What do Divorced and Repartnered Dads Really Want for Father’s Day?
What does father want?
If you’re not a subscriber to StepMom Magazine, here is a chance to read a couple of sample articles from the most recent issue. In one, I discuss the dilemmas of divorced dads on Father’s Day–and the gift your partner with kids will appreciate most of all. Hope you will have a look!
Tags: blended family, divorce, family, remarriage, remarriage with children, step mother, stepchild, stepfamily, stepmonster, stepmother, stepmother advice, stepmother support, wednesday martin
June 15th, 2011 at 11:49 pm
Wednesday: This was a perfect article! My husband’s three kids have not acknowledged him on Father’s Day for years. It is really hard for him to see the Father’s Day ads in the newspaper and on TV. So this year, we are going out of town for a week-end getaway. For the first time in seven years he is feeling chipper! It seems that most of the stepmoms who comment on these stepmother blogs are dealing with a lot of disharmony, to say the least. I include myself in that group. I am wondering if that is the norm, or if the stefmothers whose families “work”, don’t write. Alas. . . On a slightly different topic: I was on the Stepfamily Letter Project the other day and read some letters written by some angry bio moms. After reading their letters I finally “got” where these women are coming from. The angry bio moms consider stepmoms to be simply inanimate objects that their ex husbands have recently acquired. The bio moms, especially the ones who have not re-married, consider themselves and their children to still be the core family. It’s as if Dad is just away on an extended business trip. Bio moms also consider themselves to still be the “true” wife. They have no connection with the stepmom and cannot conceptualize that their children would possibly want to connect with the stepmom, since she is basically an inanimate object and not part of the core family. In fact, bio mom sees any attempt on the part of stepmom to forge some sort of relationship with the kids as predatory behavior. I think everyone would agree that we would not want our children to be polite to predators. In fact, we would tell our children to do everything in their power to evade the predator. Thus the bad behavior of the children, as viewed throught the eyes of stepmom and possibly bio dad, is actually seen by the bio mom and the kids as appropriate protective behavior. Aha! As the old adage goes, the only person you can change is yourself. So it seems to me that it behooves us stepmoms who are on the receiving end of all of this vtriol to make sure that our bio kids treat their step moms with respect. We need to release our kids to enjoy their time with their father and stepmom. Allow them to to be a productive member of that family in every sense of the word. Please let them spend an enjoyable and guilt free Father’s Day with their dad. If each of us does our part, perhaps we can begin to break these destructive stepfamily patterns. Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there! May you be well, happy and healthy!
June 18th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Oh boy, here we go again. It happens every Father’s Day–my husband’s kids “boycott” by not calling. They celebrate Mother’s Day lavishly and email photos to show him. It is sad but now I believe my husband is finally seeing it for what it is–after learning about loyalty binds and PAS. We will get through it. Like you, Ellen, we go away and make a weekend of it. It’s our tradition for three years running and it has taken the sting out of the holiday.
June 19th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Egad Joy. I see the e-mailing of the Mother’s Day festivities as letting Dad know that their mother is still the “real” wife in the steps minds as well as in their mother’s mind. It is also an indirect, and not so subtle message to you and their Dad that you will never have a place in their family and neither will he as long as he stays married to you. This stuff is so sad. This “strong” bond with the mother is really held together with vitriol and is not good for anyone, including the bio mom. Even though we all know why it is that the kids behave the way they do, it is still shocking to hear about and even more shocking to be on the receiving end of such behavior. Hope your Father’s Day went well. It was soothing to my husband’s soul to get away. Take care.
June 24th, 2011 at 8:39 am
This is some great work on being a step-mom and the second wife.I wish I’d been in touch with this site when I started my marriage. As a first wife, to a second time husband! My cousins grew up with a stepmother and they read this article over lunch with them and we were talking on the phone and they agreed with Ellen’s comment that they always felt that their mother was still the ‘real wife’ despite seeing first hand my aunt trashing her marriage to my uncle (their mom and dad) over a number of years till she finally ran off and left the family. My second aunt, their stepmom, is really a lovely woman but my cousins were too scarred to see past the Snow White and Cinderella stories. My two step sons too…
Keep on!
February 6th, 2012 at 2:54 am
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