We've been together for two years and living together for about eight months now. My partner has a 9 year old from a previous relationship who is with us four days a week. I went into this knowing it would take time and knowing I wasn't going to be his dad and knowing that the adjustment would be real and I thought knowing all of that would make it easier to navigate. Plot twist, it hasn't. It's made me better at describing what's hard without being any better at making it less hard.
Last Tuesday he was having a rough night, one of those moods kids get into where everything is wrong and nothing helps, so I tried to step in and help and he looked at me in a way that made it completely clear I was the wrong person in that moment. My partner handled it which is how it should be and I went to the bedroom and started playing on my phone for about an hour after it happened, just so I can get my mind off of that.
One thing I can't figure out is whether what I'm feeling is a normal part of a process that takes longer than 8 months or whether it's something I need to pay more attention to. I love my partner a lot and the kid situation is complicated in a way that has nothing to do with him as a person and everything to do with me not knowing my role well enough. Not looking for reassurance that it gets better because I believe that it does. Just want to know if anyone has been in this specific inbetween-ish place before and how they handled it.