Stepmu..uummm her fathers girlfriend...

Following on from my previous post and in light of todays occasion, it has highlighted to me how uncomfortable I am with referring to my partners daughter as my Stepdaughter or as me as her Stepmum, first off the last post would have been half the length if I did not keep saying partners child, partners daughter etc and secondly no one else acknowledges me today so how can I...It raises the question 'Who am I?...

Leanne, Aunty, Step-Mum, Simons partner or Dads Girlfriend are a few of the terms I am referred to by people in relation to my partners daughter, all of which I will take as it has been a hell of a journey to get here and I am really trying to not let any kind of title or lack of take that away from us. However, I have a Stepmum whom I call by her first name, I have a Stepdad whom I call by his first name so I expected nothing other than being called Leanne by my partners daughter and I have said so since day 1 and always will continue with the same frame of mind. What everyone else refers to me as is out of my control and therefore is an issue, not for me but for my partners daughter and for her Mother.

Now I admit, if ever her Mother raises a problem or a concern I get far to emotionally involved, especially if it puts myself or my partner in question, which it usually does. I get overwhelmed by the need to defend whoever the culprit is this time, to verbally in that moment prove how close and happy we all our on our weekends and how we truly are not against her, because I worked so hard emotionally to get us here. I do not get involved in the conversations so the only way I get my frustrations and point out is to my partner, which as you can imagine has caused a fair share of arguments between us. I do not envy his position. However, the alternative is I remove myself from the situation and any involvement and pull away, I know what that would lead to, I will get defensive, I will not react well when there are things happening 'behind my back' and I will attempt to run from it, because I see myself as disposable in his life when it come to this situation, so if there is something as important in his life that I cannot deal with I turn to..'leave me then'!

The 'Stepmum' conversation has come up a few times in regards to initially reassuring their daughter that I am not here to replace Mummy, which I agree is a very important message. However their daughter recently watched a film on Netflix which involved the death of a childs mother and the child having a Stepmum, I am told my partners daughter turned to her Mum and asked if I am her Stepmum to which she was met with a firm 'No, Leanne is not your Stepmum, you only have one Mum, Leanne will never be your Stepmum' and so on. Fine, but what isn't fine is my partners daughter then brought that energy to my home, we have been great for a long time, then all of a sudden we are back to 'Leanne is not my Stepmum' 'why did you buy her a Mothers day card?' (She herself requested she get this card out for me about 2 years ago as it had a unicorn on the front, addressed it to 'Leanne' and drew a pic, adorable') and ignoring me when asking If she wants sweetcorn with her dinner (literally).

The event resulted in a 3 hour coffee meet with her Mother insisting I will never be her Stepmum, even when presented with the oxford dictionary definition (not me) all of which was unnecessary as I don't refer to myself as that anyway. I just want to move past it, at the moment it all just feels like A LOT and I am very aware that I am withdrawing. Logically, I know our relationship so titles really shouldn't matter but the tiptoeing and constantly checking what I am saying and checking others for what they are saying is draining.

I was literally at a point where I could not look forward to anything significant like engagements or babies etc because of things like 'Will she let her come to my wedding?' Will she let us involve her with her siblings?' Will she say they aren't her real brother or sisters?' etc Any advise from anyone in my position would be great, please tell me it gets better?!

#StepFamily #BlendedFamily #FourthWheel #FittingIn #MothersDay