Me (43F) and my husband (47M) have been married for 8 months now–his previous wife died less than a year ago, and our marriage was quick, but I fell head over heels for him and I couldn’t be happier.
He has two children from his previous marriage, (17M) and (22F), and both of them seemed polite and respectful when I met them as a family friend.
His previous wife, who died less than a year ago from an accident at work, was a great woman and mother. When I married into the family I wanted to try my best to fill the role of a mother figure in her place.
My eldest step-daughter, who we’ll call SD, was very approving of my marriage with her father and has accepted me into the family with welcoming arms. However, my step-son, who we’ll call SS, has been less than courteous.
Prior to my marriage both him and his sister were pleasant and polite. I even enjoyed discussing our shared hobbies, such as cooking, with them. But ever since my engagement with his father, his attitude changed drastically.
I originally assumed this was because he was having trouble adjusting to his biological mother’s death and I was willing to give him the time he needed to grieve. But since then, his behavior has only worsened.
At the start, he was mostly cold and distant–like he would ignore me when I greeted him etc–but overtime he has become snappy and disrespectful of my position in the family. My husband has been primarily laissez faire in the way he has raised him–allowing him to make decisions of where he is and what he is doing under the condition that he is honest with his whereabouts.
SS has always been understanding of the leeway his father has given him, but recently he has taken advantage of that trust. He goes out late at night with his friends, to the point where a few weeks ago he booked a trip overseas for the weekend without telling us beforehand.
My husband and I decided to give him a talk, where admittedly I did most of the talking. I tried my best to be understanding but also firm about the fact that he’d crossed a line.
When I told him that he couldn’t just do what he liked without letting his parents know first, he yelled at me and said, “I don’t know who you think you are, but just because you were itching for the chance to take over this family doesn’t give you the right to pretend to be my mother,” and started to sob.
I justifiably got very angry with him and responded by saying that his inability to move on a year after his mother’s death shouldn’t get in the way of my marriage. He told me to —- off and to get out of his life before storming out of the house.
Since then, SS refused to talk to me. My husband was devastated about our fight and told me that I was responsible and needed to apologize. But SD, on the other hand, thinks he needed a reality check and that I made the right decision in confronting him.
Netizen’s comments
- The fact that you expect after ONE YEAR for a son to move on from his mothers death is beyond me.
- You married into this family no more than 4 months after his mother died and think you have any business trying to be a “mother figure” to a nearly adult child who has made it clear he doesn’t want one? No. You marrying his father does not give you a parental relationship to this kid in anyways that matters.
- You do not get to choose if you are a mother figure to him. You arent his parent. You arent his mother. As far as he’s concerned your probably little more than his fathers coping mechanism who doesn’t know her place.
- You married a man four months-FOUR MONTHS-after his wife died, and eight months later expect his kids to respect you as a parent??
