BEING A STEP DAD

Following on from my previous blog on being a father to my biological daughter I want to now talk about being a father to my step son and him as well. As anyone who has been in this kind of position before will understand that these times can be hard for all parties involved.

I came into Jacobs life at around the age of 8 (dates really are not my thing sorry). I met his Mother/my wife awhile before hand. She then had been with her partner/his dad since they were teenagers. Through one thing and another (don’t feel it’s my place to talk about something I was there for) they went their separate ways. When I had met my wife she had moved out to a separate flat. As we just happen to meet one night, we took things slow and not to serious as through that I didn’t meet her son for a while which we both thought was the right thing to do. After some time and we realised we wanted to stay together we then decided it was the time to meet him. As I stated before he was around the age of 9 so he knew his father well and like all kids still would like his parents to stay together even after they had split

I met him gradually over a period of time. I remember one particular time taking him to toys r us and buying a big lego set so that we could just spend time building it together. As time pasted and he really got to know me well and understood and accepted me into his life the best he could as I know deep down he would have liked his father to be back. As during that time that I was not living there I was staying in a fully furnished company house up the road. Due to working away all the time in these kind of places I never really had to much ‘stuff’ as it were, so the moving was easy.

When I fully moved into the flat with him and my now wife, the going was a lot easier than I thought and felt at home as really felt really at ease with me being there. During the time at the flat things went well with us all. During this time I was teaching him properly how to ride his bike, doing football practice in the park and loads of other stuff that fathers do with their son. The only real problem that we had was with his father. I won’t go into this in this blog as would like to focus on other things and don’t feel right at this present time saying negative things about him and my times with him as it not really fair on my partners son. But I will state that through all of the difficult times with him we never stopped him seeing his son and also never spoke badly of him in front of his son. No matter what happened I still had a good relationship with him, but also we expressed at the time he was never to call me dad as we didn’t feel that would be right even if he grow close enough to me to feel that he might want to

After a short time we decided it was time to move out of the two bedroom flat and get something better as we wanted to have Esme. Things seemed to align at the right as my partners ex was being forced to move out of the house that him and my wife lived in. They both owned the house and now it was going to go on the market as a loss. So me and my partner got together to pay him off and move. Due to a lot damage and other things to the property I had to work on the house before we moved in. When we did we made it our home but with her son we gave him the choice of two rooms and how he would like it to look. Even though this was the house that his father shared with his mother it didn’t seem to bother him at all and once we had Esme a short time after we grew as a family together.

During his time at primary school I went to all of his school shows and sports days. Out of school we took him to clubs for him to try and also got him into going out doors and hiking. Through the primary years he and Esme where really close and that was great for us to see but also we all felt very close together and did lots of family things during this time. Of course during this time he still sore his father and stayed with which was arranged between him and my wife but we never left him out of anything we felt he would really enjoy

During the teenage years we still had a close relationship but as with most family’s we had our up’s and downs and of course like most teenagers we got the rebellion stage and he is always right lol. But to be honest during all of thistime he was a really good kid. Even when he had his moments (so did we) he exceled and showed us what a great kid he is. Nothing proved this move than when we got married in Scotland and was a shining star to all the family’s and friends. Like I say though we did have some moments and even though he wasn’t my biological son I treated him the same as if he was. With this I wasn’t worried about telling him off in my way and pointing things out. One reason I like to point this part out is the power struggle we had back and forth with his dad and his family. We had to be the parents and be the ‘bad guys’ but they were the opposite we felt for a good few years just to keep happy. This as you can guess caused some problems. But now in the end I’m really glad we stuck to our guns as even my wife son understands why were strict when we had to be. But like I said before we were really lucky with things going on that we never really had to many serious things to tell him off for as he only got into trouble at school for uniform and forgetting stuff.

He is now just about to turn 18 at the time of writing this and really knows what to do with his life and is set on it. Over the last few years up to now we have become distant and not in a bad way but in a way that I’m not cool anymore and wants to be with his friends and that all the time. He has a close circuit of friends that he hangs with that don’t (as we know lol) get into trouble. Even through this I still treat him as my son and feel close to him but understand that kids grow up and start to move on, just as we did. But it great to see he is moving on in the right way and really knows what to do with his life.

In conclusion it has been a great time being a step father and will continue to do so till the day I die. I wouldn’t change any of the highs or lows along the way as it has shaped us all and even with the negative stuff that we all have in any family he has grown to be a great lad and someone to be proud of and with that you can’t as more than that. I feel just as much as a dad to him as my own daughter