Bonding Issue - Schenectady,NY

I'll stick with my original advice ( not criticism).... Hold off on the wedding.

I will add to my advice.....start family counseling and attend for awhile before said wedding.

My criticism.....how often is bio dad at YOUR home?

I m guessing just to pick up/drop off? So of the 96% of the time YOU and fiancé are with your son, what exactly are you two, the adults, doing to establish a positive relationship with him?

The problem is really not his bio dad, it is that you and fiancé don't know how to establish your own relationship with your son. You need to learn how to do that. Who cares what bio dad says? Stop using that as your excuse.

ETA: After reading your SWH..there's just some things you don't get from book learning .. Looks like for you it was....Honesty

I read your first post, and now I'm reading this one. I have to say that I'm not buying any of this.

First of all, I'm really offended that you would use this site as a "test" of anything, and waste everyone's time collecting data for your friends. That's ridiculous.

Secondly, your protestations about your education and degrees ring pretty hollow. Either that, or English is not your first language. Your grammar, spelling and thought sequence do not indicate a good command of English, which would be required for work in the law!

Third, going to the park or for ice cream does not make you a good parent. Suggesting that dedicated moms on this site would buy that as evidence of strong parenting is pretty insulting. You live with a man for 2 years and your son is hiding in his room. I think most of us stand by our advice on your first post.

FYI don't post a new question - put in a "So What Happened" response or use the initials "ETA" (Edited To Add) in your original post. Otherwise you're asking new readers to go back and look up everything on prior posts - that's not how this site works.

"Well educated," you say?

On what planet?

A test from the uneducated attorney's association??? We are smarter than that.

What you take as criticism is advise, we just don't agree with your decisions. You really need to read your post again. You are playing house with a man you are still "learning" about. You play "happy" family when his daughter is there by going to the park and/or ice cream parlor. Yet, you say nothing about the man who would be the future step father to your son doing anything with YOUR son. Seriously, YOU need to stop and think about what YOU are doing. You can live in the fantasy land of this being bio dad but its not all on him. That is the truth.

You have made some bad decisions and honestly continue to do so.

My advise? Move out, get into counseling for you and your son, and learn to love yourself and make better decisions regarding your son and yourself.

As for your education? That's great, because sweetie you are going to need it. This will not end well.

If this is a test, you have failed!!!

What the heck?!?!

You being involved with your son is not the issue.
It's your fiance who is not bonding - and your son is shying away - maybe because of ideas his father put into his head - but maybe not.
And it's just weird to have this issue after living together for 2 years.
A kid that goes right to his room sounds like he's having issues of some sort.
I'd be fairly concerned with that even with no fiance in the picture.
If you are determined to marry this guy you, your son and your fiance need family counseling.
It's still a good idea to live apart for awhile while you are working all this out.

Counseling. Definitely.

Since you say this is a recent change in your son's behavior, perhaps you should be considering the possibility that he has been molested. Perhaps even by your fiance.

You do not write like someone who is working on a graduate degree.

It certainly wouldn't hurt if you went for ice cream or to the park as a family when his daughter is not with you.

If your fiancee truly wants a relationship with your son, he's going to have to work for it - it isn't going to fall into his lap. Whatever your son is interested in, your fiancee needs to at least pretend to be interested in and try to share that interest with your son. It will take time, a lot of time, but consistency will win out every time.

IF your financee puts some time and real effort into bonding and forming a relationship with your son, and does bond with him, then it won't matter what his father says because he will have formed his own opinion. He may not defend your fiancee to his father, because it will be easier for him to just go along with that program in front of his father, but the bond will be formed and life will be better for everyone.

Get your son out of his room in the afternoons and do things as a family so he can start FEELING like you're a family. No five year old LIKES to play in their room alone every day.

Wow, I am late to the game but give me a break. My ex said some of the most awful things he could about my now husband. He tried every trick in the book including telling them that my husband was probably a pedophile! My ex is a sociopath, he is good at that stuff. Thing is he never could turn my kids against my husband because they can feel how loved they are.

I am sure you have become good at convincing yourself, nothing to see here. This is your ex's fault, you aren't planning on getting married anytime soon because that is what you want.

You got plenty of advice, you didn't want advice, you wanted affirmation, anything non affirming looks like criticism to someone who needs affirmation to continue to deceive herself. Your reaction, this second post, proves that. Well as someone who has been there, done that, this is not caused by your ex, they just don't have that kind of power.

I am the last person to use education as an indicator of intelligence since the smarted people I know have never gone to college. Still, your degrees are not that impressive.

Oh and if you are going to change your name to something as stupid as Pure niceness you may want to try Pascal case, it is easier to read.

You have received some very direct answers that apparently you've taken as unfounded criticism. You asked for advice. Apparently you don't like the advice and are responding in anger. I suggest that your response indicates that on some level you know that your boyfriend/fiancé's treatment of your son is not good. Perhaps you were hoping to learn how you can change their relationship. You cannot change either your fiance or your son's reaction to him. It is what it is. What we are saying is that your son needs to bond with him so that he can feel loved and accepted in his home. The fact that your fiance hasn't bonded in 2 years should tell you that he is not able to empathize. Do you really want your son around someone who makes it obvious that he doesn't love him

I'm glad that you share your love with your son. It's important to the emotional health of your son to have a men in his life who can relate to him.
I repeat that if your fiance can not participate in life with your son you are putting your own needs above those of your son. Please take a good look at the dynamics in your home. Apparently you and your fiance are happy and your son isn't. Your son has no control in his life. He needs you to protect him and see that his need for love and acceptance is met. What will you gain if you continue in this relationship and your son acts out as a teen; perhaps doesn't graduate high school or be able to form healthy relationships. He will come to believe that he is not good enough. We say this because we have experience with children.

I know from experience that your son will make his own decisions about relationships. Is father will influence that decision but bottom line is that if your fiance loved your son and gladly related to him he would come around. Your fiance is the adult and needs to work on forming a healthy relationship with your son, a child.

If your son is a teen I suggest that it may be too late to affect a change. A child's ability to form successful relationships lessons as they get older.

I urge you to ask a professional for advice. We don't know any of you. There may be reasons that we don't know that would help them bond. We are answering without important information; based only on the information you gave us. Whether or not you are a good mother is determined by how well you understand your child and his needs. Sounds like he has a good relationship with you. Because your fiance lives with you he needs to be a good father to your son. Is he?

I

what a weird post.
:/ khairete
S.

Ignore bio dad. You'll never change him, what goes on in his house or what he tells your child. Let it go immediately and permanently.

One day your child will form his own opinions about all the adults in his life. In the meantime you and your fiancé raise and treat your son as you believe is appropriate.

Some children are very introverted and self-contained, even at five. I always played alone and invariably played in the closet. I never remember coming out of my room unless my mother drug me out for a meal. With my stepdaughter we encourage her to find a balance. She's extroverted, though, so we are sending her off to play by herself at times. With your son you can insist he play out in the public spaces. Whichever direction you are sending them, the message remains the same - we want to see you but we also need you to play independently.

Blending stepfamilies is the single hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It's hard to walk the high road or even to know what that looks like. You're going to get advice from all corners and all over the place. Walking that high road once you determine what that looks like for your family will still involve lots of misteps. In your house make sure the residents are on the same page and everyone is being treated like you want them to be treated. Good luck.

The correct place for all of this post, is as an edit to your original post. Not an entirely new thread.

Hi,

I responded yesterday to your original question. I had felt kind of bad after I posted my response because I thought perhaps I'd been a bit harsh. I think I had said something about the grown ups need to be grown ups here in the best interests of the child.

I still feel that if your fiancé has not bonded with your child and it has been this long, there's a reason for it. You say that your son's biological father has put ideas in your son's head. That's unfortunate. I imagine that happens quite frequently in these situations. But that's life - kids are going to hear negative comments from others, it's up to us parents to help them to see the truth for what it is, how to deal with it and make sense of it all. It's a great learning opportunity if you look it that way. It's also up to divorced or separated parents to work together putting the child's interests ahead of their own. You're going to be parents to this child forever, now is a good time to start communicating in a positive way.

So that falls on you as I see it. My advice to you would be to put everything aside and help your child.

1 - Ask your child what he needs from you, his mother, in order to make this work. Be prepared for an honest answer. This is really where you need to start.

2 - Ask your child what he needs from your fiancé in order to bond, what he would like to see happen and what he's finding hard about bonding with him.

Help him to see how his father might be negatively influencing his thoughts, and that even if he comes to bond with your fiancé, that does not mean his relationship with his father is diminished in any way.

3 - Ask your ex to stop saying negative things about your fiancé and to be respectful. Tell him how it is impacting your son. Agree together that that you will be supportive of each other's choices so that it does not negatively impact your child.e

4 - Ask your fiancé why he feels he isn't bonding with your son. Ask him what is willing and prepared to do in order to have this happen.

5 - Counselling. I don't think there is any way you can fix this without outside help in your case. When you go to counselling everyone has the opportunity to talk about how they feel and what they need in order to feel secure and confident about relationships. You will know what you responsible for. Then you actually have to act on it. They will guide you. And then you all evaluate how you're doing, and make changes if necessary until you're in a healthy place.

My thought is, while you may be doing family type stuff such as movie nights and ice cream - while these are all typical family activities, they don't necessary mean bonding is happening. There are plenty of dysfunctional families out there where for all appearances, they seem to be very normal by what they do. Instead, it's how everyone relates to each other that matters. So if your child and your fiancé aren't close, and yet for 2 years they've lived together, and your child believes what his dad says - then no amount of ice cream is really going to save the day. Do you know what I mean?

I'm not really interested in your education. I know lots of moms who aren't educated who are great mothers. I don't see the relevance. You asked for advice, and I think it's a resounding "Put your child first" response that you received.

Good luck going forward

first things first how old is your son?

What? Do you mean that you essentially made this question up? I don't believe for a moment that you have a lot of friends going through this right now. A lot of friends whose 5 year olds go to their rooms and stay? That's NOT what 5 year olds do. And making stuff up to see what people will say is ridiculous.

How I view your post is that I think you need to stop being a poser.