Feel so unimportant as a step parent

[yoyo27]

Today my 5 year old daughter was giving my DP a cuddle in the kitchen and saying she loved him and one day, when she gets married, can he walk her down the isle (he is her step dad, not dad). It was lovely! She idolises him. My ex husband hasn't seen our four children in a year and makes no effort to contact them. So my DP really does play the father role.

But it made me think about my step children. I really don't have a place in their life. They have their dad, they have their mum, uncle, cousin, grandparents. They want for nothing. I feel like a no-body.

I saw a text on my step sons phone earlier saying "the others are annoying me and made me cry" about my children. She replied with "don't worry, you'll be home soon, I love you".

And both my DSCs said last week to my children "your mum hates us"......I don't!!!!! All that happened was I asked them to do something, they didn't and instead stood laughing about it, and I told them they were being rude!!

And as for my children annoying them and making him cry, they aren't nasty! They are usually laughing and dancing and singing! But he doesn't always like it being 'loud' despite regularly being the one to be loud!!!!!

I hate the idea that they're going home and possibly saying a load of negative stuff

[redcaryellowcar]

i think relationship with step mums especially those with own children are often challenging (ref cinderella, with wicked step mother & evil sisters). i grew up spending most weekends with.my dad, step mum and brother and whilst much of the time we had loads of fun, i equally remember times when things were tricky or sad and had mobile phones been available i would have text my mum similar on several occasions.
i think (although you didn't ask) yabu to read private messages on your step sons phone and if he knows you did this will feel like he can't trust you.
i also think step parents trying to discipline step children is perilous and should be left to birth parents.
i appreciate my views don't come as a result of being a step parent but a step child. now as an adult i have a good relationship With my step mum but growing up there were tense times. i feel my relationship with her was trickier partly because of her personality but also because she had a son, my step brother, who was always lovely and kind to my sister and i, but my step father didn't have any children and i wonder if that might have helped us have a better relationship?

[yoyo27]

Ooh I didn't go snooping.....he asked me to get him a game on his iphone and it was on the messages already,

I agree with leaving parenting to the parent. BUT they are here all week, at times they can be nasty, and none of that my DP sees. And I wasn't telling her off or anything. She got stroppy with me the other day when they were playing out the front and I told her and my eldest daughter not to play on the railings but on the green instead. They go all silent and stroppy and I feel like crap.

I too am a step child, so I see it from both sides. But I live here too, and should feel comfortable in my own home

[mamafos]

Step parent is the most difficult job in the world and I hate it. It is ok for you to be in a parenting role when you are treating them, helping them with homework, cooking for them, providing everything you possibly can but then its not ok when you tell them off in your own home.

You are right you should feel comfortable in your own home and they should not be rude and disrespectful to you. I have had DSD & DSS for 8 years every weekend and sadly they do go home with negative stories and I have come to realise it is not personal. No it isn't fair, no it isn't right but sadly that is what happens sometimes.

I'm sure you do your best like I do. Hopefully one day they will realise that.

[Tappergirl]

I hate being a step parent too. It is such a thankless task. I could cope with it when I was a part time SP but now they live with us FT, I just want to crawl into a dark hole some times. I never feel comfortable in my own home. I get up at 5am to get things done so they are not in my way. Killed the sex life though!

[yoyo27]

It's such a shame isn't it.

Thing is, I am genuinely saying the same thing to them as to my own children, and it isn't anything different to what my DP says to my children.

[TheMumsRush]

I think as a adult you have every right to pull sc up on behaviour, just as a gp does, teacher does aunt does. Why does it stop at sm? I do normally leave it to my DH but if he's out then I'm in charge (and even if he's in )

[CountryGal13]

Ive struggled with feeling as though I'm irrelevant in the step family. Everything with my step teens is 'dad, dad, dad' and always had been. I feel like they make it clear that they have no interest in me whatsoever so I'm still very much the outsider to them after all these years.

[CountryGal13]

Ive struggled with feeling as though I'm irrelevant in the step family. Everything with my step teens is 'dad, dad, dad' and always had been. I feel like they make it clear that they have no interest in me whatsoever so I'm still very much the outsider to them after all these years.

[msevs]

My step children are the same, always 'dad, dad, dad' too which does make me feel like persona non grata in my house. They're not nasty kids though and I don't think they're doing it on purpose to leave me out, it's just that they're used to asking their dad for everything and not used to me living with them. I have been with DP for years but we have only lived together for 18 months. Even if they direct a question to their dad now in my presence, I answer it if it's just a general question, otherwise I would feel even more marginalised and that's difficult when it's in your own home.

[alfiet]

It's impossible to leave the discipline to the birth parent if u have them full time if u can't discipline them ur life will be made a misery and they will torment u until that parent comes home, if u are looking after them then they have to go by that parents rule or u may aswell be a live in nanny they get paid for that!!!!...being a parent alone is hard but being a parent to other children that aren't ur birth children is harder my step children can be alot ruder to me when their dad isn't there they would never do it if he is there....so now I put bans in place or sometimes we both come to an agreement

[Elizabeth120914]

I went walking the dogs the other week and said to dsd are u coming she went and asked her dad I nearly fell over laughing!! Funnily enough when it's something she wants to do he doesn't feature.. Sometimes kids are more than capable of doing it to make a point as much of if being a habit..

[yoyo27]

Same here, they aren't nasty kids, but they are very spoilt, and have this air about them that they shouldn't have to work for anything, that the world needs to stop for them the minute they arrive.

I felt sorry for my DP yesterday.... I was out all day yesterday at a family function, and he was with them alone all day. In the evening his daughter was really upset as she missed her mum. So spoke to her I the phone and was crying. He felt like crap! They've only been here one extra day than normal so far, spent a lovely day on their own with him, and never ring him mid week crying that they miss him! They barely see their mum anyway due to the hours she works, and it must've been hard for their mum to hear!

[TheMumsRush]

Yoyo, that's why we discourage phone contact. We wouldn't stop it if dsd really wanted to call mum but tend to divert. It just makes her more upset than she started with and it must be upsetting for mum too. She's fine after a while and onto the next thing :)

[yoyo27]

I agree, but I think she phoned them. We've had it before when my DSS has come downstairs from having a huge FaceTime chat with his mum, without us knowing, going round and showing her the house!!

Thing is, DSD says half the time she doesn't even like her mum!