Here is my response to ohiodad's very awesome list of steps!

Submitted by ohiomom on Thu, 09/24/2015 - 11:13am.

My husband (the OP of this thread) sent me his list in an email and I have to say that I was really curious about the responses and about this board in general. Since I am kid free at the moment, I thought I'd take some time to write a little about my thoughts and perspective on this topic.

The first thing that you should know is that my husband truly is one of the good guys. Smiling Smiling We really did fall in love the night we met. (Although, everyone here should take note that I was the one who recognized it first! Sticking out tongue ) We are still obnoxiously in love 5 years later. I miss him when he travels for work, write him love notes in his lunch, we make our friends sick on Facebook...all that good stuff. Lol. I think it's important to note where we came from to understand us and why this way of parenting our kids was the way we chose to go. My first marriage was pretty awful. My ex physically and emotionally abused me. He still tries to mess with my head now and then but he is more of a nuisance than anything else now. Although he has a harder time admitting this, my husband's ex manipulated and emotionally abused him as well. We talk a lot about why we married our ex's..why didn't we wait for each other, why did we have kids with these people that were so wrong for us?? Ugh, we talk about it, ad nauseam, and the answers don't always come easily. We were both young and naive (okay, stupid!). My husband has already answered why he married his ex..The reason I married an abusive jerk is something that maybe I will never really understand about myself. I just know that in order to move forward with my life I had to forgive myself and do what is best for me, my marriage, and all my kids.

I think everyone's situation is unique to them so I didn't find much fault with this general list. (Of course I am sleeping with the guy who wrote it, so I may be biased. Sticking out tongue) I know that I have felt every emotion possible when in comes to being a step parent. And that every single one of the "10 steps" along the way has been incredibly hard. But now I feel like it's really all been worth it. Our youngest son is 4 and I get to have him with me during the day, Mon-Wed. He is the sweetest, smartest, funniest little guy and I feel like I've contributed to that. I don't know if that makes sense.. Sometimes my husband says things like, "Oh, he has your sense of humor" and I take pride in that, because he is a little stinker and he definitely gets that from me. Smiling (We are big fans of nurture over nature) I love that our 4 year old wants to dance with me, bake with me, wants me to sing him a song at the end of the night, and wants to cuddle with ME. Smiling I can't afford to emotionally disconnect myself from him or his brother (who is the mini version of his father Smiling ). I think that if I was disconnected from them then I wouldn't have those great moments with them both that I do now. I can't say that I didn't do that, or rather that I didn't want to, or feel like I should disconnect in the beginning. I understand the need or maybe the desire for self preservation. Nothing hurts your feelings more than a little boy asking for mommy and not being his mommy!! It's a helpless feeling. Believe me, my husband and I had plenty of discussions (some of the quite loud!) about OUR feelings as step parents. Which is why #10 is SO important to us and it should be for anyone in a relationship.

I think the idea that step moms find themselves in a more difficult parenting position than step dads is interesting. I might partially agree with that, but I would say that is over generalizing things. A better way to say it might be that moms have a different roles in their kids lives than dads do. My husband and I choose together what works best for our family, just like I'm sure everyone here does. Like I mentioned I have our youngest son every Mon-Wed. He has preschool Mon and Wed,that I take him to and pick him up from, and I have to pick up my other step son from his school since he goes to a different elementary school than my sons. I would be lying if I didn't say this caused some resentment on my part at first. Especially because last year our youngest was VERY mommy centered. And as I mentioned, it hurts to have a little guy asking for mommy. I really had to step back and take a look at the situation. Last year I was a bit of a mess. My mom died in April, we had to take on the responsibility of my brother and sister, we got married in June, we had to figure out a way to add rooms onto our house for my brother and sister, we had to figure out everything for my mom's estate and deal with my lousy relatives....Needless to say I was a wreck. I really felt like I was failing at everything,including being a mom. I just had to look at all of this from the kids perspective. Not only had we just lost my mom but now our boys had to take on essentially a new brother and sister. Life was hectic and of course they acted out. Hell, I was 34 and I was acting out! My mom was my best friend (other than my husband) and her loss was..ugh, I can't describe it. I know I wasn't much good to anyone there for awhile. Thank God for my husband. He really is the best. Smiling

Anyway, I guess my point with the above paragraph is that no one here should assume that our lives are cookie cutter, picture perfect and that we judge everyone who handles things differently. That's not my husband's MO. He told me how sad he felt for so many of the posters on here and how lucky he felt that despite all of the madness, we somehow make it work.

I have to say that I am not surprised to read people saying that they don't think they love their step kids as much as their children. I feel sad for you if that is the case but I do understand it. That bond is hard and if it doesn't form then I can see why someone would feel that way. I don't know how I would feel if my husband didn't love our kids the same... I think about growing up as a step kid and where I would be if my step dad hadn't loved me. My biological dad was not in the picture at all so maybe that made it easier for my step dad. I don't really know. And maybe that experience of growing up with a step parent makes it easier for me to love my step kids... I don't know that one either.. We try to tell our kids (and they are younger so maybe that makes it easier) how wonderful it is that they have a step mom and step dad who love them just as much as their mommy and daddy do. We tried to make it seem like having an extra mom and dad was a pretty cool thing and so far it's worked with minimal attitudes from our kids. As we are the guardians for my younger brother (almost 17) and sister (almost 14), we've gotten a fun preview of what is to come in the teenage years and I can't say I'm looking forward to that!! Bottom line is I think all kids can be jerks at any given time, and can sometimes be difficult to like and hard to love. But the moment you can look at your spouse and say "Hey, they will ALL be gone some day! Yay!" and then laugh together, is the day that you know you've got a good thing going!

I really believe that doing all or at least some of these steps could work for a lot of people. But of course they can't work for everyone. It's just amazing to see how our kids act like siblings, which means fighting hard and playing hard and loving each other hard too. It didn't happen over night though but I'm really proud of our family and how far we've come. And that has so much to do with how solid we are as a couple. Lots of things have happened that could have come between us but thank goodness we are both pretty awesome people who deserve happiness after so much unhappiness. And there was A LOT of unhappiness in our previous lives. Lol.Thank God we decided that everything we had to go through to be together was worth it! I think it's made us better parents and better people!

I wish everyone on here the very best. Being a parent is just.. well not that fun sometimes. I think that every parent who thinks that they have really tried their very best should be proud of themselves. This isn't a job for the weak! It's great that there are places like this for people to come and vent. We all need a safe place to do that!

And I really like your list, love. Smiling Too bad we broke that first one! We didn't just break it. We ripped its still beating heart out, stomped on it, peed on it, spit on it, maybe even pooped on it a little too.. Lol. We lived and learned though and I'm so glad that we didn't give up. I love our crazy family and I love you!! Smiling Smiling

PS: I will save everyone the trouble and add these for you Barf! Barf! Barf! Yeah, I know you were all thinking it. Eye-wink Lol. We do really love each other. He is the best man I've ever known and I'm so lucky to have him! And so our all of our kids!