Radical acceptance of step life -> depression
I accept that I made a mistake in marrying someone quite a bit older with 3 kids - all now adults. I was reluctant to date a divorced man with kids and ignored my intuition. I thought we’d start our own family and his kids, who were teenagers at the time, would move on with their adult lives with little impact on “our family.” My expectations were obviously misguided. Now, I realize that things will never get better. In part, because my reality doesn’t line up with expectations. The adult kids are ever present and take away my husband’s time and resources. I also realize there is nothing I could have done or can do to create a “blended” family. His kids dislike me because I exist. They dislike their half siblings because they exist. I also realized this week that even though we are married, I play the role of his mistress. When he refers to “his family”, he means his older kids. When he plans family events that include extended family like grandparents, they revolve around his older kids and I am excluded. Finally, I know this is never going to get better because I read accounts of people on here who are much older, who have step grandchildren and are still unhappy in steplife. The hardest part is that I don’t like the person I have become in this marriage. I’m angry, jealous, depressed. I feel all of these things deeply, and then I get called them by my spouse. This is just never going to be a happy place for me.
To finish my vent, here are all the things about steplike that are weighing me down:
- I can’t trust my spouse, especially around money. We have conflicting priorities, and he’s willing to throw me and our young children under the bus to meet his first priorities.
- I feel like an outsider in his family. I tell myself I don’t care. I have a good family – parents are supportive, and I’m close with my siblings and nieces and nephews. But I do care. I don’t want to be a part of a family any longer where I’m the outsider.
- I feel like an “evil stepmother”. Are there many worse roles to play in life? I don't want this role any longer.
- I hate hearing my spouse go on and on about his adult children to my friends and family. I want them out of my headspace but he brings them up all the time.
- I feel like a failure. I can’t complain to my family and friends because their response is going to be, “I told you so.” They did.
- I also hate that I’m so sad all the time. I have so much privilege in my life, but I’m sad. I want to leave, but what keeps me here is that I feel like my life no longer has value. I need to stay for my kids. I cannot bear the thought of not sleeping under the same roof as them every night.
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Meditate on this : if you
Meditate on this : if you leave him you will get child support. That will be money UNAVAILABLE to spend on the other family. It might be the only way to get it. Sometimes Karma lets you join in.
Im sure Rags will be along to give you some tough love. It's shameful the way he is treating you. Find a therapist that can help you figure out what to do next. Maybe meds, maybe a plan or two. A job, something that gives you worth. You definitely have some. You just need to find a place to apply it. Parenting doesn't always fill that need.
You deserve better.
Thank you
I do have a well-paying job. I don't need child support, though you're right I would get some. I feel sad because I had such high hopes for us, and for a long time, I burried my head in the sand thinking things would get better once the stepkids are in college, or once they graduate and have jobs. But really, they will never get better. I'm particularly down this weekend because he's off visiting one of his 20-something kids with his other kids and parents, one of whom hasn't seen our youngest in 5 years. It has been so hard for me to accept things as they are, but I do, and it makes me feel hopeless. In a few more years he could be a grandpa, and I'm not even close to old enough for that. I'm going to be excluded from weddings and grandchildren, just like I've been excluded from other events like graduations, but I don't actually want to be a part of those things. It's just a losing proposition from every angle. I just don't want to be me.
First, forgive yourself your youthful poor decision.
Second, take a do over and get on with your best life.
Go visit your family taking your children with you. Once you arrive, file for divorce and custody. You can nail him for a shit pile of CS and if you are beyond the perimeter for local visitation, you can limit the nights your children are not with you. Though you have a high earning career of your own and do not need CS, your children have a right to the full support of their father. CS is for them. Do not guilt yourself out of nailing his ass to the CS wall. CS is how you ensure that the father of your children is participating in their support. It also denies him those assets to waste on his kidult children. Minor kids take priority. A quality father does not exclude their young children and a quality man and husband does exclude their mate. He is excluding both you and your children. IMHO, he is not worthy of either you or your children, and he is not anywhere near a quality equity life partner.
Older people generally are not big on young kids. Even their own.
If you get a long distance visitation schedule COd, your STBXH will have to care for his young children without you to care for them while he sniffs after the backsides of his first family kidult progeny. Odds are, he will forego most if not all of his COd visitation.
My SS's SpermClan declined many of their COd visitations during the 16+ years we all lived under the Custody/Visitation/Support CO. There were several periods of a year or more that the Spermidiot/SpermClan did not see my SS. SS is the eldest of 4 all out of wedlock Spermidiot spawned half sibs by 3 baby mamas. SS is our only. His mom and I met when he was 15mos old and married the week before he turned 2yo. He asked me to adopt him when he was 22. We made that happen.
Abandoning your misery frees you from being excluded, allows you to enjoy your own family and allows you to get on with living well and engaging in your new life adventure.
Staying is detrimental to you and your young children who even though they are young know that they are second class spawn to their elder adult half sibs in their own father's eyes.
I am living my best life and it is my do over after divorce. I got help from a therapist to rediscover the man I like being, met my incredible bride of 29+ years, and we are engaging in an amazing life adventure. We both brought baggage to the marriage. She brought our son (my SS-31) and the toxic SpermClan, I brought the recovery from my toxic first marriage. Together we raised a man of character and honor who is a viable adult and man of standing in his profession and community. We kept the SpermClan contained and minimized their toxic manipulative and PASing influence on our son. Together we have built two strong careers, have lived in and work in much of the world, and have no regrets.
Neither of us wallow in the history. we each lived before we met. Though it is part of what makes us the individuals that the other loves making a life with.
Do not sacfifice your life and the lives of your children as martyrs on the alter to your toxic DH's first family breeding mistakes. That he does not include you and your children and even your ILs exclude you is collectively despicable. Write them all off while you go live your best life and raise your children well.
Go live well. It is what is best for you, your children, and it is the best revenge against toxic people.
Take care of you.
Regarding the age difference between you and your hopefully STBXH. My DW and I have a 12yr age difference. I am the elder. An age difference can work, but... it takes an equity partnership, total respect between the partners, and absolute communication and collaboration. All are even more critical when one partner is a prior breeder.
The partners and their partnership has to come first and is the only top priority. Kids are the top adult responsibility. Minor children that is. Your SO's failed first family kidults, are not a priority nor a responsibility. Ever.
You need to realize that and save yourself and your children. Even in a life of privilege misery cannot be accepted nor should it be tolerated. Stop torturing yourself and your own children.
IMHO of course.
Thank you
For taking the time to write and help.
I hadn't considered that one day my children might feel like they are a second priority.
You're probably right about custody. My husband throws childish tantroms when I leave early and he has to get the kids out the door. Our children don't see that, though. They love him.
The stepkids aren’t even failures. They're my husband’s pride. I hate that I hurt when he brags about them, which he does non-stop. He wears clothes from the colleges they attended as a prompt so he can talk about them to strangers and acquaintances. I dread leaving the house with him when he's in his gear.
I struggle because his version of our failing marriage is that I’m cold, I don't accept that he has a family (and again, every reference he makes to his family makes me feel like I'm his mistress), etc. In his version I'm like a villain he has to protect ‘his family’ against. It just hurts that anyone on this earth, let alone my spouse, could feel that way about me.
What has become clear to me over the years is that this whole situation never stood a chance.
He has it backwards because
He has it backwards because he's gaslighting you. You are the one who needs protection from his family. But, these fathers always go into protective mode so it's them and their kids against the mean step mother.
Nothing made my SOs heart go pitter patter moreso than when his miniwife said she had to "protect" him from me. Such B S.
Hey, thinker,
Hey, thinker,
Reading your post saddened me as it sparked a vivid recollection of my disastrous marriage to an abusive psychopath. Not that your husband is necessarily lacking in character, I’m referring to your emotional state, the unhappiness in your day-to-day life.
I got so beaten down and depressed from boiling resentment (it eventually cooled to icy hatred), that making a move seemed insurmountable.
Hon, I can pretty much guarantee that your life will improve significantly, once you’ve bailed out of your unsuitable marriage. It might be motivating to look up posts by other members who have left relationships where the partner was enmeshed with his children. Believe me, the stories are eye-opening!
Rags has (as usual) provided practical advice that can’t be improved upon. All I can add is my sincere hope that you discuss your emotional state with your family doctor. It’s amazing how much can be accomplished with temporary, mood-elevating medication and a life style change. Ask me how I know.
Firstly let me express my
Firstly let me express my empathy for you - my heart hurt when I read your first post, because many aspects of it are the same as my life. My DH, in the past, has overvalued his "first family" and undervalued me. I felt I was last priority, and he constantly yearned for his 2 daughters from his first marriage. When they were with us, growing up, every other weekend I was surplus to requirements and had a lonely time of it. He never had my back when they treated me disrespectfully.
However, things came to a head 18 months ago when SD28 insulted and abused me by email and called me all sorts of names to him. Like you - they'd hated me because I existed and because NPD BM taught them to. DH wanted me to appease SD28 - and threatened me with divorce if I didn't. Initially I was going to but then I found some backbone and told him to do his worst if he wanted, because there was no way I was going to answer her rotten email. He got into therapy at that point, realised he didn't want to lose me and things are slowly improving.
I suspect that if you did leave your DH, he might suddenly get in touch with his real feelings for you - currently he can only value what he feels he doesn't have and you don't come into that category, probably your joint children don't, either. But I suspect this might change if you split up. Either way, he is a troubled man who can't be in touch with his real feelings - more's the pity for you.
Thanks
We've gone through these cycles already. Big fights, he doesn't want to lose me, then back to square one. I'm beyond thinking I can change him by moving on. It's more finding the courage to actually move on that I need.
Kes wrote: "Currently he can
Kes wrote: "Currently he can only value what he feels he doesn't have and you don't come into that category."
Oh this is so incredibly interesting.
I totally agree with this. So
I totally agree with this. So many times over the decades that I was with DH, I had two major come of Jesus meetings with him and some "reminder" meetings with him on the extreme mini-wife crap and putting me dead last, if at all, on his list of priorities. Two years, or is it three (LOL), I actually can't remember if it's two or if it's three years ago, but no matter, I had had enough. I was being bullied at work for about ten years by then with the same dynamic as my home life: male supervisor putting me last while I had two female teammates who jockeyed for position and were bat-shit crazy complete with suicide threats if they didn't get their way and be top dogs. They got rewarded for what they did while I was constantly treated like utter garbage.
I made an exit plan for both work and my marriage. I was planning on when to put in for my retirement and choosing which other province I'd move to so that I could afford to own a house on my own. I totally withdrew from both DH and the shitheads at work. I think DH sensed that this time I wasn't requiring changes. This time I had truly given up. DH came to me and said that he's starting individual counselling and wanted us to go as a couple. I had started my own counselling anyway. I agreed and from then on DH worked like a madman to make changes. He got comfortable with the uncomfortable and faced childhood traumas and made a ton of changes as the risk of losing the SKs. Upper management at my work started chasing me and wanting to make changes to keep me. Both my marriage and my worklife have completely changed. I still have a lot of resentment towards SD and still enjoy when karma hits, but I no longer have that seething hatred for her. I used to ruminate about it and it consumed me, so things have totally changed. I still get pissed off at work, but nothing like before. I really think when you've had enough and are willing and ready to walk, people pick up on it and will chase you. However, I wouldn't count on it. I just think that sometimes when you stop being the one to do all the work in a relationship and you are ready and totally willing to walk away, a person realizes what they're about to lose. I know that DH didn't want to go through another divorce and my higher ups didn't want to lose someone else to the toxic work environment that they enabled. Those things were their currency. Maybe just like with kids, you can figure out your DH's currency and try that with the understanding that it may still result in the end of your marriage. Either way, it begins your freedom. I knew that even with my failed exit plan and staying in both my marriage and my job, I felt empowered because I was willing to choose myself. There's nothing more liberating than realizing that you're willing to choose you over everything else.
Oh, and by choosing you, you're choosing your kids. You need to don the oxygen mask to help your kids with theirs.
Is there any worse role?
Than the role of stepmother? How about vulnerable? The most vulnerable role in a family could arguably be the one of stepmother. No one wants a stepmother, and she is often used and mistrusted from the start. And without a supportive or understanding partner, it makes the journey that much more difficult.
That your husband won't prioritize his younger children is atrocious. I'm also thinking that because you make a decent living, he doesn't worry too much about the financials with you or your joint children, therefore he opts to spend his money on his first failed family.
Just my opinion, but steplife is hard, and without a partner who can put your marriage first (especially since now his kids are grown) it seems like a setup for misery. If he won't prioritize you and your joint children, maybe you can take small steps to do it. Free yourself from him and his obsession with his first kids. Fill your time up with things you love to do. A depressed you is not good for your kids.
And it could be difficult to get to a peaceful space if he won't shut up about his first kids. Does he recognize his behavior as problematic? Has he said he would or wants to change?
It is the worst role
I am working on some of the things you suggested. I have seperated money, including a large portion of my paycheck goes into 529 plans and my retirement account, etc. I do go through the motions of doing things for myself, like connecting with old friends and going to workout classes everyday (and let him pout about picking up some slack at home). I do need to look into professional help. I'm having a hard time saying," stop talking about your kids." Someday it will be, "stop talking about your grandkids". Or, "prioritize me." I don't want to be that person anymore. It makes me feel so small and needy and his response will just feed my negative feelings I already have about myself. None of this is new, but I'm finally accepting that it is never going to get any better.
I am in your position
I am in your similar position
Mmy intuition told me not to deal with divorced men with kids (especially dependent kids) but dude convinced me to move in with him and I thought I could handle it.
I moved in, got engaged but when he started pressing me for marriage is when I pumped the brakes bc when I thought deep and hard I realized that I was like a live in mistress (can you guess who's ALWAYS coming first? yep the failed "first" "family"), a live in FREE nanny (guess who went from "I don't want another woman around my kids" to "hey I'm dropping of my kids with her since she's at home and I'm ready to get rid of them"), a FREE maid (these skids rarely clean after themselves), and more step h3ll f*ckery.
We said we would like to have a kid with our new spouse but I quickly realized if I had a kid with him, I'd be a married single mom doing 100% while he's traipsing around wasting resources on his B*tch Beck n Call service for his failed family that he mentally won't let go of and run like most normal divorced dads.
I peeped game before the marriage but unfortunately after the move in and engagement.
I refuse to marry any man who allows his guilt and fear to prevent him from putting his wife first.
A lot of these divorced single dads are simply looking for free hired help for their kids that the ex wives they pay child support to won't do. They have no problem marrying their unsuspecting free hired help so she will be "locked in" and obligated now.
Im extricating myself as we speak.
Sorry you have to go through this and I feel very similar to how you do.
Congrats
You are wise to get out before you have a child. I thought it'd get better, but it got so much worse. I've felt trapped and even more resentful. I wish there was a solution other than divorce for me as this is going to really complicate my kids' childhood (old dad who has other kids who are his first priority and who don't accept my kids).
I don't see how a divorce
I don't see how a divorce will make their childhood more complicated than it already is. The older they get, the more obvious it would be for them that their father prefers his older children.
At least if you divorce they'd have the comfort of being in their mothers' place where they'll feel first and most important. Also you'll be a lot happier which children sense.
If you decide to divorce this pathetic @sshole don't you dare not fighting for all the financial support you can get from him. It's for your children. More for your children, less for his adult babies.
Hugs.
As a person who has been
As a person who has been married twice and whose choices were poorly made, I commiserate with you.
I think it's better for kids to see a parent making herself and them a priority by getting out of a situation where a wife and the children are not cherished but made second place to the first family. That is far better than living in a home with a mom who is hurting and to be reminded daily that she and her children are not a priority.
It is better for children to see a parent doing hard things and making sacrifices for the sake of peace and happiness.
Nothing wrong with being the Evil Stepmother
You must take control of the money. Take DH pay check and put it into a account he can't touch. Give him a allowance each payday. Have a good dissuction on SK gifts. How much you are going to spend on, Birthdays, Holidays. Events.
'And that's the only way you will stay with him and keep the " happy family" for your bio kids.
JUST Remember,,, You are not the failer..You have a job. You are helping SK out. There are the failer. Being adults and running to dadeeeey fir money. Enjoy yourself watching his kids fail crash and burn. Knowing you can help them out but you choose not to do that.
IFDH disentitled lie that he can move in with his kids. But unfortunately his kids don't want him living with them
A kid or an X who disrespects a SP should rue the day.
If it happened in my life, it would be nothing but flying body parts for the X or kid doing it. Figuratively of course.
Fortunately I have no BKs and have had zero interface with my XW in 30 years.
The SpermClan on the otherhand has lived under scorched Earth and knows better than to crawl out from under the slime covered rock they live under at the bottom of their shallow and polluted gene pool. I never have tolerated them being disrespectful to my wife or to my Skid. When I step into the picture, they get very quiet.
Though usually my wife has chewed them up and spit them out very effectively by the time I make my presence felt.
I'm so sorry. You deserve
I'm so sorry. You deserve better. I find it a really strange phenomena that these men for some reason see their children from their first wife/partner as more important/special/deserve more somehow. It's almost like they treat their biological children with their second wife/partner more like they are step children instead of bio's. And grandparents act the same way. It's so weird, I don't understand it.
Once grandchildren come along, ugh. You may want to consider leaving when that sh*t show hits. Or when the weddings start and you are excluded.
To be very frank, I think if
To be very frank, I think if DH and I had bio kids together while his kids were teens that our relationship would have imploded. The pressures of starting a young family while similtanously dealing with teens pushing away, wanting independents from their family and then (hopefully) becoming launching young adults, DO NOT MIX, not to mention the burden of financial strain that seems to weigh heaviest on the young family.
When Sdiablas were teens I had to find my own interests, hobbies and focus on myself and my Bk's. I spent a lot of time gardening every weekend when SD's were here. It would have been difficult to do that if I had another baby with DH.
Now when DH brags to others or goes on and on about SD's, I find an excuse to walk away. When he brings them up with just me I keep my responses short and neutral. (That's nice, mum hum, ok) There is a lot of power in silence. I think he started to get the message that my life doesn't revolve around SD's and I don't find them particularly interesting. He reads the audience better than he used to.
It sounds to me like your DH has deemed you to be at the bottom of the priority list. That would not sit well with me.
Honey, you are NOT a failure.
Honey, you are NOT a failure. He failed you. Wonderful advice above. Prioritize your kids and yourself. {{{hugs}}}
I only have a few thoughts
I only have a few thoughts and mostly they're about you because you need to learn to tell yourself that you do deserve better. You deserve to feel like you are number one. You deserve to be in the forefront not just scuttled to the back as if you aren't as important as you really are.
You deserve to be loved, charished, important. And yes you thought that's what you were getting but in all honesty... there is a marriage lemon law in my book. He's the bitter taste, he's the one dropping your importance and he is the one not loving and cherishing you. And that is on him.
Your kids know you are hurt and sad. Your kids know he favors his older kids. And it's okay for you to move on, use that marital lemon law and treat yourself like you are important. Because you are. Please seek counseling, or an atty. Bring back that happiness that you deserve. Leave him to the dregs of his past and you and your kids find a path where you shine.
Marital Lemon Law. I love that.
I called it the Do Over in my life. When a kid does not like the outcome of a try, they will yell "DO OVER!" and take another shot. While it is certainly not fair in a game, it is IMHO perfectly acceptable and even advisable in a toxic relationship situation.
I took my Do Over when my first marriage crashed and burned with the antics of my serially adulterous XW.
I never felt even a microsecond of guilt. Though I regreted the marriage happened at all. I do not even consider that as a marriage. My GrandDad was married twice. The first ended with his wife cheating. Apparently much like my XW, his first wife cheated throughout the marriage. My GrandDad "had" a son in that marriage that he never was sure was his. My dad is an only child... He has only faint recollection of his several years older supposed half brother. I escaped my first marriage unsullied having avoided polluted my gene pool with my XW.
I won the marriage lottery the second time I played. I am truly blessed by the incredible bride I make a life together with.
I am huge fan of the DO OVER or Lemmon Law Marriage when a toxic spouse is unveiled after the nuptials.
Emotional Health
I am at the point where I understand the importance of emotional health.
I am glad you are here, venting. Vent as much as you feel you need to.
I also suggest seeking help so that you can get to a better stronger place and do the hard stuff.