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I am My Worst Enemy

TheOtherMom's picture

Submitted by TheOtherMom on Wed, 04/21/2010 - 7:45pm

I am so tired of being angry all the time at a situation that I put myself in.
I go through this thing in waves. Will it ever stop?
Some days I feel like a mother but on days like today, that little nagging thought inside me says "who are you kidding?" You are a mother but not a real mother.
I try to push the thoughts out of my head but sometimes I overwhelm myself with emotions.
Is loving DH enough to do this stupid job known as step parenting?

Comments

Kb3Hooah's picture

Submitted by Kb3Hooah on Wed, 04/21/2010 - 8:40pm

What happens on the days that make you feel like you're not a real mother?

______________________________________
"Most couples have not had hundreds of arguments, they've had the same argument hundreds of times."

TheOtherMom's picture

Submitted by TheOtherMom on Thu, 04/22/2010 - 8:03pm

The days when I feel like I am not a real mother ... it's the days I don't want to be around the skids. I just want to curl up in bed and read a book. A real mom probably doesn't have these days.

Rags's picture

Submitted by Rags on Thu, 04/22/2010 - 3:12am

Maybe I am just simple. I agreed to be his dad when I married his mom. So I am his dad. SS was 15mos old when we met and was not yet 2yo when we married. Maybe being his full time dad since nearly the beginning has made a difference. I don't know. He is now 17 and I am and always will be his dad.

BioDad is still in the picture. Our son goes on visitation 3x per year. 5wks Summer, 1-2wks Winter, 9days Spring. He spends 95% of his visitation with SpermGrandMa who raises the younger three out of wedlock half sibs. BioDad rarely interfaces with any of his spawn other than to do the fun stuff. He is far from a father and far from a parent.

When he was ~6-7yo SS came home from his long summer visitation. He commented that "grandma says you are not my real dad and that you are only my step dad. Why does she say that?"

I explained to him that a biodad is the one that made you with your mom and a step dad is married to your mom. I also explained that a real dad is one who goes to work every day and works hard to provide a nice home, good schools, safe transportation, good food, teaches you to read, write, use the toilet, ride your bike, coaches your little league team, soccer team, swim team, and loves you and your mom very much.

He looked at me and said "Hmmmm? Sounds like a real dad to me" and went out to play with the his friends.

I believe that to love a child as a parent you perform the actions of parenting and the feelings of love will grow. (see the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for a good description and example of this strategy).

Being a real parent means taking the actions even when you are ready to strangle the kid, even when the kid is being a total PITA, etc.....

Not that every kid earns this love or is deserving of it. Fortunately my Skid is a pretty good young man. He struggles with issues he inherited from the polluted end of his gene pool that was provided by the SpermClan. But ..... he has his mom's genes too. And he is raised by his mom and I. So, through his mom and I struggle with his behaviors periodically, he has a good chance of making it to viable adulthood.

I am confident that he will be a man of standing in his community............. some day.

Not to be condescending on this topic or to over simplify a fix for your frustrations. However, I believe it is easier to change ourselves than to change other people. Early in our marriage I went through a "what the hell was I thinking when I decided to re-marry". It took some time for me to come to the conclusion (again) that I had married an amazing young woman who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I chose to stay married to my wife and to accomplish that I had to choose to be a REAL parent to my son (ss). So, I changed myself.

Hang in there.

Good luck and best regards,

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)