Institute of Step-Family Dynamics

Category: Step-mums

  • 3 Simple Steps To Avoid Mother’s Day Misery

    3 Simple Steps To Avoid Mother’s Day Misery

    Most years I put out a PSA on social media for mums and stepmums prior to Mother’s Day. This year I thought an entire blog might be more helpful.

    I do this because there are very few days in the year that can bring as much misery, resentment, and pain to women as Mother’s Day. It’s such a hyped up occasion where our families are supposed to shower us in bounty and praise enough to make all of our sacrifices and pain fade away into distant memory. We are supposed to bask in a warm bath of love and appreciation.

    With such overblown expectations, cultivated by media and conditioning, is it any wonder that so many of us end the day hiding in some part of the house in tears?

    Mother’s Day can be particularly challenging for those who haven’t been able to give birth or adopt children of their own. Childless stepmothers often find this a time of enormous pain. They are reminded of the children they don’t have in their families and feel they will never be seen as a ‘real’ Mother by their stepchildren and possibly even by their partner.

    For mothers who don’t have their children with them on Mother’s Day, the day can bring up many insecurities and unhappy feelings around another woman playing a significant role in mothering their children, not a situation most mothers imagined when they became mothers. For stepmothers whose stepchildren are with their mothers for Mother’s Day, it can be another painful reminder we are not a ‘real’ mother.

    So how do we change the way the day plays out and avoid as much misery as possible?

    Here are 3 simple steps.

    1) Figure out what YOU want the day to look and feel like.

    Do you want to be celebrated? If so, how? What would your ideal Mother’s Day look like?

    I’ve had many different Mother’s Days over the years and some of my best have been time out from mothering. It’s ok to say – actually the best thing I can imagine for Mother’s day is a night in a hotel by myself, or a day out with friends. It’s also ok to say – I need all of the things; breakfast in bed, chocolates, flowers, a lunch out, a day off cooking…the what is not important. What’s important is that it’s what you want out of the day.

    2) Communicate your needs

    Yes, we actually need to tell people what we want and need!

    I remember the first Mother’s Day I spent with my ex-husband. My first Mother’s Day I had been alone in a different country, away from family and friend, as a single parent. The only thing that was special about the day was my first Mother’s Day was just like any other Sunday. For the next one, I was full of excitement about actually being celebrated as a mother by my child and partner. The big day arrived and there was nothing. Not a card, no flowers, not even breakfast in bed. I was devastated.

    When I asked why there was no Mother’s Day thing happening, the response was: We never did Mother’s Day for my mum. I was shocked. Mother’s Day was really important in our family.

    So the lesson was, don’t just assume your partner will know what you want or need!

    We talked about it, and from then on, he was amazing at making sure the kids celebrated me for Mother’s Day. Even after we broke up, he would take the kids to buy a gift. One year, even after I had repartnered, he came down and cooked me breakfast in bed for me with the kids.

    3) Be prepared to change your ideas around what’s important

    As a young mum, Mother’s Day was really important. As I’ve got older and feel more solid in my role, I don’t need the same recognition on the day. I know being appreciated and loved is not always about the big moments artifically driven by consumerism. I know it’s the little moments; the cups of tea, the help when I don’t ask, the unexpected phone call or visit. Those are the things that make me feel most loved and appreciated. I’m in my 30th year of parenting now, so I’ve had plenty of celebrations over the years!

    I’m not suggesting it’s wrong or silly to want all of the things on Mother’s Day. My husband is not into commercialised holidays or events. We’ve talked about some of the reasons why, and I’ve found over the years I’ve come to adopt more of his views on these things. It’s less stressful and way less expensive! Our family values have evolved over the years, and part of the step-family dynamic is incorporating new ways of celebrating.

    If your partner is not into celebrating and isn’t up to accommodating your wants and needs around Mother’s Day, it might be time to figure out how to celebrate yourself instead. Buy the flowers, treat yourself, take a break away. Fill your cup in the way you want it filled, we don’t have to rely on others to do it for us.

    However you want this Mother’s Day to be, please don’t leave it to chance and hope and pray your loved ones will magically get it right.

    Create the day and celebration you want and deserve.

  • What Is (And Isn’t) Parental Alienation Syndrome?

    What Is (And Isn’t) Parental Alienation Syndrome?

    This article was first published in Stepparentmagazine.com

    Parental Alienation Syndrome or PAS is one of the most incorrectly used terms in the step-family world. It’s a word that can often send court-appointed officials running for the hills, or rolling their eyes so far back in the heads their eyes get whiplash. Why is this term so widely misused and misunderstood? And what does it actually mean?

    Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) was a term coined by Dr Richard Gardner. He used it to describe children who rejected a non-abusive parent. This is where the incorrect understanding about PAS begins. Most people think PAS refers to the behaviour of a parent who is trying to damage the relationship between the child and the other parent.

    A parent won’t let the child talk on the phone , withholds important information, doesn’t follow the parenting order, withholds the children – it’s PAS, it’s parental alienation syndrome people claim. Well, actually no, none of those things are parental alienation syndrome. They may be alienating behaviours, or as I prefer to call them, pathogenic parenting. They are not PAS. PAS is what occurs as a result of those behaviours.

    Parental Alienation Syndrome is when the child rejects the parent. The child refuses a relationship with the parent. It’s nothing a parent does, it’s all about the child and his/her behaviour and responses.

    Why is this such a controversial term, and why are so many professionals dismissive of it? Why is it not an officially recognised condition?

    The original findings of Dr Gardner stated that alienating parents tended to be women. So the foundational belief was that women were the perpetrators of alienation behaviour, and the victims were children and men. As Dr Gardner did more work in the field, he found that it was a pretty even spread between the genders, and both men and women were indulging in alienating behaviour, but the initial findings are what many professionals identify. The damage was done.  It is not recognised as an official disorder by the American Psychological Society. PAS is seen by many professionals as misogynistic; dangerous for women and children escaping domestic abuse. The fear is that abusive men use the term to try and discredit women who are trying to protect themselves and their children.

    In fact, I heard a leading expert on domestic violence in New Zealand say exactly that. His description of PAS was that it was appalling and used by men to further abuse women. This narrative was very different to both my experience and understanding of what PAS actually is, but gave me a deeper insight into why the court system is so wary when parents, particularly fathers, bring this up in cusotdy disputes.

    When you combine this with the prevailing paradigm exploited by many women who use alienating behaviour, which is that the children are scared of their father he is an awful person; it’s unsurprising fathers are not met with understanding or empathy when they raise the PAS question in custody battles. Women are also victims of this behaviour, with fathers using PAS as a way to discredit loving mothers.

    So let me recap. Many court officials will have a view that PAS is used by abusive men to try and discredit mothers who are trying to protect themselves and their children. Many mothers who are attempting to cut their children off from the children’s father will claim bullying, fear, and the children/themselves are unsafe with the father. This plays right into the stereotypes of the concerns of court appointed officials, who worry about protecting children from abusive fathers. For mothers, a child rejecting the maternal figure is so far outside of the dominant discourse, many believe it must be because the mother is deficient in some way, otherwise why would a child reject their mother.

    There is a distinct lack of understanding of the impact for children of being in the primary care of an alienating or pathogenic parenting. There is limited understanding that children who exhibit ADHD type behavioural issues in a high conflict divorce situation are often doing so because of the high conflict divorce and pathogenic parenting situation, rather than ADHD. There is not an understanding that children will lie to protect the alienating parent, out of fear, loyalty, and a sense they need to protect their parent. There is also a lack of understanding that a child will take on the fears and beliefs of an alienating parent when this is the dominant discourse and the alienating parent lies about the behaviour and intentions of the targeted parent.

    So where does this leave a parent who is the target of their ex doing their level best to destroy their relationship with their children? This is not something I can address in a single article, but having an understanding of what the term PAS actually means, why it’s controversial, and why using that term in your legal battles may not serve you well is a start.

    It’s important to realise that a single moment of expressing exasperation about the other house, or your ex, is not going to cause PAS. PAS is caused by sustained pressure on the child. This article is the first in a series about PAS and pathogenic parenting, so keep an eye out for more articles about how to counter PAS and to make sure our children are being given the tools to form healthy, loving relationships with all of the parental figures in their lives.

  • All is not Fair in Step-Family Chores

    All is not Fair in Step-Family Chores

    Chores…that simple word can strike fear into the heart of most step-family members, parents and children alike. Chores are a struggle in first families, but step-family dynamics add a whole other level of challenges.

    As I allude to in the title, there is no fair in chores in a step-family and recognising and accepting that is key to making chores manageable. There are so many variables that there is also no one size fits all approach. Blending families is something that takes time. Blending beliefs around chores may be mission impossible for some families, they may need to start from scratch and create a whole new set of values and beliefs.

    Take a good look at where your family is at.

    This can be a little painful. We all like to think we are like the Brady Bunch (and who wouldn’t love an Alice!), but the reality is often quite different. You may have two or more sets of children who are used to very different parenting styles and requirements around their contribution to the household. One parent will be seen as overly strict and unreasonable, and the other parent labelled permissive and slack. How on earth do you get on the same page when the values around chores are so different?

    Creating a family culture based on shared values in a good start. Each parent might need to look at the ‘why’ of their expectations. Often we hold values around chores that stem from our own upbringing, rather than as a conscious construction of family values. Looking into the why can be quite revealing and make us question how important and relevant our expectations really are.

    Be realistic about capacity.

    The demands on kids who are dealing with transitioning between homes are far greater than kids who only have to deal with one set of house rules and parenting styles. We all know transition can be a nightmare time for families; for both the kids and the parents. Knowing this, we need to be smart about our expectations of family members during this time.

    Expecting kids to land in your home and jump straight into chores can be setting our family up for conflict and failure. Take a moment to think how you feel when you are juggling conflicting emotions and expectations. Are you emotionally available to handle the demands of others? Are you filled with the joy of giving and being a team member? Or are you at the edge of your coping just getting through the day?

    Kids who are in your home more will be more comfortable and familiar with your family expectations and values than kids whose dominant experience is with another family structure and set of values. It’s not just unreasonable to expect the same level of engagement from both sets of kids, it’s setting everyone up for failure. Kids who are there for a weekend are going to be dealing with a lot of feelings around transition. Their bandwidth for extra is not going to be the same as kids for whom your home is their main home. Figuring out how to adjust expectations is key for engagement and success around managing chores.

    If we, as adults, struggle with this just imagine how much harder it is for kids. We have some semblance of control over our time and the demands on our time and resource. Kids very often do not. Imagine how it feels when you are already over peak capacity and someone demands you do some laundry or dishes. Is it any wonder that sometimes our kids are not compliant when it comes to chores? One article can’t answer all of the questions around how to manage chores in a step-family dynamic. This article is the first in a series around chores, so keep an eye out for the next instalments! Hopefully this has helped remove some of the expectations around being able to make things fair and an encouragement to look at the whys around chores in your home.

  • What About Me? Step/mums and Family Holiday Traditions

    What About Me? Step/mums and Family Holiday Traditions

    It’s amping up to ‘that’ time of year.

    Holiday stress is a thing. It’s more often a thing for women. It’s often a very different kind of thing for step/mums.

    Traditionally women are the keepers of family traditions, the holiday planners, they are the ones to whom the responsibility for creating a celebration that brings joy to the family falls. Doing all of that in a step-family dynamic adds a whole other realm of stress. Bringing different family traditions and expectations into a day that works for everyone, even when there are different custody schedules going on is exhausting.

    I’m not going to go in to a whole diabtribe about how gendered this is and how unreasonable these expectations are…because they absolutely are, or encouraging a whole wave of feminist rejection of tradition social norms. That’s not because I don’t believe that’s exactly what should happen, it’s because as women we are too damn tired to stage a revolt this close to the silly season. Let’s start that in January or February to make sure there is a fairer division of tasks and responsibilities next year!

    So in the meantime, how do we deal with the layers and layers of stress this can bring?

    Here are 5 tips I find useful:

    Lower expectations

    Lower…lower…lower…and still lower

    Am I being a Debbie Downer? No, I’m being Samantha Survivor!

    So much of our hurt in this season comes from the disconnect between our hopes and expectations and the reality that comes to pass.

    Is the ex who is a grinch all year suddenly going to be overcome with festive cheer and become super generous about access and time over the holidays? Unlikely! They have shown you who they are during the rest of the year – believe them!!

    Are family members who struggle with each other going to put all their differences aside and sit round holding hands singing carols? Also unlikely! They have shown you how they feel about each other during the rest of the year – believe them!!

    Is a partner who is an expert ducker and weaver when it comes to dodging household management going to stage a miraculous conversion to Martha Stewart or even Martha Stewart’s assistant come the holiday season? Nope, not likely. They have shown you their engagement in the household management during the rest of the year – believe them!!

    Finally – if you are not a Martha Stewart clone from January to October, are you going to suddenly become someone who decorates like an Insta story and cooks like a Pinterest board? Trust me, this is also unlikely.

    This is a nice segue into tip #2

    Set yourself up for success

    I can’t tell you how many times I have had grand plans (my family might say delusions of grandeur) about the kind of Christmas I was going to create. I can tell you those plans didn’t come off exactly that number of times.

    Life gets super busy at the end of the year. The days of me thinking I can bake cute cookies, make homemade bath bombs, and create an elaborate menu are a dim, distant memory. I know I will be tired. I know getting drunk on Christmas Eve makes for a challenging Christmas Day. I know inviting 23 people for Christmas Dinner and getting over exuberant with the Christmas Eve celebrating/stress drinking is even worse.

    • Make realistic menu plans
    • Ask for help
    • Leave something in the tank for the big days
    • Up your self-care

    Here comes tip #3

    Be selfish rather than selfless

    Sure, it’s the season of goodwill and going out of our way for others, but a stressed out step/mama is not able to be the font of goodwill. She’s likely to be the fountain of stress and ill will.

    Take some time out to plan. Take some time out to reconnect with yourself. Have a list of go tos that you know help soothe you. Mine are lying on my shakti mat listening to binaural beats, having a good supply of herbal teas, and a secret stash of my favourite chocolate bars. I pop in some moments of focused breathing and nice candles too.

    More importantly, I know when to say no and when to ask for help which is tip #4

    You don’t need to carry this load alone. Even though tip#1 was all about not looking for help in the wrong place, we still need help.

    Asking what people are willing to do is a game changer.

    I find rather than telling my darling what I want him to do – laying out the list of things that need doing and then asking him what he can take on is really effective. Sometimes he has no idea of what’s required, let alone how to do the things that are required. Sometimes he will then proactively engage our kids to step up and help. Him just doing that takes a massive load off me. I don’t have to deal with the arguments and excuses, and since he asks them to help out far less than I do…he gets a more positive response.

    The final tip is be clear about what you need.

    Whether it is the gift you would like, the response to your efforts, or how the day is going to play out. Speak out and speak up. So often we aren’t clear in our expectations and end up feeling disappointed in how the day unfolds. People only let us down if they didn’t follow through on what they said they would, often it’s us letting ourselves down because we didn’t make clear what we needed.

  • Stepmums Stepping In for Happiness…

    Stepmums Stepping In for Happiness…

    One of the pieces of advice I often see given to stepmums is to step back.

    They’re not your kids, step back and leave the bio parents to do the parenting. It’s not bad advice, but it is advice I’ve seen leave stepmums feeling disconnected from their families and powerless in their own homes. I’ve seen it lead to stepmums feeling they quite literally hate their stepkids, and their relationship is doomed.

    Being a stepmum is like dancing the Hokey Tokey – step in, no not that far – you’re overstepping. Step back, no not that far – you don’t care about your stepkids, you’re an awful person. Love those kids like your own, no not that much, that’s their mother’s role – how dare you try and replace her!!

    And round, and round, and round we go…Dizzy and exhausted with trying to contort ourselves into just the right amount of stepping in and stepping back to make everyone happy.

    There is our first mistake.

    There is no ‘making everyone happy’. It’s a mission in futility that most often ends in abject misery on our end.

    How about we start with the idea that it’s our job to make ourselves happy.

    *GASP*

    SAY WHAT NOW?!?! We are supposed to make our own happiness a priority? What about the kids? What about my partner? What will the mum think?

    Putting our happiness in the hands of someone else is such a dangerous game to play, for our own wellbeing and also for the wellbeing of our relationship. We are unconsciously setting our partners up to fail. We’re expecting them to know what we need, when we need it, and exactly how we need it.

    How on earth are they supposed to manage that?

    Yet, when we expect our partners to parent alone and to parent in the way we think the children should be parented, we are doing exactly that.

    I’ve seen so many stepmothers go from hating their stepkids to enjoying healthy, happy, loving relationships with their stepkids through stepping in.

    What do I mean when I say ‘stepping in’?

    Lots of times we talk about stepping up as part of becoming more of an active stepparent, but I prefer the idea of stepping in. It’s about moving into the family circle; it’s about creating a closer connection.

    Parenting is usually seen as how we mould kids to become functioning adults. We are teaching them who and how to be in the world and giving them skills to navigate life; that role is definitely the responsibility of the bioparents. As stepparents we can be co-pilots, but the main course setting and navigating needs to come from the bioparents.

    So, if the bioparents are in charge of that, what can stepparents be in charge of?

    Their own happiness in their homes.

    I correct the children for eating with their mouths open. I can hear a kid chew with an open mouth 2 rooms away. It is definitely in my top 10 triggers. My husband has a 50% hearing loss, he couldn’t care less, he can’t hear it. I am in charge of telling kids to close their mouths while eating. Not because I want them to have good manners, but because it drives me nuts when they don’t. I take responsibility for making sure my home environment works for me. The stepping back advice would be to eat separately. I’m not going to be pushed out of eating with my family because kids haven’t learned to eat with their mouth closed.

    See how that works?

    The priority is me ensuring that my home works for me. It’s an absolute bonus that the kids learn some basic table manners at the same time, but it’s not the end goal; my happiness and calm is.

    So often we expect our partners to care about the things that make us unhappy, when those things are not a priority for them. How would we feel if we kept being asked to tell kids off for things we don’t really care about, on top of telling them off for the things we do? How difficult would it be to catch them doing something we know upsets our partners, when we have become numb to it and have learned to tune it out? How frustrating and soul destroying to be in conflict with our partner because we just can’t parent how they think we should?

    It’s a double whammy. Our partners are caught in the middle, between an angry partner and resentful kids. Throw in an angry ex who is challenging why our partner is suddenly changing the rules…it’s a perfect storm of chaos and resentment.

    What does this mean in practical terms?

    It means it’s ok to ask kids to upskill their table manners, it’s ok to ask them to say please and thank you, it’s ok to ask them to pick up things and put them away. Exactly where this line starts and ends needs to be something you and your partner agree on. If your partner insists you can have no say in how things work in your home regarding the children and their behaviour, it is probably time to call in some expert help. Expecting you to live in a home where you have zero input in how it runs is not usually sustainable in my experience.

    While all of this might sound reasonable and doable, how do we prevent stepparent burnout while stepping in?

    I am very familiar with overextending myself when it comes to trying to make up for what I saw as deficits in the parenting of the children. For a long time I felt like I needed to make up for the things the children had not been taught or given by their bioparents. Finally – I got it.

    As stepparents we can’t be more invested than the bioparents are.

    Read that again.

    If it’s not a priority for the bioparents, we can’t expect to create sustainable change in our family. I’m talking big things here, like homework, chores, behaviour. The smaller things, like close your mouth or pick up your stuff, those things we can manage to a level that works for us. Being invested in kids getting a good education and being on task, those are the things where bioparents need to take the lead.

    So if you’re feeling powerless in your home, or as if the stepkids will be the death or you or at least your relationship, what can you do to take back your power and make your needs and happiness your priority?

  • The Ugly Truth About The Ex

    The Ugly Truth About The Ex

    When I came in to this stepmum gig, I thought I was pretty well prepared. I was a stepchild myself, had successfully navigated the relationship with my kids then stepmum…how hard could it be?

    Harder than I could ever have imagined.

    Like super hard.

    Like the hardest thing I’ve ever done, including pushing out 4 babies without pain relief!!

    Prior to all this happening I’d been following a spiritual path with the core values of gratitude, acceptance, and humility. I’d curated a life where it was relatively easy to practise those. I’d eliminated people I struggled with, kept my world small, and restricted to people with similar values. Well was I about to get my safe, secure world rocked to its very core!

    I did all of the things stepmums are often guilty of in the beginning. I went overboard to be super stepmum. I wanted to show I was a better mum; more competent, better organised etc etc. My darling was very proud of me, and was more than comfortable telling his ex what a great job I was doing.

    Daggers.to.her.heart.

    It’s hindsight, it’s hardly surprising her response was to shut down, and try and keep us out of her world. Her world revolved entirely round the children, so that meant she did her very best to ensure we never got to see them. There was court, breaching of court orders, weeks and months we never saw the kids. The toxicity ramped up. She thought we thought she was a terrible mother and an awful person, she did lots of things that made us think she was a terrible mother and an awful person.

    It was only recently, after nearly a decade of conflict and drama that I was able to ‘own my shit’ in this whole debacle.

    Yep – for all of the really awful things she did, and there were plenty…I also had a role to play in the dysfunction.

    I didn’t realise how deeply wounded she was when ‘her man’ decided to take up with me. I didn’t realise she still held hope that he would come back to her and they would be a family. I didn’t realise her life experiences that made that so important to her.

    I didn’t give her space to grieve her very, very deep loss.

    Instead, I expected her to behave like I would. I expected her to know that I would never replace her as a mother. I am very secure in my role as mother, I’d had a conversation about this with my own children – telling them it was ok to like their stepmother, that I wanted them to like her and her to like them.

    I wanted my kids to have a great time when they were with their dad, because what kind of parent wants their kids having an awful time somewhere?!?!

    I can tell you the answer to that now; a parent who is terrified her children will chose someone else, a parent who isn’t secure in her role or herself, a person who doesn’t feel like a person who people will chose, a person who is reeling from rejection from a person they loved.

    If I have one regret in all of this, and I’m a person who doesn’t do regret, it would be that I hadn’t understood the depth of her pain. I didn’t give her grace when she so desperately needed it. I didn’t understand her actions, that were so abhorrent to me, came from pain. She was incapable of separating her needs and her pain from the children. She saw her attempts to destroy their relationship with their father as her protecting them from him, and me.

    Looking back, if we had been less full of judgement, less cutting in our assessment of her shortcomings, I think she would have found peace much earlier. I think if we had allowed her space to find peace, we all would have had peace, instead we pushed and fought for custody of the children.

    Court is an ugly thing for step-family dynamics. There is no grace in court documents, instead every action and response is put under a microscope of fault finding and point scoring. Things that normally would be brushed off as ‘meh life’, instead become a stick to beat the other side with.

    One of our biggest complaints was her unwillingness to coparent and share information. Why would she when there was a high likelihood it would be turned against her down the track? Really there was no winning, we either came after her for being inadequate or came after her for not sharing information that could be seen as confirming or highlighting her inadequacies.

    All three children have been disadvantaged by us being unable to work together. My skill set when it comes to managing challenging behaviour and learning issues is pretty strong, unfortunately instead of it being a resource the professionals and both homes could utilise, it became a source of insecurity. I was shut out of everything, and so yet again this too was used against her.

    We finally have reached agreement, the kids spend week about at each house. We parallel parent. I’ve learned to parent with my husband and leave him to parent with his ex. There are still moments of frustration and things happen that both sides perceive negatively and as competitive or undermining behaviour, but it’s calmer.

    It’s calmer because the ex is no longer under constant attack. It’s calmer because the worst has happened and the kids still love and adore her. She hasn’t lost them, and has some space for her and a life beyond the children.

    The ugly truth about the ex is that I, albeit unwittingly, contributed to the dysfunction and conflict as much as she did. I have been able to frame myself as the long suffering victim for many years, and I have valid events and circumstances to prove that. She has done the same, and also has valid events and circumstances to prove that.

    I think in the end, we have all been victims. Victims to not understanding each other, victims to a highly adversarial and inadequate court system.

    Are you ready to face the ugly truth about how much you contribute to the current conflict with the ex?

    It’s not easy. It’s not pleasant. It is however freeing, to lift the shackle of victimhood, to recognise our role in creating and sustaining conflict…that’s where the healing begins.

  • Why Step-moms Get Jealous & Insecure In The Most Stable Relationships

    Why Step-moms Get Jealous & Insecure In The Most Stable Relationships

    One of the things I see step-moms struggle with over and over is feeling jealous and insecure when it comes to the ex. We know in our heads it doesn’t make sense. We know in our hearts our partners love us. We know that our partners chose us day after day, but still…the tiny voice in our heads whispers terribly painful things that make us feel crazy and insecure.

    It’s not attractive to feel insecure or jealous. We are ashamed for even having these feelings. Secure, confident women don’t feel like that! Women who are loved and secure in their relationships shouldn’t feel like that! I call bullsh*t. I have seen some of the most secure, confident, successful women I know brought to their knees by their feelings around not being enough in their step-mother roles.

    Being grossed out by the idea of our partner having sex or being intimate with their ex is a congruent response. It’s not about us being jealous or insecure, it’s just icky thinking about the person we have sex with doing that stuff with someone else. Only in a step-family are you expected to interact on a regular basis with someone your partner has been deeply intimate with. Not only are you expected to interact, you’re expected to feel ok about it, and ignore how uncomfortable it makes you feel. If you don’t – there is something wrong with you! You are jealous, or insecure, or lacking something in your relationship. Newsflash – almost no-one wants to be hanging out, making nice, and swapping recipes with the person your person used to love and want to make babies with.

    It’s also congruent to feel off balance when we are faced with or reminded of the experiences our partner and their ex share, experiences that we are not a part of. It’s hard to see there is a wealth of shared experiences, often involving the child we love, that exclude us. That doesn’t make us jealous or insecure, it just means we find reminders of the shared experience challenging and uncomfortable. These feelings will pass more and more as our wealth of shared experiences build.

    Sometimes our responses to situations are not congruent; things like feeling unloved or unworthy because of an event or conversation. If we unpack that experience, we see this single moment or incident does not invalidate the myriad of experiences we have that show us we are loved and valued. We can lose sight of that in moments of being off balance, so it’s our job to look at whether our feelings are congruent with what happened.

    We need to know we will be tipped off balance from time to time, it’s life. No matter how zen or woke we are, life will come along and tip us off balance, usually when we least expect it. Being off balance actually has a very important purpose, it is a learning opportunity. It’s an invitation to unpack more of our baggage, to examine our responses and insecurities.

    It’s ok to tell our partner we are not feeling solid. It’s ok to say – I’m feeling wobbly, I need you to take some time to connect with me to help me feel ok. Telling your partner you are feeling insecure and jealous can immediately put them on the defensive. They can feel as if they are doing something wrong, they are not making you feel loved enough or secure enough. Ironically, this feeling of being wrong can have the exact opposite effect of what we need. They retreat, not knowing how to make us feel better. We feel rejected, and even more insecure. We double down on our ‘I’m feeling insecure I need you to show me how much you love me…’ and round and round the merry go round goes. Except no-one is feeling very merry.

    Finding ways to let our partners know all is not right in our world, without them feeling shamed or blamed is key. Telling them we are feeling off balance or wobbly is a softer way to let them know we need connection. I tell my husband I need pats. It’s a running joke in our house, that started with one of his cats. He knows when I say I need pats, I’m feeling I need some coddling, I need to know he is there and he has my back. Creating a phrase that conveys this to our partner can be a great way to avoid falling down the neediness rabbit hole that ends up pushing our men away.

    You’re not weak or silly for feeling unsettled in your relationship when your partner’s past is so present in your home and family. It’s not weird to feel grossed out by anything that suggests previous intimacy. It’s not wrong to feel sad that our first experience of having a child with our partner is not their first experience. What is important to realise is that for them it is a first. It is their first with you. The experiences they had with their ex will fade, and their focus will increasingly become more about you and the family you are creating together, a family that will include their children from another person.

    So it’s ok to feel those feelings. Just don’t get stuck there, seek out connection in a way that your partner can respond positively to. Join a community of women who understand. I can highly recommend Stepfamily Circle. I see women come in to groups feeling so isolated and alone. The difference in their lives once they realise they are not alone and these feelings are pretty normal is almost miraculous.

    This step-mom gig is not an easy one. Hang in there and know you are not alone in feeling jealous and insecure from time to time.

  • The Ghosts of Christmases Past

    The Ghosts of Christmases Past

    We laid a few ghosts from Christmases past to rest this year. Christmas #9 for our blended family was a resounding success. It was not always that way. A time of joy and celebration for my children and I became a nightmarish stress that we all began to dread. It was a big wake up call for me. My kids quite rightly pointed out that Christmas was the one thing their father and I had got right. They loved it. It was the highlight of the year, and something they dragged friends along to so that they too could experience the Christmas joy.

    I started our blended family journey filled with dreams and optimism about a wonderful big family who all got on as well as the children did. That was my first mistake. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, just that there was a very large gap in the family cultures. The way we celebrated Christmas was very different, and me trying to make something that fitted with everyone’s wishes left me a stressed, disappointed mess, and everyone else feeling like they had been cheated of the Christmas they wanted and expected.

    It was my mother who made the brave call and set a boundary. She told me she wasn’t going to come to Christmas with my darling’s family any more. She explained it wasn’t about them, or not liking them. It was about her and my step-father being unwilling to embrace creating a new set of family traditions and cultures. They liked the ones we had just fine and were simply not on board with having to feel uncomfortable about someone else’s.

    My family are very focused on Christmas being about the food and hanging out. Presents are a very small part of the whole thing. My darling’s family was all about the gifts, and the food, but the food was very different to the food my family prepared. My parents found the amount of gifts exchanged too much. My in-laws hated my cooking, finding it too rich and fancy, to the point of them bringing their own Christmas lunch one year.

    I was stuck in the middle trying to find a way to make everyone happy, and failing.

    So the boundary set by my mother was a start to a new way of doing family and Christmas. It was awkward, my in-laws were hurt. It didn’t matter how much I tried to explain it wasn’t personal, it was about safeguarding their family traditions, it still felt like a rejection. I get it. It’s not nice to be excluded. The older kids then became more vocal about wanting to retain their traditions from their childhood and it became apparent that my dream of a big happy blended extended family was not the dream of everyone else.

    We tried several different incarnations of Christmas, none of them really felt right, until this year.

    This year the adult children came down on Christmas Eve eve. Santa came on Christmas Eve morning, so we had a relaxed time to enjoy opening presents. We had Christmas dinner with my parents and all of the 7 children on Christmas Eve. It was a nice relaxed day. We then had Christmas breakfast on Christmas Day with my parents and the 7 children. This was slightly less relaxed, with me losing my shit momentarily about showers, as we tried to get ready for a 9am start. This will need a little fine tuning for next time.

    After breakfast, we headed off to the in-laws and had a lovely afternoon and evening with them. My in-laws prepared a lovely meal, in the way they like to do Christmas. Having 7 people in their home was manageable and worked well. Today, Boxing Day, as I reflect on the previous couple of days, I feel as if we all had a good time and finally we have the recipe right.

    Creating new traditions is not an easy thing. Expecting people to give up their roles and traditions to accommodate yours doesn’t always work either. I love doing the hosting, but so do my in-laws. This way, we both get to host and shape a Christmas that fits our traditions and family cultures. My kids get their family traditions and also then get to go and spend the rest of the day with their paternal grandparents on what is traditionally their Christmas day with me. They get to experience their whole family, this is something many kids lose over the holidays.

    It took my mother stepping up and saying this is not working. It took my kids being miserable and threatening to boycott Christmas. It took me being sick of being disappointed and exhausted from the juggling of competing wants and needs, and failing. From the ashes of Christmases past, we have found a way to celebrate with our step-family dynamics. We have found a way to meet the competing wants and needs, without anyone feeling like they have been disregarded or missed.

    We only have the children every second year, we have chosen to do year about. It means I get a year off every second year and we do a mid-Winter Christmas instead. I used to try and do a special Kids Christmas before the actual one on the years the children are with their other parents. It become another obligation and stress for people to try and fit in around an already busy time of year. Doing something mid-Winter means it’s easier to find a time that works.

    We do a Secret Santa gift exchange, and Santa comes for all 7 of the children. It cuts down the costs for everyone, but I’m especially mindful of the costs for people as my parents approach retirement and the adult children are responsible for purchasing their own gifts. We each purchase one gift and sit round while each person unwraps. It’s fun, no-one feels like they are missing out and the joy each person gets from one single gift seems to be more than they get from a mound of presents.

    I encourage you to reflect on your celebration this year. Look at what worked and what didn’t. Decided whether some brave calls need to be made, and start designing a Christmas that will bring joy and peace for next year. Christmas is not about a single day in the calendar year, it’s about tradition and rituals that create memories of what family is. Let’s make them good ones.