I’ve been married for 8 years and have done everything I can to be a good father to my wife’s children from her previous relationship. Financially, it’s a huge burden, but I do it willingly. I’ve treated every child as my own, but the biggest pain for me is how my wife treats my son. She often seems to ignore him, acting as if he’s invisible. The breaking point came during her daughter’s birthday when I asked my son to join in for a family photo, but she stopped him and said, “Get out of the picture, I want one with just my kids.” …What happened next? Read the rest in the first comment… 👇👇
I’m really struggling here and starting to feel like I’m losing my mind. I think I’m being gaslit, so what better place to get some clarity than Reddit? Here’s the situation.
I’ve been married to my wife for 8 years, and on the whole, we have a good relationship.
She has four kids (two daughters, two sons, ages 11-16) from a previous relationship, and I have one son, who’s 10.
Since day one, I’ve treated her kids as my own and done my best to support the family.
Financially, it’s a big load, but I’m happy to do it. We live together in a five-bedroom house, where each of her daughters has their own room, her oldest son has his own, and her youngest son shares a room with my son.
The main issue—and what’s tearing me apart—is how she treats my son. She barely acknowledges him, rarely asks how he’s doing, and generally acts like he’s invisible. Tonight, it hit a breaking point. We were celebrating her daughter’s 11th birthday, and everyone was gathered to sing and take pictures.
I told my son to get in with the group for a picture, which seemed fine. But then, right after the group photo, my wife looked at my son and told him, “Get out of the picture, move to the side—I want one with just my kids.”
I felt like my heart shattered in that moment. I completely lost it. I told her that we’re supposed to be a blended family and that my son deserves to be treated like one of her own.
I feel like she’s drawing lines between “her” kids and “my” son, and it just doesn’t sit right with me.
For context, my son’s biological mom passed away two years ago, supposedly from Covid complications, though she had a history of drug problems that may have worsened things. My son only has my wife now as a mother figure. I’m terrified that this rejection from her is going to hurt him deeply and cause psychological damage.
Am I asking too much for her to treat him like part of the family? I don’t want to be overreacting, but the way she flat-out ignores him is painful to witness. AITA for expecting her to step up and include him?
shewill not change. Leave her. You will find a good woman out there. I’ve walked in your shoes it never stops hurting
Tell wifey and her crew to start packing. She is mean and vicious.
I have a similar situation, two families joined by the marriage of divorced parents. Well actually one parent is a widow, her husband was killed in an auto accident, not his fault. She has three kids, teenagers, and the male in my family has two kids, close in age so they blend well.
They openly will tell anyone, those are my brothers, even though they are not technically blood related. There was a ‘family’ party and during which the mother wanted all he kids in one photo. The first photo,his kids stayed out of, so that it was their family photo, but then the other kids wanted a photo of the entire family. Saying these are our brothers, we want them in our photos.
Part of me understands the separate photo thing, but do sense a bit of tension from the mother. Especially since she acts like he isn’t there most of the time. I suggest sitting down with her and discussing it, and finding out if there is a problem and if so what and why?
If necessary, I suggest a marriage counselor or something similar. It sounds like she has a problem, not necessarily with the son, but with the son is where she is showing her anger.
In an entirely different spot, I have or actually had, in laws, they ae all deceased. and the husband, after becoming widowered, moved to another state, met a woman his age, and they eventually married, This was his 2nd marriage, her 3rd.
Her first husband, they had five daughters, died, she remarried and he had two sons, adults who lived out of state.
He has three sons, my partner and his two younger brothers, all adults, with their own families
Step mother is difficult at best, four of her five daughters live in the same area and if they happen to go shopping and see her car in the parking lot, they go either somewhere else or come back later.
When we visited, she attempted to try this dominating maneuver with us and I politely informed her that neither of us needed her parenting, we were both, in our 30s, sucessfully employed .and very able to take care of our selves, We had both been taught how to do many things my our own mothers as we grew up. Thank You.
Bless her she backed off.
I think you should leave her. She should love your son like you love hers. Your son has done nothing wrong.