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Men and Women with children should come with a warning label.

juststressedbeyondbelief's picture

That reads;

"Warning, you will be expected to silently obey any command given by this man/woman in regards to their previous mistake in partner selection, this inculdes commands from the woman/man he/she recently stopped sleeping with. Failure to do so will result in escalating penalties. By marrying this individual you agree to the new societal contract that accompanies raising children that do not belong to you. For more information on the new societal contract, please consult any romantic comedy, MTV or TLC series, or corresponding drama on television that involve step-brats."

Risks include: Daily misery, loss of house, loss of children, and death.

P.S. -The love bomb you experienced in the first year is completely fake.

 

 

Half of us would have torn off the label and ignored it anyway. I'm thanking god that I'm getting out. Full disclosure would have still been nice, though.

hereiam's picture

The warning label IS the kid. This tells you right off of the bat that they come with different baggage than childless people.

It takes longer than a year to really get to know someone. It can take even longer to really see what kind of a parent they are, and what kind of an ex they are. Which are both clues to what kind of person they really are.

 

susanm's picture

Agreed.  Unfortunately, common wisdom is that you are not supposed to introduce your kid to anyone that you are not "serious" about and certain that the relationship is going to last.  But how can the other person make that kind of commitment to someone when they have not had a chance to see such a major part of who this person actually is???   They THINK they know who the parent is and they THINK they are in love with this person who is perfect for them and then all hell breaks loose when reality in the form of the kids and who this guy turns into in their presence is discovered.  And people have the nerve to say that we "knew what we were getting into?" 

We have the lovely choice of walking away from someone we are in love with and have made a commitment to prior to meeting the kids, as we are supposed to do according to all of the experts, and trying to be understanding of the difficulties of beginning a blended family and working to overcome them.  If we walk away then we are coldhearted and if we stay then we "knew what we were getting into" when home is chaotic and an unpleasant place to be.

I understand why parents want to be protective of their children but not allowing the people they are considering getting serious with in on the truth about their life before getting in too deep is unfair and unkind.  

SteppedOut's picture

1000000% THIS

Either way a the "step" is wrong. ALWAYS a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for the step/potential step-parent.

tog redux's picture

The fact that your wife has a child is not the problem. The fact that she has a personality disorder IS the problem.

My DH is a great partner, despite BM's protestations to the contrary. He parented his kid and never expected anything from me in that area. He never let the kid or BM disrespect me. 

juststressedbeyondbelief's picture

It was just satire, tog.

Trying to lighten the mood with a visual of people walking down the street with a taped on warning sign centered on their forehead.

Letti.R's picture

I don't think all people with children are rotten parents or partners.
If they are divorced with children, sometimes the problematic aspects of their personality was in place before the kids arrived.
It is still in place with you, whether there are kids or not.

Many people with children are pretty normal and can well balance their relationship to their partner and children.
Problem here is that we are probably on the receiving end of having being partnered with a parent incapable of managing their kids or ex and because it is our situation, everybody else's has to be that way too: not so.

The SO is the problem.
IF he/she knew how to conduct him/herself properly, his/her kids would be called to order, the ex would be put in their place and you as a partner would be treated with the respect and love you deserve.

I want to add that not all people made a mistake with the parent of their child/ren.
Not all kids were the result of poor relationship judgements - that in itself is a red flag for a partner- but in the worst case scenario, some people are widowed through no fault of their own and would not consider their spouse of kid a mistake, even if you do. 

juststressedbeyondbelief's picture

(previous mistake in partner selection)

Nobody's calling children a mistake. Nobody is calling a widow a GUBM. You just tried to use a vast minority of cases as your empirical evidence. That's not a way to structure an argument if you're going to disagree.

The post was satirical. Lets not do the drama thing. Lets smile today.

tog redux's picture

I believe that WE here on Steptalk are the minority of stepfamilies. Many of them work out well, or if they have their issues, they aren't as serious as the ones discussed on here. My sister has a stepdaughter, and it wasn't all wonderful all the time, but she is now 40 and they have a fantastic relationship.  My friend's ex is remarried and her son has a great relationship with his stepmother.

If all adults involved are healthy people with decent parenting skills, it won't be as miserable as the stories on here. My DH is a great parent - BM is a personality disordered, high conflict person.  She has made our life hard and damaged SS19 in the process.  If she were a normal person, I wouldn't be posting here. 

juststressedbeyondbelief's picture

I know, tog, I know.

You made my point in paragraph 2 that I was trying to convey.

We are the minority of step-parents, and people who actively call children a mistake - or bash on widows are the minority of this minority.

CLove's picture

The statistics. I like numbers, so I think it would be a good study! How many divorced/separated couples are able to co parent in a healthy way. How many cannot? And its a world-wide issue.

It is my "theory" or experience currently that the dysfunction that caused the break up of the family continues on throughout because the children keep them "together" in a weird way.

I think people in general should come with warning labels!

Thisallsux's picture

This is true. I have come in contact with other stepmothers and while some of them had difficult BMs their husbands always had their backs and they didn’t make a stink when SM disciplined. I Spoke to another SM a friend of a friend who’s husband always had her back and put her and their daughter first. 

caitlinj's picture

Yes the love bomb the first year and completely fake. Be prepared for a life of being disrespected and taken for granted. If you dare mention that you will be raged at, told to leave or ghosted.

Thisallsux's picture

You can’t be human and don’t expect any help or form of partnership you’re on you’re own. He won’t be there for you. Only his kids

caitlinj's picture

Don't even get sick or need anything. He will only be there for his kids and his mom. Your needs are irrelevent. You are there to provide for his needs only.

Thisallsux's picture

My god this is so true. My husband will only help if I’m out making money. If I need to go to the doctor or do anything related to myself I have to do it when my kids are at school or I have call of of work to do it because he’s either working or he’s at BM and SDs beck and call. I had to reschedule a very important appointment recently because he has to do something with SD that my kids can’t go to. I’m lucky I was scheduled for the night shift because I would have had to not go in for this appointment. But hey I married a man with a kid so I’m on my own. Only when it’s convenient for him and his daughter. 

SM12's picture

I love my DH but I am pretty sure had we dated longer and had I spent more time with his spawn, I would have ended the relationship!  And I lived steplife before DH but this was a whole new set of issues.   I knew I didn’t like his kids and felt like he was pawning them off on me but I kept thinking it would get better once we lived in a together home.  Nope.  I thought...give it time for all the kids to adjust...nope.    In time we will be one big happy family....nope.   Had I given it a few more months I would have been out.   

But alas, I am here.  Fortunately I am on the downhill slide if stephell.  My disengagement holds strong and DH has learned to leave me out of it (99% of the time). I have found the balance of caring enough not to harm DHs relationship with YSS and not caring enough to stop doing what makes me happy.   And am at the point in my life that if DH isn’t on board with my choice, he can find the door. 

Thise damn rose colored glasses bit me in the Fanny but that’s doesn’t mean I have to keep them on.

advice.only2's picture

Oh DH had bright red warning labels all over him, but I was in LOVE!!

That was 15 years ago and here we are. Our marriage has been through some SH*T! But the one thing that we both can appreciate is that nobody else has gone through what we have so when people judge us for our choices, we can look at each other and shrug and move on, because we have each other's backs.

Rags's picture

Character flaws are not limited to divorced people or people with prior relationship children.  My XW and I married when I was 23 and she was 20.  Neither of us had children or had been married. 

Both of us were from families with long term marriages between our bioparents.

By all indicators it should have been a good marriage considering the public facade of the parents we were raised by. As it turned out... only my parents were quality people and only I was all in on the marriage.

My XW was a cavern crotched serial adulteress skank whore before the wedding and never stopped after the wedding (I did not learn of the depth of her moral depravity until years after the divorce).  My XILs turned out to be embezzlers of $millions for decades and finally got nailed for their crap 9 years after their daughter gave me the ultimate gift of playing the divorce card 2 years after we married. My XW was a beautiful, intelligent and focused young woman.  Unfortunately that facade covered the toxic shallow and polluted gene pool traits.  My family loved her. None of us saw reality.  XW graduated with honors with a BS in Nursing.  I did most of her projects and research papers for her.  She got into grad school after our divorce but ended up failing out since I was not there to write her papers for her.

My bride of 25+ years had SS when she was 16.  Though the school attempted to get her to drop out and go to pregnant girl school, she chose to remain in HS and graduate with her class. She graduated with honors and continued on to a dual major BS with honors, an MBA with honors and to a successful career as a CPA.  She never once asked me to do her course work for her.  Interestingly when she was working on papers and projects and asked my opinon it usually ended up in a long debate and ultimately she followed her own counsel.  I am extremely proud of her.

Mistakes do not necessarily indicate crtically flawed character.  Those who learn from mistakes are often far above those who never make mistakes to learn from as far as character is concerned.

My single teen mom bride has always been superior to my XW.  My XW had her first out of wedlock child in her early 20s after completing her BS Nursing with her geriatric Fortune excutive sugar/baby daddy that was the last one she cheated with while we were married. She went on to two more out of wedlock children.  One more with the geriatric sperm donor and the last one with the BF she cheated on the geriatric sperm donor with after Grampa sugar/baby daddy finally married her.

At 16 my amazing bride figured out what causes out of wedlock pregnancies.  Something my XW never figured out even after graduating from Nursing school and squeezing out a couple of OOWL spawn.

caitlinj's picture

There must be a theme about narcissim/sociopathy/adultery. I've noticed a common theme on this forum.