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My friend recently referred to her husband's "ex step-daughter"--the young woman is the daughter of my friend's husband's first wife but this man has been an important part of her life since she was very very young. Just because the mother and her step father got divorced does that make him her ex step father and her his ex step daughter?
I think she (my friend) is trying to provide as much distance between them as she can and she is jealous. She isn't mean to her but i can tell by her tone she resents the continued relationship.
I know the young lady still thinks of the man as her step father and that is good in my eyes.
I would never say anything to anybody in this situation but i was wondering what others think. Does a divorce mean the step parent and child are no longer ...well... step anything?
My father is deceased, but my step-mom is still my step-mom even if she marries someone else. Right now she lives with someone, and when I refer to "my step-mom and her partner" people do often do a little double take at that, but it seems the best way to describe them for me. Similarly, if my mother and step-father were to get divorced, I would still consider him my step-father since he has been that since I was a young child.
I think that sometimes when people don't have these type of relationships themselves, they often don't really understand them. My in-laws seem confused about blended families. Their daughter's husband has various types of siblings including a brother, a step-brother, and a half-brother, and my in-laws will ask him which one is his "real" brother, assuming that is the only one that "counts" or something. Some people think that only blood makes a family, but we understand that love makes a family.
I think in this situation each relationship is different. I have a friend whose step-dad is still her father in her eyes after 30 years. He is remarried and they still talk all the time. I don't think this is something you can put a blanket on.
I think in this situation each relationship is different. I have a friend whose step-dad is still her father in her eyes after 30 years. He is remarried and they still talk all the time. I don't think this is something you can put a blanket on.
I agree.
I attended a wedding a few years ago where the groom had three fathers in the receiving line with his mother. His biological father (married briefly to his mom), his first step-father (married about a dozen years to his mom, while he was growing up) and his current step-father (married to his mom when he was about 17 or 18).
All three fathers also sat at the head table next to each other (the current husband next to his wife, the mother of the groom).
I attended a wedding a few years ago where the groom had three fathers in the receiving line with his mother. His biological father (married briefly to his mom), his first step-father (married about a dozen years to his mom, while he was growing up) and his current step-father (married to his mom when he was about 17 or 18).
All three fathers also sat at the head table next to each other (the current husband next to his wife, the mother of the groom).
I attended a wedding a few years ago where the groom had three fathers in the receiving line with his mother. His biological father (married briefly to his mom), his first step-father (married about a dozen years to his mom, while he was growing up) and his current step-father (married to his mom when he was about 17 or 18).
All three fathers also sat at the head table next to each other (the current husband next to his wife, the mother of the groom).
IMO, it's not "love" that makes a family, it's commitment. "Love" is a thing that people feel, until they don't. Commitment is a thing people do, regardless of how they feel (many people have situations where they are taking care of family members that they do not "love", perhaps who they intensely dislike for one reason or another - but they do it because they are committed - that's family). Because I feel this way about commitment, I do not call just anyone family, but only those to whom I would make such commitment (of course, there are other people who I am very close to, who I consider to be terribly close friends and I care about deeply - but friends aren't family just because I "love" them).
When I was young my mother married (and divorced) a few times. I always referred to them as "my mother's husband", because I wanted to make clear that they were nothing to me. My biological father (useless human being) I always referred to as the "sperm donor" because blood isn't enough to get you counted as family, either. You have to own the position, or you forfeit it.
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I still call my step-daughter as such. I married her father when she was 10. He died in 2001. Nowadays she lives in NYC, but still comes to see me during the summer and at Christmas. Her mother, my late husband's first wife, comes to Christmas dinner with us.
From a purely technical definition stand-point, she would be an ex-step-daughter. No clue about the family dynamics, so don't know if they mean anything negative by it.
I refer to my mom's 2nd husband, who raised me from 16 months until 11 years old, as my "ex-step father" when I talk to people about him. My daughter had a gymnastics meet a couple of months ago in Dallas, and my mom and I had a tiff, so I called and stayed at his house with my 2 kids instead of a hotel. I actually asked his wife if we could stay. I've known her since I was 13-14ish. When I talk about her to people, I call her my "ex-step father's wife". We still talk, mostly on facebook and when I need tax questions answered, but he's still the "ex-step father".
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