Blended Family

[Zipora]

Seeking balanced recommendations.

My husband and I have been married for 2-yrs. We both have been married before and have children from past relationships. Currently, my 14-yr old son and his 14-yr old daughter live with us. While my son has challenged things at time, the major concern is with respect to my 14-yr old stepdaughter who is rude, displays poor manners, argumentative, non-compliant and uncooperative. She seldom responds to requests or instructions from me, and whenever I address a situation with her, my husband interferes and is non-supportive.  Further, he has criticized my approach, and in turn openly stated in her presence that he does not see it the way I do.  As a result, her hostility and inappropriate behavior has increased.

On two separate occasions with two different adults, she has stated that she is going to do whatever she can to break her father and I up.  99.9% of our marital disputes have been over the children, specifically his daughter. Her behavior is beyond normal teenage attitude.

My step-daughter has had past experiences prior to my involvement in her life in which I believe are very real factors in how she is behaving. In her mother’s care, she has been sexually active, has had little to no supervision, no family structure, and not provided with even the most basic of decorum. While our home has the potential to present a much more stable and structured environment, my husband appears to be shying away from really addressing these issues.

When my husband and I travel, we take the children to their perspective parents. During our trips together, my step-daughter calls excessively, sometimes 8-10 times/day to talk to him about this or that. I realize she’s being manipulative, yet he sees no problem with it. This situation alone is stressful. Coupled with other past relationships involving children and mothers excessive calling, text messaging, and emailing numerous times a day, sometimes makes things pretty challenging. Please help!

[Momtoteenboys]

Is your husband open to family counseling?  That would be a start.

[nanatraci]

Well it sounds to me like you love your new husband alot. FOr the cord I have 4 teens 15-19 and a new and younger than I step Dad. I totally believe that you need to have a VERY serious discussion with hubby. The first thing he needs to remember is you and he are going to be together forever...hopefully, and your relationship must come before the children. When they have grown and gone you will be left with each other. Second he must realize that he is patterning how his daughter will treat you....if he is rude and non-respecting of you...who the hell is going to teach her to be polite and caring towards you. If he disagrees then he MUST do it else where. And you know even if he does dis-agree sometimes....he needs to let you establish that you are a parent in that house to. SO sometimes it just has to ride. As for her constant calling when you are apart from her...he is her grounding and she feels unsafe...this I understand. But Daddy must set some limits and let her know that you as just as important if not more on some lvls. Finally my dear...you may have to consider that if he will not go half way or "for you" then maybe a different choice of mate, as you are also patterning what a woman behaves like in a relationship and your son is seeing how he can treat a woman as he watches you be treated that way. Your son is learning that if it is good enough for Mom then my wife will be OK with this sort of behaviour as well.I wish you the very best my dear. Please send a message if you want to talk more.

[Zipora]

Nanatraci,

Thank you so much for your response. I believe that I am paying for the hurt other women have cause him and for the relationship that he had with his mother growing up. Any suggestions or recommendations are viewed as an attempt to control him, and any concerns raised regarding the accessive calls, emails and text messages from his children's mothers are viewed as me being insecure.

I have been rethinking quite a bit. I definitely want my son to treat his wife and women in general with respect, honor and kindness. My husband wants respect and accuses me of not respecting him all of the time. However, he is comparing me to how other women have catered to him. While I am willing to take care of my husband, I am not willing to cater to destructive or inappropriate behavior. Nor am I willing to condone disrespect.

To me he sends mixed messages. Yet, I believe the mixed messages are a result of the other influences in his life. I am my husband's third wife and I believe he is truly a beautiful person, yet I believe he struggles with understanding the role of marriage, husband and wife. I believe he desires a strong marriage, but he has so many other influences that I believe negatively impacts our relationship. He holds on to his past and what he is used to and expects things to be the way they were before me. I believe that he operates out of guilt when dealing with his children's mothers and thus permits their manipulations to the point that it becomes disrespectful and dishonoring of our marriage and dishonors me as his wife. I have seen changes, but I do pray nantraci that Almighty God guides me and gives me the wisdom, as I am striving to be the virtuous woman the Bible talks about.

I look forward to dialogue and balanced solutions. God bless.

P.S. My husband and I had an exchange this evening. We are traveling and 3 of his children are with us and his mother and my son. The exchanged occured in front of my 14-year old son and his 14-year old daughter. Once his mother arrived and after intereaction with his other children. He offered to run his mother a bubble bath. It perturbed me, and maybe it shouldn't have, but it did. His mother and I have a good relationship. However, I do believe that my husband struggles with establishing healthy boundaries with respect to his mother, his children's mother, his children and his friend and business associates. I want my marriage to work. Yet, I want to make sure that I am being balanced as well.

[thykingswife]

I have had these same issues in the past with my husband as we too are a blended family. This is not an easy life for there is soooooo much hurt involved in divorce for everybody involved. It took me the first four years and alot of confrontation for me to realize that first and formost -I am lovable- and second, this means everybody else is lovable too but they may not know it . So... I based every word every action every gesture every look coming from me on the challenge to let them know how lovable they are. It is testing and it is seldom rewarded right away but they started to respond slowly in small ways they started to not be able to help themselves. I am talking about 5 spoiled little butthead step kids that I love with everything in me every day. and after three more years of relentless kindness, my children show me love and respect and my husband is my night in shining armor. It took tenacity and work but it was worth it. Healing is the key and someone has to show the way.  And of course I had an open ended prayer gong on with God. Thanking him constantly for the patince that I know hes going to give me at the very moment that I need it. And than thanking him for doing so. You can do this or you can start all over again and for me that seemed like more work than this. Kill them with kindness I always say. I said it many times a day. and it worked out not just for me but for their lives too. It is not all about us moms. We wouldn't even be moms without our babies so... be the mom.