my husband's baby

Hi Olivia, thanks for your reply. It's more about the extra weekends per month for me than moving to the Netherlands.

Hi Anoniem,

Oh man, and here I am complaining that my stepson lives 1.5 hours away and needs to be picked up every weekend.
Fortunately, we usually drive halfway to meet him.
I sometimes also find it annoying that our Friday and Sunday evenings are "gone" for a large part...
On the other hand, I would drive halfway around the world for my daughter (who lives only half an hour away), so I just tell myself that.
I know myself how it feels when your child doesn't live with you, and therefore I enjoy the time we do have together even more.
Our relationship and our baby together are very important, but so are our kids from our previous marriages.

I understand that it's difficult, I experience that myself regularly, but our rule is: kids always come first...

Strength, girl, I hope you figure it out for yourself.

Kind regards, Dani

Hi Olivia, it's quite something that your husband "unconsciously let the contact with his own children fade away." That's pretty intense; they're his kids, I don't understand how that can happen. But well, that's personal!
And that you personally think "I can still be at least 3 years younger" is quite a personal remark, and I think you judge pretty quickly. But that's each person's own thing!
Thanks, ladies, for the advice and tips. My husband and I think we'll figure it out.

Dear Anonymous,

Responses are personal by nature, just like your comment "strange that he let the contact fade without realizing it." I don't see any judgment anywhere, and I wish you both lots of success.

Kind regards, Dani

Hi Anoniem,

I’m also a stepmom here, but with my stepchild 1.5 hours away. I’m also heavily pregnant now and sometimes get quite drained by the stepchild issues. Our current discussion is mostly about what to do when labor starts while the stepmom is here, since I don’t want her present at the birth (just like my parents, brother, sister, girlfriend, etc.). The dad is making a big deal out of it and keeps giving evasive answers. I know I’m reacting somewhat hormonally and maybe wanting to settle this definitively too much and too often. Maybe that’s playing a role in your situation too?

On the other hand, I think it’s important for you two to make good arrangements about this. It’s not an easy situation, and I feel your man needs to take a clear stance. In my opinion, this isn’t something you should leave to drift for too long. Seems like a lot of stress for you right now, and you just can’t use that. I’d emphasize that, while knowing that the world could look very different in 3 years’ time...

Good luck!!

Hi Anonymous, my due date is late October – so it’s getting closer. And just like you, I’m terrible with planning, and my partner isn’t either. Although secretly I think he’s not being straightforward now because he doesn’t want to tell his ex that maybe the stepchild really shouldn’t come for a weekend after all... Meanwhile, it turns out the ex has already made other plans for that exact weekend. I don’t think that’s very smart, but even better is that the partner then tells the ex that it’s no problem at all if the stepchild stays an extra day with us. Grrrrrrrrr....... I get tired of this sometimes. While at the same time I think: let’s just sort it out and make arrangements now, so we’re not caught off guard when labor starts. But anyway, I’ll talk to him about it again – see where it leads. And we indeed don’t have any family nearby where the stepchild could go. Leaving them alone here is definitely not an option.

I do feel that things suddenly become sensitive again with the arrival of my own baby. I normally don’t have a problem adapting completely to the stepchild’s schedule, but now I just don’t feel like it (yay, long live the hormones). And secretly I really feel (even more hormones) that I’m right here. The stepchild comes on weekends and during holidays – I have no say in that. That’s fine, we just plan around it, but now I really feel I should have some influence on the schedule. I really get anxious at the thought of the stepchild being here while the contractions start..... I also really want the birth to be a moment for my partner and me, I don’t know if this is a guilty feeling, but I can’t stand the thought of the stepchild (who by the way is a very pleasant and easy child) being there. Grrrrr, it’s all so complicated.

By the way, how do you deal with your partner’s ex? Here there was also the question of – if the stepchild indeed isn’t present at the birth – when she’s allowed to visit. Well, that can obviously happen very quickly, but my partner seems to assume that his ex will drop by with her. Well, I didn’t think so..........:-)

haha it’s like I wrote your story myself. I relate to everything you’re saying!!!! I also want the moment we bring our baby home to be just about us, and not have his daughter there right away. Of course she can come over shortly after, since she’s family, but because she’s so young, you have to give her attention too, of course; my husband needs to give her attention because she’s his daughter...but I do too.... I think it’s really hard not to be there at that moment. haha. Yeah, I totally get what you mean. I keep things very superficial with my husband’s ex, nothing special. I basically never see her. But now suddenly they’re asking if we can add a step-sibling weekend, like an extra weekend per month: “preferably not” if you ask me...the tricky part is....she is his daughter. But I feel like weekends and holidays are more than enough. I also think that when I’m about to give birth, I should have a say in what happens. The downside is; my husband always picks up his daughter. (3 hours there and 3 hours back) even though he chose the divorce, even though we’re the ones living so far away, I don’t get why they can’t sometimes meet halfway or split the trip. I can be bothered by it, but it’s something I have to accept. And my husband is someone who avoids arguments and always tries to understand.....except for me sometimes- it’s probably the hormones, but still.....it’s just hard. I’m due at the end of November and I’m already stressing about it. I really don’t want to think about giving birth on Thursday and him picking up his daughter on Friday.....(he’d be away from home for about 8 hours) and besides that....I just want some peace with my husband and our baby!! Is that too much to ask?

Hi Anonymous,

Just wanted to send a quick update. My little girl was born in the meantime—she’s truly the most beautiful baby in the world, and everything is going well. The birth itself didn’t go exactly as I’d hoped, but my partner was really happy with it. So I’ve decided not to dwell on it; it’s done now and can’t be changed anyway.

Before she was born, I basically had to put a knife to my partner’s throat to make sure he had arrangements in place in case our girl decided to arrive during the “step-weekend.” I really had to insist that he keep his dad, ex, and the ex’s new partner on standby. He’d mentioned it once before but never actually made plans with those people. Well, he did eventually sort it out.

Honestly, I’d have preferred the step-weekend not to happen, because I just didn’t feel comfortable with it for some reason. The moral of the story is that I’ll always trust my intuition from now on—because, of course, our girl chose that exact weekend to arrive.

In the end, we went to the hospital together with the step-family, and the step-grandpa picked up the step-kids there. I found this really unpleasant and upsetting, but on the other hand, I was already pretty wiped out from the contractions and didn’t catch everything anyway. The next day, my hospital room was full of visitors, and it turned out the step-kids had also been brought back by the step-grandpa and were sleeping with us. As a result, I had way too many visitors on the first day, and my partner didn’t really get to be alone with me and our little girl. He’d arranged it that way so we could “just get it over with.”

Looking back, it wasn’t a great weekend, but luckily I can easily let it go now that I have my little girl—so I’m completely happy about that!!!

I hope you’ve been able to make good arrangements with your partner in the meantime and that you’re both fully prepared... (or that your baby has already arrived and everything went well). Will you be posting an update again?

Hi Bouncy Ball! Congratulations on the birth!
My son was born on November 12th too! I actually had a pretty good delivery and, luckily... I was alone with my husband. But.. on Sunday he had to take the baby back home (a trip of 6 hours in total) and on Monday I (very coincidentally!!) gave birth. We were lucky enough to enjoy it together though, but I gave birth in less than 2 hours, so my husband made it just in time since he was at work when I called to say I was having contractions. (I was already at 9cm dilation by then!)
I can totally imagine that you had a ''less nice'' delivery experience because your man wasn't there for you the next day. That sounds super annoying, really. Luckily your girl is healthy and safe!

A bit of a late reply, but first of all, I want to congratulate you on the birth of your little ones. We also have a blended family. I have 2 kids from a previous marriage, and my partner has 2 kids from a previous relationship. Together we have a son who is now 3 years old, and now I'm pregnant with our second child together. We knew what we were getting into beforehand, and everything went smoothly. When our son was born, we immediately involved all the kids. Unfortunately, my partner's kids have now been kept away from us for over 2 years. They've moved and we don't know where they live. We've been going through legal proceedings for 2 years now, and it's terrible that we don't have the girls with us on weekends and during holidays. You can't imagine how much sorrow this causes us all. We used to be a big family, going on vacation together, doing things together, etc. We would do anything to see them again, to hug them and spend time with them. But so far, no success. Nevertheless, as a family, we've been keeping a diary for the girls for 2 years, documenting everything we wanted to share with them. So that hopefully, when we can finally hold them in our arms again, they can read back what has happened all those years. Now there's another little one coming, and they don't even know about it. That hurts. We never talk about stepchildren. They are our children, and that's a choice we made back then. So now we have 5 together, and number 6 is on the way. It's always a difficult situation when you enter a relationship where there are already children, and it's different for everyone. And everything has to click. But it's give and take. Anyway, I wish you all the best with everything. Enjoy your little ones.

Oh Renate,
That's really tough having to miss your kids, such a horrible situation.
It's great that you keep a diary; at least they'll know you were always there for them and cared about them.
I imagine your husband misses his girls even more now that there's a new baby around?
We're a bit anxious about that too, even though we're lucky enough to see our kids regularly.

It's definitely give and take, as you write, and you only realize what you're missing when it's gone.

Hi Hi Bouncy Ball,

You can always ask if the ex has a reason for keeping the kids away, but the answer is No, we wouldn't know why. In the first year we were together, the girls just came here to our home, they slept here, had their own rooms here, went on vacation with us, etc. So it's a mystery to us.

My partner always called them every week, and at some point he called again on the usual day, and then she picked up and said they don't want to see or talk to you anymore? To which my partner said, oh then I'd like to hear that from them directly if that's allowed. She said, I already told you they don't want anything to do with you. Well, then you can go crazy, but that doesn't help. My partner then hired a lawyer, and it's been going on for 2 years now.

But I read in your post that you say about reacting to jealousy that you don't have that feeling at all.

But I don't quite understand that part, because I don't think I ever talked about that.

Anyway, I'm glad everything is going well for you, together with your stepchild.
It's not always easy, I understand that too.

Have a nice weekend
Greetings Renate74

Who's reacting like a bouncy ball to my comment?
It was also stated that I might be interpreting it wrong, and I'm sorry that's the case!

Moving on to independence: no, I don't find it weird at all that a 9-year-old can shower and dress themselves.
I think my daughter was 5 when she wanted to do that herself (I kept a close eye on her, extra supervision) but it went so well that she did it quite quickly on her own, just like dressing etc.

I also sometimes run into things where I think: goodness, he shouldn't do/say that to me, I wouldn't put up with that.
On the other hand, the friend sees his son every weekend but has to miss a lot of him, and it's very hard to parent a child in a weekend while other things are allowed at home during the 5 days after.
Regarding time together: I enjoy that here too, that's during the week so that's the case.
We never had to have a weekend off together, I had to get used to that though. But later when our own little one is here, we'll never have that either.
I've experienced both: during my marriage, plenty of dates and appointments to go to, I was extremely unhappy, now little time together but very happy with everything I have.

Blended families remain very difficult, I'll be honest, I find it very sad that my daughter has to go through this too.....

I also have a blended family. I have two kids of my own and my partner has one. I have co-parenting and my partner's child lives with us. So if I get pregnant and give birth, she'll just be there and loved just like my kids from my ex. Not during the actual birth though. Only my partner will be there for that. But I think there's nothing more beautiful than coming home with your new baby to the family. Everyone is important after all.

You know beforehand that your new partner has kids and they're part of the package and you can't just push them aside.

Sorry, sis, but I'm going to react very bluntly right now. That last comment of yours is really the number one platitude. Of course you know beforehand that your partner has kids, but it often takes months/years before it's clear how he handles certain things, how the dynamics are, and where the sensitivities lie. It takes an average of 7 years for a new blended family to fully 'settle', and that's not for nothing. And I don't think anyone here on this topic wants to just push the stepchildren aside, and there are many stepmothers who are doing their absolute best for their husband's children.

However, it's quite normal that you sometimes only want to share things with your partner, simply because he's your partner. And as a stepmom, you weren't there for the birth of the stepchild anyway... Let's not be so panicky about wanting to share everything, but also realize that there are sometimes things we do apart.

And what makes a huge difference in my opinion: I didn't have kids when I started this blended family, and that's quite a different situation than when you both bring children into a new family.

I totally agree with you about the bouncy ball! My parents are also divorced.. and with my real dad I suddenly got 2 older brothers..
and believe me, it wasn't always that easy, neither for me nor for my dad, my stepmom and my stepbrothers!!
I was 7 then and didn't go to my dad for a year when I was 13 because I was so fed up with everything there.. always arguing about the 3 of us or between the 3 of us...
Now I went back when I was 14 for 14 days and I have to say the bond my oldest stepbrother and I have now is indescribable! The bond between stepmom and stepdaughter has also improved a lot!!
It all takes its time! And it takes a while before you really realize how and what everyone reacts in a new blended family!

It's like mixing water and wine from both sides!!

@Anoniem,
hopefully you'll figure it out, girl, it's not that simple at all, right!
Especially not when you live so far from your motherland.
Talk a lot in a calm way and you'll get there, girl!
Wishing you lots of success!!

Love

Sorry, maybe that was a bit unnuanced of me. My apologies for that. But what I really resent is all the prejudice against stepmothers. My husband's daughter always lives with us and goes to her mom on weekends. To me, it feels like she's being pushed aside by her mother. That's probably why I react so strongly.

Of course, we also don't always have it easy, and I do understand that, but I try to put myself in the child's shoes too. She'll have to share a lot of attention soon. That's not a bad thing, but I don't want her to feel like she's being left out because of this. Even though I often feel like, "Do I really have to?" Yes, I do, so...

I shouldn't have made that comment either. Sometimes I still struggle with it myself...

I'm also a stepdaughter, so I have experience with this, but I was incredibly lucky with my stepdad and his kids. Except for one, but he never lived with us. So, in that regard, I know what I'm talking about, but I guess I've been pretty lucky.

Also here a blended family. But in this case three children, of which I am the mother and the oldest is from another father. So I'm looking at it from the other side instead of the step-parent side. I would find it terrible if my husband said he wouldn't want my oldest son with him at the birth. It would feel to me like I'd have to choose. I'm not saying that's the case, but deep down it feels that way. If you're going for a second child, you still don't want to keep your own baby away at birth, do you? I understand that you don't want them at the delivery. But personally, I would find it terrible if my oldest son didn't see his new little brother first, but other people were in front of him. I think brothers have a closer bond than grandma or grandpa. But again, this is viewed from the other side. I find it an interesting topic because this way I get more understanding of how the step-parent side looks at it.