Should I even bother trying to get him back?

I can tell you right now you will never win when your a step parent telling a biological parent that their kids should be doing this and doing that! Especially when not are not a parent yourself.

The number of friends I know who have these issues, plus my sister who has a stepson, and above all myself who was a biological parent with a husband of no children.

A long time ago someone told me that the trouble with step parents is they end up behaving like children themselves. They snitch to the parent ‘they did this, they did that, they pulled a face at me, they said this to me’. Parents get enough of this from the kids without having another adult joining in.

My ex husband nit picked at everything my children did. If it was justified I didn’t mind. More often than not they were just being kids but he saw it as bad and disrespectful behaviour.

You have to remember at home is where kids push boundaries. More often than not they are very polite and respectful to others outside the home. This way you know you’ve brought them up to know right from wrong. In the home is where they learn to stand up for themselves, to express themselves. Yes, some completely over step the mark and are out of order and need to be put in their place. But that is the parents job. Not the step parents. He just wants you to be there for him. Not to raise his children. My ex husbands nit picking and nagging dragged my daughter down so much that she ended up with depression aged 11 and placed under the mental health act.

I hoped once I’d given birth to his children he would chill out on mine. But he got worse! His kids could do no wrong. Yet mine, in his eyes were the enemy! I used to say time and time again ‘they are just doing what kids do, and your two will grow up and do the same. They will answer you back, sometimes reject you, and disrespect you’. But no, he wouldn’t have it. Nearly 10 years on, my two youngest kids are so much harder than my older two ever were. They are selfish, disrespectful, badly behaved because he over compensated on spoiling them. And he gets so much more disrespect and rejection from them than he ever got from his step children. And he will admit that now!

The more my ex husband moaned about my children, the more I pushed him away, the more I pushed him away the more he moaned about my children. So I pushed him away even more. I couldn’t even bare to look at him or touch him in the end. A step parent criticizing the children will not warm the biological parent more towards them. They will always pull more towards their children!

The day my ex husband moved out my older kids breathed a sigh of relief and said thank god we can relax now. We dont have to watch and think about everything we say or do before we say or do it.

Within a week the atmosphere in my home was completely different.

4 years on I’m really struggling with my younger children. Yet my older kids are so well behaved. My ex husband is now in my position where his son does not get on with his new partner. Only last week he said hearing her nit picking his kids is like listening to himself 5yrs ago. Our son no longer wants to visit his dad because of her. My ex feels so guilty he still regularly apologises to my older kids for the way he nagged them.

I would never have him back. The way he became towards my kids turned me right off him.

If you wanted to win your man back I think you’d really have your work cut out! He will not want to put himself or his kids through that again. (I’m assuming he had his step child from a very young age and treats her as his own?).

I am now with a man with 2 children. I will not tell his kids off, and he will not tell mine off. Yes, we will say things, like ‘can you ask nicely’ or remind them of their please and thank you’s, but any real discipline is left to the biological parent. And I’m careful of the tone in which I say things. My ex always used negative tone of voice and the rolling of the eyes with my kids.

You need to prove you can do this. Let him rear his kids. You just be his support. His pleasure. His nice thing in life. Outside of his role as a parent!

Great post Buttercup.. I had the same issues.. never again !

Marley.. I would let him contact,…. do NOT be strung along and become a booty call/FWB.

USE this time to think how you would change things going forward..IF you get the chance… learn to communicatte.. read some books on this !.. I need lots of paractice on this muyself !

YOU and HE will have to prove yourselves over time.. an uphill battle as B says. NOT easy, but DO-able .. IF BOTH partners want it to work.

Thank you for the comments. I’m still hopeful I guess. The hard part was that he is very independent, not sure if that was created from his wife leaving him or if he was always like that. But maybe I felt like I wanted to be part of the family so I thought I should be involved in the rules and such of the house because I was never included as I was just expected to fit in. I just want to say that I wasn’t demanding and yelling at the kids, I would try and be discreet and put it more on my ex for him to deal with it. Not the best I know, but I didn’t know how to be firm without sounding like the bitchy girlfriend.
Last year the girls moved out to try and live with their mom for the school year and they both came back to live with him/us before the end of the first semester. But when his biological 11 year old daughter came back, he didn’t discuss it with me. It all happened in one day while I was at work. The daughter called and his ex called and the daughter was crying wanting to come home. So my ex drove with his mom to pick up his little girl and when I got home from work, they were standing at the door with their bags saying that she was moving back in. I was caught off guard and asked to speak to my ex privately and I asked him what was going on. He said that he texted me telling me the situation, but I never got the text. I asked why he didn’t call me and tell me, he said that he figured I wouldn’t be cool with it. Which hurt because it made me realize that I was putting pressure on him and probably the kids without knowing it. I wouldn’t have said no, but I just wanted to be included. But he’s used to doing everything and being Mr. Mom and I didn’t know where to fit in.
Anyway, I would never be a booty call or FWB. I only did that the one time when we were still living together at the end. He knows that I want more and I won’t do that again. But he was still doing sweet things for me after we were broken up and living together and even when I moved out. He was offering to come by all the time to help things around the house or whatever. He made all the contact. I’m trying to leave it to him. But the problem now is that I’m going away for the week and I asked him if he would mind watching my cat as his daughter loves my cat. Now, I have to contact him to arrange a time to drop off my cat (I leave in two days). He was totally cool with it, but is he just being a nice guy, or does he still care? I know I should move on, but it’s hard when there’s still a spark I think I can feel between us.

My ex husband used to say he felt like an outsider in his own home. He used to say it was like me and the kids in a circle and him looking in from the outside.

But he put himself on the outside, I always thought. He backed away, stayed upstairs, wouldn’t join in. I always felt he put himself there.

Btw, he didn’t shout and demand. It was nagging, keeping on, nit picking. Comments about the way they ate, putting their feet on the sofa, washing their hands, opening the window in the car, having a hat on indoors etc etc etc. Whatever they did it had to involve a negative comment from him. They were just being normal kids to me.

Its not easy being a step parent, or the biological parent bringing someone else into the child’s home. You want your partner to love your kids as much as you do. You know in your logical brain that no one loves them like the true parent. But when you feel like your partner has an issue with them, to me it was a horrible feeling.

Whether he wants you back or not he has to put his kids first. He has no choice. May not even be what he wants but again they gotta come first regardless. As a parent you have to sometimes push your own feelings aside and suffer a broken heart to keep them happy and secure. Its not a nice place to be and it can feel very unfair.

Why dont u just talk to him. Tell him you’ve had time to reflect, and realise where you went wrong. I wouldn’t advise moving back go, should you get back together. Not yet anyway. His girls need to feel comfortable with you and need to be in a place where they want you to move back in.

I’ve been with my new man 18 months now. And I can see the look of dear in my daughters face if I mention him moving in. And she gets on great with him. She’s scared it would be the same as when her step dad moved in. Hence, I am not really in any hurry to move my fella in, as much as I want it.

Hey Marley,

Next time someone tries to convince you to do something like move in with them, or even have sex with them
Because “they don’t want to lose you” and you think it is too soon, please listen to yourself. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH WAITING especially if you don’t feel ready.

I dont think anyone is ready before hand or understands how difficult it is to move in with someone with children. You only learn this after!

As much as I’d love to live with my fella now we choose not to. If he moved in with me and my kids he’d run within a month I reckon!its damn hard! We’ve both said, if no kids were around we’d have moved in months ago.

My kids like him a lot, but would fear him moving in. I’m scared to go through what I went through with my ex husband. He’s scared he couldn’t cope living with it full time.

Touche Buttercup! I just wish my ex would have been more understanding of how difficult it was for me being in that situation. At least you are conscious and not blind to the difficulties. That’s where I felt we had issues. My ex would ask me how long it was going to take before it got easier for me to deal with it, but to me, it was an daily lesson, one that we should have been learning together, but we weren’t. He just wanted me to go along with everything, every decision and just be okay with everything. I guess it was more of a struggle for me to feel like a part of the team because I don’t have any kids and don’t really know if I am good with kids. I also have never been in a relationship with a guy with kids, so it was hard feeling like I wasn’t the priority, I had feelings of jealousy and I know that was foolish.
That’s unfortunate Buttercup, that you know you and your fella want to be together, but you’ve been scorned by your past. I know my ex said the same thing, he said that if it was just the two of us, we would be perfect. But that’s not the reality.
Glad to hear that cc has learned something from our discussions. Hopefully you have time to reflect and save your relationship. It sounds like yours is challenging with the kids and the ex. It’s tough when the kids are caught in the middle, sad really. I hope his ex and your fella can sort it out and see how much they are hurting you. Do they live with you also?

When my ex moved in I guess I was naive too. I wanted him to blend in and be like their dad. I told him he was fine to tell the kids off if he needed to. I didn’t know how hard I would find that. Watching someone else chastise your child is hard.

Some times I knew my kids were just being kids. He always took their behaviour as a personal attack on him. I even told him his own kids would eventually grow up and give him cheek and reject him sometimes. He wouldn’t believe it. They are 9 and 7 now, and they are far worse to him than my older kids ever were.

I had a chat with him this morning as he fell out with his new fiance’s daughter last night. He hates the way she speaks to her mum and he wants to discuss it. I said to him, step back. Remember. You cant tell her how her child shouldn’t do this and that. (we all know she shouldn’t) but thats for his fiance to sort out. Its not his place to correct or criticize. Otherwise he will soon find himself in the same situation he was in with me.

And no, I wouldn’t ever have him back! My daughter ended up under the mental health act at 11 because she was so depressed. And our relationship was awful. Too much damage was done. In the end he had an affair. So no, I wouldn’t take him back. I dont blame him. I played my part in the marriage breakdown. His cheating just brought it to its end. It was the best thing he did, to break it once and for all.

If my new guy moved in I wouldn’t want him to chastise my kids. And he would not like me to chastise his. Yes, sometimes we have to say to them, ‘hang on, I’m talking/busy/just wait a minute’ etc, or remind them of please and thank you’s, but I find now the tone of voice used makes a lot of difference. My ex had a harsh tone. It always sounded angry and aggressive. And that wasn’t in my head because his family and work colleagues used to point it out often enough.

My sister has a step son. She has struggled many times in her relationship with him. At first she would refuse to look after him if he was with them for the weekend and her husband ice to work. He’d end up taking the boy to work with him because she wanted her days off to herself. She was very firm on it but too harsh I thought. If the little lad climbed in their bed to cuddle his dad in the morning, she’d huff and get out and leave the room. Her telling me this used to upset me, because I used to watch my ex husband and he reacted like it made his skin crawl if my kids brushed against him. They were little kids!! This rejection is so damaging to small children.

My new man’s two little boys are lovely lads. Admittedly I’m more fond of one over the other but I would not show it. The younger boy will come to me for a cuddle, sit on my lap, and ask for a goodnight kiss. The older boy will shy away from a good night kiss, and thats fine with me, but rather than not acknowledge him at bed time I’ll ruffle his hair and say nite nite love, and just kiss the others. I dont want him to feel awkward if he’s not comfortable with that affection. And my little boy wont kiss his dad’s partner, but my little girl will. However when my eldest ‘stepson’ fell and banged his head today he was happy for me to comfort and hold him while his dad played with the others.

Its all a learning process. And my ex husband’s relationship has been on the verge of ending today because of how he doesnt get on with his new step daughter. He thinks her attitude is horrendous. He’s ex military though. So very disciplined. Its no wonder we weren’t compatible as parents! Ex military man and laid back farmers daughter!

If you and your ex still love each other can you not get back together but not live together?

I was raised with “old fashioned” values, being that children are meant to be seen and not heard. I had to always be tidy and help with chores, etc. and was never to talk back to my parents. I was/am a shy person, so I think being raised that way has probably affected me in my adulthood with my insecurities, etc. and those ideas from my parents have probably leaked in to my thought process.

It’s hard because I guess it’s easier to be more subjective with someone else’s kids when you don’t have any of your own. I guess I see more where the kids are taking advantage and not being respectful, but when you’re the parent, you probably make concessions for some of those actions because of the unconditional love. I thought my sister would be like a warden to her kids as she was not an easy person to live with, all the rules and such, but her 5 year old son has her wrapped around his little finger and he’s so spoiled. Guess you don’t see what other’s on the outside see and vise versa.

I think I worry that I may not always have my ex’s support if we ever did move in together as far as being a team on the decisions with the kids. I don’t think he really wanted my opinion. I think he’s used to being the “Mr. Mom” and doesn’t need any help. I would get confused because he would say that it was okay for me to say something to the girls about getting ready for bed, or whatever, and then when I did, he would get defensive and it would cause an argument, so I feel like I would almost have to always bite my tongue because he feels that I am judging his parenting skills. Like you said, it’s an ongoing lesson, and we both need to support each other, because that’s all I ever meant to do with him.

My ex was raised as the youngest boy and they were allowed to make their own rules and curfews! His ideas are if he asks the kids to do something, they will eventually do, so he doesn’t bother following up. But they’re kids, they won’t and they didn’t do what they’re told on their own. He eventually would be repeating himself and I didn’t think they would respect him as they know they can get away with anything. I on the other hand think that if you tell the child something (like go get ready for bed, make your bed, etc.), then that means now, not whenever you feel like it. Because chances are, they will never feel like it. I dunno. We didn’t see eye to eye there.

That’s what I’m hoping with my ex, as far as just getting back together and dating (not moving in together). I think the space is good for both of us right now. But I don’t know how my ex feel about me anymore. He doesn’t speak about that and I haven’t brought it up. His actions of coming over and helping with things and hugging me, shows me mixed messages. That’s what I hope to find out this weekend if he’s around – is where his head is at, if he’s open to dating again. I guess if anything, I need to find out and get closure or not.

p.s. what part of England are you from? My family is from Liverpool!

This is an EXCEKLLENT discussion fot how to get advise on stepfamilies. I wish we could “bookmark” some discussions for future referance. I will have to start “saving ” them