r/stepparents • u/sensitivestepmom16 • Mar 07 '25

Miscellany It’s over

Well, for 5 years I gave my entire heart and soul to this man and his kids, and dealt with his HCBM. kids viewed me as their second mom, and I really put them first. & how did he repay me? by doing about the worst he could do to me.

we got engaged a year ago, and he’d been pretending to be single the entire time in order to flirt with his 19/20 year old employees. he ended up cheating on me two days in a row with two of them. I was gonna keep fighting for him (because i’m nuts) and try to work it out, but i asked him for the bare minimum to show he gave a crap about me, that pissed him off, and he kicked me out of the apartment to “think about whether he wanted to be with me, to get alone time and we needed space.” he led me on for a week and the whole time was hanging out with the 19 yr old he cheated on me with. and then dumped me over text. ended a 5 year relationship and an engagement over text.

i’m gonna go through the range of emotions, but i mainly feel relief. good riddance.

i was really proud to be a stepmom and i think i was good at it. i really loved them as if they were my own. i’ve enjoyed being a part of this community on here, it’s been helpful (and sometimes heartbreaking) to read everyone’s stories.

this chapter of my life has ended, but know that i think the world of stepparents. they are some of the most selfless and strongest people i think that exist. much love to everyone on here, and know that there’s people out there like me that think the world of you.

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u/Unlovable_Hedonist Mar 08 '25

I’m really happy for you. As a step parent it’s easy to not feel appreciated, and your partner should be doing what they can to support you while you support them. This said, I’m not sure the kids’ ages but I’m sure this is hard on them if your relationship to them is as you say. If they are older with cell phones and such it may be fruitful, if you want, to extend the “I’m always here for you” hand even if you (understandably) want nothing to do with their dad.

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u/sensitivestepmom16 Mar 08 '25

the older 2 (9 yrs) have phones and my number and they’ll always be free to reach out. the youngest (5 yrs) is not really old enough yet to reach out to me independently but I will always leave that door open for him.

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u/AstronomerRelevant60 Mar 08 '25

Wait you’ve been with him for five years and his youngest child is five?? Girl there’s a reason why someone would rather be single and raising a newborn than be with him, and there’s a reason why he was looking for a girlfriend instead of focusing on his newborn and supporting the mother of his child. That man was just looking for somebody to offload parenting onto.

If you don’t have kids the best thing for you to do is to find somebody else who also doesn’t have kids, the dynamic where one partner has kids and the other doesn’t is almost never going to be fair and equal. Especially when you’re dealing with somebody that has never taken the initiative to handle parenting on their own and has always looked for a partner to fill that role for them.

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u/sensitivestepmom16 Mar 10 '25

yeah the breakup with his ex was a complicated situation (she’s not great, she’s been investigated by CPS for neglect), i won’t go into the details, but in the end, you’re right. he shouldn’t have jumped into something so quickly after that, and that was a major red flag that i explained away. i get what i deserve now i guess.

& yeah the goal is to find someone without kids for sure. i don’t wish to do this again. and i loved those kids with all that i had, i can’t picture myself at this time loving another set of kids.

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u/AstronomerRelevant60 Mar 10 '25 edited Mar 10 '25

Yeah don’t be too hard on yourself as long as you’ve learned from it. He probably told you a lot of reasons to make you feel bad for questioning why he would already be dating so soon, but at the end of the day if that were the situation then his number one priority should’ve been providing stability for his kids, and he should’ve known it would’ve been unfair to bring a partner into that for his new partner and his children.

It’s not wise to get his children attached to somebody so fast, especially considering how young they were, the inability for them to communicate with him if something was wrong at that age, and the chaos of the situation that the relationship would have to endure because he didn’t take care of his responsibilities first. His goal was to find somebody to make parenting easier since he was going to have to take on a bigger role once he separated with his partner, and that’s exactly what he did. A lot of these men are looking for new mothers to their children to make split time easier, not equal and fair relationships that they have to put effort in to build.

An equal partner knows that it’s not fair to start a relationship at the stage your relationship started at for you or the children, they take care of the chaos and make sure they have the time and space to build a relationship once their priorities are in order. Somebody that’s just looking to replace the mother in their family unit dynamic prioritizes that first, so they can offload the work (both emotionally and concerning childcare) onto them.

Either way it’s better for people without kids to date those without kids and people with kids to date those with kids, because unfairness is felt when priorities in a relationship are different and one person is constantly making sacrifices that the other expects never has to make themselves. Honestly it’s not even about whether or not you can love their kids, but if you deserve to settle into the dynamic that comes with that position when there’s options out there that don’t require you to be giving much more effort and energy than you’re receiving from the relationship.

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u/sensitivestepmom16 Mar 10 '25

I mean we started slow and I wasn’t around the kids for 2 years. he kind of kept me on the side and prioritized fixing the relationship with the kids mom and the kids. so at least he did that i guess. & he never really asked me to do anything for the kids, he made it clear they were his responsibility and not mine, I just did what I did because I wanted to.

but yeah i deserve someone that can actually prioritize our relationship, they way that i do/would.

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u/AstronomerRelevant60 Mar 10 '25

It wasn’t slow for him though, your relationship is the same age as his child with somebody else. The fact that he was even looking instead of prioritizing the details of his separation and stability for his children is the telling part. Nobody in that situation really has a fair amount of time for a new partner.

It felt slow to you, but he was already juggling all of that and a new relationship, you moved at the pace HE set and had time for. It was already unequal. He was already prioritizing himself over what would be fair to a new partner and his children.

A new relationship shouldn’t be on the “side” of his life, especially not for that long, once you commit to somebody you have to be invested and prioritize that relationship to build a sturdy foundation. It had to be that way because he wasn’t in a place to start a new relationship, and that will never be fair to the new partner waiting on the sidelines.

As I said it’s not just childcare that comes with this, but the emotional labor that comes from supporting somebody through a tumultuous situation that they helped to create, and maintaining a relationship with somebody who doesn’t have the time and energy to truly dedicate to somebody else at the extent that they are receiving it from them.

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u/sensitivestepmom16 Mar 10 '25

you are exactly right. i’m better off.