Okay before coming on here I had never heard the term ‘Disney Dad’. Now I see that was what I was dealing with when I first met my DH.

He was an older father with a young second family. DH had been sperated for 4 years when I met him. He had SD8 and SD 11 every second weekend and some holidays. SD were used to him taking them camping or going somewhere most of those weekends and he usually attended all their sports functions and school functions.

Along I came and I think that was fine for a while until BM realised I had moved in. The skids were reasonably well-behaved but behind at school . I had been a teacher for 26 years so naturally I helped the girls with homework, taught them to knit and sew and helped them with reading. BM didn’t like them getting along with DH and me. She took every opportunity to throw a spanner in the works, encouraged the eldest SD to spy on Dad and report back. She made plenty of excuses as to why DH couln’t see the skids on his weekend some quite ridiculous,’they needed haircuts’, ‘ her mother was ill’ . BM constantly rang the skids while they were with DH to find out what was on. If we took them on holidays to the mountains she did next holiday. If we took the skids to see turtles hatching that is where they went next holiday because ‘ mum missed out.’ The most bizzare one was when they told me they were going to go on holidays to a small country town my first DH came from. Noone would go to this town for a holiday it is in the middle of outback Australia. I only went because I have family there.

Anyway with jealousy growing from BM the skids were being pressured by BM to visit DH less often. She was very good at organising parties on DHs weekend then telling skids they would miss out if they went to DHs. Then she started manipulating skids telling them she couldn’t afford to do things, they couldn’t have things because DH didn’t give her enough money. About this time she was unable to get the single mothers pension and told to look for work as the skids were getting older.

Poisoned by BM the skids started to disengage and we really saw very little of them during their high school years.DH couln’t afford to pay for them to go to private school but BM told skids he refused to pay. By this time DH was on the old age  pension. 

So I would like to thank people on here for their stories which have led me to an understanding of what has been happening with DH and the skids.

I think SD 49 from his first family probably disengaged when he married his second wife. I am probably just suffering the fallout . It seems daughters get very jealous of stepmums and exwives don’t like to see a partner move on.