“Taming the Mommy Tiger: When His Ex Resents You” in the January Issue of Stepmom Magazine
Cameron and A-Rod's daughter
Let me get something out front: I love Star Magazine. Oh, and Us. I also love The New Yorker and the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage. But I’ve got nothing against lowbrow.
The cases of LeAnn Rimes and Cameron Diaz–one a stepmom, one a woman dating a man with young children–might be spectacularly public, but they’re also universal. Each celeb seems to be incurring the wrath of her man’s ex-wife.
Beyond having been cheated on and dumped, what are the roots of ex-wife resentment? What makes an ex-wife infuriated and irrationally nasty toward the stepmother of her children, even when that woman didn’t break up her marriage? Why does she undermine your relationship with her kids and do everything in her power to make your life hell? Hint: it’s not really about money. I write about where Mommy Tiger is coming from–and what you can do if your husband’s ex has it out for the two of you–in the current, second-year anniversary double edition of Stepmom magazine. You can also read an introduction to the article here, on psychologytoday.com
Tags: A-Rod, blended family, Cameron Diaz, divorce, Eddie Cibrian, ex-wife and wife conflict, ex-wife and wife relationship, family, LeAnn Rimes, remarriage, Stepmom Magazine, stepmonster, stepmother, stepmother advice, stepmother support, wednesday martin
January 4th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
This was a fun and satisfying post, Wednesday, as I, too, love me some Us Weekly (especially the day before my semester starts in earnest). But for the sake of argument, I wonder: to what extent is this a legitimate stepmother issue? Neither Cam nor LeAnn are married to the men, and an engagement does not a stepmother make. Moreover, both men are known for tomcatting around, and so given the particularities of these two examples, I wonder how much these two women and their experiences have to say about stepmotherhood? The women’s behavior certainly supports and reinforces all of the very worst assumptions about stepmothers, absolutely, but I can’t help but think that they are acting as proxies for really bad fathers, rather than for actual stepmothers. But I am, admittedly, posting this right after reading and haven’t fully thought it through.
I will also add that I see a marked difference in Giselle Bundchen’s comments about motherhood and her stepson now that she’s got a baby of her own. She seems much more muted and respectful — but then again, my coverage of Giselle gossip is spotty.
Happy new year, everybody!
January 4th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Hey Wednesday! Excellent post as always, along with your StepMom Magazine article. Saw that yesterday and was glad to see you covering this angle.
One additional point to consider: to the extent that a mom doesn’t actually KNOW her ex’s new partner, it feels wrong for her to just blindly accept the presence of a new girlfriend or stepmother in her kids’ lives. Think of the sick feeling you’d have in your gut if you walked out the door, leaving your children in the care of someone you barely knew. Wouldn’t feel good, would it? And you probably couldn’t bring yourself to leave! Same reluctance, same alarm bells going off here.
Of course, new partners are (rightfully) kept away from the old partner, but that means that each side operates in a vacuum, often for years. It’s that lack of a personal , albeit *business* relationship, and the chance for each person to form their OWN conclusions about the other, that contributes to snap judgments and simple misunderstandings that blow up into mushroom clouds.
You’re right on the money with the doofus dad parenting too. (Moms do the same thing, I’m not taking sides). What absolutely infuriates any parent is when the other one plays out their parenting blind spots and indulges in ill-founded fantasies about creating an Insta-Family — and dragging the kids along for a bumpy ride. New partners can get sucked in by the dream too, but then be oblivious to their partner’s parenting weaknesses and the impact on the children if it all falls apart, just as quickly as it started.
March 10th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
My dad really DID cheat on my mom, (via exceedingly sleazy internet affair) and then fought tooth and nail to keep every penny of “his” assets during the divorce, to boot! Ugh! And seven years on he still talks trash about my mom in front of the whole extended family. What is that all about? He knows I hate it.
So yes, it would be extremely, extremely disloyal to my mother– who has always encouraged me to have whatever relationship I want with my dad– to just go “la di dah, Second Wife, let’s go get our nails done!”
Dad would love that, for it would mean that his previous awful behavior is now officially water under the bridge.
He cannot dump all over my family-of-origin and then carry on as if the minor change of wives makes no real difference. Which is exactly how he sees it– we have the same standard issue nuclear family, the same wise-old-dad-to-flaky-kids relationship… just with a different, younger, improved “mom.” Ridiculous. He wants me to call this woman “Mom!” He wants my kids to call her “Grandma!” He can’t understand what the problem with that could possibly even be.
He thinks my prickliness about the personnel change is “immature.” Ha.
If he wants me to choose between him/ his second wife and my mother, he will absolutely lose. The harder he pushes, the less inclined I am to play ball. One of my siblings has already cut him loose, and to be honest, I kind of envy his clarity about it.