You can raise a child from the time he was barely walking, love him like he’s your own, show up every single day while his biological mother barely does, and still find out the hard way that none of it makes you his parent on paper.
She left her cheating husband but didn’t want to leave his son behind. Now she just wants to know if she’s allowed to have a life too.
This 30-year-old woman has spent the last year and a half separated from her husband. Back when they first began dating, her husband was a single dad, and his son was 13-months-old.
She jumped in to raise this little guy as her own child. Her stepson’s mom was allowed supervised visitation one day a month for several hours, and she barely showed up.
She was essentially her stepson’s mom for six years, and she made him the center of her entire universe.
“I ended up leaving my husband because he was consistently cheating on me. I chose to leave the relationship, but not the child. Since then, I’ve stayed very involved,” she explained.
“I call my son almost daily, and while he’s 7 and gets distracted easily, we still talk regularly. I also have him on weekends when possible. The issue is logistics: I live about 40 minutes away and don’t have a car, so his dad has to bring him to me.”
“Recently, my former mother-in-law told me that if I want to ‘coparent,’ I need to actually coparent, and she’s frustrated that she doesn’t get help during the week.”
She reminded her that she can take her stepson literally any time; she just needs someone to drop him off at her house. She still loves her stepson like he’s her own child, even after everything his father did to her.
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Anyway, her husband’s new girlfriend didn’t allow her stepson to talk to her for a whole week because she’s envious of their relationship.
Her husband dumped this girl for a short amount of time, but ultimately got back together with her, so it’s been chaos. Her husband’s mom agreed to pick her stepson up from the bus after school and take him to her, and she keeps him until her husband is done with work.
She’s cool with that arrangement, but the problem is that she has a long-distance boyfriend, who lives eight hours away from her, and she tried to talk to her husband about what it would look like if she moves to be with her boyfriend.
“I said I don’t want to leave my son, but at the end of the day, I am a stepparent, and I can’t put my entire life on hold—especially when my access to him can be taken away at any time,” she continued.
“My former mother-in-law lectured me, saying that’s what a parent does—you sacrifice for your child. I feel stuck. I’ve done everything I can to stay in his life, and I love him deeply, but I also want to build a future, possibly have biological children, and move forward with my life.”
“So… [am I the jerk] for wanting to move and prioritize my future, even though I helped raise him?”
Well, her husband was the one who ruined their family, and if he hadn’t cheated, his son would have had more stability. I think her husband has to give her legal partial custody, because otherwise it doesn’t make sense for her to bend over backwards for his son at all.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
