Over and over and over again, lately, I’ve been hearing women online and in person say that their husbands and partners get angry at them for not loving their stepkids enough. That they don’t know how to pretend they love their stepchildren when they don’t. Or that they just feel guilty for not loving or sometimes even liking their stepkids.
I’m very lucky that the Lovely Man doesn’t buy into this garbage, but it seems that many, many men do. I’d say it’s the single biggest criticism I hear of men directing at their stepmother wives and partners – that they “aren’t loving enough” or “you don’t love my kids like you love your own”.
My question is, do these men expect their kids to love the stepmum like the kids love their mother?
(This is a purely rhetorical exercise, by the way – the answer is guaranteed to be “Of course not!”)
Stepfamily writers and therapists agree that it is completely unreasonable for bio-parents to expect this love from their partners, and it just makes it harder for the stepparent to integrate into the family. There’s actually a psychological term for this problem: “The Myth of Instant Love”. Despite this, studies show that over half of men expected their wives to be “more maternal” with their stepkids than they turned out to be.
Not only is this expectation unreasonable – it’s misguided. Oftentimes kids in loyalty binds don’t want you to love them anyway! And the more loving, warm and appealing they find you, the more they will feel driven to reject you.
I experienced quite a breakthrough recently with Boy A on this issue.
It came about when we were all in the car together on the way out to dinner or something and Boy C announced, completely out of the blue (as he does):
You don’t love us like our mummy loves us!
I’ve always had an honesty bug when it comes to those moments of challenge, so without even thinking much, I replied:
No, I don’t love you like your parents love you, because parents love their kids in a different way from other people. I really care for you guys and want you to be happy, but I don’t love you the same way your mum and dad do. That’s their job.
There were no complaints or arguments from the backseat, just satisfied expressions. It made sense to them, and I suspect they actually liked hearing it – I think it reassured them that I wasn’t trying to take their mum’s place, if that makes sense. Boy A’s behaviour towards me improved dramatically from that point of the visit, and has continued to improve since. My stepmother instinct tells me that something about that conversation fell into place for him.
To his credit, the Lovely Man handled it well, too. I told him about the research that says that very loving, “mother-style” stepmothers are hard for kids to handle when there are loyalty demands placed on them. And the outcome kind of spoke for itself.
The thing is, I do have some quite loving feelings towards the Boys at times. But I am not going to pretend that those feelings are the same as a biological parent might feel. It’s just so obviously not true.
Nobody can wave a magic wand and make a stepfamily into a first family, however much some men wish it would happen. I think some of them expect their partners to love their kids mostly so they can feel like they’ve replaced the first family that “broke” and thereby “make up” to the kids for the divorce. Like so much else, it’s a guilt thing.
You may never love your stepkids (or you might love them differently from each other) and they may never love you. As long as you are fair and kind, that’s all anyone should expect. Hopefully you’ll eventually develop a relationship that feels ok for you and for them. And as Wednesday Martin says in “Stepmonster”, that’s probably a “good enough” relationship.
If you are copping pressure on the love question, a solution might be to do a stepfamily course together with your partner. The Lovely Man and I did one early on with Relationships Australia, and the group leaders really drilled it into us that demanding a stepparent love stepkids “like their own” is unrealistic, unhelpful and unnecessary.
And that was only one of the benefits – it certainly didn’t hurt for us to be told, over and over, that for the success of our stepfamily we needed to put our relationship first and have lots of one-on-one couple time…
Are you expected to love your stepkids, “like you own” or at all? Do you?
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I don’t think I’m expected to love the BF’s kids. Sometimes I have strong feelings for them (like when the OD’s boyfriend was a jerk — I wanted to join in on the group to tie and string him up). I try to treat them like an adult and sadly, I have the expectation that they will behave like adults. I don’t know why I’m surprised when they don’t but I am. They are not bad kids. They make great grades and do well in school but they don’t really care about their families or have good family social skills.
Right now, I’m just distancing myself from them. I can’t fix them and the people who should be looking out for them have either been marginalized (BF) or have to be in control (mom). I only met them when they were in their late teens so I never had the cute stage of kiddie-dom — just the sullen teen period. :-) YMMV, of course.
I almost feel that because I loved the kid and put a lot into our relationship that he got jealous that he never had my undivided attention. But I’m a special case I guess.
Thankfully, my husband has no emotional expectations of me towards his kids. This has been a blessing because I have very mixed feelings about my stepkids. Oldest stepson (18) is very unlikeable because of his rotten attitude and behavior. I still care what happens to him. I might even say I love him, but OMG he makes life so difficult (ours and his). I fell in love with Youngest Stepdaughter when she was 3 years old, and now (at 16) we have a very close relationship, even with all the teenage drama. I try not to show any favoritism, but this is how I feel inside. I still do nice things for Stepson and expect no appreciation. I think it’s partly because I harbor some guilt for not liking him more. And perhaps deep inside, I hope his attitude will improve and he will come to appreciate me more.
Great post.
In the beginning of my relationship with D., I tried very much to love his son. I tried to be a mother to him just like I was to my own daughter. He did not reject me with words but just simply did not seem to care whether I was there or not.
I let go of all that and now I simply let things go. I don’t try as hard and things are a lot better. I even got a hug last weekend after we gave him his birthday present. The first hug I ever got in two years!!!
We definitely have to take our wins where we can get them in this business!
No, I am not expected to love SD9 by her father….I think he did expect “insta family” at first, but he has become more realistic. I think he expects me to be a good role model and treat her well, which I do. And honestly, she is in a serious loyalty bind so I try very hard not to act too maternal towards her, thus making it worse. I mean I act in a caring way, do nice things for her, etc, but I never have, nor will I ever try to replace her mom, even though she lives with us full-time.
Ironically enough, this is what BM attacks me for. For not “loving” my SD. I take this as a complement that she can’t come up with anything else bad to say about me, honestly. She even put in court documents that I do not “love” her daughter and have never told her I loved her and that we have a terrible relationship. I think the court would see differently when I can show them pictures of birthday cakes I’ve handmade for her, birthday parties I’ve thrown, volunteer events I’ve attended at school, etc, etc. Not to mention handwritten cards I have kept from my SD (for bdays, mother’s day, etc) that thank me for being nice to her and doing nice things for her, etc. I think all of that would just make BM look stupid in court when she tries to say I “don’t care” about her child.
And honestly, if you read my blog, you would realize nothing I would do in this situation would be right in BM’s eyes. If I was overly “motherly” I would get attacked for trying to replace her. After all, this is the woman who left a ranting 5 minute (not kidding, she had to call back cause the voicemail cut her off) message on my then-boyfriend’s phone about how I needed to remember I was “not her mother”, blah, blah, blah all because I………..wait for it…………….had the audacity to read SD a book!!!!!!!!!!!! How dare I?!?! (I’m not even kidding, that’s the pathetic part).
Good post, sorry this comment is so long!
A book! You EVIL woman!
I think sometimes my husband forgets that maybe it’s just not possible for me to love the kids like my own. I love them, but I’m aware that it’s not the child-parent love that he has with them. There have been a couple times I’ve had to remind him that I just don’t love them the way he does. Maybe he’ll get it one of these days. Right? I’m just thankful that it’s not something that I believe is expected of me.
I kid you not, I was just thinking about this today. That I don’t say “I love you” to my stepkids unless there’s a specific reason or event occuring.
I like Theirwickedstepmother’s approach who may very well say “I love you” but ends text messages with “You are loved.”
I was thinking about doing a post on this very thing because that seems easier to say and it seems it would be accepted easier by the kids.
I’ve noticed Minnie writing that, too – it’s a great idea.
Please, do your post. I’d love to read it.
Stepmum,
I am so impressed by the way you handled the very fraught and loaded accusation, “You don’t love us like our parents do!” Your response was spot-on– respectful of the kids and their parents and the special bond that they have, and just as importantly, emotionally fair and true to yourself.
Loved your post.
Best,
Wednesday
Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.
http://www.wednesdaymartin.com
Thanks so much, Wednesday.
That means a lot.
B
After reading Wednesday’s book, I felt like I had finally been given permission not love my stepkids. I finally admitted that I don’t love them and I will never love them like I love my own children. That doesn’t mean that I won’t do my best for them, it just means that I’m be true and honest to myself about my feelings towards them. DH always knew, but I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders when I finally said it out loud to him. Ever the eternal optimist, he said, “It’ll take time.” I came back with “It may. And if it doesn’t ever happen that’s okay too.” I’m a big fan of the “good enough” relationship.
What is discouraging is the number of women in the stepmom community that are ready to lynch the stepmoms that admit that they don’t love their stepkids like their own.
What a wonderful post and what amazing reassurance it offers for most stepmothers! My daughter and I have a very special and unique bond, and we are very, very, very close. I don’t expect to have that with any other person on Earth! But I am fair, kind and loving towards my stepson and help him in all ways that I can. That being said, I do feel occasionally guilty at being pleased when he’s away for awhile. Why do I feel guilty? Probably just the whole womens’ mentality that we have to be perfect.
I think we all feel guilty at times, Shannon. But our job is to be a person (sometimes the only person!) in our stepfamily who examines the feeling of guilt and asks whether it’s useful and justified. And if, as is almost always the case, it’s not justified, we need to try our hardest to chuck it in the bin, because guilty adults are usually too paralysed to care well for kids or themselves in the long run.
That’s my rant, anyway!
Just as I expect my 32 year old son to respect my husband (stepfather to my son…although my son would never acknowledge that reference), my husband (whose wife died when daughters were seven and 12) expects his daughters to respect me. He is constantly in the middle, and works so hard to balance them and me. He works so hard to make them viable young ladies and I try to support him. The road has been rough, but I am with him because I love him. That means respecting his daughters. He steps up/in when necessary and deals with them AND me. He wants us to be happy.
He has made ocassional reference about me not loving them. That was a stab to my heart and brought about my realization that I don’t love them as he does, but I do try to show them care and respect. I have MADE myself say to them, “I love you.” or “Love ya.” at random times. There is a warmth in the air when that happens. It seems most comfortable to say, particularly when the 15 year old has said good night to her father and me and is walking away to her bedroom. It is most comfortable to say when leaving the 20 year old (with whom I have had the most difficult relationship) at college and we are leaving. My words will not have the meaning of a biological parent, but the words are out there. They are from their stepmom and have reached their ears. They are warm words and cost me nothing. There may be rewards for us all.
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My SS, who’s been in my family since he was 6, now 27, has never considered me a parent-type or mon type even though he called me mom which, quite frankly, used to anger me because he never loved me like a mother. On the other hand, I adored and loved his sister, but cannot stand her now. She’s just foul, calling me names. She has disowned dad because he insists I come with the package. Her whole thing has always been he chooses me over her. She’s now 29 and still has not figured out the step thing. I am frankly glad to be rid of both of them and so is my DH.