Reply to Kids calling parent's new love Mom/Dad

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here: I totally understand on the letting the kid choose issue.  I would never want to be in the position of forbidding my child to use a name that felt right, or making her keep a secret about the name that she uses.  Clearly that is messed up.  However, it also has to be confusing for a child to call a series of girlfriends or boyfriends mom or dad.  Wouldn't that make the kid feel anxious about being abandoned by the original parents?  I know my daughter has strong feelings of abandonment (she's 4) even though the ex and I have a good co-parenting relationship and make things as seamless as we can, and encourage her to be open about her feelings.  And all of this is colored for me by knowing that this new person in my ex's and my child's life was a stepmom for 5 years, but left that relationship and chose not to maintain a relationship with those kids.  [/quote]

14:49 here. I think it depends on your child. It sounds like your situation is complicated for a number of reasons. My DH is actually someone I've known for many, many years. I wouldn't say he was a close family friend, but I did not need to spend a lot of time getting to know him before introducing him to DD, the way I would have if he had been entirely new. If you are able to discuss with your ex how important it is that his relationship with your DD stabilize before she has to process a stepparent, that would be ideal, but I can understand if that is not possible.

Most of all, you need to concentrate on being the stablest influence you possibly can for your DD. It sounds like she is going through a lot, and while I understand that you're going through a lot too, you have to project an image of calm to her. My DD asked me, for example, whymy ex's girlfriend had said, "MyName isn't allowed to come in the house anymore." My response to her, in the moment, was that everyone needs their space sometimes and if that's the rule at Daddy's house, then we will respect the rule at Daddy's house. Meanwhile texting my ex that it was completely inappropriate for him to allow his girlfriend to say things like that in front of our child, ever, that there was no reason for it and that I expected him to be a better communicator of details like this (since he'd said nothing about it). DD will never, ever know how I truly feel about her father. All she knows right now is that she has a lot of parents who love each other and can keep themselves together for long enough to go to her ballet recitals and birthday parties a couple times a year.[/quote]

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