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Dual role: Bio dad and Stepdad

drum002's picture

Hello everyone, I am new to this site and appreciate your perspectives.  We are a blended family with five total children.  My wife has three children (two sons 8,10 and a daughter 11) from a previous marriage and I have two children (son 10, daughter 13) from a previous marriage.  My exwife is extremely toxic despite being divorced for 10 years, and her ex husband, while no where near as difficult, can be challenging as well.  My exwife has essentially weaponized my children to be very devisive, and attacking to their step mom and at to a somewhat lesser extet, her children.  I've read post after post where (mostly) step mothers are upset at the bio dad's lack of recognizing issues in their children and coddling them etc.  And, my wife tells me over an over the exact same thing.  It's like there is a separate universe that exists when I am not around.  My children, whom their teachers state are wonderful well adjusted children, are rude, defiant, and mean to my wife and her kids (as reported by my wife).  I do my best to support her and redirect/discipline my children, however I am not a person who yells and/or name calls or gets "angry" at my child or any child.  This does not mean that I am not working to address a behavior, however I simply do not believe in losing my temper in order to teach.  I suppose my question is, what can I do to help my wife feel more supported when dealing with my children?  Her step children are great kids, but not perfect either.  I love them all and moreover I love my wife.  How does a bio dad/step dad help his wife feel supported while maintaining his personal boundaries with respect to redrecting/disciplining his bio children and the step children? 

JanRebecca's picture

The biggest thing for me is  having double standard. When my DH corrects my son for something but allows his to get by doing that and even worse with no consequences is a big huge NO!!! 

ndc's picture

You don't have to yell at a child or lose your temper in order to discipline them or attempt to change their behavior.  Consequences can be issued calmly and without anger.  If the children are being rude and disrespectful, there need to be consequences.  Why else would they change, especially if they have HCBM encouraging them to treat your wife and her children poorly?  If you do nothing but tell your kids not to do that anymore, and they continue to do it, your wife will not feel supported.  If you do not believe her when she tells you what your otherwise well behaved children have done, she will not feel supported.  (Install a camera or lurk when the kids don't know you're there - with your wife's knowledge, of course - if you need to see this for yourself).  And you need to be consistent - rudeness, disrespect and other bad behaviors have to be dealt with every single time, and they need to be dealt with for every single child - no differences between bios and steps.

notsobad's picture

First of all believe your wife when she tells you that your children are treating her and her children badly.

There is nothing more frustrating than someone who says over and over, “Not MY children! They’d NEVER do that.” 

It makes it even worse when you tell her that she’s the only one who has this complaint. Their teachers think their wonderful, their friends think their wonderful, etc. It makes SM question herself and borderlines on gaslighting. She isn’t the problem, it’s your kids! It’s somehow worse when it’s only SM they treat badly. They are actively trying to hurt you by hurting her!

Then put a stop to it. Make sure your children understand that it’s not acceptable to treat SM badly. Do more than just talk to them and just think that they’ll stop. Find out why they treat SM badly, is it because of what BM says? Is it becauseof something SM has done?

My SIL got divorced and moved to another city with her new BF pretty quickly. They were not having an affair but the timing was suspicious. SILs exH planted some nasty seeds in his kids minds. He blamed the new BF for breaking up the marriage. 

SIL and the new BF met it head on. She sat with each kid, told them it was not an affair but yes they knew each other and were friends. That how the kids treat BF should be based on their experiences with him and Not on what their dad was saying/feeling. That she loved BF, she was the parent and she wasn’t going to allow her kid to treat BF badly. She also told them that if/when their dad got a gf the same goes for them. They are to be treated with respect. 

Ispofacto's picture

Some kids are not blatant in their aggressive behaviors.  The biggest problem with my SD14 is the snotty tone, sarcasm, eye rolls, facial expressions, defiance, going through my things, and stealing.  Most of the time she is polite to my face and doesn't say anything overtly rude.  It's not what she says, it's what she does.  It's not something you can easily capture on camera. She gaslights me and treats me like I'm crazy and unreasonable, because her crazy unreasonable BM told her I am.  It makes no sense because I've been a STEM professional for over 20 years and BM is on SSDI for mental illness, abuses drugs, and has never worked fulltime in her life.

I finally decided that no one can make SD like me, and be pleasant to me, so I disengaged.  With a crazy BM there's almost nothing you can do, the kids will never be nice or friendly.  Consider sending your SO here and we can advise her on how to protect her sanity.

drum002's picture

Thankt for your input.  I believe my significant other is already on here.  She disengages from my kids and tends to only engage when she sees them doing something wrong.  Again, I appreciate the input.  

Rags's picture

Boundaries are the key IMHO.  Standards of behavior for your home as far as the kids are concerned regardless of kid parental biology and even more importantly.... boundaries,extremely narrow and firm boundaries, regarding any Xs in the picture on either side of the blended family relationship.

I do not agree that each parent in a blended family marriage gets to parent their own children and their own children only.  Spouses are equity life partners and that makes each of them equity parents to any children in the marital home regardless of kid biology.

If either spouse does not like how the other parents... they can step up and get it done before the other spouse has to.

This has worked well for my bride (of nearly 24 years) and I.  However, in the interest of full disclosure.... we only have one spawn in the mix of our marital home.  My SS-25 is an only child in our world.  This for sure makes my situation far less complex than the one you are dealing with. His mom and I met when he was 15Mos old and married the week before he turned 2yo.

However, I think the basics and practices are the way go.  Set the boundaries, enforce them, apply consequences in an age appropriate manner, have each other's back and stick to the standards.  Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Structure and consistency are the keys to both the Skid and X side of blended family world.

Good luck.