grandmothers favor grandkids over whom they have enjoyed more control. My parents have two grandkids. My niece and my son. They love my son, but my niece is their favorite. They've never voiced it, but it isn't a secret either. The answer to why is simple. They babysat her from infancy through toddlerhood. They have her over every weekend Friday to Sunday so her mother can live her life like a childless woman.

Same for my MIL. She has 7 grandkids. Her favorite happens to belong to the daughter her thinks partying is a priority and therefore needs MIL's services for babysitting.

My child will never be the favorite because I am raising him. I don't want someone else raising him. I don't want him to grow up with grandparents who don't think it is their job to parent. How the hell do they have them all the time and still think they shouldn't discipline? I want my child to have a normal child / grandparent relationship. Not one where his upbringing is skewed. So I accept that he will never be the favorite. As long as noone is openly mean to him or says openly hurtful things to him, I suck it up. I am prepared to explain to him that it is part of life whether it is fair or not.

I also think most dhs are idiots when it comes to infants. My dh got way more involved when ds started walking. He helped me before. He wasn't "uninvolved" but he is way more excited about it now. And he had a tough time balancing his other child at first. He felt sorry for her. It took many months of me reminding him that he wasn't doing her any favors by babying her. Coping skills are very necessary. I even had to put some of it in writing so my emotions wouldn't overshadow my message.

Your dh is an asshole for voicing that he'll spoil his daughter and you can spoil your son. Hopefully, he'll come to his senses.

The comments made by your DH and MIL are horrible.

I don't have any bios but I know when DH and I have a baby of our own, MIL will most likely be the same way. She spoils SD because she feels sorry for her that she doesn't have a "real" family. She isn't going to feel sorry for my bio because he/she will have the "real" family and I am just a much better person than BM (no, seriously- she doesn't work, doesn't take care of SD, bounces around homes depending on which guy she's screwing that week- it's disgusting). Maybe that is why your MIL is that way with your SD?

BS, at least so far, has the far greater advantage in life because his parents are together, an
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I see this totally different. SD is going to be loved by everyone involved and will be showered with adoration and will be secure in her life as a DD and grand daughter.

Poor BS will grow up knowing that his blood family loves his sister more, he will be ignored and disrespected by the very people that should love him. He is basically being punished because his parents stayed married!? What a mess.

I really feel that SD has the far greater advantage in life.

I agree...but it also sounds like Daddy feels the same way as grandma.

My husband is an asshole too, kind of the same way yours is, not really because he wants to be, but because he's just SHIT STUPID. Me and my DH have no bios together. His kid is autistic and there's no way in hell i'd EVER risk that biology happening with my DNA, no offense, but NOT! He has spoiled and babied his kid since birth, so did his parents. So, a few weeks before xmas, my DH bought, AFTER FUCKING UP THE BANK ACCOUNT AND US NOT HAVING ENOUGH RENT MONEY, bought himself a new IPHONE 5. I had to go to MY MOTHER to pay the rent. His old iphone is still a great piece of equipment. So, my oldest kid was begging him "can I have it"....No, you are 10 of course you can't have it, would have been my answer. His answer was "NO, NO KIDS ARE GETTING IT".....what happens a week later, he got pissed off at me for something and GAVE HIS FUCKIN KID the phone!!!!!!!!!!! OOOH, yes, yes he did.....I went apeshit. Even brought him in to my son's therapist so he could see why what he did was wrong on many, many levels. Skid was awful bad for me before school one morning, like off the hook being a fuckin little asshole. Dad gets home and skid cuddles up to him, ughhh....then had to go to phys therapy that night. he says 'daddy if i'm good at pt can i get a milkshake'....first let me tell you skid is a fat slob, he never exercises, and is awalys sitting on his fat ass....I say, IN FRONT OF SKID AND DH, "NO you cannot have a milkshake after how badly you behaved this morning".....what happened, AGAIN......he got the FUCKIN KID A FUCKIN MILKSHAKE!!!!!!!! I went off and told him that since he is teaching his motherless son that he doesn't have to listen to "me" as a mother figure, that he can go find a second job or something, other arrangements for his kid, cuz i'm not taking care of him anymore...........the tune changed VERRRRRRRYYY quickly......Oh, and the phone he gave his kid....about to mysteriously go "missing"...... }:)

I think it is so typical of mother in laws to act this way because many of them actually helped to raise skid. My husband lived with his parents when SD7 was born and raised up to age 4. We also have a baby together and I know that she favors SD because she was like a mother to her. I can understand that. I just take joy in knowing that MY child will be raised with integrity and morals and a solid foundation where SD was raised to believe that she is the precious princess center of the freakin universe (she doesn't still act this way but a LOT of her personality tells you how she was raised.)

I think that is so tacky that your MIL would go around telling people that SD is her favorite, and yeah, your husband is an asshole for acting that way and not caring.

You know what makes me sad about all of this? The idea that because she is a child of divorce she needs special attention. I think that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. She'd be way more well-adjusted if people would treat her as they normally would treat any child. All too often I read on here that the dad feels like "his kids feel left out" or "you don't treat them like they're your own". But at no point do these dads try to make their kids part of the new family dynamic. At all.

My dh told me once that his daughter just wants to feel like part of a family and since our son has that feeling he wants to give it to her. The problem was, she didn't really want to be a part of OUR family, she wanted US to be a part of hers. She expected dh, me and our son to revolve around her world. Once I was able to explain to dh that it can't work that way, he realized that she wasn't feeling like a part of our family because she was isolating herself with the intention of guilting him into spending time with her at the expense of us. He talked to her about it. Things have improved.

Making the skids feel special, more important, damaged, fragile, or overcompensating for what we perceive as a "wrong" done to them by divorce actually alienates them further from reality. Then the SM gets blamed for "not liking" said skid. Who the hell likes a kid who thinks the world revolves around them. Of course, the SM doesn't like the kid. The SM feels like she is constantly fighting for her kid. If these Bioparents can't manage to hold a relationship with another a adult and raise another child without feeling guilty to the point of spoiling their first children, they should stay single.

That "child of divorce" stuff is just utter bullshit.

Of course it is an adjustment and often a painful one when parents divorce. But shit get over it. If someone is hanging on to that as a permanent "excuse from life" they are pathetic.

I grew up with many kids who fathers never came home from WWII. Now that is a true forever change for a kid. Way worse than a divorce. But you know what - these people grew up to be normal functioning adults who did not have to whine and use excuses forever.

Fortunately for the boy his "grandma's" behavoir can be explained "because she's older" "she's a girl". It's not fair but he'll buy it.

Grandma is taking out the dashing of her dreams for her son by doing her best to pretend the marriage never ended. She had all her hopes and dreams wrapped up in that one package as do most of the marital partners when a divorce occurs.

Dad's favoritism is showing also and this can happen when he's forced into having a second family. The forces may have been subtle but there none-the-less. I'll bet if asked to honestly answer he would say he didn't want more children.

So given the excuses I suggested above you'll have to carry on as best you can after having tied your tubes of course.

I'm thinking he don't have a backbone with his mother. They both are way out of line IMO. Just remember that the apple doesn't fall from the tree.

What about all the people who bring the argument "kids need to learn that life isn't fair & everything isn't always even" when it comes to steps complaining about not getting treated the same as bios get treated?

Your 2 year old has no idea what an Ipod is. Does a 7 year old need one? No, but her having one isn't affecting your 2 year old son.

Your DH can't control how his mother behaves, & trying to is pointless.

I'm not suggesting that your DH's attitude is right, but I guarantee YOU are more hurt by this than your son is. IMO, by being so dramatic about it, it kind of sounds like you're setting your son up to be a "victim".

Having been divorced twice and having children from both marriages I'd like to chime in that in MY case I saw it like this.
Divorce #1 - hard on my boys. They were 8 and 5 at the time. ExH would call and say he was coming to get them, he wouldn't show. My boys would be left crying in their rooms.
I lied to my boys, told them that Daddy loved them very much but that he was really busy trying to piece his life together after we left. After a while, they stopped asking about him. 19 years have passed, they refer to him as the donor, and probably wouldn't know who he was if they tripped over him on the sidewalk. They are not miserable broken men with chips on their shoulders. Quite the contrary, they are happy, young men that quickly figured out that any man can be a father and that they didn't need him.

Divorce #2 - my son was only 2. Doesn't remember us ever being together anyway. He loves his father blindly. I don't point out the fact that he doesn't pay CS, nor do I point out the fact that he rarely sees him. His love for his dad is still there and I will never say or do anything to take that from him. They speak a few times a week, he sends him his birthday & Xmas presents and he spent Xmas Eve with all of us at my moms house. Not in the least bit awkward for any of us as I have maintained healthy boundaries that ExH respects.

If Dad #1 died, my boys might have been spared the pain of being abandoned by their Dad. I'll never know.
If Dad #2 died, my son would be crushed. It is a stupid comparison. And in no way is a divorce anywhere near close to death.

The people on my mother's side of the family play favorites like that. Neither my Grandmother nor my Mother are the maternal type but do like to play favorites and play us against each other. My mother used to complain about the games my Grandmother played on her, but turned right around and did the same thing to us kids and our children.

As a result, none of us siblings are close to them or to each other. They didn't want to be bothered with most of the Grandchildren (except for the favorites) and now that the Grandchildren are all grown, the GKs don't bother with these women. It's too bad, because now they want to have relationships with these grown children and the children are the ones who aren't interested. Karma.....

I was aware of this my whole life (I wasn't a golden child and neither were my bios). I purposely made sure I didn't behave that way and as a result my bio kids are close and we all enjoy each other's company. When I become a Grandmother, I will NOT be like my Mother/Grandmother. I will be involved and I won't play favorites. My Grandchildren (when I have some) will never doubt who their biggest fan is and that is how it should be. Kids need loving adults in their lives, not PAS/RA game players.

My 94 year old Grandmother never wanted to be called Grandma, and to this day, she still has to be called Mother. Pathetic.

Their current favorite for now is my unwed niece who lives with a doper. She has a child by this loser (can't hold a job and plays video games all day), but they think she and the baby are just the greatest.

Your child will grow up and leave the people who ignored/rejected him behind, as well they deserve. Detach from the toxic people and don't let them around your bios.