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Stepdaughter and soon to have bio daughter.

USMC_stepdad's picture

First time posting, looking for some help. I've been married for about a year and have a 4 year old stepdaughter. We are very tight, she calls me Dad and we love to do all things together. But in a couple weeks my wife will be having my first bio child, another daughter. And I'm afraid of how it will changes things between me and my SD. I already wanna meet and hold my bio daughter more than anything in the world, and I know the minute I look at her I will never love anyone in the world more than her. I am also a very protective person and my wife keeps on talking about the ways my SD will take care of and play around with her little sister and I just feel this primal urge to be protective of my new daughter from everyone except my wife, including my stepdaughter, even though I love her so much, I feel like im gonna be in protective mode of my daughter from her. Is this normal? Am I just wrong for feeling like this? I just don't understand because I love my SD so much, but I just can't help how I feel. 

2Tired4Drama's picture

After all, this is YOUR first experience at parenthood.  You don't know what you don't know, yet.  Meaning, right now you feel like you may have issues with your young SD being around your daughter.  But once the baby comes along, you may find that it will fall into place more naturally than you think.

But it is important to pay attention to your feelings and if you honestly still feel this way after the birth, then I suggest you and your wife go in for some counseling to figure out how to work on the issues.  This is so important as it can make the difference between a healthy "blended" family, or one which may be dysfunctional.

I think honestly addressing your feelings and working on it together with your wife is most important.  Knowing how to treat SD is also very important, because at this young age if she feels left out it can be the foundation of all kinds of problems in the future.

It might not even hurt to talk to a family counselor NOW, so that both you and your wife know how to welcome the new little one into the family and how to communicate to SD about her feelings in an age-appropriate way.

Best of luck and best wishes with the birth of your daughter!

Rags's picture

The best thing about what you are projecting is that it is emotion and not intellect. You can feel what you feel and then act on your choices.  Act with intellect rather than emotion and you and your family, your entire family, will thrive with the new dynamic that will unfold when the baby is born. 

As a non breeding father I of course cannot tie any credibility to everyone who tells me that no child can be loved like a biochild.  I don't have a bio child. I have never felt or experienced what biodad's feel.  I have a biodad, but I am not one.  I know what he feels because he has demonstrated those feelings to me, my bothers and my mom my entire life.  The incomperability of feelings toward a BK may very well be true but I find choosing to accept a child as one's own and loving that child, parenting that child, and raising that child as your own when there is no BioConnection would seem to be at minimum just as intense, demonstrate just as much love, and logically would be far more intense than the result of a biological function.

One is a choice, one is action, one is intellectual commitment.   The action and intellect drives the feelings. The other is the result of a biological function that drives the emotion.  Eventually both can align into intellectual and emotional commitment that makes sense to me can be equal in honor, integrity and intensity.

I became Dad(dy) to my SS-26 when his mom and i met when he was 15mos old. We married the week before he turned 2yo.  He asked me to adopt him when he was 22.  We made that happen within 4 days of his request.  He now shares a last name with his mom for the first time in their lives.  He now wears our family name on his USAF uniform and though I was always his dad now we have an adopotion order and re-issued birth certificate that says so. 

Like you already are... I am a dad.

So I would advise you to not discount the feelings of love that you have for your SD.  Build on that rather than discounting it over what  you might could possibly experience when your second daughter is born.  Embrace your family, enjoy increasing the love in your family with your new daughter. 

Congratulations to you, mom and big sis on the new little one.

StepUltimate's picture

The truth of what Rags wrote above is evidenced by the wonderful, loving, respectful relationships between Rags, his bride, and their thriving adult son. The effort and decisions Rags & Mrs. Rags made and implemented from the get-go have been described in Rags blogs and posts, and I hope you consider his suggestions. I am convinced my now kicked-out SS18 would NOT be in his situation had my DH taken a similar approach as Rags in terms of discipline, consequences, and respect.