Parent With New Paramour / Literature

Examples of Parent with New Paramour in Literature.

---

• 4 Kids in 5E and 1 Crazy Year: Max's divorced mother starts dating one of her coworkers, and it takes a while before Max stops stressing out about how she is paying less attention to him and could end up with another abuser like Max's father (she doesn't).
• Animal Inn: Catherine Sparks, introduced in book 4, becomes engaged to Doc in book 11 and marries him in book 12. Val, Erin and Teddy aren't happy about the idea at first, despite liking her — they just don't like the idea of someone "replacing" their mother (and Erin had the hardest time with it). Fortunately, Catherine is very understanding of their reactions and, with time, the kids accept that she's not going to try and replace Mrs. Taylor in their hearts. Sparky, on the other hand, didn't have any trouble with the idea of Doc being her stepfather at all.
• Animorphs:
  • Marco's father had a mental breakdown when his wife died, and sank into a deep depression, even losing his job as a computer engineer. When he starts dating again, Marco doesn't really seem to have any problems with the new paramour herself; just her evil toy poodle, the fact that she's his math teacher (that'll teach Marco not to make the school call home!), and, oh, yeah—his mom's not really dead.
  • Unfortunately for the girlfriend (now his Dad's wife!), she ends up infested by the Yeerks after Marco tells his dad everything and finally rescues his mom.
• In Bat and the End of Everything, Janie and Bat's dad introduces them to his "friend" Suzette. Janie is upset and doesn't want to talk to her. Bat doesn't understand why until his family explains what "friend" means in this context.
• This happens in The Casual Vacancy to Gaia Bawden's mother, Kay, who moves both her and her daughter from London to the tiny village Pagford to be with her lover, Gavin. Gaia is not remotely happy about being uprooted from the place she grew up.
• In The Changeover, right before Laura's little brother Jacko is attacked, their mother brings home her new paramour much to Laura's displeasure.
• The Change Room: Eliza's mother grew close to Garry, a Jehovah's Witness elder, on the death of her husband and she joined the religion, accepting his marriage proposal. Her son though believed he was a creep and threatened to kill Garry, so she called it off, leaving her new religion too.
• Clade: Ellie's mother died when she was a teenager, and her father, Tom, remarried a woman named Maddie who is only five years older than Ellie. Ellie always disliked and mistrusted Maddie. Their relationship improves somewhat after Ellie's daughter Summer is born, but after Tom finally dies, Ellie and Maddie never see each other again.
• Dexter: Dexter puts a great deal of time and effort into gaining the trust of girlfriend Rita's children. He does succeed and they get as attached to him as they're capable of. In the second novel, Dearly Devoted Dexter, we find out that Dexter and Cody have much more in common than one would want to think, given that Cody's eight. Astor seems to share her brother's issues, but is more inclined to spectate rather than participate. Dexter decides the kids need him to train them in the Code of Harry.
• In Jacqueline Wilson's Double Act, twins Ruby and Garnet absolutely hate it when their widowed father starts dating again, and hate it even more so when the woman in question, Rose, moves in. They view Rose as a quintessential Wicked Stepmother, constantly playing pranks on her and hoping she’d move away. It doesn’t help that their grandmother is also pretty cold towards Rose, though actually the latter does nothing but attempt to bond with the family. Ruby and Garnet's relationship with Rose does gets better towards the end.
• The titular character in Ella Enchanted isn't too happy when her father announces he's getting remarried after her mother's death. She's outright dismayed when she learns the woman he's marrying is the mother of her two worst enemies.
• Elliott & Win: After Win and Donny's ma broke up with her third husband, she swore off men forever. But in Santa Fe, she falls in love with Donny's amigo, Hal Norris. Before long, the two are planning to get married. Win is sure she's in for another painful divorce.
• The premise of The Gatecrasher. Phillipa is nothing short of thrilled to have another woman around the house, while her brother Antony is too weirded out to have an opinion on their father dating again so soon after their mother's death. Both of them are quickly charmed by the new girlfriend when they actually meet her in person, unaware that she's an unscrupulous Gold Digger.
• Anne Fine's Goggle Eyes has the Tall, Dark, and Snarky Kitty Killin reminiscing about her antagonistic relationship with her mother's new boyfriend to a classmate with the same problem. The boyfriend is old enough to be her grandfather and disagrees with every political stance the family takes, but is supportive of it and is fatherly to Kitty's younger sister. Eventually, Kitty accepts him... right before her mother breaks it off.
• In Half Magic by Edward Eager, the kids introduce their mother to the new paramour, and are mostly quite happy with the whole situation — except that they think it'd be strange to call him "father", so he gets declared an honorary uncle.
• In The House of Night, Zoey's chief source of familial angst is the "Steploser", her ultra-religious stepfather who she feels stole her mother from her. Being Marked makes things worse between them, as he believes vampyres are satanic.
• From Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie's father marries Fanny after the death of his first wife. However, she does treat her two stepdaughters and her own daughter fairly. But subtly, Martha points out that after their father's death, she had sent her two daughters away for her own reasons and had the eldest Sophie left with the family hat store without any pay. However, still later on, Sophie realises Fanny was genuinely misguided in her mistakes rather than actively malicious.
• I'm Ok (2018): Ok's mom is dating Deacon Koh from Ok's church. Ok doesn't like Deacon Koh because he thinks he's trying to hard to get Ok to like him back. His dislike only increases when he thinks he sees Deacon Koh stealing money from the church collection plate. Thankfully he gets over it, and he and Ok's mom get married near the end of the book.
• Joel Suzuki: In Mystery of the Moonfire, Joel's mom starts dating his boss, Art. Joel likes Art, but still thinks it's weird that he's dating his mom.
• Gary from The Light Jar seemed like a type 2 at first. Nate was afraid he'd monopolize his mum's attention, but he seemed really nice and always included Nate when they went out. It was only after he moved in that his controlling, abusive personality became increasingly apparent.
• Like a Fish Understands a Tree: When George's mum first met Adam, Adam played football with George, who has Down syndrome, and unsuccessfully tried to teach him math. His apparent friendliness was only due to his belief that George's intellectual disability could be "fixed" with proper parenting. Once Adam realized that George was never going to be any more normal, he mostly ignored him.
• Magical Girl Raising Project has this come up multiple times as part of Ripple's backstory. There was an incident in elementary school where the other kids mad fun of her over her last name changing every other month or so (which ends with her punching them out after they suggest that her mother is a whore, and as such she must be one as well), and ending just before the story proper as she meets her mother's newest husband (which ends with her knocking him unconscious and running away to live on her own after he tries to molest her).
• In A Mango-Shaped Space, Jenna's dad gets a new girlfriend named Rebecca. Jenna and Rebecca don't get along, which causes Jenna's dad to accuse her of hurting Rebecca's feelings. Jenna's dad eventually dumps Rebecca.
• Mindblind has Nathaniel's stepmom Rachel. Nathaniel doesn't love her, but she's at least nice to him, which is more than can be said of his dad.
• In Mouse (2017), Kai's dad Greg starts dating Mouse's mom June, leaving both of them with less time for their kids. Kai resents Mouse and June for "stealing" his dad, although they eventually become friends.
• Nina Tanleven: Nine doesn’t react well to any woman who shows an interest in her father, feeling that he doesn’t really notice if they’re interested and that this makes him an easy target for the kind of woman who would be willing to take advantage of him, and also because he’s still married. While she does lighten up towards Mona Curtis in The Ghost Wore Gray and Norma Bliss in The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed, she’s still not thrilled by their interest in her father.
• The Other Boy: Adam's fiancée, Summer, gets off to a bad start with Shane because Adam told her that Shane was a tomboy, and she doesn't learn that he's trans until she invites him to be a bridesmaid at their wedding. But once they get past that, Summer turns out to be a lot more accepting than Adam, and Shane learns to like her. Rebecca also gets a new boyfriend named Chris. When they temporarily break up, Shane encourages her to text him, because he knows how much happier Adam is with Summer and he wants Rebecca to be happy too.
• In later books of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Percy's mother Sally begins dating Paul after her husband Gabe "mysteriously" disappears. Percy is fine with this for the most part (though he does call Paul "Blowfish" for some time after mishearing his last name) because Gabe was an abusive asshole to both him and Sally and Paul, in contrast, is a nice guy who makes Sally genuinely happy.
• The Princess Diaries has Mia's mom dating her algebra teacher, which freaks Mia out at first because while he's a nice enough guy, Mia struggles with the lesson itself. Eventually they marry and produce Mia's half-brother Rocky.
• Sarah, Plain and Tall is an unusual example, in that the new paramour is a Mail-Order Bride. Anna and Caleb's father Jacob advertises for a wife to help look after his children, their mother having died when Caleb was born, and Sarah responds because she needs a new home now that the brother whom she lived with is married. Over the course of a month, they all learn to genuinely love each other, and in the sequels, Sarah and Jacob go on to have two more children.
• Frankie Telemahcus in Spoonbenders, for all of his faults, wants to be the "dad who stuck around" for Mary Alice unlike her bio-dad, even though she seems to resent him in her life. Considering he's an incompetent confidence artist who gets the family in trouble due to his Mob Debt, her resentment isn't entirely unwarranted.
• The Suitcase Kid:
  • Both of Andy's parents now have new partners she's forced to deal with. Andy dislikes both her stepfather Bill and her stepmother Carrie. She especially hates Bill, who isn't all that nice to her. She doesn't care much for Carrie either, though she likes her a bit more Bill as she tries to be kind and just finds her annoying more than anything. Andy mostly wishes that her parents would break up with their new partners and get back with each other By the end Andy still isn't completely happy with the situation, but is more accepting of it.
  • Graham and Katie seem largely accepting of Carol as a stepmother, though Paula is much less keen and often argues with her. Andy encourages this in the hopes that her mother and Paula's father will break up.
• Tempest (2011): At the beginning of Tempest Revealed, Tempest's dad has a new girlfriend named Sabrina. Tempest's brothers Rio and Moku both like her, but Tempest just can't warm to her and is annoyed at her for butting in on family time. She feels like a hypocrite because she's the one who encouraged her dad to start dating again in the first place. It turns out there's a good reason for Tempest's dislike of Sabrina — she's actually a mermaid who works for Tiamat.
• Things I Should Have Known:
  • Chloe and Ivy's stepdad Ron has been married to their mom for a year. Chloe dislikes his forced efforts to act like their dad and especially his controlling behavior towards Ivy, whom he's constantly nagging about her diet. She starts to warm to him when he stands up for Ethan's right to stay with his family instead of being institutionalized.
  • David and Ethan's stepmom Margot used to be okay until she got pregnant and went off the deep end. Now she's an anti-vaxxer who's obsessed with the possibility that her infant son Caleb will turn out to be autistic like Ethan and is constantly pushing for Ethan to be institutionalized.
• In To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Lara Jean's father is dating Ms Rothchild. Each Song girl has a different reaction to it. Kitty is ecstatic as she is a Shipper on Deck for them from the beginning. Lara Jean is simply happy to see her father with someone. Margot on the other hand is more aloof to Ms Rothchild.
• The Tuning Station:
  • Ted's mom had an affair with her husband's best friend, Steve, and eventually left her family for him when Ted was in eighth grade.
  • In Chris's timeline, his father remarried a woman named Heather. Chris likes her and thinks she's perfect for him.
• In Twelve Days, single mom Olympia Dorsey starts dating Terry Nicolas. He's a type 1 for her son Hannibal, who loved him as soon as they met and is always thrilled to see him, and a type 2 for her daughter Nicki, who didn't learn to like him until he proved himself by saving her family from Salvation Sanctuary.
• Ugly Love: Miles wasn't too impressed by his father's new relationship with Lisa; he moved her and her daughter in just months after Miles' mother died and the timing of their relationship led Miles to realise his father was likely having an affair. Miles' dad tried to make them all play happy families, such as referring to Lisa's daughter as Miles' "new sister" and Lisa going along with it; not only were Miles and Rachel teenagers with no previous relationship, they also developed romantic feelings for each other, so they weren't thrilled at being treated as siblings. Miles' relationship with his father and stepmother got even more tense after Lisa and Mr Archer learned Miles had gotten Rachel pregnant, though things seemed to be improving by the time Rachel gave birth. Unfortunately, the family fell apart completely in the aftermath of the baby's death.
• Under Suspicion:
  • Laurie's son Timmy is even more openly enthusiastic about the prospect of his mother dating Alex than Laurie herself; he thinks it's "awesome" when he sees them kissing and is always excited to spend time with Alex. Besides Alex being a genuinely nice man who enjoys hanging out with Timmy and shares some of his interests, Timmy is eager for Alex to be part of his life because he missed out on having a father (his father was murdered when he was three).
  • I've Got You Under My Skin: Robert says that when he married Betsy, he tried to get her then-teenaged daughter Claire to warm up to him and did his best to support her, but that Claire was always a bit standoffish with him. After Betsy was murdered, Claire immediately moved out and cut off contact with her stepfather. Robert says he got the sense Claire was jealous and resentful of his relationship with her mother, as up until the point they met, it had just been Claire and Betsy for Claire's entire life. Claire's perspective paints their relationship in a very different light; the reason Claire hated her stepfather wasn't mere jealousy but because he was possessive and sexually abusive (which her mother did nothing to stop) and he did horrible things to all her friends: he helped financially ruin Regina's father, driving him to suicide, he abruptly dumped Nina's mother for Betsy after giving her the impression he'd marry her (for which Nina's mother blamed her) and thanks to his donation to Alison's college, Betsy was able to swindle her out of her medical scholarship.
  • Every Breath You Take: Neither of Virginia's adult kids, or her son-in-law for that matter, were impressed by her dating Ivan Gray a few years after she was widowed. They were openly wary and disapproving of Ivan because he was much younger than Virginia and she was extremely generous towards him; they believed Ivan to be a manipulative gold-digger who was making Virginia look foolish. Virginia believed that her children were just being overprotective and having difficulty accepting she was moving on from their father and focusing on rediscovering herself (she had made a lot of personal sacrifices to support both them and their father as they were growing up). Ivan felt that the kids couldn't accept that Virginia's life didn't just revolve around being "Mrs Robert Wakeling" anymore, blaming him for that despite his efforts to get along with them. After Virginia's death, Anna, Carter and Peter were quick to point the finger at Ivan.
• Vorkosigan Saga
  • Memory: While Ivan Vorpatril is well in his thirties when his mother finally decides to hook up again, he doesn't take it well:
    Miles: You don't need to bellow.
    Ivan: I'm not bellowing, I'm being firm!
    Miles: Could you please be firm at a lower volume?
    Ivan: No. Simon Illyan is sleeping with my mother, and it's your fault!
  • Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen: On the other hand, Miles himself takes Cordelia hooking up with admiral Jole after Aral's death much better, but then, as it turns out, Oliver Jole always was a third leg in their relationship, which he probably knew (or at least suspected) all along, so he had had time to get used to it.
• Where Are the Children?: Fourteen years ago, Nancy's widowed mother Priscilla had fallen in love with Lendon Miles, a psychiatrist she worked with. Their relationship was becoming quite serious, though they'd taken things slowly as they weren't sure how Nancy would take it. Unfortunately, Priscilla died in a car accident shortly after they confessed their love. Lendon considered reaching out to Nancy, but decided against it on the advice of Nancy's fiance, who stated she needed privacy while she grieved; Lendon also believed Nancy might resent his presence. It turns out that Nancy was aware of her mother's feelings for Lendon and was happy for her; she'd hoped Lendon would come to see her in the aftermath of Priscilla's death, as they could've grieved together. Lendon hopes he can make it up to Nancy and Priscilla by helping Nancy now.

---