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Blended Families
Who are your BF influences?
Who do you look to as a role model for how to navigate a blended family? Do you have friends that are SMs that you can talk to?
My family doesn't have any blending to it but I do have an acquaintance who is also dating a man with kids. He has an EOW and Wed type arrangement where my SO is the custodial parent. I've been surprised about the differences we seem to have in expectations. I feel like she places a high priority on having 'their time alone' and 'their weekends alone' (even to the point of asking her SO to give up a weekend with his kids because he had been OOT and she was feeling neglected). I find myself being put off by that because SO and I put such a high priority on having time to bond 'as a family', to the point that I'm wondering if it's worth maintaining the relationship.
Do you think it's important to have other SM friends IRL even if you don't see eye to eye?
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Re: Who are your BF influences?
I have one friend who is older who is a stepdad. His relationship with his stepkids is non existent and he has said repeatedly if he could do it over he wouldn't. His advice which I have really taken to heart is that both bio parent and step parent HAVE to be on the same ground with discipline and child rearing. He resents his wife a lot for this and blames his lack of relationship on her never backing him up. He said at this point he doesn't even like his SKs (they're now 18 and 24)
I WAS a stepkid, so when I went into this blended family situation, I wanted to go very slow, not be too attached or affectionate in case we broke up (I know first hand it is really devastating for kids,) but what I've seen from his situation and my situation is that kids need 100% of your efforts, attention and love. I'm definitely going to be a lot more hands on and a lot more invested in SS then my blended family was growing up
I joined a SM group because I needed some different points of views. I really enjoy talking to them and hearing how they are handling their families.
I have a couple of more SM's that I talk to more frequently outside the group. SM #1 married her husband a couple years before me and it really helped me to hear what she had been through already. Her husband was given emergency full custody of his girls. SM#2 was a work acquaintance who married a year after me and had a EOW with 3 SKs. The three of us are at completely different points in the SM spectrum. SM#1 is a very motherly person and took to it immediately - really had to when BM went off her rails and was institutionalized. SM#2 doesn't like children very much. She tried too hard at first, then ultimately ended up completely disengaging. She convinced her DH to move across the country and only see his three kids every few months. I didn't keep up with her because I really disagreed with her attitude. I started off trying to emulate SM#1, but eventually realized that SD has a mom who is active and involved and we only get her EOW. I backed off and let DH enjoy his parenting time, but still do my part as her SM and a co-parent to my DH.
My older sister. She has 2 daughters from her first marriage, her husband has 1 son from a previous relationship and they have a son and a daughter together (5 total kiddos if you're counting). She and her husband have four of the five kids full time and his son (7 years old) is an EOW+breaks and holidays situation. Her husband has also been a great support for my SO. They not only know the legal stuff inside and out, but they also have great ideas for trying to work out visitation and such. They are very encouraging and I would definitely consider them our BF mentor.
It's important to me to have people IRL that I can talk to and I have thought about seeking out a local support group, although I have heard mixed things about SM groups (that they can turn into whine fests about how bad life as a SM is). I have also read A Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom: Expert Advice from Other Stepmoms on How to Juggle Your Job, Your Marriage, and Your New Stepkids
Not everything in the book was relevant to me but it was an easy read and had a lot of great advice and perspectives.
Interestingly, BM was the most reassuring and encouraging when I was about to meet the little dude.
She has since decided it would be "too weird" to try to be friends with me, but it was helpful at the time and I really appreciated her encouraging me to get to know her son.
My SO has also been helpful because when he started dating BM she had a 1 yr old daughter. So he's "been there" so to speak and that, too, has been reassuring to me.
I don't have any SM friends IRL (I'm not a SM but we're pretty serious). My SO's sister is a SM (of BM's daughter, yes you read that right) but we don't know each other well enough yet to really talk about personal stuff. I kind of hope we get to know each other better though because we are tied to the same BM, lol.
One of my best friends technically has a blended family but it's so vastly different from our situation. Her older son's BF signed away his parental rights and has no involvement whatsoever. My friend's DH has been her older son's dad since he was an infant.
My mom is kind of a role model on what not to do. She is only 15 years older than me. Her DH is only 12 years older than me. DH is 9 and 6 years younger than them. My youngest brother is the same age as SD. Our family situations are in a lot of ways very similar but her family is a few years ahead of where our is. It's nice because I get to see how they handle things and learn from their mistakes or copy what worked.
I was adopted and this is my BM that I was reunited with when I was 17. It's why I call her husband her DH instead of my stepfather in case anyone was wondering.