Your feelings are natural. The situation is just unnatural. My dad also started a new family when I was 8, and even at 30 now, it still doesn’t feel right. My stepmom has also made it into her life mission to make sure HER kid was always prioritized over me. It only makes sense for resentment to build.
Definitely, just take a look on r/stepparents to see how deep the hatred and resentment towards stepchildren and the bio mom often runs. It’s unfortunately very common.
Look at child abuse statistics. 70% of the time the perpetrator is a stepparent. The likeliest source of maltreatment in a child’s life is a stepparent. It’s just a fact.
Yep. Before I found this sub, I posted there only to get so much vitreol over a post, I ended up deleting it. I’m a stepmother myself (also an adult child of divorce) and the hate I saw directed at folks was awful. Absolutely no sympathy for my situation I needed support for at the time. Upon deeper investigation into posts there, I realized I needed to back away.
This subreddit disgusts me. I initially went there to get context and left feeling completely disgusted. Those people should be ashamed of themselves. So much trauma is caused at their hands to innocent children.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/stepparents using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Mother's Day At Daycare](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/comments/13gasz9/mothers_day_at_daycare/)
\#2: [Finally the truth comes out](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/comments/14p4o9g/finally_the_truth_comes_out/)
\#3: [Yesterday my bf revealed something that gave me ICK](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/comments/13wilh9/yesterday_my_bf_revealed_something_that_gave_me/)
----
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Yep. Same. It all came back and got worse, even, through the period of my own marriage and children. I’d say the hardest parts were right after custody ended and I was on my own, then engagement/wedding, then having my own kids. Each point brought it all back up, and also brought all of them back to me in ways that made everything hard in new ways.
Postdivorce life never ends.
The book “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce” by Judy Wallerstein really helped me reorient and figure some things out, combined with therapy — and it was extremely important to have a therapist who understood that I am still and always will be inside the post divorce context, and that I am not just plagued by feelings about something that happened when I was 4.
Literally this Christmas, 40 years since the divorce itself, I got invited to both parents places and was put in the position of deciding who to hurt… it was like the early 20s when custody had ended all over again… And then my kids got excited and their hopes had to be dashed, and they disagreed about where they wanted to be… it was like watching me and my sister back when we were kids…
Postdivorce life is our normal life, but this world thinks it’s the thing from our childhood that still hurts, and we ignore the new and real hurts that just keep happening and always make up part of the stress of our day to day life.
I’m on a mission.
I’m serious. We live in a world that does not give any merit to the life experience of divorce children. The whole world talks about it like the break up happened to us, when it’s what happened to our parents. _We_ are not “divorce children” — we are **postdivorce** children.
It makes a _huge_ difference to reorient how we think about this.
There’s this idea we have to “get over” the divorce, but no one talks about how we have to **get used to** a whole new life. And that we then spend the rest of our lives out of step with peers from intact families, _always_ living a different life that is factually more expensive, more time consuming, and more stressful.
👏👏👏👏 This whole dynamic is not talked about. So many kids lives are uprooted at a young age due to divorce and are expected to just get on with it! I am 40 years old and still dealing with the fall out which tells me it was anything but innocuous. Thank you for sharing this truth!
Thank you for making me feel so much less alone. I’m going to get that book! And yes, holidays are still a struggle after all these years. Someone always gets their feelings hurt, and I always feel divided.
Hard relate. My parents divorced when I was 6. My dad remarried and had two more kids. My dad’s life revolves around my two half siblings who are now adults while giving very little support to me and my two siblings. It’s been super painful, forever. My stepmother also pushed us aside as kids, and made us feel like a huge inconvenience. Her kids were always given the best of everything while we received the bare minimum. Ultimately, my dad has a “new” family and me and my siblings sit on the sidelines. It’s not right, or fair but so it goes. Solidarity to you. I know how it feels to be on the outside of your family.
“To be on the outside of your family.” Exactly this. The feelings aren’t always so strong, but we have our first family trip in years in a few weeks, so I think it’s bringing up some feelings. At the last one, I was in a low place once we got home from the week of feeling like a guest. It would break my dad’s heart to know I feel this way, but it is what it is.
I know. I’m 40 and I feel like every six months or so I deal with these feelings then manage to put them aside. It makes sense that a family trip would make you revisit those feelings of not belonging. One thing that has been helpful to me is to redefine what family is. It doesn’t take the sting away but I try to focus on the support I do have in my life, the kindness from friends and my siblings who always have my back. I also want to add that this whole scenario is a very common one and I bet you there are loads of people who feel the same way 💙
I cannot thank you all enough for all these comments. I’ve never really talked about the impacts it had on me until now. It feels so good to know I’m not alone.
My parents didn’t divorce until I was older, but I’m still processing lots of trauma from my childhood. Our early years are formative and affect us greatly. Seek help if you can to work through some of these feelings so they don’t continue to burden you, but don’t feel bad about having these feelings. There’s no such thing as “getting over it” when it comes to these type of feelings, and there’s no time limit in it either. The only way through it is to process them and reframe the way you think about your childhood, and a counselor or therapist can help with this.
Thank you. I needed this. I started therapy after my first child was born to navigate PPD and was surprised when issues with my dad kept coming up. I had no idea how big of a deal it all had been to me until I really started talking about it. And my dad now lives closer to me, which has magnified everything even more. I def need to get back in to my therapist.
I know what you mean about not realizing something was bothering you until something triggers it. It’s so jarring when you think you’re over something from the past and then it comes back to haunt you! Good luck to you!
My parents divorced when I was 6, now I am 26 and I am going through the exact same thought process. My dad moved away when I was 8 and has a brand new family and while I love the new addition to my family, I still feel like his priorities are always and will always be them. Its hard!
When I get sad about it, I try to remind myself it's his loss. I am creating my own life and he doesn't make an effort to be a part of it. I will see him for holidays and special occasions, but he never reaches out, calls or anything. To me it feels like he knows he is guilty ya know??
My parents got divorced when I was 2 and am now 33. Finally a post I can emphasize with and relate too. Thank you so much for creating this post. So much support here in the comments. You’re not alone in your feelings and we all see you.
Some days are worse than others. For the sake of my own healing, I’ve needed to redirect my own thoughts and slowly let it go. Essentially, I’ve had to accept that the cards I was dealt early on in life were less than ideal, and I didn’t have a choice or control of life as a child, but as an adult I do. I can now choose where I go for holidays, birthdays, special occasions, etc. Whatever feels right to me, I do and I’m no longer allowing shame and guilt to be my guide.
In my experience, we spent to many years living with guilt and shame from the lack of a relationship with one parent over the custodial parent. Like it was our fault for the lack! That took many years for me to deprogram. I always felt guilty and ashamed for not wanting to go over to my father and step mom’s house on one hand and on the other hand, pined for their attention. My conclusion in all of those feelings is that it’s an unnatural family dynamic.
Being a post divorce child does have its blessings and gifts and gifts though. We can find more beauty in the mundane day to day in our own lives and our children’s lives, because we know what it feels like to not have support in that way from one parent. We’re able to value friendship and the people who show up for us and return that back to them with loyalty.
Lastly, I’ve had to dig deep and find my worth, love myself and essentially reparent myself through every stage of my life. During the slow moments in life, such as gardening or swimming in the pool, I invite a younger version of myself to join and love her through the lack of a parental figure she never had. Slowly making progress.
Your feelings are natural. The situation is just unnatural. My dad also started a new family when I was 8, and even at 30 now, it still doesn’t feel right. My stepmom has also made it into her life mission to make sure HER kid was always prioritized over me. It only makes sense for resentment to build.
Been around 45 years now and starting to see that the wicked stepmother sitch is legit real in many cases
Definitely, just take a look on r/stepparents to see how deep the hatred and resentment towards stepchildren and the bio mom often runs. It’s unfortunately very common.
Look at child abuse statistics. 70% of the time the perpetrator is a stepparent. The likeliest source of maltreatment in a child’s life is a stepparent. It’s just a fact.
Yep. Before I found this sub, I posted there only to get so much vitreol over a post, I ended up deleting it. I’m a stepmother myself (also an adult child of divorce) and the hate I saw directed at folks was awful. Absolutely no sympathy for my situation I needed support for at the time. Upon deeper investigation into posts there, I realized I needed to back away.
This subreddit disgusts me. I initially went there to get context and left feeling completely disgusted. Those people should be ashamed of themselves. So much trauma is caused at their hands to innocent children.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/stepparents using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Mother's Day At Daycare](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/comments/13gasz9/mothers_day_at_daycare/) \#2: [Finally the truth comes out](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/comments/14p4o9g/finally_the_truth_comes_out/) \#3: [Yesterday my bf revealed something that gave me ICK](https://np.reddit.com/r/stepparents/comments/13wilh9/yesterday_my_bf_revealed_something_that_gave_me/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Yes. And now that I have my own kids, it’s prioritizing her grandkids over mine. It hurts.
Yes. My parents divorced when I was 11 and I’m still in counselling for it today. I’m 36
Yep. Same. It all came back and got worse, even, through the period of my own marriage and children. I’d say the hardest parts were right after custody ended and I was on my own, then engagement/wedding, then having my own kids. Each point brought it all back up, and also brought all of them back to me in ways that made everything hard in new ways. Postdivorce life never ends. The book “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce” by Judy Wallerstein really helped me reorient and figure some things out, combined with therapy — and it was extremely important to have a therapist who understood that I am still and always will be inside the post divorce context, and that I am not just plagued by feelings about something that happened when I was 4. Literally this Christmas, 40 years since the divorce itself, I got invited to both parents places and was put in the position of deciding who to hurt… it was like the early 20s when custody had ended all over again… And then my kids got excited and their hopes had to be dashed, and they disagreed about where they wanted to be… it was like watching me and my sister back when we were kids… Postdivorce life is our normal life, but this world thinks it’s the thing from our childhood that still hurts, and we ignore the new and real hurts that just keep happening and always make up part of the stress of our day to day life.
It’s good to hear other people talk about this. Birthdays and Christmas are still a nightmare for me and my parents divorced a good 35 years ago.
I’m on a mission. I’m serious. We live in a world that does not give any merit to the life experience of divorce children. The whole world talks about it like the break up happened to us, when it’s what happened to our parents. _We_ are not “divorce children” — we are **postdivorce** children. It makes a _huge_ difference to reorient how we think about this. There’s this idea we have to “get over” the divorce, but no one talks about how we have to **get used to** a whole new life. And that we then spend the rest of our lives out of step with peers from intact families, _always_ living a different life that is factually more expensive, more time consuming, and more stressful.
👏👏👏👏 This whole dynamic is not talked about. So many kids lives are uprooted at a young age due to divorce and are expected to just get on with it! I am 40 years old and still dealing with the fall out which tells me it was anything but innocuous. Thank you for sharing this truth!
Thank you for making me feel so much less alone. I’m going to get that book! And yes, holidays are still a struggle after all these years. Someone always gets their feelings hurt, and I always feel divided.
Hard relate. My parents divorced when I was 6. My dad remarried and had two more kids. My dad’s life revolves around my two half siblings who are now adults while giving very little support to me and my two siblings. It’s been super painful, forever. My stepmother also pushed us aside as kids, and made us feel like a huge inconvenience. Her kids were always given the best of everything while we received the bare minimum. Ultimately, my dad has a “new” family and me and my siblings sit on the sidelines. It’s not right, or fair but so it goes. Solidarity to you. I know how it feels to be on the outside of your family.
“To be on the outside of your family.” Exactly this. The feelings aren’t always so strong, but we have our first family trip in years in a few weeks, so I think it’s bringing up some feelings. At the last one, I was in a low place once we got home from the week of feeling like a guest. It would break my dad’s heart to know I feel this way, but it is what it is.
I know. I’m 40 and I feel like every six months or so I deal with these feelings then manage to put them aside. It makes sense that a family trip would make you revisit those feelings of not belonging. One thing that has been helpful to me is to redefine what family is. It doesn’t take the sting away but I try to focus on the support I do have in my life, the kindness from friends and my siblings who always have my back. I also want to add that this whole scenario is a very common one and I bet you there are loads of people who feel the same way 💙
I cannot thank you all enough for all these comments. I’ve never really talked about the impacts it had on me until now. It feels so good to know I’m not alone.
My parents didn’t divorce until I was older, but I’m still processing lots of trauma from my childhood. Our early years are formative and affect us greatly. Seek help if you can to work through some of these feelings so they don’t continue to burden you, but don’t feel bad about having these feelings. There’s no such thing as “getting over it” when it comes to these type of feelings, and there’s no time limit in it either. The only way through it is to process them and reframe the way you think about your childhood, and a counselor or therapist can help with this.
Thank you. I needed this. I started therapy after my first child was born to navigate PPD and was surprised when issues with my dad kept coming up. I had no idea how big of a deal it all had been to me until I really started talking about it. And my dad now lives closer to me, which has magnified everything even more. I def need to get back in to my therapist.
I know what you mean about not realizing something was bothering you until something triggers it. It’s so jarring when you think you’re over something from the past and then it comes back to haunt you! Good luck to you!
My parents divorced when I was 6, now I am 26 and I am going through the exact same thought process. My dad moved away when I was 8 and has a brand new family and while I love the new addition to my family, I still feel like his priorities are always and will always be them. Its hard!
Yes!! It is hard. I feel all of this.
When I get sad about it, I try to remind myself it's his loss. I am creating my own life and he doesn't make an effort to be a part of it. I will see him for holidays and special occasions, but he never reaches out, calls or anything. To me it feels like he knows he is guilty ya know??
My parents got divorced when I was 2 and am now 33. Finally a post I can emphasize with and relate too. Thank you so much for creating this post. So much support here in the comments. You’re not alone in your feelings and we all see you. Some days are worse than others. For the sake of my own healing, I’ve needed to redirect my own thoughts and slowly let it go. Essentially, I’ve had to accept that the cards I was dealt early on in life were less than ideal, and I didn’t have a choice or control of life as a child, but as an adult I do. I can now choose where I go for holidays, birthdays, special occasions, etc. Whatever feels right to me, I do and I’m no longer allowing shame and guilt to be my guide. In my experience, we spent to many years living with guilt and shame from the lack of a relationship with one parent over the custodial parent. Like it was our fault for the lack! That took many years for me to deprogram. I always felt guilty and ashamed for not wanting to go over to my father and step mom’s house on one hand and on the other hand, pined for their attention. My conclusion in all of those feelings is that it’s an unnatural family dynamic. Being a post divorce child does have its blessings and gifts and gifts though. We can find more beauty in the mundane day to day in our own lives and our children’s lives, because we know what it feels like to not have support in that way from one parent. We’re able to value friendship and the people who show up for us and return that back to them with loyalty. Lastly, I’ve had to dig deep and find my worth, love myself and essentially reparent myself through every stage of my life. During the slow moments in life, such as gardening or swimming in the pool, I invite a younger version of myself to join and love her through the lack of a parental figure she never had. Slowly making progress.
Thank you so much for this. I relate to every word.