Blended families are as beautiful and as they are complicated – balancing the usual dynamics of parenting with new relationships. And as one stepmum has discovered, those relationships can cause huge rifts.
A stepmum has asked for the internet’s opinion on her situation, which started when she began dating Daniel almost three years ago. The couple married last year, and Daniel shares five children with his ex-wife Ava, 11, Jason, 9, Isabella, 6, Sofia, 5, and three-year-old Andrew.
Heartbreakingly, the stepmum says Daniel’s ex never liked their eldest child Ava – blaming her for leaving her ‘trapped’ in a relationship with Daniel.
“When they got divorced, she said she didn’t want anything to do with Ava. Ava was eight years old at the time,” the woman explained on reddit.
“Ava’s mum leaving but having a relationship with her siblings destroyed her. She had to go to the hospital three times over the first four months. She didn’t sleep or eat and would have panic attacks at school.
“The weeks Ava’s siblings were with their mum were the hardest because it was a constant reminder that her mum loved her siblings and not her. She would barely get out of bed those weeks so around two years ago, I surprised her with a day trip to the beach.
“I bought her a cute swimsuit, we got ice cream, we went boogie boarding, went out to eat, and went shopping. It was the first time I’d seen her smile in weeks. I noticed it was helping Ava so we started to go out more and more. When her siblings are here it’s something small like dinner before therapy but when they’re not here we go camping, we go hiking, we try new restaurants, we go back to the beach, etc. and she loves it.”
The stepmum explained that she doesn’t spend anywhere near the same amount of time with the younger children for two reasons:
“These kids already have a mum that loves them and they don’t need it as much”
“It is so much easier to do anything with one kid than five. When I spend time with Ava, I stick her in my Honda and we go. When I have all five kids, we take a big passenger van and they fight over everything. It takes twice as long to go somewhere because I keep having to pull over and break up a fight.
“I do take all five kids out 1-2 times a week when they’re with us but it’s not usually a big trip like what I go on with Ava. We’ll go to the beach 20 minutes away instead of the one almost two hours away, we’ll go on the walking trail by our house instead of a hike, sometimes we have picnics in the park.”
She says that when they go to the theme park, she takes all of the kids either with their dad or their nanny. There are some rides the family goes on together, but one of the adults will take the older two on the ‘scary rides’.
“Recently, my husband asked me to start taking the younger four on day trips like the kind Ava and I go on because they’re starting to get jealous. I said I’ll try to plan more fun activities but my trips with Ava aren’t suitable for all five kids.
“He said I should try to treat the kids equally and either not take Ava or take everybody. I said I will when he takes all five kids camping or on a hike by himself. He called me a bad stepmum so I wanted to know if I was the a**hole.”
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