I never wanted this role. It was foisted on me when she took off. She left of her own free will with no warning to us or prompting by us. Just….gone.

Not all moms/bio-moms/stepmoms are created equal. Be careful of judgment.

But what about the situations where the tables are turned? My DH was never married to SD’s mom, they split when SD was 2 and wouldn’t have stayed together that long if SD hadn’t been born. DH was the one who tried to make it work and his ex was the one who walked out. DH did not introduce another woman into SD’s life until he met me 5 yrs after he and SD’s mom had ended their relationship. We do not badmouth SD’s mom to SD EVER even though she is constantly bad mouthing me. I have extended the olive branch more times than I care to admit over the last 5 years only to have SD’s mom grab it and try to beat me with it. I have always made sure to try and not over-step my boundaries, like if SD has something special that she only does with her mom I do not let her do it here with me because it is a Mother/daughter thing. I don’t get involved in issues that mom should handle, like sex talks or deciding when the time is right for SD to start shaving her legs.

But SD’s mom fights me tooth and nail at every turn. I get screamed at for helping SD with homework, not doing her hair right, overseeing baths (when SD was younger) or attending school functions. SD’s mom has accused me of trying to step on ehr toes because I take SD shopping when she is with us or because my family treats SD like one of their own. She has gone so far as to call the police simply because DH wouldn’t allow her to just take SD during our time when she showed up unannounced at our house.

So where is the letter from a mother like SD’s? Stating that she hates me and everything a represent and that she will continue to tell SD that SD doesn’t ever have to listen to me or respect me because I am not her SM but just her dad’s wife while insisting that SD call mom’s bf Dad and his parents Grandma and Grandpa? Where is the letter where she says that she still wants my DH and will parade around in a thong and bra when he comes to pick up SD in an attempt to seduce him? Or where she states that she will call up DH and say she is pregnant with his baby even though they haven’t been together in over 6 yrs and he has been with me for a year? Or where she states that she will do whatever it takes to make SD miserable when she is with us? Even going so far as to tell SD that she can’t call us and ask if she can go to a sleepover on our day cuz we will just say no anyways? Or when she tells SD lies that DH beat SD’s mom when they were together, made her eat garbage or even that DH stressed SD’s mom out so bad that she had a miscarriage when in truth she was never pregnant. Where is the letter from mom to SM stating that she will fill SD’s head with as many lies as possible, will tell SD that if SD’s mom ever lost custody she would kill herself?

Not all issues in the Mom/SM relationship is the fault of a SM trying to replace/badmouth/hate the mom. Sometimes the mom is the one who REFUSES to work together for the good of the child. In those situations not only does the stepchild suffer immensely but so do the SM, the dad and any kids the dad and sm have together. So where is the advice for the SMs who have gone above and beyond over and over and over only to be spit on until they finally say they are “Tired of Trying”?

I am a step-mom. I am called names all the time by my husbands ex wife, I feel her entire goal in life is to belittle me, and remind my husband of all the mistakes she feels he has made over the years. And this at whatever cost! Meaning she doesn’t seem to care how this affects her children. Every conversation, email, and text turns into a personal attack directly on my husband or myself. My favorite is – “Thank her for babysitting the kids”.

I didn’t give birth to my own children. Not because I couldn’t because I never wanted too. However I met and fell in love with a wonderful man that has two children almost 7 years ago. We married after 6 years of dating. His children are my children now. I love them as if they were my own, in the only manner that I can determine. I do acknowledge that I do not have my own children so understanding the extreme bond between mother and child I will not ever experience. I do know how I feel when one of the kids falls down and scratches up their knees, learns that other kids are talking behind their backs when they thought they were friends, or they are just sick with a cold or a flu. I also know the joy of good grades, their first concert, getting their hair done, and their first crushes. I hurt and feel joy with them because I love them. They are wonderful, amazing, very well adjusted children and I am very lucky to have such a wonderful relationship with them.

I don’t need to be introduced as “This is my ex husbands wife”. I don’t need to be told that I should be considerate that your parents don’t live here and don’t get to spend time with their grandchildren so I shouldn’t have them around my parents. I don’t need to be told never to speak to you or your children again in front of them. I do not need to have the door shut in my face when I drop the kids off back at your home. Above all our life does not need to be an open book to you. At one point you chose to have children with my husband. You trusted him as a father. You may not trust him because of mistakes he made 9 years ago, and your family has been torn apart BUT he is still the same man you chose to trust to have children with. If the father is a good father, loving the children, playing with them, teaching and caring for them. TRUST HIM AS A FATHER.

I do understand that you worry, and that you feel left out. Did it ever occur to you that I feel the same way? That your boyfriend/husband and the father feels
the same way. When is it time to just grow up, get over it, and make the best of it. I am sorry that it hurts you that the children and I are close, but trying to
turn them against both their father and I will only hurt the kids in ways that have nothing to do with them not liking me, or wanting to spend time with their father.

I would have wished for egg donor to step up and be a “mother figure” to my oldest daughter, but even then, I have raised her since she was 28 months old, so for her to decide one day that she wants to be there wouldn’t make her a mother would it? Not in my eyes.

I hate the terms step-mom, i’ve heard it used many times from her egg donor’s friends referring to me, but then again, if I wasn’t here, my daughter wouldn’t have a mom at all…

so who’s to say that some connotations don’t work for specific people? I am the mother, soon to be the adoptive mother, as my daughter says it, her real mother. Even though I did not give birth to her like I did for her sisters, I’m still her mom. Whatever egg donor wants to call me, she has never accepted her responsibilities of giving birth to a child, then why should she have the right to call herself a mother?

It’s so strange (and sad) that so many others have gone through almost the e.x.a.c.t. same thing our family has. It is difficult, never-ending, and sometimes downright depressing to be the stepmom sometimes! But my stepkids (7 and 5) are so dang cute, I just can’t give up on them! I appreciate this post and will be bookmarking it, so I can read it when I get discouraged.. Thanks so much!

I feel for the stepmom in the jealousy of the ex, the sensitivity to the idea that he had children with this person (perhaps worse if they were planned and you have happy memories of having your own children in your past marriage or if you are both beyond the wanting to have children age since you won’t get that with him), you too need to suck it up and let it go.

Are either of these sides easy, hell no! It’s human to be a bit insecure and jealous and petty, but the fact is that these kids have no part in it. My best advice? Treat your stepchildren as you’d wish someone would treat yours, treat the stepmom the way you would like to be treated and vice versa, respect each others places in the order of things and find some (any!) mutual ground where you can get on with raising these impressionable people that are in the world whether you would have it that way or not. Stop demonizing the exes and their new spouses and the fact that since there are children you will not be able to make a completely clean break, walk away, and never see them again. That ship sailed the day you had them or married into them and that’s just life.

When you decided to give birth to your child(dren) or to marry a man who already had them you no longer have the freedom to be petty, etc. when it affects them. It is no longer your ex-husbands job to deal with all of YOUR insecurities and problems. He’s a father to your children. That does not mean you have a right to lay your issues out unless you are asking for help in the form of him taking custody. If you can’t deal, that’s your problem. Seek help, talk to friends and family (he’s no longer that to YOU) and be a parent.

Stepmoms it’s not an inconvenience to deal with your stepchildren. Yes, so she phoned and asked if you could take the kids on a non-scheduled night because she has a date/manicure/girls night out. So what? What about all of the nights that you and your husband spend together because she has full time custody (if that’s the case). If it’s the reverse, Mom you need to get over it, as well.

Growing up and not acting like a child yourselves would go a heck of a long way to resolving 99% of the conflict in these relationships. Past is past, it can’t be changed, and anyone using children as a weapon should just give the other side custody until you’re adult enough to deal with your own baggage.