What Do You Think? What the Divorced Mom Has to Say
What your husband's ex wants you to know about being divorced mom...
Thanks to all of for your very moving comments/ letters to your partners’ exes and for reading my guest post, “What your child’s stepmom wants you to know about her life” on the No One’s the Bitch web site.
Jennifer Newcomb Marine has written a response, “What Your Husband’s Ex Wants You to Know About her Life.” Very interesting! Have a read and let me and/or Jennifer know what you think:
http://www.noonesthebitch.com/?p=467
Tags: blended family, Carol Marine, divorce, ex-wife, Jennifer Newcomb Marine, No One's the Bitch, remarriage, remarriage with children, stepmonster, stepmother, stepmother advice, stepmother support, stepmothering, stepmothers, wednesday martin, wife and ex-wife relationship
December 8th, 2009 at 11:38 am
okay, I get it! I read her post. again I will say this can only work if the mom really wants it to. if only the woman who is the stepmom is trying, it’s not going to work. I get what she is saying but I think that a mom who can get over her stuff in this situation is the exception, not the rule. we’re here and losing our minds usually not due to the kids but due to our husband’s ex, it seems to me. if all divorced moms were like the No One’s the Bitch author, I think our lives would be much easier. unfortunately most aren’t, that’s my impression at least.
December 8th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I agree with Gina.
I really don’t think my husband’s ex wife thinks about anyone but herself. However, I have tried to see things from her perspective and, believe me, I don’t let my husband off scot free for his part in their divorce. As much as I love him, I realize that he unintentionally did something very cruel to his ex. He married her, not because he really loved her, but because he thought she was his only chance to have a family. He was in his twenties at the time, had low self-esteem, and was inexperienced with women. She came along with her young son. He fell in love with the little boy and thought he could learn to love her. When they were married, he said she kept insisting that he didn’t love her and did things to see how far she could push him. She wanted him to prove his love. He tried, but nothing he did was ever enough. When it comes down to it, she was right. He couldn’t and didn’t love her the way he should have. And that was unfair to her.
I think if my husband’s ex wife had the chance, she would tell me that I have no idea what kind of man I married. I think she’d say he was mean and cold to her. She’d probably also tell me he was a porn addict. She would tell me anything to get me to feel sorry for her because that’s apparently what she does to anyone who will listen.
And yet, I’ve been with her ex husband for years and I’ve never seen any evidence of this abusive man she’s painted. My husband treats me with nothing but love and respect. He’s not perfect, but he’s not the monster she has tried (and failed miserably) to get other people to think he is. The only people in the world who think he’s the man she’s made him out to be are her kids and maybe her current husband. I’ll bet that even they have their doubts.
I will say, however, that the part Jennifer wrote about mom being afraid the kids will like/love the stepmom is probably spot on. I’m certain that’s why my husband’s kids have only spent two days with me and she refuses to let him see them on his own. She always has to be in the background or nearby, lest one of them start to bond. After my husband’s kids had their one visit with me, the alienation efforts stepped up dramatically.
I will admit to being rather nasty to my husband’s ex wife the one and only time I communicated with her. However, that one communication came after she had fired several first shots. I will admit to returning fire to those first shots with the verbal equivalent of a bazooka. I never pretended to like or respect her. I might have tried, had she shown me that courtesy herself, but I will admit that I never did and almost certainly never will. Any mother who systematically works to destroy her children’s relationships with their father(s) just because the relationship didn’t work out is not someone I’d want to get to know.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Hello Knotty,
I was also really moved by Jennifer’s admission that it’s scary to contemplate your child coming to love his or her stepmother, your “rival.” I once wrote about imagining I had to “share” my toddler son with his father and a “new” wife or partner, and it nearly made me insane. A parent’s bond with a child is so fundamental, so deep–and if you’re a mother, there’s the extra overlay of social expectations and pressures.
I think that the possessive mothering model we have inherited has done us no favors here, and has set mothers on edge of “intrusive” stepmoms in their kids’ lives. I’m going to blog about it soon. But bascially, if you’re raised in a society that believes that childrearing is woman’s work–and the responsibility of one woman, versus an extended family or a community of adults–you’re going to indoctrinate women into feeling very threatened by and hostile toward their kids’ stepmoms. More soon. Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting
-wednesday
December 8th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
i read the post and it’s helpful but i don’t get some of it. example is the part about “you probably bonded over my flaws”–meaning what? we didn’t. we didn’t talk about my husband’s ex in the beginning and don’t much now. it’s all about us, not about her, and I think that’s what she can’t stand.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I think moms get the short end of the stick in our society — married or divorced. You can never be a good enough mom. Your kids’ behavior or misbehavior reflects on you, much more than on their dad. If you’re an employed mom, you’re seen as neglectful of your family. If your work is caring for your family, you’re seen as less intelligent. Society is incredibly forgiving of dads being less involved, full of praise for dads who are involved at all, and judgmental of moms who are not there 24/7 for their children. Being a mom is equated with being a caregiver. I think it’s time to separate those two things a bit — people can be caregivers to children without being moms, and moms are moms every bit as much whether they hire people to help them with caregiving, share caregiving with an extended network of family or do all the caregiving themselves — just like dad is dad no matter which of those three options he chooses. How awful to feel like you lose that relationship — the mother/child relationship — if others are involved in caregiving! What a no-win situation. Dads don’t seem to be given this message at all.
I see the conflict as largely society vs. mothers, who sometimes turn around and are hostile to stepmothers, who then are sometimes hostile back. It’s a shame that women are put under so much social pressure, so guilt-tripped, so judged, and it’s heartbreaking that in response to this we become so divided.
December 8th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I have another question: Is it actually possible for a stepmom to undermine a child’s relationship with his or her mother? I have yet to ever hear any stories about that working! It seems like it would backfire, big time. This big fear that it sounds like moms have — that a child’s relationship with his or her stepmom will undermine or take away from the relationship with the mom — could that actually ever happen? Even in the worst situations between a mom and a child, it sounds like children still love and long for their moms — regardless of how the mom has acted in the relationship and how hurt the child has been. In loving mother-child relationships, the prospect of a stepmom being able to undermine that in any way, even if she wanted to, seems laughably impossible, to me at least!
December 8th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I found Jennifer’s post to be incredible helpful and remarkably honest. I had to read it a few times and think it through pretty carefully–alone–to come to terms with some of the more difficult points she was making. Most helpful to me was her courageous honesty, and her willingness to acknowledge the complexity of the situation, her ongoing work at understanding her divorce, and her recognition of own vulnerabilities. I think she articulated the position of my husband’s ex with much more nuance and self-awareness than the ex is capable of herself–and that’s not a judgement on my part, I think that’s just an objective fact. I agree with all of you who say that success of this relationship depends on the willingness of the child’s mother to be open, to give us stepmothers some credit and appreciation for our role in their childrens’ lives. I don’t see that coming from my stepdaughter’s mother any time soon.
As I read Wednesday’s post, I wanted to do fist pumps inthe air–it was so right on. “Take that, you” I kept thinking to myself. It was one of the strongest and most personal (though I realize you were speaking from your research experince, Wednesday) and most direct statement I’ve seen you make about the ex-wives thing. It was very empowering to see it all so clear and pointed.
But guess what? This exchange of posts really led me to a pretty dramatic “aha!” moment in which, for the first time, really, I was able to let go of the struggle. I feel like I get it now, I understand where she’s coming from and there’s something about that understanding that has dissipated all the years of anger and struggle for me. I’m sure that I’ll still have the same instinctive defensive reactions to her (I have had them just today, in fact) but I feel personally liberated from the struggle with her. I see where she’s coming from and I see how utterly incapable she is of recognizing or appreciating my point of view. And so I just let go.
Which is not to say that I won’t still need constant support and companionship from all the other stepmonsters out there, but that I’ve let go of a big hunk of tight, hard, heavy anger. It feels so much better. Thank you, Wedesday and Jennifer, for helping me do this!
December 8th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I stumbled over the first point about me and my husband supposedly going into a “vivid dissection [of the ex's] flaws” and how “part of the fantasy about how [we] are so right for each other was that he and ex were so wrong for each other.”
Sorry, but this for me epitomizes self-involvement and an inability to move on. I don’t know anybody who spends much time thinking about an ex-wife if she isn’t undermining and hostile. If she’s neutral and normal, what’s there to talk or care about?
I really liked the rest of the article and found much of it enlightening. There is plenty of common ground and mutual hurt, and plenty of opportunities to make the whole thing less awkward. But I don’t feel it’s for me to reach out to my husband’s ex. I have a job, I have a marriage, I have kids and stepkids, and I just don’t have the time or energy to pour into his ex. I’ll leave it to my husband! Thanks to you both for making me think.
December 8th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Every mother/stepmother dynamic is different. Not all of the dyads have healthy women, like Jennifer, who are willing to examine themselves and what they bring to the table. At least she is mature enough to be accountable for her own thoughts, feelings and actions. I applaud her courage and willingness to share. Admittedly, I am envious that Jennifer and Carol were able to forge past their differences and form a healthy and genuine relationship.
If only all mothers would take such a veracious analysis of themselves before choosing to judge and/or reject the new woman entering their child’s life. Mine didn’t. Unfairly, I didn’t have a chance from the start. I have arranged many discussions and one-on-one sessions to bridge the gap. Those moments are short lived, and quickly forgotten. She still rides her horse called entitlement, jumping boundaries, breaking parenting agreements, all the while wearing her “judgment free” mommy badge to justify and exempt all of her chaotic and unhealthy behaviors.
I feel a great sadness for my SD that her mother insists on perpetuating dysfunction. In an effort to end the nonsense, I have reached out to her countless times, my husband too. I now share the same sentiment as Jill does in comment to Jennifer. My romantic relationship with my spouse and fostering a healthy relationship with my SD has taken the front seat in my life, and tending to the needs, wants and drama of the mother has taken the rear, sometimes even the trunk (given the level of the toxicity).
Have I given up on her-NO-because I love my SD. However, I have learned that I can only be accountable and responsible for myself. By doing so I take the (at times almost out of reach) high road. I encourage my SD to foster a healthy relationship with her mother, even in times of adversity. I never make a face, cast judgment or speak poorly about her in front of my SD. When we share the same space I exercise proper social decorum, I am civil and courteous. I do all of this for myself, my sanity and because my SD deserves this.
I understand that a mother, like Jennifer, who considers themselves accountable and proactive in their child’s life may feel disrespected, belittled, or dethroned by the term “bio” mother. Similarly, much like the term “step” mother and all of its accompanying evil connotations can make me feel unaccepted, judged, and ostracized. Terms and labels hurt, especially when you know exactly who you are. Knowing myself and my relationship with my SD, I am nothing remotely close to evil and although I occasionally cringe when I introduce myself as her stepmother (fearing the stigma), it doesn’t hurt my feelings when she opts for other labels of reference like, “other” mother or “bonus” mom.
I think it is worth exploring what terms and labels really mean (by definition), how we interpret their meaning (literally) and what effect they have on our perceptions of one another. From Jennifer’s post and all of the subsequent responses I have read, it seems to me that we are all guilty of feeding hurt, animosity and dysfunction from using this type of language. The term “biological” mother means exactly that–biology, meaning a woman who gave birth to a child. Last I checked the act of giving birth did not make any woman a mother by default. A “mother,” by its true definition, is a female who nurtures, protects, and watches over a child with love and tenderness. If we adhere to those definitions, that would make Jennifer, both a “biological” mother and a “mother.” Conversely, it would make me a mother too! That in itself is something we should all consider.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Kathy, I am so heartened to hear that you feel able to “let go” of some aspect of struggle after reading Jen’s post. I do think that many mothers in the U.S. are just socialized to feel threatened by anyone else being involved with their kids, taught that it’s a woman’s job, alone, rather than the job of a community to raise a child, that the idea of a child spending time with his or her stepmother is SCARY apart from everything else, and very, very threatening.
There’s no better outcome than to let an ex-wife who is unhappy or undermining just do her thing and live in a way that it doesn’t get to us. Some of that might be internal work on our part–like reading Jen’s post was for you. Some of it might be external–actually having a conversation with one’s partner’s ex. Either way, what matters is the sense you describe of letting go of a “big hunk of heavy anger.” Brava!
December 9th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Ella,
Thanks for your very thought-provoking insights about labels. Personally I never really cared about being called a stepmother–that’s just me, it’s personal, I know. As for “biomom”–since I have so many friends who have adopted, including someone who edited my book, I don’t like to use it in my writing or when I do workshops, because so many moms are adoptive moms.
I think you’re so right that these words and positions bring out fierce feelings. I hope women with stepkids and women who are divorced with kids can find some mutual ground, even if it is just in our heads. Thanks for reading and for commenting, and come back soon,
wednesday
December 9th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Hi Jill,
I’m trying to imagine how INSANE I would feel about needing to “share” my toddler with his father and someone he repartnered with–I wrote about it very early on in my blogging here, about Tom Brady and Bridgette Moynahan and Giselle Bundchen. It would indeed make me insane, I know!
But I love your question about the basis of that deeply primitive, threatened and protective feeling the scenario gives me–your observation that it seems unlikely a stepmother could ever undermine that bond. I think you’re right. Something to think about. Again if we’d been raised in a different way–if mothering were more collective–it might not seem like such a dramatic, intrusive thing to have a stepmom come on the scene. But here we are…thanks for reading and commenting as ever.
-wednesday
December 9th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Eliabeth,
Wow! I was beginning to think that I was totally alone in my thinking until Eliabeth’s comment on No One’s The Bitch. No you’re not the only one that didn’t cry over the divorce or break up and never worried about what the ex and his new wife said about her. My son is also a very intelligent, well-rounded, compassionate little boy and to me, that speaks for itself, so who cares what anyone says about me. That being said, he’s not perfect, but what child is? So again, who cares what they say or have said about me? Our child is a reflection of all of us (me, my husband, my ex and his wife) and our parenting skills, not just mine. But this has never been an issue with us because none of us ever made it an issue.
My ex married his wife after knowing her for only 3 months and initially, I had some reservations about her. Not because I didn’t know her, but because he didn’t know her. However, I NEVER allowed that to interfere with our co-parenting relationship. I was going to give her a chance, the benefit of the doubt if you will, until she proved otherwise and she never has proven me otherwise. For the most part, she’s been great to my son and I respect her role as his mother figure in his life. Does she make mistakes? Of course, but so do I and so does my ex and my husband. I don’t doom her to hell every time she makes a mistake and she doesn’t do that to me.
I’m with you, Eliabeth, it’s not that hard at all. It’s all about being in charge of your own emotional baggage. Everyone is dealing with the divorce and remarriage, but the adults have to be in charge of their own issues and continue to be the adults in the situation. Ex-wives, that means you shouldn’t take everything out on the wife because you are insecure about your child liking her. It means you shouldn’t subtly encourage bad behavior or ill feelings towards her because it makes YOU feel better. And wives, you shouldn’t refuse to have at least a civil conversation or interaction (during drop off and pick up) with the ex-wives because you feel you don’t or shouldn’t have to. Oh and I’m not letting dad off the hook either. Dad, you shouldn’t allow your guilt over the divorce to permit your children to disrespect their stepmother or your house rules. As a matter of fact, most of you refuse to even have house rules and then blame the stepmother, your wife, for being too hard on them. Everyone in the blended family needs to stop allowing their emotional baggage to interfere with co-parenting the children. All of these things negatively affect the children!
I’ve often encouraged my clients and readers to view the modern (I don’t like the term blended or step either) family as a plane. On the plane is everyone in the modern family; the children (both sets), the ex-spouses and new spouses. It’s not just you, so don’t bring your emotional baggage on the plane. Check it before you board because we ALL have to deal with and are affected by your emotional baggage if you bring it on the plane. Checking your baggage before you board our plane means dealing with your own emotional issues. Meditate, pray, seek out the advice of a good stepfamily therapist. Deal with it on your own because it’s yours to deal with. Don’t make it everyone in the modern family’s problem. For example, I could’ve made my issue everyone’s issue when my ex chose to marry a woman he’d only known for 3 months. I could’ve reacted badly towards her before even giving her a chance. I could’ve tried to treat my son as a pawn because I didn’t agree with my ex’s decision, but I didn’t. Had I done so, our relationships would’ve ended very badly. But I chose to deal with my own baggage and told myself that I can’t judge this woman based on what I THINK might happen, but hasn’t happened yet. By the same token, my ex’s wife has admitted that she was a bit insecure and intimidated by me in the beginning because her husband and I share a history and a child. To her, we were connected in ways that they weren’t. They’d known each other 3 months and we had been apart of each other’s lives for 6 years. But, she dealt with her own emotional baggage. She didn’t make it my problem and she too gave me the benefit of the doubt.
Ex-wives, wives and divorced dads need to learn to be in charge of their own emotional baggage. It’s not your jobs to make each other feel better. It’s your jobs to co-parent together and we can’t do that if we are constantly trying to be each other’s therapist. Don’t allow your hurt or insecurities to interfere with your co-parenting relationships. It’s okay to feel hurt and insecure, but don’t make it everyone else’s problem. Seek the help of a stepfamily therapist to help you deal with your issues before you allow them to creep, no matter how subtle, into your co-parenting relationships.
*Kela*
http://www.blendedfamilysoapopera.com
December 10th, 2009 at 7:36 am
I agree very much with Hannah’s reply. The assumption of a “vivid dissection [of the ex's] flaws” and how “part of the fantasy about how [we] are so right for each other was that he and ex were so wrong for each other” does suggest a high degree of self-involvement. Jennifer later assumes “knowing how much you talk about me with my ex” – again a high degree of self-involvement. This also strikes me as rather controlling, that the ex-wife feels that it’s valid to suggest what the couple can and should or should not discuss.together. And if you can recognize your bad behavior, “I do weird passive-aggressive things with both of you, I get angry. I inappropriately stick my kids in the middle and then I secretly regret my bad behavior”, it goes without saying that this will be discussed by the couple. If we experience conflict with or are irritated by a colleague, friend or family member, we discuss this with our husbands. Surely the same applies to an ex-wife.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Hi Annesa,
I understand what you and Hannah are saying. One of the biggest breakthroughs I had while reading Jennifer’s piece was the realization that, “Oh, right, an ex-wife would inevitably have some feelings of vulnerability because she’s guessing that she’s being trashed behind her back, or is at least feeling outnumbered.” That really helped me reframe some of my thinking. I’m imagining myself divorced and my now-husband re-partnered before I am–I would feel slightly shut out and even paranoid, at least for a while, I suspect! Thanks for reading and for commenting. Come back soon,
wednesday
December 10th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Hello All,
Just wanted to point out that Kela, who made a comment above, not only offers a great analogy for “modern families” (we’re all on the plane together to a certain extent and have to check our baggage–she also has a terrific website which you will see on my blog roll and resources list. http://www.blendedfamilysoapopera.com runs some terrific articles. One of my favorites is “Healthy Marriage or Healthy Divorce?” You will find compassionate and intelligent support from Kela and the blendedfamilysoapopera team.
xx wednesday
December 10th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I imagined how it would feel to share my own child with another woman and husband as an ex, too, a while back. I don’t even have my own child, but I felt insane and possessive and grief-stricken and angry, just thinking about it. At the time, I thought it meant stepmoms should cut moms some slack if they act like this — that these feelings made it understandable to act them out sometimes.
I’m not so sure about that anymore. I still think we should cut each other slack, empathize with each other’s feelings and assume the best about each other’s motives. Perhaps we should even help each other as much as we can or as feels right. Over the years, though, I have come to think that would should also expect all adults with parenting responsibilities to act in the kids’ best interests, and that strong, painful feelings don’t justify acting out in hurtful ways, for anyone, even a mom.
(There, I said it. Now I’m going to duck under some sturdy furniture and cover my head for the rest of the day! Not hiding from you, Wednesday, but from imaginary moms.)
December 10th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Not to worry Jill, and point(s) well taken. There’s a fine line, I think, between understanding/compassion and being self-abnegating. I do share your sense that there’s no excuse–even hurt feelings–for bad behavior. I do come back to two things over and over:
1) if all ex-wives were like Jennifer Newcomb, life would be easier for kids with stepmoms everywhere (and I might be out of a job!)
2) much of this work can be internal. someone can learn a lot just from reading Jen’s views, for example, without necessarily arranging to go out to lunch with their husband’s ex wife or trying to become close.
Oh, and talk about duck and cover: while there are exceptions, every longitudinal study of stepfamily life in recent years has found that ex-wives are more resentful than ex-husbands, and hold onto that resentment for longer. People don’t like it when I write that. But that’s the fact, and it’s an important aspect of stepmother reality, way too important for us to ignore.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
xx wednesday
December 10th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Jill said: “Over the years, though, I have come to think that would should also expect all adults with parenting responsibilities to act in the kids’ best interests, and that strong, painful feelings don’t justify acting out in hurtful ways, for anyone, even a mom. ” Amen, Jill!
I’m so glad that you openly and honestly admitted your feelings but then also admitted that it’s NOT OKAY EVEN FOR A MOM to act out due to these feelings. It’s the very point that I encourage my clients and readers to thouroughly examine. I don’t want anyone to think that I am saying that having certain feelings aren’t okay or even understandable. As both a mom and a stepmom, I can totally relate to both sides of the coin; however, it is not okay for an adult to act out these feelings, thereby affecting everyone in the blended family, including the children. By the same token, although wives and ex-wives can emphathize with each other, it is not our jobs to make each other feel better. Only YOU can make you feel better and it’s unfair to expect or demand even, that the wife or your ex-husband bend over backwards to console you. Cutting each other some slack doesn’t mean that you have to allow the other person to be intrusive, harsh, childish and walk all over you. We can and we should make a concerted effort to understand and empathize with each other as best as we can, but at the end of the day, we must be in charge of our own feelings and cannot allow it to interfere with our co-parenting relationships.
I’ve thouroughly enjoyed this post and all of the comments. They have all really made me think. And Wednesday, thanks for the very nice comments about me and Blended Family Soap Opera. Like everyone else, I always look forward to what you have to say and am glad that you are apart of dialogue that will hopefully begin to send modern families in a more positive direction. Dialogue truly promotes change!
Warmly,
*Kela*
http://www.blendedfamilysoapopera.com
December 11th, 2009 at 9:58 am
After three years of reading book after book after book (my husband asked me, “do you think you’re getting something out of those?
, finding many, many applicable ideas, lots of bad advice (sorry folks, it’s true, things don’t usually work in a one-size-fits-all solution), and gaining an understanding that stepmother-life can be healthy but challenging, energizing, and inspiring . . . after all that, I have more questions.
I wonder who is doing the research on stepmoms. Wednesday, you’ve said there needs to be more research on stepmoms and I couldn’t agree more. I am firmly convinced that there are NO two of us alike and that our lifetime of experiences will mean that each one of us will handle things in a different way. And yet we are all lumped together as though we are carbon copies of husband-snatching, marriage-breaking, child-hating, after-the-money women. Ugh. It couldn’t be further from the truth . . . but where’s the data to back that up?
It’s as though the mythology around stepmothers is so strong and air-tight and it works for the larger culture to see us in this negative light that there is no room, little motivation, and zero money to look into changing the stereotypes. On some level, the more I’m reading the more I’m seriously alarmed!!!
If more and more families are living in some combination of stepfamily situations, if the state-of-mind of the stepmother is so influential in the success of the family, and if some of the major health issues for stepmothers are depression and anxiety (Wednesday, I’m thinking of some of the stats in your book), then I think we have a healthcare issue here for our entire nation. This is not a small thing.
And, while I’m on the subject . . . with all due respect to counselors. I think it’s time to kick things into high gear folks. We need to have a new counseling/treatment paradigm where the therapy sessions are jump-started with a workshop or some intensive group experience and there are ground-rules laid out. Bring lots of families together into a group situation. It would do for families what these blogs and comments do for stepmothers and mothers, it brings the issue out into the open. The children would see that THEY are not alone. The husbands would see that every other guy is going through the same thing they are. The wives and ex-wives would see the same. But it would be moderated and run by this agreement that everyone would follow a set of “rules of engagement.” I don’t personally think we can afford, as a society, to have every family, person by person, sit in a room and tell someone their problems until the issues get worked out. I am not suggesting that can’t be happening in conjunction with these other ideas, but there is an urgency here that I don’t think we can afford to ignore.
If we are truly family-focused as a society, then we need to offer families access to direct, intensive, and boundary-establishng strategies to help them move through the grief following a divorce, the steps of the next stages and help with the formation of the stepfamily. Can you imagine what a non-conversation it would be if the divorced couple has worked through their issues and establishes a healthy ex-relationship and the kids have been seen, heard, felt, and understood for their feelings. My word, when the stepmother came along, she would not be the interloper, she would not be the scapegoat. My word, all these people writing books would be out of business
))
Guess what . . . I want to live in that world.
January 10th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Thank you so much, there aren’t enough posts on this… or at least i cant find them. I am turning into such a blog nut, I just cant get enough and this is such an important topic… i’ll be sure to write something about your site