Unsure of how to deal with future bio child
SO here is my story
I am recently (less than a year) a step father to a wonderful little girl(4), her and I get on really well she has no problems with me and trusts me fully so no worries there. Her bio dad is on the scene (was abusive to her mother physically and emotionally) and does have issues with me thinking I am trying to take his daughter from him, I have spoken to him and hopefully I have alleviated his fears he is not the sharpest of people, so I have more or less said to him if he has any issue with me and how I talk to or interact with his daughter to speak to me and we will work out a better way so he feels less defensive and stops threatening me.
He is a lot of gas and his threats do not worry me in the slightest I only worry that he is whispering into his daughters ear and she could be at determent to his single mindedness. I at no point bad mouth him as he is the child's bio father and it is not my right to do so, I will let her make her own mind up about him in the future just as I never pressured her to make her mind up about me. To the point that her grand mother was bad mouthing me(long story) and she fought my corner at 4 that is a massive show of respect and trust in my book and i was very humbles and proud to know this wonderful little girl!
Now here is my dilemma, as her bio father is still in the picture and is going to be for the foreseeable future I am thinking forward to when my better half and I have a child together. How do I approach it? I hold back a lot as I do not want to step on her bio fathers toes and fully take up the role of her daddy. How will I stop my step daughter from feeling different? I know I will not hold back with my own biological child, and I worry that it will have an effect on her in the future.
I have spoken to her mother about it and she understands my dilemma but neither of us have any idea as to how we approach it, or how we can allow me to fully engage in a father role with what will be our biological child and not make my step daughter feel less in the family.
Has anyone been in this situation and how did you deal with it? Especially anyone with the bio father still around.
Many thanks
Eddy
This is not a situation I
This is not a situation I would like her to stay in for long as I would not like it to have a lasting effect on her, after what she has seen and heard in her previous life she deserves a better situation.
How was the situation explained to you and at what age were you sat down and talked to about the whole step/bio situation? I fear her loyalty to me will cause friction and this will cause some form of physical altercation between him and me at some point in the future, I am trying my best to stop this from happening but he is a person that thinks everything can be fixed with a fist and intimidation. This does not bother me in the slightest but I do not want my Step daughter to see this as she has seen enough.
You are right tho I am, and will be her Dad I will be the man that has the greatest influence on who she will be later in life, which to me is a wonderful thing and something I am lucky to have. I have always believed biology does not make a family... love does!
I look at her now with pride she is not the girl I met, she has completely come out of her shell and started becoming her own person she has changed so much. Weather this is the influence I am having or my Step Daughter of the effect I'm having on her wonderful Mother (she is happy now and is in a situation where she can be herself free of fear) it still fills me with pride as I am seeing a little woman start to flourish before my eyes!
Ed
There will be quite an age
There will be quite an age gap between the kids. So it not like it will be a tit-for-tat situation between the kids. even if you got pregnant tomorrow, there would be a 5 year age difference... But more likely you are looking at a 6 or 7 year age difference.
SD will always be into different things from your biochild. So a lot of the differences in parenting involvement will be masked by the age difference. What a 2 year old wants from her/his daddy is very different from what a 9 yr old will be expecting.
Also, by the time your bio child isn't a "baby" anymore (2-3 years old) in sd's eyes, who knows how involved her bio father will be. I would assume you all would have found a happy compromise by then. Everyone's relationships will be established and people won't be feeling so territorial.
You know i never even thought
You know i never even thought about the age gap and how it might change the situation.
I don't think there will ever be a happy compromise for as long as her bio father is around, we are the ones (Her Mother and I) that were pushing for him to see his child more as he will taking her for on hour a few days a week. Which moved to him taking her for one weekend every two weeks and some time during the week (this during the week does not happen), he wants in influence on her life but will not do the things needed to fulfill this.
He only thinks about himself and his daughter is secondary, he only worries about looking like a good father as he is trying with all his might to hide everything that happened in the past. Not that he is regretful for it its just he does not want to look bad...
Ed