Random venting
Hi, I am new to this site and feel it may be a good start to getting things off my chest and hopefully get to hear from others who are going through the same thing.
I’m 26 years old and have been with my boyfriend for 2 1/2 years and he has a 4 year old son. His dad does not have full-time custody and his son is with us every other weekend. We both live together and I do a lot for his son when he’s here. Whether it’s new clothes/shoes when I can, big birthdays/Christmas. I do that because I want to and he’s only here the small amount of time we have him.
Anyways, before he always cried about not wanting to go back home and missed his dad all the time. He’s getting a little older now and every weekend it seems he’s saying he wants to go back home. It upsets me so much and makes me feel sad whenever he says that. But coming from divorced parents myself I totally understand it. Home is where you spend most of your time and being somewhere else isn't the same. But we try our best and hearing that feels like such a let down.
I also don’t feel he actually sees me as a parent figure. It’s like whatever I say is not right and whatever his dad or mom says is always right. It hurts me and sometimes I find myself so upset I question if it’s even worth it. Now, he doesnt appreciate anything we do for him but when it comes to his mom, she can do no wrong. This really weighs down on me particularly because I want the best for him and do a lot to show that but I always end up feeling unappreciated.
This is all just so hard, not sure how people get through it! But at least sharing about it helps.
He is 4. Quit giving him
He is 4. Quit giving him space in your head.
when he is being manipulative ignore him.
My SD may not have seen me as
My SD may not have seen me as a "parent" figure but she most certainly saw me as an adult and she was taught to respect adults... all adults. Have his parents taught him this?
Most of what you do as a step parent, will not be appreciated, so if that makes you feel bad, stop doing stuff for him. I'm not saying be mean to him or ignore him but going overboard is not necessary, nor will it be rewarded. That is just a fact of this life.
It's great that you care about him. I once cared about my SD (she was 5 when DH and I got together) but that really got me nowhere, so I now concentrate my efforts elsewhere and let her parents worry about her. She really is just my husband's daughter.
It's not always easy but sometimes you just have to not let yourself get so emotionally involved. My husband worries about his daughter (now, 27) but I lose no sleep over her and her life. Caring about her, truly was not worth the effort.
I know that that sounds heartless and kind of depressing but losing yourself in someone else's kid, usually does not have a good outcome. A healthy balance of disengagement is what has worked best for me. I want my DH's daughter to have a good life BUT I am not (and never was) responsible for that.
You are not responsible for your BF's son's happiness.
Welcome to the site! You may
Welcome to the site! You may or may not have heard of something called PAS- it is mentioned a lot on here and stands for Parental Alienation Syndrome. You can google it - it means that one parent - usually the custodial one - alienates her child against the other parent. In my case - the BM in my life alienated the SDs pretty bad from their Dad, but even worse from me. Before she'd ever met me, she was telling her kids bad things about me - and the younger one was at that time only 5 yrs old. It may be that the mother of your bf's son is doing this.
Changeover is often a difficult time for kids that go between two households. This will often be expressed in difficult behaviour. My advice is that you don't make quite as much effort if not having it recognised by the child is upsetting you. Do try and bear in mind that he's only four, and children that age do not generally show any appreciation, of things that are done for them.