Fighting Well, Fighting Fair in June issue of StepMom Magazine
Worth every penny
Hope you will check out the June issue of StepMom magazine. Yes, you’ll have to subscribe–but it’s worth it! This month’s articles include one by me on how remarried with kids fight–everything you need to know about “conflict by proxy”. That’s when you have your husband or partner’s feelings for him, or fight his battles for him.
Also look for helpful articles by Mary Kelly Williams (on money!), Jacque Fletcher, and many more.
TELL ME ABOUT IT: How did your last fight with your husband or partner go? Was it productive?
Tags: blended family, divorce, family, remarriage, remarriage with children, stepfamily, Stepmom Magazine, stepmonster, stepmother, stepmother advice, stepmother support, wednesday martin
June 4th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
at first it didn’t go well at all. it just spiralled into name-calling and me feeling the familar sensation that he thought I was “crazy.” so discouraging.
then somehow we turned it around. I told my husband, “I know my sulking and brooding routine is annoying. I do it because I know that if I bring up the topic of your kids you will dismiss it and maybe even explode in anger. I need a way to bring this topic up so I’m not brooding and waiting for you to ask why, then I tell you why and you explode.”
can you believe–it worked? we are working on it. I thank wednesday’s book the chapter on fighting fair, and John Gotman 7Principles of Marriage which my husband is now reading! I can’t believe it! You can get there if I can!
June 4th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Our last argument was much like all of them. Like Anita, I usually leave with the feeling that my husband thinks I am nuts and creating scenarios. When I told him how incredibly stressful it was for me to spend a week with his children giving me the silent treatment, ignoring me and basically treating me like furniture, he once again responded with “I can’t make them talk to you”. So, sadly nothing has changed and honestly, I don’t see anything changing in the near future. (I did respond that as a parent would he allow his children to treat a teacher/our preacher/or his family like that which did cause him to pause – could that be interpreted as progress?)
Anyway, I have decided to take nothing personal and be true to myself. I read a quote the other day that I strive to embrace. “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” I really like this.
June 4th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Oh brother. I think I need to read this one. Fair fights aren’t our strong suit. I feel my husband fights very dirty, for example saying things like, “You don’t like my kids!” and “What kid of a person doesn’t like her own husband’s kids?” and things like that.
Where is that supposed to go? I don’t think accusations ever helped a fight.
In my case the fights go terribly when my hsuband is feeling defensive. So I have to figure how to say things so it doesn’t trigger him going defensive.
Sometimes I get so sick of tryingn to figure out the right thing to do over and over that I wonder if it’s worth the effort? I wonder if we would have anything to fight about if not for his kids! Thanks for this Wednesday. I will work on it. Some more. Again! Still!
June 4th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Conflict by proxy is EXACTLY what’s going on whenever my husband and I disagree about something. Let me preface by saying that my first marriage was on of extreme emotional and verbal abuse which, towards the end, plummeted to physical violence. DH and I however, can “argue” without ever raising our voices. Our “fights” are really discussions. It’s so refreshing to be with someone that can talk through conflict and differences of opinion.
Every disagreement we’ve ever had has been conflict by proxy. BM despises me and fills both SDs heads with her hate for me. I can tell when SD8 has had an earful about me because she will be antagonistic, will raise her voice at me, call me names, or will go so far as to say to her dad within earshot of me “You need to leave her!” From the beginning, I have asked for support and backup from DH and for a long time, he did nothing because he was so afraid of alienating his daughters. However, since our daughter was born two years ago, that has changed. What bothers me is that when she is blatantly disrespectful towards me, he won’t reprimand her right away, he waits to do it in private. And that is what we usually argue about. It’s my feeling that with children, if you do not reprimand the behavior right away, that you’re giving them permission to act that way. If you wait until the end of the wknd to say, “Remember on Friday night when you told BioStep that she’s fat and ugly? That wasn’t very nice”, that you lose all kinds of momentum in stopping the behavior. I’d love to reprimand her, but then I would become the wicked stepmother her mother makes me out to be (actually she uses more choice words, but you get the picture).
What I appreciate about DH is that he can discuss problems rationally, understand them and act on them (although not always within the time frame that I would like!). It’s so important, especially in a remarriage, to find someone that you can fight fair with, especially when it comes to the kids.
June 4th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
BioStep,
My husband does the exact same thing, and I don’t agree, either. He said it’s to not embarrass his kids… But what about my feelings when they are rude and inappropriate to me?? Maybe it’s a guy thing…
I do want to say, though, that I think you should express directly to the child that you get hurt by what they say. It doesn’t mean that you ‘raise them’ or ‘admonish them’, but that you say for instance ‘that really hurt my feelings’ or ‘that makes me really sad’ – express how it made you feel, like you would to anyone. It can feel vulnerable to do so, but I think, especially when you’re dealing with young kids, that it can be very effective.
I’m sure that an 8-year old is completely repeating what she has heard, and it’s a real shame – ideally, your husband would request the court that the biomom and he get parenting counseling, because this is going to end up hurting the kid a lot (as well as you, but you’re not torn between to homes), and you have many, many years to go… This kid’s childhood memories are going to be very tainted by this poison.
But start by trying to connect with the kid with real emotions – there’s a neat kid in there somewhere who would like to come out.
June 4th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
BioStep,
I wholeheartedly agree that it is appropriate for you to say, “That hurts my feelings” right away. And also to say, “We don’t do name calling in our house because it is hurtful and mean.” Period, end of story. Otherwise you will be very resentful of your husband’s failure to assert those truths, and will end up in the “stepmartyr” position. Not something you have to choose or endure!
Another thing for all of you when your husband or partner says, “I can’t make them talk to you” or “I can’t make them like you”–he’s right, in a way. But what CAN he do? Ask him to do that. He CAN acknowledge that it’s not fun for you, and that he appreciates you putting up with it. A “thank you” goes a long, long way. If you tell him that, he might surprise you. If he can’t muster even that, you will have some things to talk about in couples therapy, and you may have some serious thinking to do about whether a partnership with him is feasible. Give him the benefit of the doubt for now, though. Explain to him how much a thank you or some acknowledgment would mean to you, and see what happens!
June 8th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Thank you Arwen and Wednesday! I DO tell her right away when she says something hurtful. The problem lies in her response which is always flippant and includes eye rolling and a smirk. If my children ever acted that way towards their father’s GF or wife (neither of which exist at the moment), I would be horrified.
He and I discussed this issue after I posted my first comment and for the first time in four years he said, “I think they way they treat you is horrible, and I’m sorry you have to put up with it.” This is the very first time he’s acknowledge it out loud. BIG step!!
June 12th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I read the article about proxy wars. Right on, right on, right on.
I have had a feeling for years that this was what was going on: Dad and kids not wanting to deal with their anger with each other. So the kids attack me instead, and Dad flees. It’s so much easier that way: for him, for them, for their mom. For everybody except me.
In my case the proxy war got so bad that one of the kids threatened to kill me, and that’s when I had to get serious about not fighting my partner’s wars for him. The kids have been quite angry at him in the past, and some of them (they’re all adults now) still are. But still, even as young adults, they prefer to shun me and verbally abuse me rather than deal directly with their dad.
My partner and I have made a little progress on this. We are going to counseling about it, and after many false starts with some less than skillful counselors, he has finally heard from at least one counselor that he has to “step up to the plate.” My partner is perhaps more conflict-averse than even the average American male, so this has been difficult for him.
One thing I’ve given a lot of thought to: if men are so conflict-averse and get so stressed by conflict, why are they the ones who kick down doors in Iraq? I think it’s family conflict that stresses guys, not just conflict per se. Some guys seem to actually relish war and fighting–with other guys, particularly “enemies.”
Why does family conflict stress guys to the point that they’ll do almost anything to avoid it? I think the chapter in Wednesday’s book about the Dogon people explains it. In a perverse way, it’s in a man’s interest to have his female and dependent underlings fighting it out amongst themselves, rather than directing their anger at the Dear Leader, where it often rightly belongs. Divide and conquer. The Man doesn’t like insubordination, and when you bring your anger to him, it’s very stressful. Especially if you’re right and he knows it.
It’s analogous to the way the professional class of white people ruled the segregated South in my childhood. Segregation and oppression of poor whites and blacks in the share-cropping system benefited white landowners and professionals. It was not good for anybody else. If the majority of poor people–white and black–had joined together and risen up against, say, the likes of Atticus Finch (ok, he was mostly a good guy), the system would have fallen apart. During the Populist Era, this almost happened. Quickly the ruling whites realized that by giving poor whites a few privileges based on their whiteness, they could keep whites and blacks from uniting against them. Divide and conquer.
(I’m sorry to say that this kind of politics is still being used by the Republican party, in their use of wedge issues to keep working people from realizing that the system is not working for them.)
But our issue is our husbands. They are dividing and conquering. It may not be possible to unite with our stepchildren to “overthrow” the patriarchy in our own families. It’s also not easy to persuade men that they may be unconsciously turning their own children against us. But seeing this divide and conquer strategy for what it is–a proxy war–might strengthen us to insist on our men fighting their own wars. It’s just not chivalrous for them to hide behind us. I’m not mincing words here. We are human shields.
A savvy man might object, “But, if you object to patriarchy, why are you suggesting that I, as The Man, have to step in here and exert more power than I am exerting already?” But you are ready for this, and you say, “If professional and upper class whites had wanted to stop the lynchings, they could have. They were the ONLY ones who could have.”
June 12th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
da wiznich, I got a copy of “In Sheep’s Clothing”, which I think you recommended in the comments here a few months ago. I just wanted to thank you for the recommendation. It was very eye-opening and very helpful.