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Have you considered ending the relationship/have you?

fifi709's picture

Hello everybody, I just joined and this is my second post all in one day, I have to say I've been getting some great support and it feels so nice to finally have someone understand what I'm going through. I'm wondering if any of you stepmoms out there have ever considered leaving because it was all just too much. I feel like i'm at that point right now and frankly, DH isn't helping making the situation any better. I feel like I'm going through a mental health breakdown and have been having anxiety attacks weekly. Any advice is welcome, thank you very much ladies.

nikki_01's picture

Oh yes...so tempting....I swear to god once i finish my degree if things aren't better I am going solo. I'm getting annoyed with both him AND his daughter.

nikki_01's picture

It does get to be too much and the expectations are never real and frankly, I don't know why I even bothered following through with marriage in the first place.

Evil stepmonster's picture

Dh and I have split once, got back together about 7 months ago. Trying to work on everything. I don't know if somethings can be fixed though. Plus, I'll never love his children as they are my own and two of them I will probably never like at all. He does not like that, and I do not like being forced to endure Inbreds crazy, BM1's enabling, or his kids comeing over and destroying my house, my kids things, starting fights between me and DH or DH and my bios. It's difficult. I've asked myself several times if it's worth it. As of right now I'm still not sure.

stiefmutter's picture

Oh, it's a constant thought!!! I love DH but abhor his children. I use to like them will enough, but their BM and DH's mother have used the kids as pawns to try and destroy me. So, my"blended" family life and in law family are terrible. I think how much more pleasant life would be without all the nastiness that comes through the skids. Is my DH worth it? For now, he wins out but who knows how much more meddling and manipulation from outside forces I can handle before enough is enough!! (...but when ss7 cries because he can't play with a friend I seriously think about throwing their bags or on the front porch!)

Rags's picture

Not this marriage. Never. Not once. I did have some moments during the first couple of years where I did ask myself "What the hell have I done?" when it came to marrying again.

My first marriage sucked so badly that I did carry some baggage even though my amazing bride and I did not meet until more than three years after the demise of my first marriage and did not marry until more than 4 years after my divorce was final.

jenna1234's picture

I got married really quick and I don't think I fully understood how my life would be. It's one thing to have to think about your partner it's a totally different situation when u think about partner step kid and ex. I had to move hours away from my family because of my husband's court agreement. He has 50 50 placement and if we moved out of county ex wife can take back to court. That was written after we got engaged. When she took him back to court again. I thought we would just move in the middle but no now I am away from my support system. My husband likes to spend money on stupid stuff and I see his ex weekly and deal with her all the time. I married him at 24 and I love him to death but if I could go back Idk if I would do it all over. It's the most stress I have dealt with and sometimes my husband doesn't get it.

inwayovermyhead's picture

This is such a tough question, albeit not as tough if you don't have kids together with the DH.

If you don't have kids, then you need to take a long, hard, and realistic view of your future in light of whether you do or don't want children of your own.

If you want to have children of your own, blending them with less than ideal stepkids will certainly drive you insane. This is especially true bc typically your DH will begin to have guilt over his kids from a previous marriage b/c he live with the new baby full time. This is difficult to deal with as a Mom b/c you want a normal family structure for your new baby and this structure is compromised b/c of the Skids, and is even further compromised by DH's feelings of guilt that interfere with your happiness together. Think of Father's Day, for example, you will never really get to celebrate with your immediate family.... even if he isn't schedule to have his other kids, he will feel guilty, etc. and not completely be present for you and your children together. Think about family vacations... do you want the skids there taking all of DHs attention while you are left spending time with your younger children that you have together by yourself? You need to decide whether, conceptually, this would be okay with you. If it's not okay with you, leave now and find someone else who can help you fulfill your dream of having a family without all of the baggage that will be detrimental to your unborn children.

If you don't want children, then you need to ask yourself if you want the headache and commitment of parenting a skid without any of the reward, including the feelings of love and connection you would have with your own child. Think about whether you are okay with DH's attention being on the skids and spending his time, energy and money on the skids, while you sit on the sidelines. Think about whether you want to spend all of your holidays centered around the skids, and their eventual offspring. It sounds like you are already dealing with a lot of issues that come from marrying a man with children. These issues will continue in perpetuity. I would suggest you get out now.

If you have children together, well, the answer to your question is MUCH more difficult. You have witnessed first hand the difficulties presented by skids... do you want your own children to become skids themselves? They will be at the mercy of whoever your DH decides to bring into his life and you will have NO control over what goes on while DH is exercising his time sharing with them. You will be forced to surrender a lot of control and your children together will be forced to suffer all of the consequences presented by divorced parents. In this case, I would be more inclined to stay and continue to fight to change things.

Keep us posted on your decision. I know things are hard, but you need to also focus on yourself. BEST OF LUCK!!

hippiegirl's picture

I was like Jenna, in regards to not fully understanding how my life would be after marrying a divorced dad. BM and the skids lived on the other side of the state so, no worries, right? Wrong! In theory, being a step parent is easy. In real life, however, not so much! Not to mention the financial strain you have to deal with if he's paying support to the BM. The child support was a huge source of resentment for me. MONEY DOWN THE TOILET. The ex wife was getting half his check, and I was left trying to figure out how I was going to take care of my household bills and take care of my kids. We celebrated when he sent her the last check. My skids are adults now, so it's been nice. Financially, anyway. Sad

To answer your question, yes. I did consider leaving him a few times in the early years of our relationship. But I hung in there, and we will be celebrating 20 years together this year.

jssdallas's picture

Yes. Absolutely. If you don't have kids then don't have any with him. Make sure this is really what you want. I feel like so many things were revealed to me AFTER we were married. NOT when we were dating.
we have a child together now so I need to work through but if i had all that was happening now and we didn't have kids. I would probably, as hard and as guilty as I'd feel toward DH and Skids b/c he needs my help, leave.

P Popper's picture

I am now grateful my SO of 6+ years never wanted to marry.
It has been emotionally, financially, and physically draining and I am moving on in 1 2 3 MORE SLEEPS!!!
I am excited for a new start, but I am grieving the life and this dream of true love that I am leaving behind.

MY SD15+ and SO/DH will fare just fine without me, and if you don't have kids with this one, your's will too!
If you're thinking about getting out, a lot.... there's a reason...

GOOD LUCK!

maggusie's picture

I just joined about two hours ago and I feel so much better knowing that there are others that are going through what I am going through. As for the question, If I have considered ending the relationship, the answer is yes. Fifi709, I have too recently felt like I am going through a mental breakdown and having the anxiety attacks.

I'll try to make a short story out of a long story. If you read my bio you will see that I am back with my first ex husband. We were married at the sweet young age of 18 and after 20 years of being divorced we found our way back to each other 2.5 years ago. When I we got back together his then 14 year old son was living with him. I would have to say that the first 1.5 years were good, maybe because it was the so called "honeymoon" phase, but for about a year now about 95% of our arguments are about his son.

We are not legally married but when people ask I tell them that he is my dh. At first we thought we would get remarried but when the problems and arguing came about after that 1.5 years we both took a step back and decided to wait, in which I am glad. We get along just great but when it comes to his son we butt heads. He is too lenient and I am too strict when it comes to his son.

We have both feel that we have something special and we probably would have walked away already but we haven't because we feel that we were brought back together for a reason. I have suggested counseling for all of us but the dh doesn't want to go. So, more or less we have been trying to come up with a solution for about a year now. This past week we had a big blow out and now his son seems to think that he can be disrespectful to me. I can't take this anymore and I suggested a couple of days ago that maybe we need to separate for awhile but got no response from the dh.

maggusie's picture

He doesn't need to give me permission I guess I was wanting some kind of response from him. It's a hard decision to make because it would be more simple for me to leave and then if or when I do leave I would have to go stay at my mother's and she wasn't very happy about us getting back together at first.

After I pointed out to the dh what his son said to me did he think his son was disrespectful and then went into his son's room and basically just said to stop being disrespectful to me, great support...lol.