Top Concern of Women with Stepkids: His Kids!
Power imbalances in the household (guess who has the power?) are common in stepfamily life. That doesn't mean we can't do something about them.
It seems we have concerns. Big ones. Lots of them.
No surprise there. Stepmothering is one of the toughest roles around—ambiguous, demanding, depleting, charged, and frequently thankless. You told me about unduly empowered stepchildren, stepkids not getting the love and support from their mom you’d like to see them getting, undermining exes bent on preventing you from developing a relationship with the kids, financial anxieties, fears about your marriage/partnership, loss of identity, feelings of disappointment and even depression.
Today’s top concern, gleaned from your comments, is problems with his kids. Whether they’re emotionally unhealthy (“spoiled,” “entitled,” “lazy,” “too much power in our household,” “angry,” “not getting the love they need from their mom”), hostile and resentful in the textbook ways, stealing your stuff or even physically violent toward you or your own kids, his kids seem to be The Problem.
What’s behind all this—and what can you do to feel happy once again, rather than constantly on edge and stressed, fighting with your partner about how the kids of any age behave in general, and behave toward you in particular? First, you’ll have to let go of an idea or two. And the good news is, this can be remarkably freeing.
Ask yourself, am I living the dream that something I can do will “fix it” with his kids, or that something I have done, some way I am, is what has “broken it” with them? Here’s the truth: Problems with his kids are generally neither attributable to nor fixable by you. It just feels that way. So the first order of business is Let. That. Idea. Go. And feel your sense of responsibility–and your resentment for not being appreciated for your efforts–ebb away.
Problems you have with his kids are actually most often problems you have with him, problems he has with them, and problems with/courtesy of his ex. Here’s the breakdown of what’s likely making your life hell with his kids of any age right now—and what you can do to make it better:
1. Loyalty binds. Kids of any age might believe, “If I like my stepmom, I’m betraying my mom.” Mom may be exacerbating this anxiety, even encouraging the kids in their arms-length or outright hostile treatment of you, for reasons that we’ll get to another day. But whether they’re 4 or 54, his kids may well feel that giving you a chance is the ultimate betrayal of Mom. What it means for you: here’s your permission slip–don’t try too hard with a kid in a loyalty bind! You heard it, don’t bend over backwards to ingratiate or please that kid as those efforts will backfire, and only build your resentment. Instead when the kid of any age in a loyalty bind shows up, show him or her that you have your own life, interests and priorities. Odd as it sounds, this makes you seem less threatening, demanding, and hate-able, and it frees him or her up to come to you in their own time and way. Or not. Either way, not knocking yourself out = not feeling rejected and hurt. Which gives you energy to be there as an ally down the line, or simply be civil and kind when they’re around.
2. Often these kids simply have problems before you even show up. In her Virginia Longitudinal Study, divorce and stepfamily expert E. Mavis Hetherington had mostly good news about our resilience in the face of divorce and remarriage. But she also found that kids of divorce were twice as likely to have serious social and emotional problems as kids in general. Moreover, Hetherington and most experts assert that these issues are attributable to problems and conflict in the previous marriage, not from the divorce per se. Divorce doesn’t “ruin” kids. But all the conflict they experience prior to the divorce may prime them for social and emotional issues—so think of yourself as a bystander to that process, if you will. What it means for you: zero guilt, zero responsibility. When a stepchild has problems, you don’t need to take on any more than feels genuine or realistic to you, no matter what others think you should do. Your obligation is to step back and give the parents a respectful distance in their efforts to help a troubled kid, while you keep the focus on your own life and happiness, and on creating circumstances such that you feel safe and central in your own home when his kids of any age are around. Which brings us to…
3. Your partner. Poor guy. Or gal. He or she is likely not making your life so difficult on purpose! But post divorce, permissive parenting may become the norm, because dad feels guilty and scared that he’s seeing his kids less so forgets the word “no,” because mom feels overwhelmed by single motherhood and starts letting the discipline go, and/or because smart kids of any age learn to “game the system” and play one parent off the other. And permissive parenting = unduly empowered stepchildren with little sense that others matter. Least of all their father’s wives and their father’s marriages or partnerships. Long story short: problems with his kids = problems between you and your partner. If your stepkids steal from you, coerce you physically or emotionally, or are violent toward you, my advice and the advice of many stepfamily experts is, calmly and firmly request an immediate, temporary moratorium on his kids being in the house until things are sorted out, and then get to a qualified therapist stat, since violence, stealing, and intimidation might reasonably be considered deal breakers in a marriage.
More often than creating these types problems, a permissive, lax partner and ex in the picture will have raised kids who strikes us as (and may well be) spoiled, entitled, unhelpful around the house, immature, and unable/unwilling to be responsible for themselves and their actions. It also creates a “strict” stepmother in comparison.
One solution is what we might call and “internal shift.” Ask yourself and your partner: what is the difference between stepchild behaviors that are annoying and those that are dire? Are you stuck in a dynamic where he’s permissive, you criticize, and he becomes defensive of his kids, causing you to ratchet up your criticism even more, so that he’s the defender and you’re “wicked”? Is there a way to instead appreciate and even enjoy the fact that you don’t need to fix your stepchild’s sense that the world owes her? Or his inability to hold down a job? That his or her bad attitude is someone else’s problem? What would it be like to “witness” rather than live or experience viscerally your observations that a stepchild has problems? Your partner may well find this conversation as freeing as you do: he or she may be constantly laboring under the anxiety that you disapprove of his/her parenting and his/her kids. Even if you do, suggesting that you as a couple come up with a way for you to disengage, and actually mapping it out together, could be a game-changer for your marriage or partnership.
Tomorrow….actual steps you can take to make life with your stepkids of any age easier, alleviate your resentment, and improve your partnership (boy, that sounds easy!) (it’s not, but tomorrow’s steps can really help, promise)
Tags: blended family, divorce, family, remarriage with children, stepfamily, stepfamily advice, stepmonster, stepmother, stepmother advice, stepmother support, wednesday martin
March 8th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Good stuff. BF and I fight nearly every time SD comes over. This describes it perfectly:
“Are you stuck in a dynamic where he’s permissive, you criticize, and he becomes defensive of his kids, causing you to ratchet up your criticism even more, so that he’s the defender and you’re “wicked”?”
Yes.
He wants me to “enjoy” time with SD, but I don’t enjoy her. There…I said it – where are the townspeople with pitchforks to drag me away?
March 8th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
It is so amazing to find someone who can put into words my true feelings and my daily experiences. Thank you so much for the advice and I can’t wait to read the actual steps!
March 8th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Your points on permissive parenting hit home for me. I now realize that when my husband first came into my childrens’ and my life life, I was a permissive parent. I was a single mom with little support or help from their father. I worked in a job I hated; I had little time for social activities; I was burnt out and frustrated. Often, it was easier to let my kids’ bad behavior go unchecked than to do the right thing and discipline correct or discipline them.
When my husband came along, I started becoming the “over correcting” mother so that he would not think my kids were brats. I over did it too quickly, which caused a lot of conflict in my home. My efforts to suddently get regain control didn’t work, of course. My kids responded to my onset of discipline with even worse behavior, which made me feel embarrassed and humilitated in front of my new husband.
I guess it isn’t always the step parents’ fault that conflict erupts. Sometimes, the problems are there, but they are ignored. The step parent’s presence merely spotlights what’s hiding in the dark.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Well, you pegged me, him, and the kids. Not to mention the ex. Text book says it, I guess, and that’s reassuring in some way!
For myself this rings true that trying less gets you more–more sanity, more on the same page with spouse, more happiness. My stepdaughter definitely had/has problems, you said it–manipulative, learning issues, frustration, and some sweetness there too. It took me a while to stop trying to parent her and stop trying to love her. Funny thing is that once I stopped trying to love or even like her–I got to the point where I would tell my husband, I know you love your daughter but please respect the fact that I don’t need to, and don’t even need to like her for all this to work–I had an easier time having a relationship with her. Hey seeking solutions, I have been there!! Try what Wednesday says here, ask “what it would be like to witness rather than live the fact that the kids has problems”?
I want to read tomorrow’s steps and will wait for that. meanwhile thanks, and yes it helps to just witness that I’m she’s not the way I’d want my own kid to be, but thankfully this isn’t my problem as long as all’s in order in my home/marriage when she’s around!
March 8th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
This article perfectly sums up the problem and a lot of the solutions.
Here’s where we ran into trouble, though:
“If your stepkids steal from you, coerce you physically or emotionally, or are violent toward you, my advice and the advice of many stepfamily experts is, request a moratorium on his kids being in the house until things are sort out, as calmly as you can, and then get to a qualified therapist stat, since violence, stealing, and intimidation might reasonably be considered deal breakers in a marriage.”
I think it’s reasonable to consider these deal-breakers (actually I put up with the stealing and intimidation, until it turned to violent intimidation). But what if your partner doesn’t? It was very difficult for me to convince my partner that there should be a moratorium on certain kids being in our house. He thought THAT was a deal-breaker.
So we went to counseling. I can’t say that any of the four or five counselors we went to were very good. But hearing me reiterate my dissatisfaction to four or five different experts DID have an effect on my partner. At some point my partner decided it was ok for me to not be around two of his six adult children, because they had a history of intimidating me. Maybe he was tired of paying for counseling; maybe he was tired of hearing and thinking about the problem; or maybe he really did see the light.
It took a LONG time to get there though and I had to hang tough. I had to enlist allies in my own family to email or talk to my partner on the phone about it. I think that helped. Also I pointed out to him that I also avoid people in my own family who have a history of serial emotional abuse. And I pointed out to him that for some weird reason, he doesn’t seem to care if I don’t see his “nice” children: he only wants me to be around the mean ones!
And that he himself avoids people in his family of origin who are mean to him. So why can’t I do that, in self-protection? Finally he realized, I think, that there was something sick about his “need” to expose me to danger all the time and to let his kids abuse me.
Keep in mind that these are “kids” in their twenties, so no harm would come to them from not coming to our house. I can see how this whole problem could be a lot more difficult if there is a younger child who is physically threatening but has no place else to go. However, if he’s big enough (bigger than you) that he can hurt you, he’s not a little child any more, even if he’s only 13. He can be responsible for his behavior; or if he can’t, maybe he has psychiatric issues. And if these psychiatric issues make him dangerous, maybe he needs to go to a special school for a while. Sadly, I know kids who are like this.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Wednesday,
The BEST thing Junior’s therapist told me, “you did not break him, you cannot change him, you cannot fix him. Your only job is to love him.” Junior had issues long before I ever arrived on the scene, but because my husband had custody and Junior lives with me 24/7, I felt that I had to fix some very troubling issues – it took me two years to figure out that my best bet was to step back. And it took Junior’s kind therapist to give me permission, in front of my husband. Likewise, the therapist also told Richard the *same thing* although Richard’s high conflict first marriage played a role in Junior’s behavior.
Since learning that valuable piece of wisdom, I remain a loving presence in my home, I’m just not out to fix Junior in any way shape or form. Amazingly enough, he’s fixing himself.
Can’t wait for your follow up!
xo
Peggy
March 8th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
FANTASTIC article! If all frustrated stepmoms would read this…and understand it…I think we could have a real breakthrough in today’s stepfamilies. If stepmoms could only understand that IF THEY CAN’T FIX their stepkids’ problems…which they can’t… why accept emotional responsibility? Thanks Wednesday…I will recommend this article in my work with stepcouples.
March 8th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
A good novel about kids fixing themselves after the parents stop trying to fix them: Duane’s Depressed by Larry McMurtry. It’s about other things too, but the part about the kids is interesting.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Hi to you all
Seeking Solutions: Just wanted to point out that there are many successful, happy partnerships out there in which the woman doesn’t love or even like her stepkids. Good enough steprelations–even if they’re emotionally distant but civil–can be just fine for everyone involved. Since kids of any age are often hostile and rejecting of a stepmother in the initial years (and sometimes much longer) and during specific developmental phases (adolescence comes to mind!), and since they are not infrequently being egged on to treat her badly by their mother, what’s to enjoy? You and your boyfriend do NOT have to feel the same way about his kids, and it would frankly be weird if you did, since they’re HIS kids, not yours. Once we admit these feelings, they are robbed of their power–they become mere feelings rather than some Awful Shameful Taboo Reality we’re stuck with forever.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I can’t wait for the steps to make this journey easier. Like Seeking Solutions, my husband wants me to enjoy his children as well. That isn’t going to happen and it took me a long, long time to realize that I simply don’t like them. There, I said it too!
I tried. God knows I spent the first year of our marriage packing lunches, doing laundry, making their favorite meals, playing and attending games I had no interest in, shuffling them to and fro school and activities….all for naught! In order to preserve my sanity and self-respect, I stopped.
I am a frustrated stepmom and am anxiously awaiting more wonderful advice.Thus far, it has helped immensely!
March 8th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Glad, thanks for showing us things from the “other side”–as a mom I can see myself sometimes being the “excuser” for my kids if I think my husband is being “unfair”–and can only imagine how I might react if someone NOT their father was in the picture helping me with “parenting.”
Peggy, sounds like you found yourself a great therapist back when. I would only add that it also holds that not only do you not have to fix him, you don’t have to love him; it’s usually enough to just be there, consistently fair and civil with a kid, to leave the path open. Brava, and thanks for reading and posting.
Wiznitch, sometimes it’s really hard to understand the process that brings our partner’s to make excuses at our expense for so long, but I am glad that on this matter you were able to find middle ground and help your partner get your position. I’m sure I won’t be the only one looking forward to updates from you.
Thanks for reading Susan, Beth, and sotiredoffighting. Be sure to look for a guest post by Susan Wisdom soon!
March 8th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Talia,
All that trying in the face of rejection was a recipe for resentment. Those are things for parents to do for their kids, not for stepparents to do for stepchildren who don’t want them to do it for them and wish they’d disappear!
Brava for reeling in your efforts a bit (or a lot)–and here’s betting (and hoping) that it is decreasing your resentment some to be acting like less of a stepmartyr? Who knows, when you stop bending over backwards only to hear a resounding silence instead of a “thank you,” and start focusing on what you and your parntership need, it might actually be feasible to start liking his kids down the road…
-wednesday
March 8th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Wow, I thought I had problems because I have issues with my skids. I thought I was just a mean person because I didn’t automatically love my husband kids. It is so freeing to know I’m not alone in my feelings!!
March 8th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
After eleven years, I finally actually like most of my stepchildren. Two out of three ain’t bad.
It was easier to like them when I gave up trying to like them, or hoping they’d like me.
Not seeing much of them helps too.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
“you don’t need to take on any more than feels genuine or realistic to you, no matter what others think you should do.”
***
This is the line that sung out to me in the article: Do what feels genuine, no matter what others think you should do.
I think many of us stepmothers fall into the traps of “the shoulds” — society, my husband, my friends and even my own family think I “should” do x, y or z. Yet, it feels completely wrong and uncomfortable to me. At the end of the day, I know myself and what I can handle the best. I give myself permission to take a step back from it, if it is not coming from genuine concern or care for my stepchildren.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Too often we are characterised as the “nasty” ones if we don’t like or even love our stepkids.
For even daring to say that I wanted to concentrate on having my own life for a change, I had someone post a nasty comment on my blog about how they hoped my partner had an ironclad will and would leave his estate to his daughter and nothing to me! God knows how the subject of wills came up as I sure hadn’t mentioned it!
We can’t win. if we throw ourselves into being the perfect stepmum, attending the events, cooking the favourite meals, doing the washing, organising the fun days out, we are stepping on the mother’s toes. and if we disengage or step back a little, then it makes us horrible, cold or nasty people. It just shows how much society expects of women even these days.
I think the key thing about being a step parent is that you should do it how it’s comfortable for YOU. It’s hard enough being one without worrying about the expectations of others on top of it.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
My experience with my clients in remarriage…the top stepmother complaint is not his children or even his ex. It’s HIS expectation that she love his children “as if they were his own.” In fact, some husbands have DEMANDED that his wife love his children with the threat of divorce looming quickly behind. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that this is an impossible request. Love is not something that can be demanded like a tax return. What I encourage these husbands to expect is kindness and an attitude of respect (notice I didn’t say respect alone) towards his children. This is more than doable for most. But love? Sorry, that’s an organic process and one that cannot be forced.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Thank you for another brilliant and oh so helpful post. After years and years of trying to do everything a mother would for my stepson, and being stuck in the critcism/defensiveness loop you describe so well, this year I finally decided to step back. In a recent heated argument my husband asked me if I loved his son. I said No I didn’t. It’s my honest answer and one I at last don’t feel terrible about, but boy oh boy, you’d think I’d said something pretty heinous by the way my husband reacted. (I really have tried to love and like that child, but I just don’t.)
Stepping back and being civil has felt a little better, but much of stepboy’s unpleasant spoiled rude behavior still drives me nuts. Here’s my question: How exactly do you go about “just witnessing?” I’d love to, I just don’t think I know how.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Wicked, so true about their being a spectrum of involvement for women with stepkids. I write about this extensively in my book. There is no one right way to be a stepmother! Loving them like they’re your own is no standard for being a good or successful stepmother–and it may antagonize their mother, exacerbate their loyalty bind, etc. Learning to deal with the nasty comments you mention is actually an opportunity to practice being less approval oriented. Really for this all to work you need only to be on the same page with your husband (yes you CAN get there) and have relations with his kids that are civil, fair, and as warm as feels natural to them and you.
Thanks for reading and weighing in as ever, Mary Kelly, one of my favorite stepfamily therapists/coaches.
Lisa, more about “witnessing” versus experiencing a child’s problems soon, I promise!
To all of you, we’ll get to these points and concerns soon, over the next days and weeks. I’m committed to that. xx wednesday
March 10th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
i think i get it–that the problems that feel like they’re abut how his kids ARE, are actually problems with how my husband lets them be, my expectations, not asking the right way or suggesting in ways he can hear abuot changes that matter to me. problems with kids = problems with the stepcouple. our therapist told us a version of this and it always helped. i needed this reminder so thanks!
March 10th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I think I get it too: a lot of times “problems with stepkids” are proxy wars between adults. One real war may be the ongoing war between your partner and his ex; but it can also be (shudder) about a power struggle between you (the stepmother) and the father of the children.
I think my partner was somehow determined to “make” me put up with his children’s abuse, for some weird power reason. I guess you could call it covert aggression. I don’t think he was conscious of it. It was hard for me to admit to myself, even, that this could be going on, but a book I read helped me face the fact that it was possible. The book is called If Men Could Talk, and it discusses the way that male covert aggression against women works.
Once I realized that he was unconsciously engaged in a power struggle with me, a kind of demonstration of his power to “make” me endure conditions that I found intolerable, I felt more determined than ever to sort of call him out on it and make this abuse by proxy stop. I remember one phone conversation where I pointed out that he never required me to spend time with his nice children, only the mean ones. This sort of took him aback. I think he suddenly saw the covert aggression in his demands that I play hostess to his meanest children.
Again, I don’t think any of this was conscious. But that doesn’t make it right or acceptable. Many men harbor deep misogyny and ambivalence about their relationships with women. Even apparently meek and mild men want to have the upper hand. Part of the feminist agenda is to nip this kind of intimate oppression in the bud, no matter how well-hidden it is. This is not mean or cruel, but it may require us to think differently about how a nice girl behaves.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Da Wiznitch,
I’ve said it and said it: stepmothering is a feminist issue. For many reasons, chief among them because it is about gendered power imbalances–in the household. I think stepmothering absolutely requires us to reconsider how a “nice girl” behaves. And I think husbands may be coming from a mindset that all women–particularly the ones who are their parnters!–should be all-loving and all-maternal all the time. Part of their job is to reframe their expectations–often radically–so that they are more realistic and in line with what their partner are usually up against. Namely, a power imbalance partly of his making, and kids who may remain hostile and rejecting or resentful of her for years in spite of her best efforts. It takes some time to wrap one’s head around the following idea: “Maybe it’s not my wife/partner who needs to change but rather my kids. Who will only change if I change my expectations of them.”
March 11th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Keep saying it. The therapists are not hearing it.
In the meantime, I’m not waiting for him to wrap his mind around anything, because I could be waiting for ever. I just set boundaries and enforce them.
March 14th, 2010 at 10:09 am
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March 14th, 2010 at 10:18 am
I just recently moved out of the hosue because things were getting too intense. I tried to apply everything I read but nothing worked and our life was a living hell for me, my daughter and my husband. Most probably for his son as well, although I fail to see it really…
We have decided to be a stepfamily that lives separately… I don’t know if this will work but I do know that it will be a lot easier for me to apply the rules in this text!!!
March 22nd, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Okay so how do you step back when you have a bil child in the picture too? Tell them that it’s okay for skids to lie, steal, throw fits, bully, etc. but only them? what is this m word that you say we should do when the child is stealing or intimidating? What does it mean???
March 22nd, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I meant bio child…sorry.