Dad Wants To Break Off Engagement Because Fiancée Insists His Son Consider Her His Mom
An actual mom would put the child's feelings and needs ahead of her own.
Krakenimages.com | Shutterstock Creating a blended family is almost never easy, and with the myriad emotions and heaps of baggage often involved, it takes a special person to be up to the challenge of doing right.
For one dad on Reddit, the woman he's marrying seems to definitively NOT be one of those people. Because while her heart is in the right place, she has begun making demands that are completely inappropriate, and has centered her own emotional needs far ahead of the dad's fragile son's
The dad's fiancée is insisting that his son consider her his mother.
Oftentimes, a mom or dad's new spouse comes to be much more like an actual parent than a stepparent. I had an aunt who had six stepchildren, whom, to this day, long after she passed, refer to her as their mother, and they, in turn, were referred to as her children in her obituary.
But that came after decades of hard-won love and trust, and most notably patience on my aunt's part, who intuitively understood that her new husband's kids already had a mother they loved dearly. She let THEM lead that process, and tried to meet them where they were. It took years to form those relationships.
This dad's situation couldn't be more different. He's been seeing his fiancée, Ellie, for four years, and while his 10-year-old son doesn't have any problems with her or their relationship, "he doesn't have a very close bond with her and he hasn't formed the kind of bond where he loves her like a mom or sees her as a mom," the dad wrote.
This is likely in part because his relationship with his actual mother is traumatizing. She is "unstable," essentially abandoned him, and hasn't seen him in two years. But Ellie doesn't seem to understand the position this puts him in, and is crossing major boundaries in an attempt to replace his mom.
The fiancée demands they all go to family therapy to form a mother-child relationship in time for the wedding.
For as distant as the son feels toward Ellie, she feels the opposite. "She has tried to create that bond with him because she has started to see him as her son," the dad wrote. "[She] admitted to me recently that she has an issue with him seeing her as my girlfriend/fiancée and not as a mom to him."
The son often corrects anyone who thinks she is his mom, which hurts her feelings because she has been more of a mother to him than his mother has in years. She said she "has worked hard to be a solid presence in his life and provide him with the motherly love that he doesn't get from his mom but it's not enough."
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With the wedding approaching, she's issuing a sort of ultimatum: She wants them all to get into therapy so that they can get the son "on board" with a mother-son relationship in time for their wedding.
The dad was immediately put off by her attempt to "force" a relationship, but she insists she's only looking out for his best interests and making sure he has a mother to guide him. He, on the other hand, insists she should back off.
The fiancée is expecting a child to have an adult's understanding of a traumatic situation.
The situation has come to a sort of impasse. "She said I should want to do this for our family and she's not sure she could marry me if that's my attitude," the dad wrote. "I told her we should break up then because I won't force him to consider her mom."
Frankly, that is the correct response, though it seems likely this woman is caring enough to be reachable with the right therapist. Be that as it may, her expectations are absurd. She is expecting a traumatized 10-year-old child to have an adult's understanding of his situation. That's not how it works.
A child cannot simply transfer his feelings for the person who birthed him onto another person simply because it makes sense. That is not how human nature works, period, let alone for a child. The kid is not sitting in front of a spreadsheet checking off which woman has the most motherly characteristics. He just wants his mom back. That's all he understands. He's 10.
And it is wildly inappropriate. Experts say it's a terrible basis on which to create a blended family, to expect him to shift that priority onto her. The simple fact is, successfully blending a family takes time. In some cases, it can take a decade. She's only been in this young boy's life for three years, and they aren't even married yet.
What she doesn't understand is that a parent's job is to help their child manage their emotions, honor them, and make them feel safe and heard.
She very clearly is not up to that job, which makes her insistence that she be his mother feel frankly absurd. To put it more succinctly and bluntly: Ellie, it's not about you. It's about that kid, and you need to learn your place before your stepparent relationship can grow beyond it.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
