Man this is an old article and made the top of the google search! Good on you for that! However, I’m living in this dynamic now. My wife and I married in 2016. I had one son from my prior life who came to live with me that same year. She had two boys from her prior marriage. Together over the next 3 years we had 2 more boys together. Yes, this is the most complicated and probably worst possible blended situation. My oldest was new to the dynamic of brothers, new to the dad/step-mom full time dynamic, new place. I was new to the dynamic of having a wife and 3 (and soon a new born) boys living in the same house. We have made pretty much every single wrong turn you could make to this point. I was the strict ‘country / military man’ she was the ‘soccer / i live for my kids’ mom. We started off very near this dynamic, but she was unforgiving when it came to my oldest, and I was harder on her two than she liked. Basically my son ended up hating her because she was a stranger trying to be the boss, and her boys ended up hating me because she took the back seat when I stepped in. Today, my oldest has been gone for years, mostly estranged. She spends every waking minute capitulating to her oldest’s wants and I honestly cannot stand him or his entitled attitude because of her parenting style with him and the middle child. Though this ‘sounds’ like good advice, I would not recommend it, if you and your spouse have differing parenting styles, especially when it comes to being hard on a child to develop them into a tougher person, vs being soft on them to ensure they are loving and feel loved (by they are two sides of the same coin) you are fighting a VERY difficult and uphill battle. What has happened to us is the compromise lasted years and slowly developed into an avalanche of unresolved resentment. Maybe this would have been different had there been some very open communication about it, but in our situation it just fell in place. She claims she was ‘trying to just be a good christian wife’ and follow my lead, but that she was dying inside every time the boys didn’t get what they wanted, or had to do something they didn’t want to do.

misguided

he is not studying at all.

please help

Lapsus – There so many ways to handle this as each blended situation is different. This was the situation with me as my 2nd hubby was the more strict step parent and I was the more lenient bio parent. I *chose* to support his needs and ideas privately so we could have a united front. I also protected him as the step parent by implementing (his) more strict ideas to keep him from having to be the bad guy or facing “You’re not my dad and I don’t have to listen to you” types of possibilities.

It doesn’t work. Now the kids have to deal with an overbearing dad AND a strict mom. It doesn’t help him to stop being so emotionally mean to them.

I appreciate you sharing your situation and your feelings. Truly , thank you. I could completely relate to your feelings of frustration and emotional despair, while still continuing to be a good mom to your kids. I am in a similar situation with the other parent always redirecting and dismissing the real issue at hand, in exchange for dumping the motive for good behavior as being to avoid getting “mommy upset”. Ugggh! So awful that the issue is not about you getting upset, but rather that your child acted or did something that is not acceptable, and therefore now has a consequence to face. This is not rocket science. It’s very simple ultimately. Maybe not fun for the kid who is getting a punishment for the actions they chose and need to learn to handle differently. But they never get the chance to learn what they did wrong because the other parent disregards you and the importance of discipline, respect and personal accountability.

You are a good mom.

Well did this work in the end?