Adult Stepsons and Adult Stepdaughters

[SouthernBelle]

Hi Everyone: What a cool forum! It looks pretty new and I am, too. There is no category for what I need to talk about, which are adult stepchildren.

I just want to post here how hard it was for me when I got married a second time into an established family that was very different from my family of origin or my first in laws, (whom I had know since early childhood.) I thought I was more than ready to work through anything and everything because I was so entranced with my "to-be."

Sound familiar? Well, my stepchildren were suspicious of my motives. His son immediately tried to find out something unsavory about me from the local rumor mill (he failed) and his daughter made it clear that she thought her dad was being hit on by someone who was after his money (not easy to do when he didn't have very much.)   

Fast- forward fifteen years. I am treated with kindness and respect. They appreciate that I am doing a great job in keeping their dad healthy and making him happy. I also feel very warmly toward them. We are still just as different...(let me count the ways)...but they do their thing and I do mine and it's OK...finally.

My question is, why couldn't I have been given the benefit of the doubt? Why assume that I married for money? Why is it so inconceivable that I found their dad immensely attractive and that the 20-year age difference was of no concern to either of us? We both felt their stinging rejection so strongly. It's still hard to forget.
(Obviously.)

I have never seen the need for their behavior. I know it was based on concern for my husband's welfare but he is very cogent and bright; totally capable of making up his own mind and following though without the need to ask anyone's permission. I still see their solicitous disregard (there's an oxymoron) as not only unnecessary but insulting to the man who loves them, dearly.

I want to finish this post by commending my husband for his quiet and unspoken, yet none-the-less fierce loyalty to me. Before we married, we discussed his grown kids and mine.  He assured me that all his kids wanted was for him to be happy. Maybe that was true, but alone and counting what money he had wasn't his definition of happy...it was theirs. When their rejection of me became readily apparent, he took the stand that I was his priority and those who didn't respect that could go their own way because nothing they could say or do would change his position. SouthernBelle

[Prissy]

Hi SouthernBelle,

I don't know why people don't give a person a chance but I can relate to your story too!!

I had 4 Step-Mothers, none of them wanted us, my father's children. One of them made my brother sleep outside when my father was away. On the ground, without cover.  They would take us at first and then give us back to our Grandparents.  After awhile, we just stayed with our Grandparents.  We never knew what our father was going to do.  He was a mean man.

I think Step-Mothers get a terrible rap, though. Some of them can be great and you sound like one of them.  My hat is off to you!  It takes a lot of love for your husband to love his children, especially when you're not being loved back.

I know of one Step-Mother who came into a family and was treated so badly that I could not believe it!  Her husband's kids were older and yes, they thought she was there for the money.

She is a most loved woman by them now. She took a lot of hateful and rude remarks from his grown kids.  His parents were really great to her and I know that made her husband grateful. 

Now, she is loved by her Step Daughter's child so much!  And, both grown kids adore her.  It can happen.

As to why people don't give Step-Mothers a chance?  I don't know the answer to that.  Cinderella story?  The wicked Step-Mother?  Could be.  Whatever it is, it needs a lot of re-visiting. 

Congratulations on your victory. 

[luise.volta]

Welcome to our Growing Clan, SouthernBelle. I can't understand adult children acting like that. Little kids fearing step-mom's, yes...look at what Prissy had to put up with and go through...all with no rhyme or reason. How terrible for her to have suffer such neglect.

But when the "kids" are grown, gone from home and on their own, whose business is it, anyway?  How stupid and disgusting. You made lemonade out of lemons but it cost you big time. Forgiveness is written all over your post but so is hurt. How totally unnecessary. On the other hand, it's great that your guy was worth it! Did his kids ever have the decency to apologize? Did they learn anything? Blessings, Luise

[Alicev]

Hi SouthernBelle!

Thanks for sharing your story. To answer your question: I don't know why. But I know that whatever you had to go through and put up with, work through, etc. have played a part in you becoming who you are right now. It was one thing in your life path that perhaps was meant to be there for you to grow individually.

I have come to a point in my life where I try to practice gratitude for all that has happened in my life. All the good and all the bad - all of it has shaped me into what I am now. I could not have made it without both - the bad and the good.

[luise.volta]

OMG! Thinking...thinking...feeling your anguish...feeling...feeling...