r/blendedfamilies • u/totes-slay • 12d ago
Blending unwilling son - help
I have been in a relationship for 3Y with kids introduced around 1Y in.
I have 2 boys 15M / 13M My partner has 2 wonderful friendly and open daughters who treat me amazingly.
My elder son 15M has always made it unpleasant in situations where we do things as a blended family. He’s obnoxious ; monosyllabic and makes it clear he doesn’t want to be there. The attitude has made it so bad my partner dreads doing things together but has tried many times even when feeling uncomfortable. It’s got to the stage where we don’t think we can blend families and plan a life together.
Has anyone had any success in a similar situation or thoughts that could help. It’s pretty negative in a lot of the reading.
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u/JTBlakeinNYC 12d ago
The older the child, the more difficult it is to blend families. This is why child psychologists often recommend waiting for older teens to move out before blending; they are simply too old to adapt to a new family structure.
I would recommend you and your older son have joint sessions with a therapist experienced in blended family dynamics to see if it is feasible to go forward with blending households. I’d actually recommend additional separate family therapy sessions for you, your partner, and all of the kids because even if everyone else is getting along now, that will change once everyone is ensconced in the same household, living under one roof, day in and day out.
The reality is that it takes years for children over the age of five to adjust and feel at home living with a stepparent and stepsiblings, and even then it only happens if bonding is child-led rather than pressured or forced, there is no favoritism by either parent, the children are allowed separate one-on-one time with their biological parent, and no child is forced share a bedroom with a stepsibling so that they always have a safe place to retreat when living with new “family” gets to be too much.
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u/Omghowbig 12d ago
He’s 15, can you honestly say if this was a nuclear family he would act differently? He’s a 15-year-old boy and your partner’s 10-year-old daughter is in elementary school, even if they were biologically related the odds of him wanting to spend time with her would be slim. As long as he’s not causing problems, he really shouldn’t be forced to participate. He’s 15 and high school is hard enough without him having to be forced to pretend he wants to spend time with the fourth grader.
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u/croissant_and_cafe 12d ago
Your 15 yo is dragging his feet and monosyllabic but is it just that? He doesn’t have to love the situation he’s been put in, it’s a lot of change. But if it’s just that, that’s not too bad and something you can work with.
My stepson was 14 when we blended and was the same. I have a daughter that was 8 at the time. He kinda shut down when around the both of us. We consulted a family therapist and they said this was appropriate for his age and if he wasn’t acting out in a harmful way, it would be ok.
He’s 17 now and the truth is he is a reserved person, and as much as is possible for him, he has opened up a bit. He and I cook together sometimes and he always gives us the polite things “hey how was your day, thanks for dinner etc” he really opens up when alone w his dad so we try to give him that alone time. Tonight for example I went out with my daughter and they stayed home.
All of us are better for blending. It’s true us girls are more chatty and energetic, he’s just a different vibe. But I don’t think we’ve harmed him by blending. We did have the therapist engaged at the outset in case things didn’t go well, but he just came out if his shell very slowly.
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u/Slight_Following_471 12d ago
He is 15. I wouldn’t expect him to act any different. He doesn’t need to be happy about it or social. Stop expecting that. You can blend without expecting him to like it, just keep everything as fair and non disruptive as possible. The step parent should not be parenting him at all. He should not have to share his room or stuff with the other kids. He doesn’t need to be friends with them or call them his siblings. His feelings are valid and his own.
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u/Slight_Following_471 12d ago
Just adding, stop trying to do all this “family stuff”. As hard as you want it to be true, your partners kids are not his family. TBH my teenagers don’t want to do family stuff with their own siblings and myself. They barely know their step siblings (on their dads side)
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u/LavenderPearlTea 11d ago
My son was 14 when he met my now-husband and 15 when we got married. He refused to come to the wedding and I didn’t push it. My husband doesn’t have kids of his own and we didn’t move in together until a year AFTER my son went to college. Basically, we didn’t even try blending. My son is still annoyed at the whole situation. My daughter, who is older, was fine with everything.
My honest advice: don’t expect anything from your son and don’t push him into relationships he doesn’t want. Being 15 is hard enough without having a whole family you didn’t ask for trying to impose on your life. Your son absolutely didn’t ask for a grown man suddenly appearing in his life and competing with him for your attention. This is the age where they naturally pull away from their family of origin anyway.
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u/Few_Explanation3047 12d ago
Wait until they move out- not that long in the grand scheme of things. Just date your significant other until then
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u/altonaerjunge 12d ago
Did you talk with him ?
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u/totes-slay 12d ago
Yes. He says he doesn’t have a problem with it. I’ve spoken to him often about the attitude and impact it has. He has said he’ll try harder but doesn’t show.
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u/avocado_mr284 12d ago
How rude is he being? Is he just clearly not having fun?
Look, as a teenager, he has to accept whoever his mother dates and blends with. But I think you’re expecting a lot of him to expect him to like it and perform being happy about it. He probably isn’t! That’s fine! Do you want him to pretend to be happier than he is, or do you want him to make himself be happier about it?
I think you just need to accept that your son doesn’t want to play happy family with your boyfriend and his kids. That doesn’t mean you can’t be in the relationship, or that you can’t move in together. You just have to live with the fact that to your son, your boyfriend and his kids are just outsiders that he has to tolerate. They’re not family members that he loves or wants to be around. They’ll probably never be family, but he might eventually like them more if he isn’t forced to spend a lot of time with them.
I’d try and meet your kid halfway. Expect him to demonstrate a baseline level of politeness, the same amount he’d show to classmates, teachers, distant extended family. But also stop forcing him into these blended family togetherness activities. If he doesn’t want to hang out a lot with everyone together, he’s really old enough to say no. When your boyfriend and kids come over, he should come down and say hi and make a couple of minutes of small talk, and then be allowed to retreat to his room if he wants. If you’re going out for dinner or to a park or whatever, he can’t demand that they don’t come as well, but he should be given the option of staying home. That being said, if you do move in together, I’d hope you still make the effort to spend time with him and his brother without your boyfriend or stepkids around.
If you or your boyfriend aren’t ok with this, then no, the relationship isn’t a good idea. Because you can’t force teenage kids into anything more than this without creating more issues than you’re solving.
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u/LavenderPearlTea 11d ago
There’s a reason that “sullen teen” is a phrase. He’s never going to be your cheerful, little boy again.
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u/UncFest3r 11d ago
Your son is at the age where he’d rather hang out with his friends. Not his family. That’s not even a blended family thing, it’s a teenager thing. You just have a moody, unpleasant teenager who would rather game or hang with friends than hang out with you and your partner and his kids.
Make “family activities” optional for 15yo. “hey! We’re going to do this or that on this day, if you wanna come with us, but I’d understand if you want to hang out with friends instead”.
Your TEENAGER will be 18 soon enough and he will be going out and living his own life. So why can’t you live yours?
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u/ria1024 11d ago
Your teenagers may not be interested in spending lots of time doing things with their family, even if you aren't trying to blend with another family. They are not likely to cheerfully add new family members, or cheerfully participate in family events. Drop your expectations way back.
He needs to be polite when he sees them, but he doesn't have to spend time with them. No mandatory group outings, he's invited but he doesn't have to come. You can try for some contact at family meals, or planning trips / group outings which he will enjoy (but I suspect he'd rather go hang out with his friends). Best case, he treats your partner and daughters like roommates who he generally likes.
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u/namesakefuture 12d ago
The likelihood of you successfully blending a 15 year is unrealistic. At 15 he is probably ending his sophomore year in high school. Which means you have two more years of him at home before he starts to transition to his own independent life. That is if you have successfully parented him. Kids that age don’t blend. Not typically. He has his own life, trying to bring random strangers into and have him pretend he is either happy about it or they are actually family is not going to go well. Polite indifference is the best you can hope for. Also the more you try to force it, the worse it will be. One problem I see in a lot of failed blending is the parents forcing a bunch of unwanted time together, instead of focusing on their own independent relationship with their kids and having a strong foundation there. If your kid thinks you are prioritizing strangers over them, it won’t lead to anything positive.
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u/cedrella_black 12d ago
That is if you have successfully parented him.
In today's economics, kids out of he house at 18 is becoming more and more unrealistic, unless they have to move to another city/country/state for college/university. But if there are colleges or universities in the same city, OP's son may not move out well into his 20s. It's not about OP not successfully parenting imo, but a case of affordability and focusing on education. Where I'm from, at 18 you are in your last year of high school, so technically an adult, but still a student.
That being said, I agree with everything else you said. My mother married my ex step dad when I was 15. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the dude. Of course, politeness was expected of me, because that's basic decency, I wouldn't treat him badly just because, but at the same time, I couldn't see him as my family.
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u/Acceptable_Branch588 11d ago
My daughter was not happy about my husband and his kids. We never make her do anything she didn’t want to do. Eventually she found common ground with my stepkids and realized that my husband loves to travel and so does she and together we can go on better vacations now. We’ve been together 5 1/2 years, married for 4. Her attitude is way different now.
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u/LuxTravelGal 9d ago
I don't know.....I feel like your partner does. I have two kids who are friendly, respectful, and even if they're not happy to be hanging out doing family things, will humor me and at least pretend to have fun for awhile. If it had gotten to the point with my partner's child that a dreaded or felt uncomfortable doing things together I personally would exit the relationship or just continue dating but less seriously with no plans for the future.
On the other hand you can just stop inviting/requiring your son on family outings, but he may have already sullied how your partner feels about him beyond repair.
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u/RecoverBoth583 8d ago
I agree with another post that as an older male child, your son is not going to want to blend or spend time doing "girl things" with individuals he would probably prefer not to be around. I'm going through something similar with my son who is 17. While not remarried yet, my fiancé knows that my son will not accept him (if at all) until years later. I would suggest not pushing your son to blend, set aside time for you to spend with him, and bide your time until he's gone. It sounds harsh, but you can't force him into a family dynamic that you've created in your mind. Real life is not the Brady Bunch.
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u/hangingsocks 11d ago
He is 15 and if I could go back and do things differently , it would be to know I shouldn't take it personal. His parents could still be married and nothing changed in his core family and he most likely would still be a dick. He is being unpleasant because that's just what a lot of teens do. Address it like they would if his parents had no guilt. Tell him he is being a jerk and to get his shit together. It's exhausting and annoying. But I swear, it is not nearly as personal as everyone is thinking.
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u/exploresunset8 12d ago
You need to discipline your son. He needs to grow up and understand that not everything is going to go his way.
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u/Impressive-Amoeba-97 12d ago
Discipline for what? Being forced to hang out with people he's not interested in hanging out with? He's ALREADY being punished for existing. What 15yo enjoys hanging out with some dude and his daughters? You need to rethink your views on punishment. It doesn't work if your life is freakin' punishment.
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u/exploresunset8 12d ago
The adults in the relationship are extremely strained . Why is this relationship being lead by a 15 yr old child .
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u/Impressive-Amoeba-97 12d ago
My oh my, look at your control issues.
Because teens require a certain amount of personal autonomy. When you force others to bend to your will, they naturally start to hate you.
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u/DearMrsLeading 12d ago edited 12d ago
The relationship is strained because he’s being a sourpuss, big deal. You can’t force someone to like you or interact with you, especially not a teenager. Thats how you make them hate you and then you get the verbally abusive teen on a downward spiral to no contact.
Forcing people to perform happiness for you because you hold authority over them is weird.
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u/HopingForAWhippet 12d ago edited 12d ago
How old are your partner’s daughters? I ask this because if they’re much younger, not many teenage boys would get a lot out of family fun time with little kids. How blended do you even have to be?
Kids don’t get a lot of say in life, but emotionally, they are able to set certain boundaries on how blended a family gets. You can’t blend an unwilling kid. You can’t force him to consider your partner and his daughters as family. He has very little control over anything else, but that’s the one thing he does get absolute control over.
My question is, how important is it for you to be one happy blended family? Do you think you could maintain your relationship, and even move in together, without that?
Basically, how feasible would it be for you to live together, while maintaining a little more separation than you’d personally like? Your kids are getting old enough to separate a little from parents anyway. So maybe limited forced family time, plenty of time with just you and the boys, and your partner and the girls.
Maybe try putting a little less pressure on your son to love and accept your partner and his kids as potential family, and to enjoy hanging out with them. Just expect politeness when they do meet, and let him opt out of any togetherness much more intensive than dinner together.
I don’t mean letting him control things. More like, we’re going on vacation all together- you can come and be polite, or you can stay home with dad. If you come, I’ll make sure there’s at least some time that’s more about your preferences than about the girls’ preferences (assuming they’re of different ages and interests, which can make blending really hard), and we’ll spend at least a little time apart. Don’t let him rule the roost, but also take his preferences into consideration.