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In our case it did. I married my current husband of 31 years when my older son was 4 years old. Having divorced his father who had decided to beat the child into being a man. Where I come from, you don't do that! He also didn't do very well in holding a job. So, when I married, it was with the understanding that I would discipline my son. My ex-husband didn't make child support payments although we did hit him much later for some of it. Both myself and my husband worked and supported the son and adopted another son a few years later. We were a functioning family and almost everyone always believed that both children were our biological children. My husband never adopted our older son because he didn't want to give up his name but he was a father in every other way. You sometimes wonder what the kids thought of the way they grew up and we got a chance to hear that when the older son said that he found a lady that had a young son and he was going to marry her and he said "It will be just like you and ****." I was pleased to hear that he had no problem creating a family like the one he grew up in. Funny, I was estranged from my biological mother from a young age and I think it would have been a blessing if my dad would have replaced her.
I've seen lots of really strained step-parent relationships, and very few "good" ones. A man I know officially adopted his wife's kid, after the deadbeat babydaddy relinquished custody, and that's a very tight family now.
Our is decidedly not a completely blended family. I had five children, two still with their mother when I remarried several years after divorce. My wife had two grown daughters. The oldest of them hated me right from the start because she thought her mother shouldn't be married to anyone but her father even though they'd been divorced for 18 years.
To cut to the chase now 17 years later (10years longer than my wife was married to her daughters' father), my oldest stepdaughter still hates me and she is not welcome in our home. The younger daughter loves me. As for my five children, my sons, the oldest two and their wives love my wife and she is their children's' grandma. My oldest daughter hates my wife because she won't put up with her crap (I don't either). Middle daughters is ambivalent and youngest daughter likes her a lot and she's Grandma to her son and stepdaughter. My ex is totally out of the picture but for my middle daughter.
My girlfriend has 4 siblings. Their biological father died when she and her sister were in their late teens. The three youngest don't even remember their biological father. Their mother met their stepfather who was divorced with three children of his own. His ex wife estranged him from his children.
He is now 84 and for all intents and purposes they are his children. They call him dad and, on a Fathers Day years ago, one of the younger children gave him a plague with the certificate showing he legally changed his last name to the Step Fathers name.
My girlfriend has 4 siblings. Their biological father died when she and her sister were in their late teens. The three youngest don't even remember their biological father. Their mother met their stepfather who was divorced with three children of his own. His ex wife estranged him from his children.
He is now 84 and for all intents and purposes they are his children. They call him dad and, on a Fathers Day years ago, one of the younger children gave him a plague with the certificate showing he legally changed his last name to the Step Fathers name.
So it does work...depends on the step parent.
It also depends on the child(ren) and the other parents.
My stepmother was a wonderful woman, I had her in my life since I was 4. I saw her as my own mother, couldn't wait to plan my wedding with her around, etc. She supported me and taught me a lot about life. Unfortunately we lost her YOUNG to cancer last year, but I just loved that woman. She was one of my best friends. My step siblings, I'd put a lot on the line for them. I love my whole family so much! Thank God her and my father got married, they are what I want my future marriage to be.
FYI, they came together with a lot of awful circumstances going on, so we went through a lot together. There was a good two year period where I wasn't speaking with my father. She brought us back together. I hope to see her again someday.
I recently met a few couples who told me they were in life-long committed relationships, but would not marry/live together until their kids had gone to college. In one case there is only a 16 year old daughter left at home, and she is a sperm donor baby so no dad in the picture! but they are still waiting. They just felt that to expect their kids to adapt to step families for the sake of their marriage was not fair.
It definitely gave me food for thought! My own kids are 13 and 16, so I suppose if I meet someone in the next 5 years, I could be making the same decision. I wanted very badly for my kids to have the nuclear family life they were supposed to have, but I don't know if even Mr. Right could make that happen for us. I worry that if my girls go to college before I meet him, they will never be close to him and we won't feel like a family.
My own ex has just married a very nice widow with two kids. I think they are a good match for each other. They bought a five bedroom house so no one has to share. But Ex is kinda forcing the issue IMHO, telling my kids that they should be supportive of his new marriage, pressuring them to spend time as a family of 6 when my girls (esp Youngest) still want the Daddy time they've missed out on. He travels a lot for work so I have no idea how he thinks he'll have time for them all. I've been very supportive of it all...much easier to do now that the original 'other woman' is out of the picture. I just keep praying that it will all smooth out in time.
Most of the bad stepfamily stories I hear involve people who were dysfunctional before they attempted to blend.
My oldest son (now 63 years old), is my step son. Before we married, we agreed in our home there was no such thing as step members of the family. He was 3 when we married, and have been married 61 years.
There was no difference between him and our 4 children. Our children are all close, and feel they are all true brothers and sisters.
It depends on the attitude you foster in the home, to make good a step family relationship.
From personal experience, no they do not work out. My mother was a step-mother to my fathers sons and they treated her horribly, outright abusively. This is one of the biggest reasons I will not date/marry someone with children.
I have never understood these situations- why in the WORLD would your mothers husband allow his children to be abusive to his WIFE? I'd throw the whole bunch out- husband first.
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Funny, I was estranged from my biological mother from a young age and I think it would have been a blessing if my dad would have replaced her.
I'd throw the whole bunch out- husband first.
