For those who keep asking about differences between stepmothers and stepfathers it is simple: There is NO human bond that is stronger than that between mother and child.

Of course there can be exceptions when mothers have other issues which interfere with their mothering (mental health, addiction, etc.)

Anonymous wrote:I love my stepkids but not their mother. She is supposed to have visitation every weekend. She seems them about once a month, and never for the full weekend. They are sad and confused and DH and I have to figure out how to explain why she doesn't prioritize them. It's especially hard when she sees my kids' father always taking all his visitation time. Dh has offered to drop the kids off at her place so she doesn't have to come to ours, letting her pick them up directly from school, all kinds of things.

The other day my stepdaugher was crying and we were talking about her mom, and she eventually said she appreciates what I do but wants her mom to do those things. And I NEVER step on her mom's toes - I'm always careful to offer her opportunities to be involved or in charge of stuff. Birthday parties, gifts, going somewhere new, clothing shopping, first manicure, telling her what book series the kids are into in case she wants to read them too so she can talk about it with them, sending her pics of artwork they do, all of it.

They're genuinely great kids. Kind, funny, smart, helpful - she's really missing out, and they miss her.

❤

Worst way to make a decision about dating/marrying someone is “it’s the best I’ll ever get, so yeah I’ll stick around”. Imagine how he would feel if you told him this. Imagine someone saying that to you! Horrible feeling like you are a consolation prize; better than nothing but not the grand prize.

Since you probably don’t want to have kids, you have time to 1) work on you and respecting your worth and 2) dating until you find the person who is exactly right for you.

Because the worst thing isn’t not getting married. The worst thing is staying with him, twisting yourself to fit into his life, get married, bond with his kid, have a child that you are ambivalent about for him, then 10 years later you get divorced. Now you have a kid (that you love, but didn’t want) and divorced at 42 when it’s even harder to date.

Get your own house in order before you invite someone in.

I love my kids' stepmother. I have a close relationship with her and her kids (and happily tolerate ex-DH because of those relationships). She has been in their lives since they were 3 and 6. They are now teens and my DD is especially close with her. Neither kid likes their dad much but they will visit him to see their stepmom and their young half-siblings.

He did lie to her about me when they were dating. He said we broke up because of my mental health and not because I caught him cheating. He also lied about paying child support. Long story, but some issues arose with them and she and I eventually talked about all of this. I have to give her a lot of credit for being so nice to me after all the crazy stuff he told her! So don't assume you're getting the whole/true story from you BF about the ex. Try to get to know her on your own terms and make your own judgments.

I agree OP, you are self aware enough to recognize that you have issues with self esteem and emotional maturity. That itself is huge and a good opportunity to dig in and figure out how to address those things.

As someone who's very familiar with these relationships I would say the fact that you now recognize you might be jealous of the kid, you never really wanted to have kids, and you don't want to live long-term where the kid now is are the biggest issues with becoming more serious with this man. I know it's hard if you are really into him, but be honest with yourself about if this is going to work with these issues. 32 is young!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To have a kid that young and be divorced (and not a widow/er) something bad went down in his marriage. At this point you don't know if his wife cheated or he cheated or one of them is abusive, etc. But, generally infant/toddlers and divorce isn't a great sign.

OP said nothing about divorce

" It seems like an amicable and peaceful coparenting relationship

although he doesn't really think highly of her

. I haven't met her, or the daughter."

That one is raising red flags for me. Was he married? Was this a 'oops' with someone he wasn't in a relationship with? Was he a sperm donor? What is the reason he is co-parenting.

People have co-parenting relationships without having been married, PP. I repeat: OP said nothing about a divorce.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've already identified the child as a "problem" so you need to leave and let him find someone better. I can't imagine a normal person calling a 3 year old child's very existence a problem--you are gross.

This is unfair.

Being a step parent is a HUGE deal and very challenging. Many relationships with step parents fail. She is right to question whether she want this.

And at 32, I think she should listen to her gut and keep dating single or divorced guys with no kids.

OP, once I turned 41, I started dating divorced dads. It's hard. I am in a relationship with one now. You just don't get prioirtized the way you would if there were no stepkids involved. You also wind up giving up control and decisionmaking on a LOT of things that women who DONT have stepkids DO get to control.

Like where you live (my boyfriend lives in a house i hate and he refuses to entertain the idea of moving to a new house, even in the same school district, if we get married). Like how you spend the holidays. Whether the kids living in your house put their dishes in the dish washer or not - if dad doesn't tell them to, it wont happen.

Not worth it at 32.

If you are still single at forty plus, there will be a TON of divorced dads you can date. A TON. You can always date divorced dads later if you dont find a guy with no kids now.

Thank you for sharing. A big part of this is just plain old terrible self-esteem. I’m terrified if I let the first man who has really truly treated me well there won’t be another. I might find one without kids but it’s so hard to imagine to find one as thoughtful, kind, mature, generous or well-matched for me. I am simply not the kind of woman who frequently attracts men like this.

Honestly, OP, the bold is the biggest screaming red flag in the whole thread. Please stop dating for a year and focus on intensely individual therapy for yourself. Your life can be so much different and better -at work, with friends and in relationships - when you deal with your own issues before you get involved with others.

+1,000,000. You have way bigger problems than a kid. Sticking with a guy just because he doesn’t treat you like crap (the BAREST of minimums) and you think you’ll never ever find another man like him is a terrible decision.

Plus, it is mighty presumptuous to even *think* you will be a stepmother to this child? Has this guy even mentioned marriage to you yet, let alone how you feel about being the stepmom? It’s only been 5 months!

I usually say at 32 you know yourself well enough to marry relatively quickly. But in your case, having such low self esteem, I would advise you to slow the hell down. You need to learn to love yourself and get it together before you can even think about being a parental figure for someone else’s kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've already identified the child as a "problem" so you need to leave and let him find someone better. I can't imagine a normal person calling a 3 year old child's very existence a problem--you are gross.

This is unfair.

Being a step parent is a HUGE deal and very challenging. Many relationships with step parents fail. She is right to question whether she want this.

And at 32, I think she should listen to her gut and keep dating single or divorced guys with no kids.

OP, once I turned 41, I started dating divorced dads. It's hard. I am in a relationship with one now. You just don't get prioirtized the way you would if there were no stepkids involved. You also wind up giving up control and decisionmaking on a LOT of things that women who DONT have stepkids DO get to control.

Like where you live (my boyfriend lives in a house i hate and he refuses to entertain the idea of moving to a new house, even in the same school district, if we get married). Like how you spend the holidays. Whether the kids living in your house put their dishes in the dish washer or not - if dad doesn't tell them to, it wont happen.

Not worth it at 32.

If you are still single at forty plus, there will be a TON of divorced dads you can date. A TON. You can always date divorced dads later if you dont find a guy with no kids now.

Thank you for sharing. A big part of this is just plain old terrible self-esteem. I’m terrified if I let the first man who has really truly treated me well there won’t be another. I might find one without kids but it’s so hard to imagine to find one as thoughtful, kind, mature, generous or well-matched for me. I am simply not the kind of woman who frequently attracts men like this.

Honestly, OP, the bold is the biggest screaming red flag in the whole thread. Please stop dating for a year and focus on intensely individual therapy for yourself. Your life can be so much different and better -at work, with friends and in relationships - when you deal with your own issues before you get involved with others.

My aunt met my uncle when his kids were around this age and she is an incredible stepmother. They have since divorced each other for unrelated reasons, but she is *still* another mother figure in the kids' lives, and the first wife loves her, too. And in this case, the original (first) divorce was NOT amicable. So even in the most complicated cases it can be a really beautiful relationship for a child.

My DH did not have any kids when I met him but if he had, I would hope I would have been a great and open-minded stepmom. I wanted a kid, but hated giving birth and didn't want to go through the heartache/potential trauma of adoption, so in a way it would have been a great way to reach parenthood.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why did they break up?

They were not married. He was not ready for marriage or a baby, she was, and she deceived him about birth control and got pregnant. I take this with a grain of salt because there are two sides to every story but I have seen text messages where she alludes to having lied so I do believe it for the most part. He tried to make it work for about a year after his daughter was born but could not get past the deception.

To me it's somewhat of a red flag that his judgment is poor enough to even be with someone who would do that, but we've discussed openly why and how he ended up feeling stuck and codependent in a long term relationship he couldn't see marrying or having children with.

If he wasn’t ready for a baby, he should have used a condom.

This is not your Prince Charming.

What? He’s not my price charming because he… didn’t use a condom? Obviously he knew there was a risk of pregnancy but the issue is not that they accidentally got pregnant. He left his ex because she is deceitful.

You *don’t* really know the whole truth about the ex. You think you do, but you don’t - you have his very biased opinion.

I say this with compassion as someone who was in the same spot, took the leap despite misgivings and later got very hurt.

There are a lot of red flags here. The negativity between him and his kid’s mom is going to be a big issue for 15+ years and could get a lot worse. Does she still want him? If so, red flag. She might use the kid to try to drive a wedge in your relationship and that kind of dynamic can really create awful situations in stepmothering.

But the worst thing you face is that if you can’t stay in the relationship because of your own needs or he dumps you for whatever reason down the road, you could go from loving those kids to never seeing them again if the parents don’t support it. That’s the worst case scenario of dating someone with kids that you can’t adopt.

I always said I wouldn’t date men with kids because my mother was a stepmother and always said it was the hardest job of all parenting roles. Well I ended up doing it twice and both times fell more in love with the kids than the guy but when I decided the guy wasn’t for me, the kids were out of my life entirely. The next GF won’t be happy about an exGF hanging around even if it’s just to see the kids - and the exBF will put his GF ahead of maintaining a loving adult’s established relationship with his kids.

The problem isn't that the guy you're dating has a child, the problem is that the guy you're dating and the child are still in a family that still exists, just with divorced parents. So whatever you build together has to accommodate his existing family. He'll have two families.

Anonymous wrote:

As a stepparent, I encourage you strongly to get out now. I love my spouse, but if I knew back when I was in your shoes what I know now I would have hightailed it in the other direction.

I dropped off my stepdaughter for her first day of college and then again this summer when she traveled overseas to study abroad. I spend time with and love my stepchildren.

I have my biological kids and I love them as well. Nothing stops me from being a father to both sets.

Stepmother is completely different from stepfather.