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Lack of pity for stepchild

Omghelpme's picture

I feel uncomfortable even writing this, as though I will be judged as the evil stepmom. But I would really like to know if I'm alone in these thoughts.

The majority of the time that there is a conversation about my stepdaughter, the response is something along the lines of that poor child. So many people just go straight to the idea that it's so sad that she has two homes, or that all of her misbehaviors stem from her parents not being together. A therapist once when I described how much my stepdaughter hates me and does not want to bond with me went into detail about how hard it must be for her to have loyalty to her own mother and basically just said to have empathy for her and that's it. No practical advice, just basically said I should feel sorry for her.

I dont feel sorry for her. I think she has a very good life and she doesnt seem unhappy in general. Materialistically she has everything in the world. Both parents are active in her life and she has no memory of them being together. I've been in her life as long as she can remember also. I just cant bring myself to have much empathy for her supposed plight. I feel empathy for her on specific occasions here and there, for example if she gets hurt. But when anyone brings up feeling sorry for reasons related to her being in a stepfamily, I just cant sympathize. 

Comments

Exjuliemccoy's picture

Never forget that your in laws have their own agendas that usually favor the Poor Widdle First Family. And never make the mistake of thinking you are truly family. As a stepmom, you will be the most convenient scapegoat for everyone.

 

Thisisnotus's picture

Boy did I realize that quickly. I am so thankful that I realized early on that I would never be part of my DH's family. That spared me..I'm sure...years of drama. I pretty much act like they don't exsist and it suits me just fine.

shamds's picture

ended in divorce.

My parents divorced just when i finished high school when so many changes were going on in my life. I never was mollycoddled or treated like “oh poor cod”, people didn’t even know i was a cod.

when my husband says “its not the skids fault they’re disrespectful, rude, inconsiderate and actively try to sabotage our marriage” i tell hubby to stop making excuses for them. That its not an excuse them being adults and treating others and my young kids like this

Cover1W's picture

Yes, I have told DH the same thing, several times.  No excuses!  If they are rude, entitled, loud, dirty, it's not because their parents are divorced it's because their parents are not parenting.  This COD thing really ticks me off.

shamds's picture

I’ve been blunt with hubby and in the past 3 years stood up for myself even more

then it really hits hubby just how inconsiderate and selfish his kids are. The pity party his family even had for the skids and blaming their mum as being the sole cause of why they are who they are, ohhh i hated it!!

then my inlaws gradually saw how much worser it got and realised these skids are such horrible people. My sil’s came to me in private asking what was going on because hubby was in such denial. I had barely mentioned 2 things and their jaws drop..

my il’s could never figure out why ss especially treated me and our kids like strangers. My inlaws show more attention and affection to my kids than skids and my il’s live several states away!!

i told hubby love, affection and respect for your family is something you do unconditionally. Its not dependent of the financial benefit you get. Skids give conditional temporary attention when hubby is demanded to do favours or give hem money.

my kids love their dad and love spending time with him unconditionally and hubby knows it.

just a few weeks ago eldest sd 23.5 told hubby her mum wanted her to call her dad to make sure a property he bought after they were divorced for them to be “allowed” to live in so they had privacy, is meant to belong to them and should be their mums but she doesn’t want to be named as an owner or her current husband will claim it as a marital asset if she died or divorced and hubby needs to help her hide assets and exclude my kids (hubbys biological kids) and myself from any claim to that property 

hubby lost it with his daughter saying he wasn’t even dead and she’s wanting to grab property for herself, her 2 full siblings and her mum??

believe me, this reinforced why I don’t want to be around these horrible skids. If my in laws even found out, shit they’d be livid about it and hate skids even more that they are actively trying to leave us penniless. 

What they don’t know is we are buying a home together in my country and when their mum finds out a shit load of daddys money went to buy a house together with me, thats their precious inheritance money but hubby is doing this as a security measure to ensure me and kids aren’t on the street by his kids and ex since my kids are toddlers 

Monkeysee's picture

Oh god no, I don’t pity my stepkids. At all. Ever. For anything. They are some of the most privileged kids I’ve ever met, why should I pity them? Ok, so they didn’t choose for their parents to get divorced. Mmkay...

Neither did kids who’ve had to flee their countries. Or born to abusive parents. Or who’ve lost parents prematurely. Or who have physical ailments. Etc etc etc... 

Life is hard, divorce sucks but it’s not an excuse to be toxic or receive pity from everyone all the time. Eff that. My childhood wasn’t perfect & I’ve got my scars but guess what, life goes on. Nobody pitied me & I didn’t need them to, I’m a better person because nobody gave me the excuse that I could treat people badly because I was ‘wronged’. This attitude is what’s wrong with parenting these days. Ugh. 

shamds's picture

life, i tell him simply being a cod isn’t a hard life.

a hard life is being 21 when your mother has a severe stroke and you need to juggle full time university studies, a fulltime job and paying rent while caring for your sick mum and costs of managing a home. A hard life is being forced to grow well beyond your years and grow up and take responsibility for things.

it was hard but its made me the person i am. Being a cod who manipulates and milks their parents and dads for everything they can get without having any respect is not a hard life or warrants people feelig sorry for you.

so if a cod says i never asked my parents to divorce, well neither did you ask them to marry but shit happens!!

ESMOD's picture

Look,  I can get on board with encouraging "everyone" to have the capacity to have empathy for other people.  I even have a small amount of empathy for BM despite the fact that most of her problems are of her own making and that she caused us a lot of heartburn over the years.  But people can and DO often behave so poorly that any reserve of empathy is extinguished.

Sure.. being a COD is not the optimal situation for a child.  Shuttling from home to home.. sometimes dealing with parents who are attempting PAS.  Having emotional blackmail from parents if you love that stepparent or other parent "more".  And as a child with relatively less mature coping abilities and mental maturity.. and factor in that kids are often just generally self centered and are in many cases, victims of poor parenting on BOTH sides?  Yeah.. I can have some empathy that not everything is great for the kid and that there may be some amount of poor behavior.  Being forced to accept a new adult authority in the home.. one that may be making wholesale changes to how things operate (even if they are for the better of the child in the end).. it can be a tough situation.  Having to go to Mom's or Dad's where their new partner doesn't like you? or you have been told they don't.. etc..

But.. BUT... again.. that whole yarn ball of crap can only get you so far... at some basic human level.. you know treating someone like crap is wrong.  

AND... the stepparent is almost always laying blame at the skid's feet when the behavior is not being adressed by the PARENT.  THE SP Partner has teed up a situation where there wasn't room for a new partner and that causes friction.  They already aren't parenting or have and EX who is high conflict... etc.  

So.. Empathy can important tool to help you understand that perhaps not everything is being meant personally.. and that to an extent it can be a byproduct of the child's attempt to cope with subpar circumstances.. (despite the fact that it appears they have everything... they often are missing a lot of critical parenting).

But in the end.. knowing that the person hitting me on the head has a mental disorder doesn't make the pain any less and doesn't make it a requirement that I continue to sit there and allow it to happen to me.

tog redux's picture

Empathy and pity are very different. Empathy is empowering, pity makes people "victims" which is disempowering. 

ESMOD's picture

Sure.. of course... and the OP said her therapist was trying to get her to have empathy for the child.. not pity.  The therapist's advice wasn't necessarily totally worthless for all situations.. but there are circumstances that any empathy you may be able to dredge up for a person is extinguished by a preponderance of poor behavior and attitude.  

beebeel's picture

The therapist was using the wrong word. Sadly, many people don't know the difference in meaning between empathy and sympathy. Empathy cannot be taught or created out of whole cloth. Empathy is an organic emotion that arises when you see someone struggling with something you yourself have endured. You have to have been in that same situation or held the same set of circumstances to be able to empathize with someone 

Sympathy is the word the therapist most likely meant and it is pretty interchangeable with pity.

Omghelpme's picture

Yes, it was an attempt to make me feel pity. I felt as though she was saying I shouldnt have any negative feelings myself because of it also. Or maybe moreso that my feelings were less important because it was worse for her.

beebeel's picture

And teaching kids that their feelings matter more than anyone else's creates the type of self-absorbed cretin that makes it hard to pity.

tog redux's picture

People confuse those two concepts. Empathy is, "I totally understand that it's been hard for you to adjust to your parents' divorce and remarrying" - Sympathy is, "Oh, you poor thing, how awful that you have to deal with your parents' divorce and remarrying!" 

Very, very different messages.  You can empathize with someone who is going through something you've never endured, it's just seeing things from their perspective and understanding how they might feel. 

captjacksprrw's picture

It sounds like this child is loved, cared for and engaged.  She has learned how to game it and sadly, the postive reinforcement from others is not helping.  I'm going to give excellent credit to my DW here.  When YSS was about 14-15, his parents had been divorced a little over a year.  Mom corrected him on somebehavior I don't even remember but very normal situation ... He came up with 'Well, you know sometimes when kids in my situation feel that one parent is being too strict they choose to go live with the other' - btw both boys always had the option to live anywhere but 99.5% was with us.  HA well DW fixed this.  She simply walked to his room, grabbed a small suitcase, picked up her cell and said.  I'll call your Dad and he can be here in about 30 minutes.  I love you and you can be with either of us any time you want.  Why don't you pack what you think you need and we can move the rest later.   Well now .. that never happened again.   *sigh* wish she had done more of this

beebeel's picture

I have always empathized with my skids concerning their parents' divorce. I am a COD myself. I empathized that it was a pain in the butt to change homes. I empathized with them when they saw their parents arguing (all the time). I went through those same things and they suck! My ability to understand how they must feel is no sheild for shitty behavior, however. My empathy/sympathy/pity dry right up if you treat others like garbage simply because life handed you a tiny speed bump.

Omghelpme's picture

I think that is a large part of it -  that the behaviors seem out of proportion to the downsides of having divorced parents. It makes it hard to feel sorry for her because the acting out is more extreme than the situation calls for so it doesnt seem like that is really want its from.