Member Advice on Being a Step Parent

Author's product rating:   

Effectiveness

Advantages:	Can Be Very Rewarding, You Can Get Lots More Love, You Can Help The Children Grow
Disadvantages:	Can Be Very Hard Work, The Children Can Be Resentful, Ex - Partners Can Make Life Difficult

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I have been a stepparent for the last 13 years and although I can’t say unlucky 13, I’ve had more up’s and downs than a championship yoyo!

My story is quite a long one and it has caused me many a year of heartache, desperation, excitement and happiness. The array of emotions that you go through when being a stepparent is countless, the number of sleepless nights you may have are countless, the amount of love you may receive is immeasurable but the amount of hard work you have to put in is enormous.

This is no disrespect to the children and I will tell you about them shortly and not everyone will have the same difficulties that I have experienced. I think that one of the most important factors is how easy or how difficult the ex-partner and parent of the stepchildren makes it. In my case it has been a living nightmare, not just for me but also for my husband and the children themselves. This is my story………

I met my husband at work on 1987, we were both married to different people at the time but we both had difficulties in our current relationships. My marriage was violent and his marriage was already on the verge of breakdown. To cut a long story short his wife used to spend all his money, not pay the rent, get in debt etc and he found this difficult to cope with. I had no children and this turned out to be a blessing as the marriage was to end after he went to far head butting me one night. My current husband (Peter) had already separated from his wife after trying again and having another child. He now had 2 children, a boy of six months and a girl of three. We used to talk through our problems at work and we grew very close, this was difficult as my ex husband also worked with us (that’s another story) but one new years eve I phoned Pete to say happy new year and he invited my down to the pub as I was on my own. This was the start of our relationship and the beginning of my nightmare……..

I never really considered the impact that him having children would have on our relationship, I knew that I loved him, that he was a kind and gentle man and that I would do anything for him. I remember the first time I met his daughter Natalie and feeling extremely jealous of their relationship. I know I am not alone in this and it is quite common but you can’t help feeling ashamed that you are jealous of a helpless child. I didn’t see his son Luke for a while as he was only a baby and his mother would not let him go and stay with Pete. Everything was going fine until she found out a bout me. Suddenly she wanted her husband back and nothing was going to get in her way…….

She tried many things like taking an overdose and refusing to go home to look after the children unless Pete moved back home. It was very difficult for him but we knew he couldn’t give in to blackmail. When she did go back home she saw a solicitor and tried to stop me from seeing the children, coming out with all sorts of lies about my husband and me. I decided to lay low for a while, as it was important that he continued to see the children as much as possible. Many a time he would turn up to see them and she would refuse, the police were called but they could do nothing. She didn’t want him but she didn’t want anyone else to have him and she was determined to make our life hell and use the children to hurt Pete in any way she could. We attended countless court appearances and I was with him every step of the way. I am telling you all this and the background as when you get in a to a relationship with someone who has children it is important to understand how this can affect you. The children come first and they should do. Every time you see your partner cry because they can’t see their children, every time they are hurting because they know that they aren’t being looked after, it hurts you to. You hurt for the children and you hurt for your partner, you have to be strong for everyone and you have to be very supportive. Even when you may be receiving abusive telephone calls and letters form their ex, as I was, you still have to be strong for them. What do you do though when you are told that the children are being ill treated and not being looked after and that a new man has taken over the role of daddy? How do you support your partner knowing what they must be going through? This is what in did…..

I knew that we had to go for custody of the children. His ex wives own mother came to us and told us to get the children, she told us some horrible things. Now when you first start a relationship with someone who you know has children but they don’t live with them, I don’t think you ever fully consider that things might change. That one day they might want to come and live with you or indeed have to for their own safety. I knew they weren’t my children and that it would be hard but I loved them just the same. I loved them not only because they were my husbands children but because of the people that they were. We applied for custody but we lost. We were told that although they would more than likely have a better life with us they couldn’t prove that their mother was mistreating them and therefore they should stay with her. Of course we were both devastated but not as devastated as when we went to see them for the access visit to find the house empty, they had gone, and we didn’t know where………….

It turns out they had moved to Scotland and as we live in Greater Manchester it was quite far away. My husband new that she had relatives up there but only knew their name and the area they lived in. Being the determined kind of person that I am I spent hours in the library looking through Scottish phone books. Searching endlessly in the hope that I would eventually track them down. I made a list of all the people in the area with the same name as her family and started to phone them one by one, ‘yes, who’s calling’ was the reply and then an argument and the phone going dead. I had found them, I can’t tell you how difficult this was but I had to do it, they were my husband’s children and not even their selfish mother was going to take them away from him. We contacted the police who could only go round and check that they were safe. Under the court order she shouldn’t have taken them out of the country and in Scotland they have different laws to us. This was the start of many legal proceedings that have gone on for years. She has moved all over the country to escape the debt that she gets herself in to. Each time we have more often than not had to track them down or as the children got older wait for a secret phone call from them to tell us where they are living. Eventually they came to live back in Manchester and by this time we had a child of our own We were hopeful, we could see them more often and I could now build a stronger relationship with my stepchildren…….

They used to come and stay with us every weekend. I so wanted them to be happy and I treated them like my own. We would buy the majority of their clothes and take them places that they otherwise would never go. We made sure they kept in regular contact with all the family and my own parents and brothers treated them the same as my own daughter. It was hard work; they were constantly fighting for the attention and claiming that we loved our daughter Elizabeth more than them. Of course this wasn’t true and we did everything we could to treat them equally but they were very insecure. We discovered that they would play us off against their mother and her partner and this caused a lot of friction. They would tell us that they get hit at home, locked in their bedroom and allsorts of horrible things. They would also go back to their mum and tell her things about us that weren’t true. We never knew what to believe. If I told them off for being naughty they would run and tell their mum and it was hard for me then not to keep blaming my daughter for the arguments, as it was easier to shout at her. I realised I was doing this sometimes, I found myself shouting at Elizabeth if they were all arguing or fighting as I was scared of them running to their mum and not coming back to visit us. It was blackmail in a sense and it took us a long while to stand up and say that we can’t let them get away with murder. I thought things were hard enough but they got even harder one year when we took them on holiday with us. This is what happened on our return…..

The children, Natalie and Luke said they didn’t want to go home to their mum. We thought this was because they had a good time on holiday and wanted the fun to continue. We asked them why and we were nearly sick at the things they told us. They told us about their mum constantly being beaten up by their stepfather and how they had to watch. How they were kept in their bedrooms after school and not fed properly. How their stepfather used drugs and would send them to buy it, at this time Luke was only 10. They wrote a letter detailing this and said if they were taken home they would run away. We contacted the police who initially wanted us to return them home; they said they would do it forcefully if necessary. We told them the situation and they were to get back to us. I don’t know what they found out but they were placed under a police protection order and allowed to stay with us. We explained to the children how upset their mum would be and that we would have to go to court. . That it would cost us hundreds if not thousands of pounds and that they had to be sure this was what they wanted. They said it was. We applied to the courts for interim residency and it was granted. We thought that this was now going to be the start of a stable life for them and we could get the family together. I would suddenly gain another two children and our daughter Elizabeth was to gain a full time brother and sister. Getting custody of Natalie and Luke meant a lot of changes had to be made, here’s what we had to do……

As my husband was working full time and I was only working part time it fell on me to do a lot of the sorting out. Firstly I had to find them both a school. Luke was at primary and Natalie was at secondary. Luke went to the same school as our daughter Elizabeth but he is 4 years older. You may know that school uniforms aren’t cheep and we had to buy him everything new. His first day was a nightmare. I couldn’t control his tears; he was trembling and could hardly breathe. He had been to so many different schools and he was very insecure. I couldn’t leave him as it was heartbreaking to see him so upset. They decided to let his older sister stay with him for the day as she wasn’t yet in school. He came home that day full of the joys and had made friends and was happy. I was so pleased. Natalie had to have an interview at the secondary school and again it was me who went with her. She was accepted and that meant more money had to be spent on uniforms etc. We had no savings and had to go in to debt for this. All our money was spent on the court costs in getting custody, a couple of thousand pounds. Natalie was doing ok at school but never really wanted to go, she was used to not attending school as her mother used to keep her at home to look after the two younger children she had from her current relationship. We were still confident that things would work out. It was a little strained at home as we were all getting used to a different way of life.

I had to arrange a new doctor and dentist for them. I had to contact the child benefit agency and the child support agency to make the necessary changes. The bedrooms had to be changed around and decorated as Luke was moving in to Elizabeth’s old room and he wanted a Manchester United theme. Lots of things had to be done but we did them. The most difficult thing was arranging contact with their mother as at first she said she didn’t want to see them. Eventually after a week or so she changed her mind and off they went. They came back a bit subdued and didn’t want to go again. We explained that they had to go as she had a court order granting access. They said their mother was trying to bribe them to go back home and as we only had an interim order it concerned us. We had yet to go back to court for full residency to be granted. A few weeks later when my husband went to collect them from their mums they wouldn’t come to the door. She said they didn’t want to come home and wanted to stay with her. He could see them crying at the window but he couldn’t get access. We called the police and they confirmed that the children missed their mum and wanted to stay with her. There was nothing we could do. All that hard work, all that money and it had been wasted. How was I going to tell my daughter Elizabeth that her brother and sister weren’t coming home, she was only five……

I am going to skip forward now in the hope that I still have your attention! We didn’t see them for a while as she moved away again and it was around 18 months ago that we had a call from Natalie saying they wanted to see us and that no one was going to stop them. They were getting older and braver. We have been seeing them on and off ever since and as they live 200 miles away it was mainly in the holidays. This year we decided that we would take them on holiday to Butlins with us (they have been coming on holiday many times before and she always stopped them from coming at the last minute) and we went to pick them on the Wednesday night before we were to travel on the Friday. Some of you may know that my brother in law died and it was his funeral on the Thursday. It should also have been my husbands 40th the Friday before but we were unable to celebrate due to the death of his brother. In am telling you this so that you can understand how my husband was feeling as his brother committed suicide. We hope the holiday would help him to get over what had happened, at least for a while anyway.

We arrived on the Friday and on the Sunday we had a phone call from his ex wife, the poor children’s mother! She claimed that her partner had beaten her up again and that she would have to move away. They currently lived in Redcar, Teeside that is about 2 hours drive away from where we live in Manchester. She said she was moving to a hostel in Preston. Although this is closer to where we live she kindly informed us that she was doing it that day. Natalie had to return to Redcar as she was sitting her GCSE exams. Her mother didn’t care. Natalie had to go and stay with a friend as the house she knew as home had been bolted up and she was not allowed access. All their possessions are in that house. Everything they own and all we had ever bought them. Natalie didn’t want to move as she has friends and a boyfriend in Redcar, she is 16 on 20th July 2002, in 2 weeks time. Luke is only 13 but did not want to live with his mum in a hostel. They literally only have the clothes that was packed away in the suitcase for the holiday. You can guess was about to happen? It was staring all over again. All we had been through before only to loose them, how are we going to get through this for a second time? How was my husband going to cope with this after loosing his brother? How was Luke going to cope with starting yet another new school? He had no choice if he stayed with his mother or came with us; he still had to start all over again.

I am now in the process of arranging a school for Luke (I’ve just had a phone call as I’m typing to say he has been found a place, phew!), buying him new clothes and a uniform, changing doctors and dentists. He has gone to see his mum for a few days and is coming back tonight, to live with us permanently. His mum is moving to another hostel at the other end of the country and it has been agreed that he needs his education. The only way he will get that is by living in a stable home with us.

Natalie hasn’t decided if she is to get a flat on her own when she is 16 or to come and stay with us. She will have to make her mind up soon as we will have to get her in to college and sort out the bedrooms etc. all over again. I will go to the ends of the earth for my husband, my daughter and my husband’s children too, they deserve so much more than they have had so far. Those of you that have read my op on marriage may now understand why there have been problems. We have been though so much, much more than I could ever tell you here. I hope I haven't put you off or made you think that being a stepparent is a total nightmare. I just think it's important to go in to it with your eye's open and be prepared for the unexpected.

We are about to embark on another new journey and who knows what heartache or joy it will bring, wish us luck.