Family Forum / Parenting / Step Parents / July 2005

Oh honey, I wish I could give you advice, but my situation is just as bad
and I'm at as much of a loss.  I will say that you should go to
www.stepfamily.net, if you haven't already found it.  They are eager to
reply there and very experienced.  They responded to me within hours of
the post and were very helpful with sincere advice from their own
experiences.

I have one very helpful response from this site in the same amount of
days. I don't think this site is as regularly viewed as that one.

Good luck!

Oh, you know, I think part of the reason you and the other poster aren't
getting a lot of response is that people here have been around so long, our
kids are a little bit older.  So your problems, are totally real as they
are, are things we went through so many years ago, we've become a little bit
jaded about them.  I first met my SS when he was 2, his dad and I were very
serious by the time he was 3.  (He's almost 10 now.)   And your problem
happens to many stepparents, it's totally normal.

Birthmoms can be hard to deal with.  Part of that is the age of the kid.
When you have a child that young, you are involved with them differently
than you are when they're older.  Another part of it is distance from the
relationship that created the child.  With a 5 year old, she probably didn't
split from your husband all that long ago.  So she's still dealing with that
too.  And sometimes, part of it is the BM has, ahem, issues.

So what I can tell you, in general, is this.

-How you and your stepson interact, is going to depend, in large part, on
your husband (not the BM).

-A 5 year old who likes you, is going to like you no matter what his mom
says.  So the issue you need to deal with is making him feel comfortable.
Don't criticize his mother for saying whatever, because either (a) you'll
dump him right in the middle of a loyalty conflict and makes things worse;
or (b) he's just testing you, and his mom didn't really say that.

-Your husband should be dealing, as much as possible, with the mom.  Your
life will be soooooo much easier if you don't assume this chore.

I don't know if I'll phrase this is a way you'll understand.  But you need
to set up your household in a proactive way, versus reacting to what BM
does.  You can do absolutely _nothing_ (barring extreme circumstances, of
course) about the way BM parents, what she does and doesn't say to her kid.
So looking for deep meaning in why your stepson is withdrawn from you isn't
really a productive thing.  He's 5.  He's got a stepmother.  Of _course_
he's feeling torn between you, children that age don't have a deep
understanding of the difference.  A mom is a mom.  And if mom is pulling him
from her side, the best thing you can do is not even pick up the rope.

rebecca

I am in a similar situation.  You should go to
www.stepmomspointofview.blogspot.com It will let you know that someone
out there may have it a bit worse!  The article is very entertaining &
unfortunately its true!