Kate Ferdinand has confessed she still feels like an outsider at times in her blended family with her hubby Rio.
The 31-year-old is stepmother to the former footballer's three kids Tate, 13, Lorenz, 15, and Tia, 11, and says that she can sometimes get "over-emotional" and not feel a part of their family.
That is despite admitting she has always been welcomed into the family.
The former TOWIE star shares one-year-old Cree with the ex-Manchester United player who she began dating five years ago.
Her confession came as she spoke to Alex Willumsen about how long it takes for a blended family to become 'formed'.
She revealed: "They say four to seven years and I'm at the kind of five year mark and I'm feeling good, I'm feeling a lot better than where I was at the beginning."
Kate was speaking on her Blended podcast and continued: "I still feel... no one makes me feel like this by the way, this is me and myself... that I'm sometimes not part of the family.
"I sometimes get over emotional about some things and certain things trigger me because it makes me feel like an outsider.
"None of my family do anything to make me feel like that. They are welcoming, they do everything that they could possibly do in all honesty but I'm just so emotional about it."
It's not the first time Kate has spoken honestly about her feelings in her blended family. In May, she admitted she sometimes worries more about the older kids and said the love for a stepchild can often be even more intense.
Speaking to The Sun at the time, she confided: "I worry about the big kids so much more. There's a different kind of worry that comes with children that have lost a parent."
Rio's oldest three children were from his previous marriage to Rebecca Ellison, who sadly died of breast cancer in 2015.
And in a podcast earlier this month, Kate explained the difficulties she faces in terms of Christmas with the kids.
"It's really hard when you come in to a family and there's a set way of doing things and you weren't there when that was started," she said.
However, she says they are fine with how the new traditions are going, adding it' s often the parents that feel the pressure for it to be "perfect".
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