About to make a mistake?
Hello everyone, looking for some advice on my situation. I am a biological father to two children who are 14 and 11. I put a lot of time and effort in to raising them to be good respectable kids, which they are. A couple of years ago I divorced from their BM. The kids took it as well as can be expected.
Fast forward to the present- I met a wonderful woman who I love so much. We have a lot in common and really enjoy each other. Problem is, she has three children (12,8,5) that basically do whatever they want. My girlfriend takes the "friend approach" to parenting her oldest and he feels pretty free to tell her what to do when he wants something and she does it. If she doesn't do what he wants, he will manipulate her by making her feel guilty. When I point this out to her, she defends him every time. The 9 year old is also very bossy and has no problem with talking back to adults and even feels free telling adults what to do. I assume that this was learned by being able to tell her mom what to do since she was very young. The youngest is really the bane of my existence at the moment. He is extremely needy and constantly whining for things that he wants. If he is told no, he immediately goes in to a screaming and violent tantrum. He is also very manipulative and bossy. All three of her children have problems with authority and feel free to do whatever they want and it is driving me nuts! I have talked with my girlfriend about their behavior and she seems to agree with me that the behavior is inappropriate, but she also defends a lot of it. After I talk with her she will make an effort to discipline them and correct their behavior for a while but then things go back to the way they were. I feel like I have to constantly remind her to deal with their misbehavior. A lot of time she seems oblivious to it, I can't tell if she isn't paying attention or just ignoring it but it drives me nuts when the behavior goes undressed. I feel like I put a lot of work in to raising my own kids right and it's not fair that I have to deal with her kids misbehavior.
We are currently living together with her parents (she has never not lived on her own, even during previous marriage) and there are some issues with my girlfriend's mother being controlling. I am of the opinion that the Grandmother has spoiled all of these kids because she overrides my girlfriends parenting and belittles my girlfriend in front of her own kids. We have decided to start looking for a place of our own but I am now feeling uneasy. I want to be there for my girlfriend and be that person she can lean on but I don't know if I can handle this situation long term. Am I making a mistake? Thanks for reading my rant, any advice is appreciated!
You know the answer to your
You know the answer to your question--- RUN, get out now and why are you both living with her parents?
One thing I know is that kids
One thing I know is that kids need parents. They don't need friends. They have plenty of friends in school and out of school. They don't need parents to be their friends.
You need to run as far as you can and don't look back. Everything will be your fault...may be already is...so run...save yourself and your children.
Best of luck.
A.
After you marry, the positive
After you marry, the positive feelings you have for your girlfriend will turn to loss of respect....resentment....despair. In that order.
There are plenty of better women out there. Don't do this to yourself. Don't do this to your kids. The good news is gf can find a man who parents just like she does because there seems to be an endless supply of those.
Move out. Break up. Next time don't lose your heart till you see how she parents.
ETA: She does not need you as much as you think she does. In fact, she will be happier if she is partnered with a man who approves of her parenting style and is comfortable with her kids. They are easy to find and plenty of them are being freed up by women on this board nearly every day. So free her so they can find each other and you can find a woman in sync with your parenting style. The two of you (you and new chick) can then enjoy a happy and fulfilling middle age as your successful adult kids make you proud every day and contribute wonderfully to society. One day you will bump into ex-almostMIL on the street and she will tell you all about your former skids now on welfare and in rehab with crack babies by the dozen sharing halfway houses with their stepsiblings in the same condition, the kids of the man your ex-gf married and parented the same way. You. Will. Be. So. Glad. You. Left. Then you will run home and sweep your sweetie off her feet and tell her how happy you are you found her. Then you will google Steptalk to see if we are still around, cuz you haven't needed us for years, and post a little message thanking us.
Don't marry her. you will be
Don't marry her. you will be making a big big mistake. If you love her, then get your own place and date her until the 5 year old turns 18 and launches but she isn't really raising them to be successful well productive members of society, so odds are they aren't going to launch.
Im sorry but i would get out
Im sorry but i would get out now. Date but dont live with her anymore and certainly wouldnt marry her until she has learnt to parent all by herself.
She needs to move out from her mommys and learn to stand on her own 2 feet before getting involved again.
Enjoy your children and parent them.
Can I ask why you are living
Can I ask why you are living with her parents?
Well, doesn't really matter, move out and move on. Yesterday.
Thanks for the replies. I
Thanks for the replies. I knew that this would probably be the response that I got and deep down know what I must do. It always helps to get some different perspectives on difficult situations. I just feel really bad for my GF because she is a good person. She is just a bad mother and as one poster said I will probably start resenting her because of it.
my fiance's ex wife lived
my fiance's ex wife lived with her parents her entire life. even during their 18 year marriage. its a recipe for disaster.
why on earth did you move into that house with her parents?!?
if your kids really are good, this is a recipe for disaster. you will be annoyed forever by her kids, and their bad habits will rub off on your kids.
you cannot marry her. id move out asap.
You also might want to check
You also might want to check the post under an earlier forum, "Stepdad resenting my bio kids." Your possibly future wife could be posting something similar about you in a few years. You could wind up having your pocket-book drained by BM and her kids, and then have her whining about how negative you are and how she doesn't love you any more.
The woman is a product of her
The woman is a product of her own upbringing. Did you ever wonder why she has been content to live with her mother? If the solution was as easy as just she and you getting a place of your own, she wouldn't be living with her parents now. Unfortunately for you moving together isn't going to fix the situation. it will just move the problem (and who isn't being blamed for it). Same woman. Same parent. Same lazy poor exertion on parenting skills.
Sorry, the one you picked? She isn't Ms Right. Spare yourself and your own kids. Leave now by yourself.
GET.OUT.NOW Conflicting
GET.OUT.NOW
Conflicting parenting styles get resolved probably about .000000000000001% in the "blended" family.
Love is NEVER enough and if a parent doesn't discipline, it means basically that they hate their child.
No loving parent would want to see their child turn into a spoiled brat and then have problems down the road when Junior or Sally discover they're not the speshul sno-flake that mommykins or daddykins has told them they are.
And don't be fooled by TALK! To this day my "Significant Other" thinks that he was a strict parent. Maybe compared to a blind marshmallow, I guess. Before we got together he said he was "strict." I guess that meant compared to the BM who has ZERO rules and the three children are today PASed out, crater failing life, enmeshed to mommykins and absolutely FERAL.
Where is Drac0? Calling Drac0!!!
If you didn't have kids of
If you didn't have kids of your own, I *might* take the "well, uh, buyer beware, you HAVE read posts on here, right?" tact, even though my subtext would be screaming to GTFO NOOOOWWWWW.... BUT...
It sounds like you have done a great job with your kids and they don't deserve being exposed to poor parenting. Neither do you, for that matter. Because to kids, poor parenting looks like THE BEST THING EVERRRRR.
So. Yeah. GTFO NOW.
I would move out to signal to
I would move out to signal to your girlfriend that these are serious enough issues for them be dealbreakers. (One, her parenting or lack thereof. Two, her overbearing mother.)
Then see if she makes an effort to make the necessary changes. Give it a timeframe: six months, one year...
If nothing changes, then you've already begun the process of extricating yourself and just have to make the final cutting of ties.
I suggest this middle ground because it does sound as if you love her and I don't believe love should be thrown away. Good luck and let us know what you do.
Not sure if this is real.
Not sure if this is real. I'll be charitable and assume that it is.
The OP described a situation that is pretty close to mine with DW. She has been a card-carrying "friend" parent since the day I met her, and she has spent the majority of the last 15 years impersonating a doormat that the skids routinely trampled on. Like the OP, my DW always dismissed my concerns about her parenting, and how the skids were developing. After all, I was supposed to "earn" the respect of the skids, and that was never going to happen since I was "too harsh."
Thankfully, the ability to continue coddling the skids was taken out of my DW's hands. First, she had to allow SS to move in with his "perfect" bio-daddy when I had to move for my job, since we would have faced an unwinnable legal struggle if we tried to take SS with us (he wanted to stay with his daddy). Later on, my DW's skid-colored glasses were knocked off her face when SD's drug use came to light, along with the fact that SD was about to flunk out of high school. This was finally enough for SD's bio-daddy to take primary custody. Since he was also "perfect," and SD respected him, bio-daddy was able to kick her ass into shape, metaphorically speaking.
Flash-forward to today. SD is actually doing pretty well. She joined the navy right out of high school, and is actually a productive member of society. Most importantly, she is living 1000 miles away, so I almost never have to deal with her. I'm more than happy to pay for DW to occasionally visit. SS is now living with his grand-parents. He still has a lot of issues, as he works a dead-end job, never learned how to drive, and never really mastered the art of bathing. He's also probably the biggest weenie I've ever met, and at age 25 still has not lost his "kissing virginity." However, he's not living with us, and generally is not a problem.
Overall, things could be a lot worse. I was really worried about SD ever moving out of the house, but that ended up not being an issue. SS is still a concern, as he might try to move in later, but we are trying to downsize into a house that is so small that only two people can live there, so that will hopefully block any attempts by him to move in with us. I'm thankful for how things turned out, but I'm not naive. The status quo did not happen because DW changed - it happened because changed was forced on DW. If these external events had not occurred, I'm sure that she would still be lip-locked to the skids' butts. For the OP's sake, I hope that he has similar good fortune, because the odds of his girlfriend growing a pair are slim.