Stepmum - jealousy/ insecurity issues
I live in Australia with my husband and our 15 month old son. My husband was married before to a Japanese woman and has one daughter from that relationship. During the relationship, they moved back to Australia for a bit and when things didn't work out, his ex-wife moved back to Japan with the daughter (3y/o then). I met my husband shortly after all of this happened, knew of his situation, felt uncomfortable about the "baggage", and yet I let love "blinded" me and just assumed that he would soon forget his daughter. Over the last 5 years, I've been struggling with the idea of him and the girl reuniting, while his mum & he have been working on the legal paperwork to gain visitation rights. Recently, the court granted him visitation rights of 3 days/ year and monthly Skype chats. He's now in Japan to see her - she's turning 8 very soon. For the last 5 years, her mum (who's remarried and has a second child with the new husband) has been lying to her that the new husband is the biological father. Since the court order, she had to retell/ explain who the biological father was.
My problems are:
- I know what my husband is doing is right. I've got soooooo many people who have told me that it's all logical, and that he'd be a monster if he didn't care for his child. However, my husband is not very hands-on with our son, and every time I see that, I can't help but question "How can you not care for our son who's sitting right in front of you, and yet you worry about the paperwork to see someone who lives sooo far away?" I know there's no logic in my thinking, but that's just how I feel.
- I feel a great sense of jealousy and insecurity even though I know there is no freaking way my husband would go back to his ex (she attempted to murder him with a knife before they decided to separate), when I see him care about his daughter, I can't help but think that they (my husband and his ex) used to have a good relationship at some point, and that I'm not the one.
I still don't know the desirable outcomes, but I guess I'm after some experience sharing, understanding/ sympathy. Now, I know this may all sound very silly, but I've come to this forum to gain some perspectives and possibly some approaches that I can try to "change" myself. I hope I don't get negative criticisms for what I've shared because trust me, I've been battling with this for as long as I've been in the relationship and it kills me.
So if the two of you divorce
So if the two of you divorce and your husband takes your son, are you going to forget about him?
Thank goodness your husband has his mom there to help through this.
The fact that you would even
The fact that you would even want to stay with a man who you hoped wouldn't want anything to do with his BIO daughter is sick.
Your priorities seem to be a bit backwards.
Jealousy is human nature and its hard to deal with but to hope he forgets and disengages completely is just wrong.
Dear Stepmum, you're wise to
Dear Stepmum, you're wise to acknowledge that your thoughts are irrational and I’m sorry that you’ve been battling them -alone- for a long time.
It takes courage to open up and post here, so kudos to you... hopefully you’ll read through some of the threads (search bar at the top) and find solutions to your problems. I just want to share a few things about your situation...
First, feelings are not right or wrong, they just are. You cannot help how you feel...so try not to beat yourself up about feelings that you don’t act on. No woman wants her man giving resources, care and love to another woman’s child. What you feel is NORMAL. By you judging your feelings, you’re heaping guilt on to yourself, while wading through this already painful situation. So push the guilt out of your mind whenever it comes up and accept the fact that you’re having weird feelings that are foreign to you, but as you gain knowledge of step-world, you'll understand why you're having them and they will become less intense. [Sidenote: I used to wish that my ex’s kids would climb back into their mom’s woohah so I would never have to deal with them again. lol Totally irrational, but they were MY feelings and they weren’t hurting anyone.]
Secondly, the jerk in this situation is the ex-wife. She moved the kid to another country, away from dad and then tried to pass another man off as the father. Total jerk move and if she didn’t give a shit about the father-daughter relationship, then you, a stranger to the situation with no blood ties to this daughter, are NOT obligated to give one phuck about the reunion of dad and daughter. While it’s “moral” to care, something preached around here all the time is that you can’t care more than the parents do…so your level of concern can safely sit somewhere below ex-wifey’s until you come to terms with the reality of the situation. No judgement here.
Third, what makes you think that your husband wants his ex back? Did he mention things about their relationship that have you questioning? It seems odd. I can assure you that just because you have a child with someone, you don’t necessarily pine for them… unless there is more to the story, I wonder why you feel that way.
Lastly, be easy with yourself during this time! Enjoy your son. Enjoy the time you have with your husband. Pray that nothing happens to the ex-wife and that daughter doesn’t end up living with you. And find something that you can pour your love and creativity into – a craft, a hobby, a side business, something, so that you don’t expend too much mental energy and heartache trying to wish away the past. Big hugs!
Thanks very much for your
Thanks very much for your kind comment. I know my feelings are off the mark as the other people have pointed out, but as I'd previously said, I'm here for support to help me get "there", not to get more criticism. For that, I'm grateful to read your response. Some of my friends suggested that meeting the stepdaughter might help with the insecurity, what's your take on it? My fear is that it can make it all too real... whereas now I can just play pretend in my head etc.
Hi Kayt128 I just saw your
Hi Kayt128 I just saw your post now. By now your DH is probably back home from his trip to reunite with his DD. How did that go?
Now to address some of what you are/were dealing with. I'm not unsympathetic to what you are dealing with and I can tell you from experience that you CAN get over feeling jealous of the SD.
You mentioned that your husband isn't much of a father to your bio son. In that situation I can see where you would get pangs of resentment that he's seemingly is making more of a effort to see his first born, when he ignores the child in right of him. It probably feel quite hypocritical
to you. That doesn't mean you are a horrible witch who wants to deprive a little girl of her father. He did that all on his own by allowing the situation to get to where it ended up. Was he okay with his DD thinking that another man was her bio father and then changed his mind? I'm a little confused as to how the BM got away with that.
The night I met my husband of now 28 years he told me his daughter, 7 at the time, was the most important person in his life. That actually attracted me to him very much. I had the opposite in my life so this felt really refreshing to me. Even still I had some pretty INTENSE pangs of jealousy when I first met her. In my case it wasn't even her personally, it was more that I was experiencing grief over my lack of a father who I felt loved by. Watching them together seemed to magnify my loss and shame even more. I felt really ugly for feeling the way I did and was very conflicted as I can see you are as well.
I can tell you that those feelings did eventually work themselves out and I became my DH's biggest advocate for maintaining a relationship with his DD. This was back in 1989 when the BM's still held most of the power regarding the children after a divorce. Things have changed considerably since then, and the fathers have a lot more rights now. As it should be.
So I want to encourage you to hang in there. With your SD being so far away you may never get the chance to bond with the her, but, if you do end up having her in your life, you may end up liking her and those feelings of jealousy may leave you and in their place may come something much better.