BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Hopeless Father

This is a big topic in my family at the moment.
My brother has become entangled with a woman with three kids by her ex husband. The kids have had a very unstable childhood thanks to their very unstable mother. Another baby has been added to the mix...she was pregnant within 3 months of meeting my brother.
The pressure to marry her started just after the pregnancy was announced - she has now moved into my brothers home and her kids have taken over...the eldest has serious learning problems, the second doesn't speak - he's disturbed and withdrawn and the third is a monster - serious behavioural problems. The mother panders to the youngest making her behaviour even worse....making excuses for her, reinforcing bad and inappropriate behaviour.
The recent arrival of the new baby means my brother is now living in a pressure cooker.
I think it's much harder the second time....most people have some baggage. Sometimes it's manageable, sometimes it's not...
Divorce statistics for first marriages are bad enough but the figures for second marriages are even higher.
I personally would think long and hard before taking on someone with a child - not only do you have to develop a relationship with the child but also, you have an ex around on a regular basis. Sounds too hard to me...
The other problem you have - you see on a daily basis people treating your partner disrespectfully and getting away with it - when that goes on for some time it becomes the norm and you will probably end up treating him the same way.
You have to ask yourself - whether you can be happy in this family or whether you see the possibility of change on the horizon.
I'd speak frankly to your partner and tell him how you're feeling.
Sadly, in these situations you don't get the chance to be a couple - you get thrown into a difficult family situation and have to find a place that feels comfortable to all parties - sometimes that doesn't happen and you end up exhausted and defeated. i think my brother is almost exhausted and defeated.
Hope things work out for you...

Good luck to your brother, Deborah. I know that situation has got to be a living hell. I don't know what to do about mine. I really don't think my marriage can work under these circumstances, because I will not have kids dictating to me, or go on having my husband defend every move they make, right or wrong. I hate to say it, but I am really afraid I will end up alone. The percentage of CF men is probably very small, and what's to say I'd be able to find one I like, who likes me too? I am not getting any younger, and most of the good ones are taken anyway. I hate feeling this way.

I can understand your feelings DLEE67 but I know that I'd prefer to be alone than put up with a bad and unhappy situation.
I have single friends and they find it frustrating trying to find a suitable partner - they want companionship and love - nothing strange there...
i think you have to be proactive if you want to meet someone suitable - if you're not meeting men in your circle - widen your circle - if I were single, I'd probably try "Dinner for Six" - some of my friends have had happy outcomes thanks to functions of this sort - at least, all of the men are single and looking for a companion. It's not that expensive and you are not "paired up" with anyone - it's just 6 single people having dinner.
I also, have friends who have met men on internet dating sites - but you really have to be careful - don't disclose any contact information until you're satisfied he's the genuine article - sadly, there are often lots of married men, players and assorted damaged people on those sites.
Stay positive...it can't be an easy situation.

Do you have a no kidding/childfree group that meets in your area? I've looked at some of their websites, and larger cities seem to offer more opportunities to socialize. Some even seem to have singles groups.

The internet thing is very risky and you do have to be extremely careful, but my husband's friend who is a doctor met his wife (also a doctor) on match.com You never know.

If you're single and happy, you'll have a better life than being married and feeling unhappy and thrown aside constantly.

My husband and I met after I had decided to stop dating for awhile because I was mad at men in general. Don't give up. You'll find someone, and you'll be much happier.

I don't think I could do what you're currently doing though. It doesn't seem like a happy situation and you deserve to be happy.

I can relate to these situations in a small way, because my new husband has a 21 year old son who lives with us. Where I am fortunate is that my DH is quite firm with him in terms of demanding respect. He has been known to have a few complete rants at him, including one in the garden recently when my stepson was being lazy and hopeless and DH completely lost it.

I am lucky that he is a nice boy - just typically irritating as boys that age are - and he is only a year or two away from leaving home. He also is quite self sufficient and doesn't have friends or girlfriends around here. When he turned 21 it was his choice to just go out to dinner with family - thank GOODNESS he didn't want a party here.

But my patience is sorely tried at times at his self-centredness and I long for the times he is away (next week he is going to France to study music for 2 months - woohoo!). And I secretly long for the day he moves out.

I do tend to look at the positive in life. Being a stepmum has helped clarify that I am not really maternal so helped me feel better about being CF, and in a way it is nice to have someone young around for a while, whereas being CF I could easily become completely intolerant. And I sort of think I have managed to leapfrog straight to having a 21 year old and the advantages of having someone from the next generation in our lives without having to do the hard yards!!

It also sort of gets people off my back about children when I say "I have a stepson". It's quite convenient that way.

HOWEVER, I would be a lot less Pollyanna-ish if I had to endure younger children who were spoilt brats. Sometimes I go into a cold sweat thinking "what if my stepson had been 12 and I had about 10 years to go?"

Good luck to you in these scenarios. Maybe there are some shades of grey eg going away for weekends etc.

Wow, my stepmom should be thanking the Lord that she got a stepdaughter like me.

I adored her, I never gave them problems. My dad never spoiled me, in fact, he didn't really ever do anything with me/for me after the divorce, but he did always moan and groan about how much he missed my mother, etc. I was the grown-up in the relationship. I've NEVER asked them for money.

Now my dad makes up time lost to me by working on projects at my house (with me.)

So even though he wasn't really a dad to me growing up, I've never thought that he owes me anything (he does.) I visited every other weekend, I did stuff with him, I helped him with projects around the house.

I'm so sorry for all the people here who have terrible stepchildren.

I have children and I love children and I have a step child. He used to be a real handful because he Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of Autism and was very prone to violent/aggressive behaviors in his earlier years.

He has outgrown that part now that he is 13 but I don't get a monicum of respect from him. To him, I am just a man that is preventing his parents from getting back together even though there is nor was any chance of that happening. He cannot stand me setting rules for him because he is still on a stringent zero tolerance policy for behaviors and now respect.

My wife tells me that there is so much of his father in him that is scary and when they get together on their weekends together it is apparently a non-stop bashing of us between them so he is really "wired for sound" when he comes home from his visits.

Take last night for instance. He asked if he could call his father and his mother told him that he could after dinner. He didn't want to wait until after dinner and let us know about it.

"My dad is right. The courts made a mistake by not giving him custody." or "The court said I can call my dad whenever I want to and that you can't stop me from calling him" [censored] like that.

My wife tried to explain to him that she didn't say he couldn't call him he just had to wait until after dinner.

Then he starts in about child support and how he should have money to spend or go out to dinner whenever he wants to. She told him first of all that child support and how it is spent is none of his business but did explain that it goes toward rent so he has a place to live, that it goes to lights and gas so he can have lights and take a hot bath and that it goes to groceries so he can eat and it also goes into gas for the van so we can cart him down to his dad's house which is a three hour round trip.

All of that nonsense comes from his father and his father was recently laid off from work so his mother told him that she hasn't recieved any child support in a month and he still eats everyday, the lights are still on etc...

Anyhoo, my advice, if you would like it, is not to get involved in a relationship where the children are disrespectful and treat you like you are a nobody because you may regret it in the long run.

If I knew then, what I know now, I never would have married this woman no matter how much I loved and cared for her.

It's very similar with my "insignificant other", whenever his kids do something, he will do nothing but make excuses for them, and they're adults! I recently told him that I feel like his kids take precedence over me, and he told me it wasn't true. But I know it is by the way he treats me. My first husband and I were in total agreement about the "no kid" topic (we disbanded for other reasons), therefore, I feel like I've made a HUGE mistake getting involved with a man who has kids. I don't know about counseling either, the person I'm with is pretty well set in his spineless ways, plus he'd be too cheap to go to a counselor for anything. Plus I also have to dread the day when his kids start popping out babies of their own - him being a grandfather?! Oh Christ, I don't know if I'll be able to deal with it. I chose not to have any kids because I frankly didn't want any - I often ask myself, what the heck was I thinking getting into this situation, having to deal with SOMEBODY ELSE's KIDS!! I think being alone, with a circle of close friends would be way better than being saddled in a bad relationship because of "kids", treated like a second-class citizen, etc. Unfortunately, I don't know of too many marriages where kids are involved, either biological or stepkids, that are happy.

You guys have a lot on your plates - I suppose as we get older it gets harder to find someone without children - so you never really get the chance to be a couple. It must really put a lot of pressure on your relationship.
Vance - that must make it difficult with your children (I know you have kids of your own) when they hear your stepson being disrespectful to you. How do you prevent your own kids from following his example?

I spoke to my brother this morning - he had already gone two rounds with the 10 year old - he said her rudeness is breathtaking - he frequently gets, "you're not my father, so mind your own ****ing business or "p*** off stupid" however, she's living in my brother's home and he is paying for her upkeep.
His girlfriend defends the daughter so my brother is fighting a losing battle - the 10 year old sets the agenda. It is clearly causing tension between my brother and his girlfriend.
At least the ex doesn't really interfere - he seems to have a happy life lying on the beach.
Trying to make a relationship work when you have all these additional pressures - from her kids, your kids, his ex, her ex makes me wonder how it ever works out....

I'm in a step parenting situation, and (as I've related in other posts) the child's visits leave me frustrated and exhausted. But in our case, most of the behavioral issues we deal with during her visits are the result of a lack of active parenting on the part of the custodial parent -her mom. My fiance does spoil his daughter a little bit, and I personally think he gives her too much leeway, but I still firmly believe that she gets more education on manners and respect on her occasional visits here than she does at home. Also, her mother thinks fast food is a way of life. Poor kid has no idea what regular healthy meals would do for her!

As much as I am "child-unfriendly," I've actually considered pushing him to pursue full custody just to help improve the chances of the girl growing up to be a polite, respectful, healthy, productive member of society. It might be worth sacrificing 10 or 12 years of my freedom to lessen the influence of her mother and replace it with something more solid.