Childfree stepmother now fears having her own children with husband
I am married, full-time office employee, wishing to create an e-business and/or to take up my studies again, and a 33 year old Step Mom to a very needy 10 years old boy who lives with us full time (my husband has full custody and the mother is unfit, abandoned her child since age 4 and only has him every other week-end and half the holidays which is not enough for us to really rest but too much for the well-being of the kid since she is really toxic and gives him all kind of bad habits).
(for example when he came back last summer after 1 month of being overspoilt and unwatched, he would pick his nose ALL THE TIME and clean his BOGEYS on our wall and I had to wage him war against that for him to stop, especially since I had just painted on my own several rooms of our flat !!)
The thing is that I do not adapt well to living with this very needy 10 years old and I tend to get frustrated and overwhelmed by it and some Times angry. When I met my husband, I was VERY NAIVE about living with a stepchild. I was myself abandoned by my parents with a pretty disfunctional mother and careless father, and I thought after tons of therapy, living with the child of my partner would be a great life lesson and just great family fun and would be a good training for future kids of our own. What a dumb bitch i have been !!
My husband did not hide anything from me, told me his ex-wife and mom to the step child was a narcissistic pervert who basically lied to him about everything, abandoned her kid when he was 4 years old by pretending going to uni and moving out of the house. By the way she also cheated on him all the time and told other guys that she was pregnant with their child on various occasions, which my husband unfortunately learnt after divorce. But she's a pervert who makes up her own reality and distorts everything so the kid thinks she's amazing and that he's being forced to live with us.
The toxic mother even moved away to another country (we're in Europe, Switzerland is pretty close to France so it is possible) for no other reason than she felt like it was a country more fit for her (she is a rich Ukrainian who never had to work a day in her life so she can move abroad just like that).
Now she is with a boyfriend and rapidly became pregnant "by accident", was due last spring and now has a 1 year old half sister to my stepchild she uses to manipulate him and redeem herself as a mother.
The judgment also forces my husband to bring the child to her on Friday evenings when she sees him which means at least 3 hours of train for my husband and 7 hours of transportation during the week-end for the kid, just because the judgment was made during COVID and my husband wasn't physically present to recall the judge that it is her who abandoned the kid and even moved to another country (she did not even have a job there but lied that is was for professional reasons) and that he did not have to bring the kid to her.
By the way she never picks the kid herself but always sends her boyfriend or nannies that she pays and wont even bother moving her fat ukrainian ass to see the kid that she abandoned. But she has loads of money thanks to her rich mafia dad, and since she has money, she has power while we peasants have to work hours to get some money to spend on this kid...
What is really difficult is that she did not want the stepchild, abandoned him, will say pretty much the contrary, and the stepchild suffered big emotional distress and my husband raised him in a very child centric manner in order to compensate for the abandonment.
After 1 year living with him I realize despite doing my best, I don't love my stepchild, i like him and hate him at the same Time, I feel like he is stealing my naivety about children and now I don't want to have children because this has made me very delusional about having kids : I see my husband never complaning but being a slave to the kid.
Awake from 6 am to midnight, breakfast ritual every morning with the kid who talks, jokes and complains non stop, take him to school, picks him up from school while the kid always forgets some stuff, thé forces my husband to walk up to the class room to pick up his jacket or his bags, after that he has to make him do homework cause otherwise the kid tends to lie about doing them and them we get the teacher to complain to my poor husband that the kid does not do his homework and does not behave well at school, then he has to cook special dinner for the kid because the kid won't just eat what is being served : it takes dressing free, only a few specific foods such as chicken, broccoli, green beans, meat in general, pasta, no spice, no savoury oils, no mixes, for him to eat, then he tends to call my husband to come to the bathroom with him for him to brush his teeth, than at 10 years 1/2 the kid still needs his bedtime story to go to bed and when my husband unconvicingly tries to stop the bedtime story ritual, the kid begs him, yells at him or cries so the ritual never stops ... i feel sometimes that this kid is a leech !
Some progress has been made though, because 1 year ago my husband had to lie on the ground until the kid fell asleep, to put some music as well, had to come with him to the bathroom because the kid pooped in his pants all the time (he tends to overeat and as the psychologist says, this was a typical behaviour of an abandonned child but once my husband and I were together, the behaviour stopped pretty fast).
On week-ends when he is with us, that is to say most week-ends, my husband constantly has to distract, take care or chat with his son since he is an only child and extremely needy. If I am alone with the kid which i try to avoid because he is exhausting and I have other things to focus on, he always interrupts me and I always end up either talking with him and having to do some chemistry experiment which he will not do according to the rules of the booklet because this kid cannot remain without occupation for 5 minutes, without complaning that he is bored and coming to you like a leech.
I resent the child for stealing so much of my husband's energy and for taking so much work. I, by comparison, was a very easy only child and very autonomous. The worse is that the kid is tyrranic but my husband craddles him like a baby and makes all kinds of mistakes in his upbringing, reinforcing bad behaviours instead of suppressing them.
The first 6 months of living together, I cooked most dinners but stopped when I started working full time because anyway, my stepson never ate half of what I was cooking despite me being an excellent cook and I couldn't stand having to cook him separate dishes, this is just too much work ! If it was my child, it would be you eat what i cook or you go to bed on an empty stomach but with today's child-centric society and my husband's guilt and compensation for his ex-wife abandonment, he has given bad habits. Now I feel like it is an engrenage which is hard to break because the kid will be already 11 in october.
On the first 6 months I also cleaned the house like a boss only to have the toilets pooped badly by the stepkid within hours, toothpaste everywhere on the sink, fingerprints on the glass table and crumbs and pieces of paper on the sofa ... Now that I work I do not cook the kid's meals anymore, i've disengaged from that, and I share the cleaning with my husband who is very eager to help but often times too exhausted by his full time job and responsabilities towards his very needy kid to do it very well. Then I end up having to do the chores so that the house don't turn into a pig den because two full time jobs, the kid, it is already too much work. I do the laundry and 80% of the clothes are my stepkids. If i dont do it my husband has to and i feel bad for him because he is already toiling so much !
We get the kid to help us a little bit (but in a very limited way) but I feel like it is awful to have kids now because you are basically a slave and can never disengage from that.
Honestly, before having my stepson, I thought that I wanted to have kids, but the stepkid stole that desire from me. I think my husband and I will be sacrified for making up for his unfit mum, and even my desire to have kids, for this horrible woman who got knocked up a second time knowing that she has abandoned her first born... One of the worst parts is that because of her manipulations, the kids idealizes her and thinks she is great and wants to live in Switzerland with her !!
At times I was so tired that I asked my husband to send the kid to his mom to get rid of this unfair situation but he has explained to me that the mother would be at risk of abandoning him again if he let him live over there by asking another judgment. It would be too dangerous for the kid to risk being abandoned a second time because if my husband let him go there and it happened, the kid would also think that is dad abandoned him and it could really harm him. Because I also care about the kid, who I like despite resenting him, I would never want to put him at risk ... So we have to keep him living with us...
I feel like my husband should be way stricter and autonomize the kid for us to be happy, but the kid is really high need and it is very difficult for now.
I feel like this kid is way too smart for his age as well, like a genius kid, and this is Aldo why he is SO NEEDY.
I eat dinner with them most of the time but since I work, I often feel like I want to focus on more constructive things outside from work like learning another langage, building up my health and healing, studying and reading, and I tend to disengage more and sometimes eat dinner after they ate. I wish we could have more free time together and less worry about this kid who is not mine.
But my husband thinks we are a family of three and does not understand my frustration. We cannot go out together in the evening, he has little energy outside from caring for the kid and for work, and I feel like I really resent the kid.
I feel like if the kid lives with us, we will not have kids of our own and this is so unfair. And I don't see myself being pregnant and having to care about my noisy exuberant step kid.
I understand that it is not the kid's entire fault is he is THAT NEEDY, i know it is also because his mother always gave him AWFUL AWFUL HABITS of doing what he wanted and not watching him, and that HE HAS TO DECIDE for everything, and also because my husband is WAY TOO NICE ...also the kid is extremely BOSSY !
But I cannot stand hearing that kid yelling at my husband, answering him ALL THE TIME, having AN ATTITUDE most of the time !
When we do an activity together or just breakfast, we have to talk to him constantly. I taught him the passion for reading so now at least he starts reading books and being calm at times but sunday we came back from a trip abroad and the kid TALKED NON STOP FROM 7 am to 5pm and napped like a fat baby laying on his father in the plane after bothering him ALL THE TIME !
When the kid reads comics, he even tries to force us to listen to his reading very often !!!
I CANNOT STAND THIS KID ANYMORE, HELP !!!
I feel like I need to work part time to be able to nourish myself intellectually, and that my husband should really be WAY MORE STRICT to help the kid make good progress and give us hope ... I cannot stand that he is a slave to the kid... My husband used to be a photographer and an artist and now he cannot even do art. I thought he should take up professional photography again but I couldn't care about the kid on week-ends unless I do not work and I have some time to study interesting stuff during the week.
Also, I do not have family at all, i am like an orphan besides my husband and stepson, and my husband has his entire family living abroad, so we do not have help with the kid AT ALL unless we pay for it.
The kid has a lot of friends at school but with the covid situation, hasn't gotten invited by friends more than once or twice over the span of 1 year while we often have invited his friends at home !
COVID has triggered a lot of selfishness in families and we are really alone with the kid, which may be why it is so difficult !! Anyway i dont have parents and my husbands parents are old and sick and live 2000 km abroad. So we are alone with the kid !
Start investing time into
Start investing time into yourself or you will lose your mind.
Your husband is the parent - you are not. It is HIS responsibility. He went to bed with an irresponsible and selfish woman to make this child. If he wants to spoil and baby the child, let HIM suffer the consequences of his own choices. You are stepping in to help because you love your husband, but you're also enabling him to be an indulgent, coddling parent.
If you ever hope to have him stop, then you must STOP helping him do this and put more focus on yourself. Do not fall for "we are a family of 3." Um, no. You married HIM and he is a parent to his own child.
There is a slim chance you can turn things around by focusing on yourself. With any luck, your husband will miss you so badly that he will seen the error of his ways and listen to you by making changes with his son. And he may never make changes. If you keep doing things as you're doing them you'll live a miserable life or end up leaving your spouse. At least if you focus on yourself and the marriage falls apart, you'll have invested your energy wisely.
focus on myself
I already focus a lot more on myself, especially since I started working but since we are jewish, I cook 2 big family meals on Thursday to be eaten on Friday evening and Saturday noon, and do some chores that I feel I cannot avoid if I want to keep a clean house and clean clothes. With full time work and my SS always in the picture, it is indeed already a lot.
I want to start studying again or maybe start my own business selling vintage clothes. You are right that I should focus on myself in case things turn sour. But as I said, if he is indeed a complacent father, my husband is extremely nice and good to me.
He never asks me to play the mother, I make myself to be an educator because I often don't like what I see and hear but he never really asked me to do that.
I am coming back from 2 weeks abroad with my husband and the SS, and it has been exhausting. When we were with the grandparents abroad, it was nice to see them bond and catch up after three years of COVID but visiting places with hubby and SS has been extremely tiring.
The kid will never stop asking for attention, at 10 1/2 he wants to be babyfied, his dad always has to hold his hand and always hugs him despite him being a needy leech and a bossy brat, the kid will never shut up, also tried to enter our room in the morning which i don't like especially without knocking (i've set this boundary really clearly from the start) as my bedroom is MY DEN and REFUGE. Normally, at home, the kid lives in the living room and not in his bedroom. As he will always watch TV or interrupt, I tend to remain in my bedroom and I really don't appreciate him staying in the bedroom. He still tries but I think now he gets it.
"You are stepping in to help
"You are stepping in to help because you love your husband, but you're also enabling him to be an indulgent, coddling parent."
THIS!!!!
I just want to add to the end of that sentence, "and an unavailable husband."
Stop helping your DH. By continuing your help, you are enabling a dynamic that causes harm to you. You don't sound like you're getting your needs met as a wife. Your DH doesn't sound like he has anything left for you. At the worst of my days as a distant second to an extremely needy SK, I realized that my helping my DH was enabling his unavailability to me. I was facilitating his and SD's obsession with one another which caused me (and everyone else around DH and SD) to get cheated.
I highly recommend finding yourself again. Start going to the library, museums, coffee shops, cool new courses at the local college, the gym, dance class, a martial art, a craft, or whatever else your heart desires. You are a wife and you have every right to have your needs met as a wife. Surely, your DH can spend 15 minutes a day having a cup of chamomille tea with you at bedtime and chatting about something or nothing at all. I recommend a regular date night too, even if it's only once a month. You and your DH need couple time without your SS. Your SS is needy because your DH has made him that way. You have way more of a DH problem than an SS problem.
"You are stepping in to help because you love your husband, but
Yes you're right, that's is because I love my husband.
I take your advice and will start to invest more in me, with sports, good nutrition, and try to manage work and play and study so I can enjoy myself. Of course my DH and I chat after the kid is sent to bed every evening, and even at breakfast or dinner, even if it is more a conversation of 3, my husband will not hesitate to ask the kid to calm down if we need a one on one talk.
The thing is as I said, the kid won't stay quiet for long and will start trying to interrupt or try to tell us a joke and it is hard not to get kid centric which I don't like by the way. Without going to the extreme where I did not have the right to talk at dinner time, I don't think we should waste our brains to listen to 10 years old all meals long.
I think a good compromise for bearing with this situation would be that I work part time and spend the rest studying and investing in myself, that we hire a maid instead of us cleaning because it gets me too frustrated and maybe that we focus on the right spendings (maid, babysitter, lessons and date nights with hubby) rather than so many restaurants with the kid who is already too spoilt.
We had stopped the maid when I started working because the previous ones did not work well or started living early without telling but maybe we could look for another one and try to really set up a budget, priorities and try to get more free time.
Also I think of my hubby who never complains but is working all the time ... he really needs to help the kid launch so that he can take up his passions again and maybe start to work as a photographer again.
Exhausting
I don't have any answers for you but I do agree your life sounds exhausting. I'd be both exasperated by your stepson and feel pity for his abandonment issues. At 10, he sounds both behind in his day-to-day skills and manipulative.
An image of my DH84 as a child is going thru my mind, similar maternal abandonment and later, life with a busy dad and stepmom. I'm sure he was needy and manipulative, too. Your DH sounds like he is willing to spend the time and do whatever he can for the boy but his guilt is keeping him from being firm enough to guide his son to grow up. You mentioned a psychiatrist, is that doctor still in the picture? Can he get counseling somehow? I wonder if there are any books that would help him?
I wish I had answers for you but maybe some of the o there will have them. Thinking of you.....
I do agree that my SS is
I do agree that my SS is manipulative and extremely needy. When the two of them are in the house, unless he exceptionnally watches TV, I can hear them chatter non stop and if I am not in the picture, the kid tends to disrespect and disobey his father.
I don't take care much of the child because he is too disobedient and too needy. I only agreed on taking care of him if he was easy and well behaved but he is just too much work for me.
The kid sees a woman psychologist once a month, it leaves him time and space to vent about his life but it does not set up the picture any straighter because it is his dad who needs counseling on how to be more strict and stop the infinite loop of exigence from my SS.
I also noticed almost from day one that SS is never happy with what he has. ALWAYS wants more. Has one cup of coke zero, wants another one and dessert. Has two gifts from the tooth fairy, wants a third one. Has a 10 minutes story, wants a 15 minutes one. Has 10 bucks, wants another 10 bucks. Has one great activity taylored for him during one day of our trip, also wants to go to the park and a smoothy and to go back by cab. Has talmud torah (we are jewish), and carpentry and an english private teacher, also wants tennis and his dad wants to add acting. His dad overspoils him. Goes to the restaurant once or twice during the week which i don't encourage, also wants to order pizza.
Is this a normal kid thing or is this from human ego being never satisfied or is it a specific trait ? I remember being the opposite as a kid, always happy with the little I had. There is a gap of values which makes my angry at times.
I often think, It it were MY KID, I would never tolerate that. I often lecture him but his dad reinforces bad habits almost consistently.
I also lecture the dad, frequently, especially when I am tired or notice poor behaviour from my SS and the dad tells me it is not is fault, he is already doing the best he can. My husband seems exhausted but it is partly his own fault. If I were him it'd teach the kid to cook his own meals sometimes and to grow up faster.
My husband already told me I had to accept the situation as it is, I think he feels more sorry for the kid having been abandoned than for me having to live with the kid. Other than that he is a very nice husband, never expects me to take care of the kid or to do stuff for the kid, I only end up doing some stuff because the kid is too spoilt and needy and I don't want the house to be dirty. Feel like this kid is just so much work !!!
Should the dad see a counselor to teach him how to raise a kid without being a slave ? Anyway thank you for the thoughts JRI !
Counseling for dad
Yes, I think counseling would benefit dad but for it to work, a person must recognize the need for change and be willing to change. I'm not certain your DH wants to change.
Since I replied, I've been thinking of the similarities between your SS and my DH who also experienced maternal abandonment. My DH is still needy and manipulative. I think it's a way to make sure he gets his attention.
needy and abandonment issue
Yes there is a connection, a link between abandonment and extreme neediness.
I talked to my husband about it yesterday evening and I don't know if he thinks I'm overreacting and exagerating or if he hears me.He must think that I react in a classic step mother way and probably does not understand that the issue is serious ???
Anyway, being a step mother sucks. The funny thing is that I always liked children but this one I can't anymore.
Also the fact that he looks like his mother and took on her temper (extremely bossy and entitled) is so opposite to my values that I must remind myself that the kid will grow up and leave at some point...
First thing before you can
First thing before you can move forward is recognize that this isn't solely BM's fault. You mentioned a metric ton of behaviors that your DH falls into that make this situation exponetially worse.
Kid cries because he doesn't get his bedtime story? He'll cry for a few nights before he's exhausted and realizes it won't work. Kid won't eat a reasonable meal that has some foods he enjoys? He'll eventually eat when he gets hungry enough, or make himself a sandwich. Kid doesn't brush his teeth appropriately? He'll regret it when he has to have a filling.
Your DH swooping in and coddling his son is the daily #1 problem. BM abandoning him set up the psychological problems, but the things that grate on your day-to-day nerves are 100% on your DH and his poor parenting. He cannot make up for BM being a bad parent. Him trying to only makes things worse.
Your DH is going to be tired because having kids is tiring. That's not your DH's fault, but it is his choice. I know you want the kid shipped off to BM to give you more breaks, but your DH has local control over time out of the home, too. He can hire a babysitter so you two can have date nights. He can send the kid to after school programs or daycare so the kid isn't with you both during all your free time. There are sports and activities that kids can be involved in that do require transportation, but also can allow some free time. Granted, COVID has messed up some of this and I live in the US where they've just sorta given up so the options are more plentiful here, but there are adjustments your DH can make to make this easier IF you're not interested in getting divorced.
If you haven't had a conversation with your DH where you lay what you need from him, now is the time to do it. Just remember, he may not be interested making any changes. In that case, all you can do is decide what you can and can't live with. Couples therapy might be good for the two of you right now to help communicate this. Q
good analysis and answer !
lieutnant_dad, this is a good analysis and answer, I would also let him cry, end up with fillings or eat what is served or else go to bed. But husband won't, because he feels like the kid has been traumatized and he needs to compensate. By the way, the kid is absolutely not traumatized and adores the tons of attention he gets, and the extra material spoiling from is toxic millionaire mom and is absolutely not depressed or anything. So I think it is indeed my hubby who has a boundary and behaviour issue and falls for everything.
Of course the kid has after school activities, twice a week, and we often invite his friends over (and also try to invite ours but the kid tends to be bothering in that case and i always end up playing the cop...) He also has english private teacher on monday evening which leaves us time ... to make grocery shopping (how romantic !!!) because since we both work full time, there isn't that much time after all ...
I think despite having no family to help, my hubby could afford a babbysitter on sundays ...
I also cannot wait for SS to go to school on his own and be autonomous but right now it hasn't started well ! SS loses everything and cannot take care of himself, unfortunately it would be too dangerous as he seems to lack normal maturity for his age ...
By the way, what does DH mean? Does it stand for divorced husband or something ??
Trauma isn't always
Trauma isn't always depression. The kid may enjoy being the center of attention and spoiled, but that doesn't mean he hasn't suffered from his mom ditching him and only buying his love. Mental health issues in kids don't manifest the same way they do in adults because kids don't have the vocabulary or life experience to express their feelings fully. Your SS being highly forgetful, a picky eater, maladjusted when he visits one home over the other, etc are likely how trauma from being ditched by his mom manifests.
Ultimately, though, it's all moot if your DH can't and won't make changes. You can't force him to do something differently. The only thing you can control is yourself, and with that is knowing what your limits are. Sure, you can spend the next forever being resentful that your DH won't parent his son and then shift your anger about that onto SS, but that's not the healthy response. You have to accept that your DH is the parent he is and decide if that is good enough for you or not. If it's not, you have to decide if your marriage is worth the pain while also not punishing your SS for your resentment of your husband. That last part tends to be the hard part.
trauma manifestation in kids
Yes you're right lieutnant dad, I should know that having suffered trauma as a child, teenage and adult (but haven't we all??) even though is was a widly different situation (I was really the depressed type of kid, became completely introverted and quiet which is quite the opposite to how my SS reacted to his mother leaving). (of course I healed from this and am now a lively chatty person).
The thing is, my SS is the opposite from depressed or introverted, and I do not see where and how he is suffering right now : he sings all the time, plays a lot, with everything, is extremely chatty and keeps on telling jokes, has a lot of friends at school, is EXTREMELY communicative, is father nurtured him TONS with love words and hugs and tickles, and he rarely complains about not seeing is mother much (he won't admit it for now as he is too young but he has already told me that he knows that she has lyed a lot and that she has hurt him when he was younger).
I think that my husby feels trapped in the fact that he needs to play the FATHER and the MOTHER, therefore he OVERCOMPENSATED by putting SS at the center. The female psychologist recently said SS was healthy and was happy though and not traumatized anymore, therefore hubby must try to switch is attention from being all over SS to other things.
I think he can manage that. I think he could be the one to see a psychologist, or maybe we could do couple conselling about SS being all over the place with the psychologist.
I am sure that my marriage is worth it because my husband truly is an amazing person. I came here to vent so of course I vent but there are a lot of parts of my marriage which are wonderful and worth it.
I am not delusional, I have been in shitty relationships before and my husband is very different. He just happens to be a shitty father with this one, but he has already started correcting himself.
Have you considered sending
Have you considered sending him to a school that has a pensionnat? Lots of schools in France have them.
pensionnat
If things don't evolve well, this is an issue I will address again with DH.
I really feel that if the kid remains like this at least until he is 18, DH and I will not have kids because I will be completely frightened with the concept !!
Next year he goes to a private school, and enters junior high, I hope he will become more mature !
Major problems is your DH
Isn't parenting his kid. He trying to be friends with him. Other parents don't have to lie on the ground for there kids to fall asleep? Why ? Because they tell the kid to go to bed and don't get out of bed. Eventually they fall asleep. You need family counseling to get DH on the right track. Or you need a exit plan. This is not a way to live. Why be married if all you do it take care of SS? What are you getting out of the marriage?
lie on the ground for your kid to fall asleep
Yep, that is a very dysfunctional thing to do. He has stopped doing it hopefully, but I still resent the story reading every night because the SS will turn 11 in october !!!
Sometimes I say, do you realize if SS is that DEPENDANT, we cannot have our own children because you will be utterly devoted to your son already ?? Also, I think I would shoot myself if I ended up having kids that were that NEEDY and such LEECHES !!! (figure of speech of course !)
I am getting a very nice husband who is such a sweetheart with me (when he is not devoted to SS for bed time, teeth brushing, breakfast, dinner, dinner conversation, breakfast conversation, picking him up from school, bringing him to school, bringing him to switzerland every other friday evening because of a shitty unfair covid judgment, arguying with him, assisting him completely !!
My husband is intelligent, smart, very generous and always puts me first (but sometimes after his LEECH of a SS because he is so needy no one else can exist !) that being said, husband also steps up for me if and backs me up if I lecture SS, if I need something or want to do something and privileges my desire over his kid when we do an activity together. My husband and I share a lot of conversations, interests and plans, but SS is too much in the picture and he does not have the energy or time to help me start studying again, and make administrative paper work, or jog with me because of SS.
How can you find this man
How can you find this man attractive? That's a whole bunch of failures on his part. He can't parent this child, what makes you think he parent another one differently? SS wouldn't let that happen. SS would make sure that any sibling would be abandoned by their father at the altar of SS. Just how does daddy think this kid is going to launch? It does not happen with a snap of the fingers, it takes a whole childhood and adolescence to get the adult skills needed to survive. They are building blocks. Eventually (normally teenager years) you hand over control to the kid and they launch. I don't see any off this happening for your SS. The daddy guilt is overwhelming him.
qualities and quality time
Well I do because he has many other qualities apart from being a slave dad !
He tells me it is an engrenage and that if we had kids together, we would back up each other and it would be totally different.
My hubby's authority was utterly sabotaged by his narcissitic pervert of an ex wife, before the left the picture.
now he's trying to build up some authority, starts to sep up boundaries and to say no, but he is not very good at it and i think what little he achieves in that area is thanks to my better judgment.
but you're right, he keeps on doing shitty stuff such as saying no to something (another glass of coke zero for example), then the kid begs, or gets angry, or insists, then he ends up saying yes. This always makes me angry because i can see how he has taught SS to harass him and to beg for more;;;
you're right the kid is absolutely not lauching, this is why at some point i asked my husband to sacrifice ss by sending him to live with his mum. But then he explained me how he would be at risk of ending up in forster care because that is HOW AWFUL the mother really is. So this is not a solution and now he tells me he does not want to hear this anymore because it is impossible.
I really think he should get rid of the kid with a pensionnat or something at some point, if things don't evolve well and the kid does not lauch, because otherwise he and i will not have children. BUT HE WANTS TO SAVE HIS KID AT ALL COST. overwhelmed with guilt indeed ...
((((HUGS))))) Welcome to step
((((HUGS))))) Welcome to step talk. Glad you found us.
Have you considered divorce?
You called his ex a pervert? What makes her that?
divorce ??
No I haven't considered that because despited me being fed up with that kid, we are really happy.
About the ex, refer to my first message. I don't really want to develop topic as she absolutely is a pervert, which has been confirmed by the psychologist who had seen her a few times when she was abandoning the kid. The ex is a disgusting human being and it is a terrible proof of lack of self confidance and boundaries for my hubby to have fallen into her trap ten years ago but with narcissictic perverts, it is very hard to tell that they are compulsive liars at first, well, because they are extremely good at lying and believe their own lies. But here again, don't really want to describe the portrait of narcissictic perverts because this is not the topic. The topic is how to deal with my husband and how to address the relationship with SS since it drains too much of our energy .
RUN
You're 33 years old. You have many years ahead of you and I guarantee that this man will not be in all of them. The sooner you get out, the more years you will have for your own projects (including, if you want, having children with a man who's not already wrapped around the axle of a previous relationship).
Do not have a child with him. Do not even consider staying with him.
Run for your life. This situation really is that dire.
ETA: Why would you want to have kids/stay with a man this piss-poor at parenting? Over the next 10 or 15 years--the practical limits to your fertility--you have time for MAYBE 4 or 5 pregnancies. Why would you want to waste one of them on this guy's offspring? It's a demonstrated fact that he throws poor quality and then doesn't know what to do about the problem other than try to enlist someone else (you) to help.
Really. Seriously. JUST LEAVE.
leaving ?
Well, I take your own advice but I still think that the marriage is worth it even if the counterpart is heavy.
I want to balance the situation first. I will take the advice of investing more in myself, that way, these years are not wasted.
I am not sorry to say that, husband really is an amazing person with great qualities, I was stupid to believe that living with an offspring from another person and my husband would be nice family fun, I need to try more because I wouldn't want to quit my husband, he is so nice, so smart, so learned, we have great fun together !
But I understand that maybe from your experience you wished someone had told you to run away from a similar situation.
I think on this forum I can find clues and share experiences to help me deal with DH and SS relation ship and how to invest in myself, and not waste too much energy on SS.
Since your DH
Is not actively trying to end this dysfunctional relationship with his DS. Nothing is going to change. The older this kid gets the bigger the problem will be. He will realize he can play you against DH. And DH will always take his side, he SS will make your life pure hell. This cycle of dysfunctional father son relationship mus stop asap, or it's time to start making an exit plan.
Who wants to life where a 10yo is in control?
get rid of the kid ??
I think I must make an exit plan for SS, rather than for me lol
If we cannot send him to his mom because she's too dangerous (by the way she is an alcoholic, SS has told us that she always have whisky and coca cola mixed together in bottles in the fridge still to this day), I think we can start looking for a pensionnat or maybe a yeshiva in Israel ??
Next school year will be a test (new school, beginning of junior high school, we must try to sue his mother so that my husband is not forced to bring the kid to switzerland anymore and that she loses all parental authority because she truly is a crazy person and mentally unfit, and we also want to plan me taking up my studies again and make plans for the future).
If the test fails, I will consider other possibilities, if it is a success, will feel reassured.
I'm sorry but if your husband
I'm sorry but if your husband doesn't change and you're still unhappy, you should make an exit plan for yourself not try to " get rid of the kid".by sending him to boarding school or whatever. He has already been abandoned by his mother. The mother is bluntly an egg donor doesn't help, his father doesn't want to teach him independence . Many parents have their kids full-time and the other parent has visitation EOWE. Most of these parents don't ship their kids off to boarding school once they start dating someone. I won't blame your husband if he doesn't want to get rid of his son. I do not think in his position you'd get rid of your own kids to or send them to boarding school.
shipping
Yep, you're right, this is why this forum is a place to vent and reflect !!!!!!
Just because I wrote that here does not mean I'd / I'll do it !! But it is a nice thought *ROFL* I care too much about the kid though, even if he's not mine, so we'll try to make the best balanced decisions !!
Lol I think after school
Lol think after school activities are fine though. Ones where he uses a lot of energy so he comes home a bit more chilled. I think he has too much energy maybe besides demanding??
what is the most tiring after school activity that exist ?
Hmm then I wonder, what is / are the most exhausting after school activities that exist ?
I've noticed that calm activities such as manual activities hyper him too much, maybe he should only make sports and physical activity in order to chill him ??
One of the hardest lessons to learn ...
... is that not everything is fixable. Some things are so badly broken, or were so messed up from the start, that there is simply no saving them. Once you've accepted this, life gets easier, because instead of trying to fix All The Things, you begin to distinguish where your efforts might be effective and what you just have to walk away from. You begin to learn how best to use your time.
The responses you're seeing are the collective wisdom of dozens and dozens of people who've seen it all before and know where this is going. (Yes, we really can predict the future!) We've also seen quite a few posters get defensive, try to explain things away, and toke deeply from the hopium pipe when we give our blunt assessment and advice.
Occasionally someone listens and takes a walk as advised. Most do not. I consider that a flaw in the design or training of women. (Most posters here are women.) Our first, second and third impulses are to gaslight ourselves. I didn't see what I thought I saw, and if I did it wasn't that bad, and if it was I can live with it. I'll put up with anything as long as I get to hang on to my man.
I think a lot of us wish we were 33 again and could reconsider our decisions to invest decades of our precious time enacting little bits of strategy, fighting futile battles and hoping for improvements that prove marginal if they appear at all. Everyone deserves better than to fight a daily battle to hang on, but I wish you all the luck in the world living with whatever you decide.
thing is
The thing is : is it worth leaving a great man who respects you and cares for you just because he has a big guilty dad syndrom ?
I don't want to waste my precious time on that, i've already wasted all of my childhood and teenage years reacting against ill treating parents before they abandonned me. I know my time is valuable.
But I really wonder, if I'm really with him out of love and not out of fear and for bad reasons, is it worth it to walk away because of a step kid ? Wouldn't that be overreacting, while there are not so many single guys out there at 33, things may not change so much but I can chose to invest time in myself instead of wasting energy and hopes on the education of the SS, and i may not meet another man as special and as precious as my husband (whom i love dearly despite is Disney Dad tendancies ??)
I hear you, I get you, I vent a lot here maybe because I don't have a family (only a step family who are old and sick) so this forum is my place to vent :)
But I am not unhappy, I'm even happy despite being pissed of by the SS !
This great man ...
... may respect and care for you, but he respects and cares for his kid more. Perhaps that's as it should be--a parent protecting his offspring above all else.
Nevertheless it puts you in second place. Are you willing to live with that?
dilemma ?
At the same time, my husband values me because he knows how hard it is to be alone with a kid.
I'd rather be with him even with SS than with another, less fit for me man, without children.
At the same time it is bad for me to be second place, because i've never been put first place in my childhood. But yet, I know my husband could put me first if the situation with SS became unbearable and he was afraid to lose me. He has already told me that is SS became out of control, he would think about sending him away to board school. Because he could make his best, still it would not mean that the temperament of SS can be fixed now that he is almost 11.
When you are parent to a child who is out of control, is it better for he child to be with a disengaging step mother, be alone with the dad (but he always tells me he is happier since i'm here and how being just the two of them was hard) or being sent to a good pensionnat and spend the holidays with daddy because anyway, the situation might be hopeless for SS and husband if they live together all year long?
10yo is old enough to do his own laundry.
Where is DH in all of this? He is conspicuously absent as a parent and partner in your OP and follow up comments .\
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Zoroastrian, etc. Religion is irrelevant to your DH stepping up and parenting, being your equity life partner, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, etc ,etc, etc...
Time for you to put it all on DH and you focus on you, your career, and finding a quality partner who can be a quality father to your own children, and a quality equity life partner to you. Do not pollute your own gene pool with this guy.
Good luck.