What I stopped doing was caretaking. I stopped taking care of Junior. I stopped doing for him that which he could do for himself. Caretaking doesn’t work because it’s a breeding ground for resentment in you and the other person. You’re tired of doing everything for your stepkids and your stepkids are tired of adults telling them and showing them how incapable they are for themselves. Just because their parents got divorced.

As soon as I stopped doing for Junior and taught him how to do for himself, my husband jumped on board. He was in the middle of the forest and couldn’t see how he was contributing to Junior’s problem.

Oh Junior hated it at first. Hated that we stopped doing for him that which he could himself. Laundry. Breakfast. We stopped reminding him to take a shower. Instead, I came up with things like, “think of your future girlfriend. Do you think she’s going to love your body odor?” or when I taught him how to clean the kitchen, “your future wife is going to love me…”

And I double recommend Mary’s advice to not take it personally. I have a 40 day challenge on my blog for any stepmom wanting to take this challenge and journal not taking it personally and see how their life improves after delving into this.

They didn’t ask for their parent’s divorce. I don’t know about most people, but I have no idea what it’s like to be shuffled back and forth between two different homes. It’s got to be a tough transition. My poor little stepdaughter, at the age of 5, had to experience this and I give her a lot of credit. She was quite brave about the whole thing.

Plus, there is bound to be conflict about how the child feels towards the stepmother. Even if the child likes/loves the stepmother, the loyalties to Mom will always take precedence, even if mom is not the most fit of parents.

And one more: I’m the grown up. Please, I hope I’ve come far enough and matured enough to not give any child the power to get me off kilter. Ridiculous really. I’ve never been acknowledged for anything I’ve done for my stepdaughter by my stepdaughter…she didn’t even acknowledge my birthday this year despite the gentle nudging of her father. Whateuuuuuuuuuuver. My day wasn’t ruined and her omission certainly wasn’t going to affect me. Like I said earlier, I’ve never walked a mile in her shoes.

Oh my goodness! Your story is mine too! I read what you so beautifully wrote and thought, this woman is me! Like you, I’ve made it all about my girls and walk away from my husband and his kids. I had to in order to keep my sanity. Like you, I always feel pushed out of my own home (so much so that I’ve taked a second job just to have a legitimate excuse as to why I am not there to take care of HIS kids). It is sad really. I am exhausted from working 60+ hours a week, but it is worth it as I would be clinically depressed if I had to spend the week with his kids. Seriously.

Thank you for comment. I feel much less alone in the world and I am appreciative.

I think often that men just assume that you will fill that “woman shaped” void in the house.. but they don’t really get that Mom’s aren’t “plug and play” to kids. Getting remarried doesn’t “fix” the broken intact family unit. It just makes a different kind of family unit. From his attitude, it would appear that my husband thought a remarriage meant that he got to go back to being the stereotypical “hands-off” dad-type parent, and his new wife would be the hands-on mom-type parent. I think deep down he is very upset and resentful (of me) because it didn’t work out that way.

We tried chore charts but they didn’t work because the kids wouldn’t do the chores and their Dad would just let it all go. I refused to be the disciplinarian. Mind you, the only chores they had were to set and clear to the table, but apparently that was expecting too much.

Their Disney Dad will never be the bad guy and I refuse to be (they hate me enough already).. so that leaves the situation itself as the only thing that can exact any consequence around our house. It takes ALOT of effort and it is VERY depleting to come up with all this.. as you say. In a perfect world, their Dad would take care of it.. and in a really perfect world the kids would just behave in the first place.

I always try to make sure my solutions are “set and forget”. Buy the nice towels, make it “all about the children”.. then walk away. Problem solved. No more energy required on my part to solve the wet-towel-on-the-floor problem, ever. That’s where a network of other step-moms is invaluable.. no doubt someone somewhere has had a similar problem, a support group can act as a grab-bag of ideas to give you something to implement quickly and without too much personal energy expenditure.

I really like the bulwark idea. So often I feel pushed out of my own house, or pushed into hiding when the children are here. We have them this weekend, and I have invited my Father over for a picnic… something I would not have normally done. I’ll let you know how it goes. I can’t imagine that the kids are going to appreciate the focus not being entirely 100% on them. The last few times we had folks over (my son’s 1st birthday party and Christmas) they were extremely disruptive. Maybe that just shows that we are on to something!

This article brought back many memories. Early on, I was killing myself to do everything. The final straw was doing laundry for 5 kids and 2 adults. I couldn’t do it…just couldn’t! The kids were 8,9,10,12, and 14. So we came up with a plan. The kids would do their own laundry. Each kid had an assigned day. They had to work it out. I stepped away. Our kids did tie dyes to their clothes way before it was popular. They went to school in wrinkled, runned on colors. I had to be OK with that. We also had relentless chore charts. Sure, there were arguments, and some kids were lousy at doing dishes, but generally we prevailed. There was also sibling/stepsibling peer pressure. “It’s your turn to clear the table, do the dishes, feed the animals, etc”! . Again, they had to work it out.
Our kids are grown now, but they still remember those chore charts!
xxSusan

Talia,
I am hoping you might get some good advice from other readers here. Meanwhile, how about telling your husband in a voice that is as utterly devoid of emotion as you can manage (men do not respond well to feeling confronted and will go into classic “shut down” or even “accuse” mode if they sense a female partner is angry) with a warm tone, that the best hope for you having a relationship with his kids down the road is for you to not fall into a “set up” or trap where you’re competing with their mother–exactly what is happening when he expects you to step in as full-time caregiver in his absence. You might also tell him very calmly that It’s not healthy for your marriage or your stepkids for you to be conscripted into the hostilities between him and his wife as his “agent”–that you know he’s not doing it on purpose, but in a way he’s trying to get you to step up as quasi mom in order to spite her. If you say this in a non-judgmental, accepting way–and I mean, accepting the acrimony between him and his ex, and conveying that you feel for him but just can’t do this–it could actually start a helpful conversation.
Anyone else?