Being a stepdad turned me into an alcoholic

Inbefore: I translated this text via ChatGPT into english.

About me briefly: I was 23 and my partner was 35 when we met. That was 3 years ago. At the time, I was still in the middle of my training and living with my parents, while she had just come out of a 12-year relationship and already had two children aged 6 and 9.

When we met, everything was perfect. Yes, she was quite a bit older than me and she already had kids, but we didn’t want a serious relationship anyway—it was more like a friends-with-benefits situation… we would NEVER fall in love… right?

Well, after a few months, we fell head over heels in love and officially got together. I had absolutely no interest in having kids, but I wanted this woman, so I ignored the part about the children as much as I possibly could. At first, that worked pretty well, since I knew the kids existed but only from pictures and stories—I had never met them in person.

After about half a year, she of course wanted me to finally meet the children. So I did. What can I say? I felt uncomfortable, weird, out of place… like I didn’t belong. Which is kind of normal. My partner told me that was completely normal and that I’d get used to everything over time. After all, I’d never had contact with children before.

A short time later, we moved in together. And that’s when the beginning of the end started.

From that day on, we spent about 95% of our time together with the kids. While my friends were going to festivals or on vacation, I was sitting at the kids’ pool or in an indoor climbing gym for children. Instead of lying naked in bed with my partner in the evening, there were two kids lying between us while we watched Frozen for the 38th time.

Whenever I tried to talk to my partner, we were interrupted every 30 seconds by one of the kids who urgently needed to tell us something about dinosaurs or whatever. Kids are kids, sure—but at some point it just became annoying, and I started to feel real inner anger building up.

We couldn’t even have normal, relaxed sex because my partner was always tense and we had to be quiet. Still, one of the kids would regularly burst in and interrupt us—no matter the time, sometimes even in the middle of the night. Eventually, I got so annoyed by everything that I lost all desire for sex.

We also had completely different views on many basic things. When the kids came home with a C- in German, she celebrated it like it was an A. When they came home with an F (which happened regularly), it was just, “Hmm, okay, try a bit harder next time, alright?”

I was missing motivation and standards—I wasn’t used to that. Personally, I wouldn’t have even dared to show my parents a grade worse than a B, but that’s another topic.

The 6-year-old spent, on average, 4–6 hours a day on a phone or in front of the TV, and the older one at least 8 hours on the PlayStation. Sports? None. Discipline? None.

I don’t want to act like some macho guy, but I felt completely uncomfortable in that environment—it just didn’t fit me at all. Whenever I said something about grades, screen time, or the lack of sports, I was told I was “too strict” and had “too high expectations.”

I tried taking the older son to sports, and funnily enough, that’s when he suddenly started having daily headaches and couldn’t come along 🙂 His mother assured me he wasn’t pretending—after all, she knows her child. Well, after I gave up a few weeks later, the headaches magically disappeared. Funny coincidence.

I increasingly felt like I was in a prison. I wanted to help, to do something, to change things—but I felt completely powerless. This was nothing like how I had imagined a relationship or a family. I was in my early/mid-20s living the life of a desperate, bad-tempered father.

I started having intense internal struggles, was constantly in a bad mood and irritable, and really just wanted to be alone. I kept trying to withdraw but had no way to, since I couldn’t be alone in any room of the apartment. There was always noise, shouting, chaos. I just wanted to be ALONE.

I started becoming depressed and began drinking more and more. I stopped doing sports myself because I had no energy left. I felt unmotivated, drained, and just unhappy.

I knew I had to get out, but I felt guilty toward my partner, who always tried and was there for me. Leaving her felt like abandoning her, so I forced myself to stay.

Month after month, things got worse, and my alcohol consumption became extreme. At that point, I was a severe alcoholic—it’s a miracle I didn’t lose my job.

At some point, I realized I didn’t feel any love anymore—for anyone. Only anger and hatred. I just wanted to get out and be alone.

About 2 months ago, I finally pulled myself together and ended things. I apologized to her—I know the last few months weren’t easy for her or the kids either. I was constantly irritable, aggressive, and in a bad mood. Plus my drinking.

I’ve now found my own apartment and I’m sober. I’ve started doing sports again. Mentally, I’m still not doing great—I miss my partner and the good moments with her—but I just couldn’t take it anymore and didn’t see any other way.

Toward the end, my life just felt meaningless. I had no dreams, no goals, no motivation—nothing. I just felt empty.

Thanks for listening, and sorry for the long text—it ended up being longer than I planned, even though I tried to keep it as short as possible.

I just needed to get this off my chest.