Wednesday Martin

I recently wrote an article about Stepmothers and being disliked (look for it in the September Issue of StepMom Magazine). Tolerating that others may dislike us for reasons beyond our control, and in spite of our best efforts, is an important skill to develop.

Tell me about it: Have you dealt with feeling disliked in your life as a woman with stepchildren? How did you/do you handle it? What strategies help?

The August issue of Stepmom Magazine is live! In it you will find lots of helpful articles that address the topics that matter to you, including mine on the two most powerful words in a remarriage with children…Mary Kelly-Williams on grief in stepfamilies; Peggy Nolan on remarriage with kids and military deployment; as well as fantastic pieces by Joan Sarin, Susan Swanson, Susan Wisdom, and many other experts on repartnership with children. You’ll have to subscribe to read the articles…but it’s well worth the price. I know, it’s really cheap of me to set you up this way.

Happy reading!

Please check out my latest post for psychologytoday.com on the very sad story of the disappearance of seven-year-old Kyron Horman.

In researching my book Stepmonster, I came across dozens of studies in the sociological and psychological literature on stepfamily adjustment concluding that stepmothers have the toughest adjustment trajectory; experience high levels of anxiety; and are prone to burn-out, depletion, and even clinical depression at rates higher than mothers or stepfathers.

There’s plenty to do about it. Seek out social support–whether that means other women with stepchildren who can offer compassion in a way perhaps no one else can, a therapist, rabbi or minister who can hear and advise without judging–learn to fight in a way that strengthens rather than destroys your bond with your partner, and educate yourself about what’s NORMAL in a remarriage or repartnership with kids so you don’t go crazy thinking it’s all your fault and you’re all alone.

I could go on, and in other posts, I have. But today I want to let Kim Cottrell, a Feldenkrais practitioner and blogger, talk about how stress affects not just our minds but our bodies. You all have written me about how the pressures of remarriage with children keep you from enjoying a good night’s sleep for months on end; about panic attacks; about hair loss and weight loss and weight gain; and about other disorders your doctors have told you are stress-related. Kim’s words about standing tall might help, and inspire you.

Standing Inside Your Life
by Kim Cottrell

Remember when you met your husband? You floated along as light as a feather, standing tall in the face of the love you shared and the hope in your heart. And then step-life happened and with it came the weight of what it is to be a stepmother in a family with unresolved conflicts, active grief, and outright rejection.

Many a strong, independent, self-assured woman has lost her postures of confidence somewhere along the way. In my own experience, the overwhelm of becoming a part of a stepfamily felt like one of my brothers had pulled a big joke on me, lying in wait and pulling my legs out from under me when I rounded the corner. I fell down, heart thumping with disbelief and dismay.

Even if you were overflowing with bliss when you fell in love, completely convinced that you’d be different from every other stepmother, there came at least one day when you curled up on the bed, sobbed into the pillow, tissues bunched in both hands, and remembered your life before this man and these children. According to the experts, you have a high likelihood of developing depression or anxiety.

I had no idea being a stepmother would bring such a challenge. My legs were swept out from under me and I struggled to find where to stand in the face of negativity and disenfranchisement. I gradually came to my senses and applied the learning strategies I’ve gained from 16 years as a Feldenkrais practitioner to my role as a stepmother. And, now, four years into the marriage and six years into the relationship, I can see where to stand so my feet are on solid ground. I know that even when life feels overwhelmingly heavy I am still flexible and resilient to what may come. And, this same resiliency is available to every one of you, no matter what your role.

Every stepmother needs three things to be and live her fullest potential. First, she needs to live inside her own skin and not vacate the premises when the trauma comes. Second, she needs to use good posture to her every advantage. And, third, she needs to remain steady with an ability to wait.

One way that I teach a woman to stay inside her skin is to help her find her feet in standing. Every woman needs to be able to balance on her own feet and know how to find her center so she can return there as needed. She cannot feel her feet when she lives in her thoughts, feelings, or judgments. She has to return to the kinesthetic sensation of what it is to draw in a breath, to push against the ground to stand up, or to look around herself to find her direction. If there is a place to work with yourself, it is in this not abandoning ship or vacating body as you do when you feel threatened or anxious.

Once you know how to find your feet then you can direct your attention to come back home in any situation. Practice while you’re waiting in line at the grocery store or brushing your teeth in the morning. Every time you find yourself ruminating or going through your laundry list, pause and bring your attention to the contact your feet make with the ground. Don’t ask yourself to change, just notice. After those types of practice, you’ll more easily access your homing in those high stress situations such as family dinners and weekends with kids. Over time, you can focus on other aspects of your experience, but for now keep it simple. Just notice how you stand on your feet.

Think about your posture when you leave your body. Admittedly, that’s a trick question because you can’t think about posture when you aren’t in your body. You can only know what happens to your posture when you are inside your own experience, living inside that skin. If that’s true, then every time a stepfamily trauma happens and you leave your body, you have no idea what occurs. It’s essential that you find a way to stick around and see what happens.

Now then, about your posture? In order to change posture, you first have to know more about what you do. Do you feel tall and solid in your calmest state? Do you feel clunky as you move through your day? And, think back to your reactions in the face of criticism, complaint, or rejection. What do you do? How do you respond? Do you collapse? Do you puff up and get defensive? Do you go silent and purse your lips and walk out? Do you begin screaming in your effort to get them to stop? Can you breathe in that moment? Do you know your name in that moment?

You might think of healthy posture as a stool with three or four legs. A strong stool has legs that are arranged to balance and support the weight of a person. If one of those legs is damaged, then the stool cannot hold up the weight of the person and the person falls down. If a stepmother has poor posture or isn’t paying attention to herself, then literally, her legs are not solid under her and she may struggle very hard to stay upright. In those circumstances, the next family drama might well be the the weight that brings her to the ground.

The lesson here is to learn to let the ground hold you up. Don’t struggle with it or against it. Just let yourself be held up. The mysterious dance of strength and fluidity is what helps us organize against gravity, remain upright, stand comfortably, and not collapse in the face of a stepfamily storm. With a little attention to finding your feet in standing, you’ll be in a better position to access your strength and fluidity with just enough of one and not too much of the other. Go back to the lesson on finding your center. Within that are all the elements you need to figure out how to give your weight to the ground.

With a healthy posture, free breath, and the ability to move in any direction at any time, you can be resilient in the face of strain and pressure. You can wait. It’s inevitable that sometimes you’ll hold your breath and brace for what is to come, but you’ll recover and return to your resilient posture with grace and ease. In this way, your posture will more closely matches that posture you had when you first got married. The one where you floated along on that cloud.

If you can you find a way to live inside your own skin and stand on your own feet, then you can remain present in the face of anything. Not for someone else, but for yourself. If you can do that, you can be the strong, resilient, competent person you were in the beginning of your relationship. That person is still there, she has only temporarily been set aside in the way women set themselves aside. She needs to stand up and come into her body and take her space. That can happen quietly, without words. Or, it can happen suddenly, in a swoop and a whoop. Most importantly, it needs to happen.

Stay. Stand. Wait.

more by Kim Cottrell: http://ahealthystepmother.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/a-healthy-stepmother-learns-about-her-center/

There’s been a lot of talk in the media recently about the “science” of a healthy, happy marriage. Based on the last decade of research, experts have identified some factors that put a marriage at risk for divorce. Have a look at my latest post for psychologytoday.com on the topic…and tell me about it: Have you ever considered divorce in your remarriage/repartnership with children? What changed your mind?

BioStep! Your name was chosen randomly from the list of commenters. Please email me your street address (wednesday@wednesdaymartin.com), and I’ll pass it along to Dr. Katz. That way you’ll get your free, autographed copy of The Happy Stepmother.

Congratulations. Thanks to all of you for entering, and your great comments.
If you didn’t win, buy it–you won’t regret it!
xx wednesday

Do you watch Glee? Are you obsessed? Even if the answer is no and no, please check out my new article on Psychology Today about Glee and the “blended family” paradigm…

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stepmonster/201005/glee-and-american-families-were-not-the-brady-bunch

Today I’m running a special guest post by Mary Kelly-Williams, MA, a therapist and stepmother in Boulder, CO about boundaries. You need them if you’re a woman with stepkids, but sometimes it’s hard to know how to maintain them, how to assert them, for fear of being disliked or perceived as wicked. Here’s Mary on how and why it’s important to have your boundaries in the stepfamily, and protect them. Otherwise, you’ll likely find yourself exhausted, depleted, and resentful. Have a read…and leave a comment!

BY MARY KELLY-WILLIAMS, M.A.
It is not uncommon for stepmothers to feel exhausted and depleted. It is not uncommon for stepmothers to feel misunderstood, used, taken for granted, and the scapegoat when things don’t go well in the stepfamily system. It is not uncommon for stepmothers to feel more like posers and actresses than actual human beings.

And all this exacts a price that no stepmother should or needs to pay.

Because the role of “stepmother” is so vague and ambiguous for most, and because our need for love and approval runs so deep, many stepmothers try to overcompensate, fix their spouse’s or even ex-spouse’s messes, be perfect and loving every second, take on the role of family and marriage counselor, and negate their own needs in the process. But there is a solution and it comes in the form of two simple words:

“Boundaries connect”.

Yes, boundaries connect. I learned this 2-word mantra many years ago in a training program and I’ve used it ever since, for my clients and myself.

It’s important to have boundaries in our lives, especially when one is a stepmother. But this is tricky business, given the stepmother is the one with the invisible target on her chest that screams, “Blame me for everything!”

Stepmothers need to know when it’s okay to put up the bright red stop. They need to know when they’ve done enough conceding, enough “gutting” their way through their weeks and days. They need to recognize the warning their bodies give them when it feels like someone is stepping on their chest and it’s hard to breathe.

You know that feeling…that feeling you get when you agree to something that you really don’t want to agree to? That moment when you say “Yes”, and it’s as if you can feel all your essence, all that is you, slip down and go down the nearest sewer drain.

That feeling when you walk away and you want to kick yourself. That moment when you’ve said, “Yes” when you meant “No” and you blame the other person for “taking advantage of you.”

Why do we do this?

To keep the peace?
To avoid the conflict?
To get the ex-wife to like you?
To look like the good guy?
To make sure the stepkids love you?
To be a saint?
To be the perfect stepmother and wife?
To make life easier?
To ensure the smooth yet elusive “blended family”?

I thought so.

And you know how that feeling just sits in your psyche and you feel anything from slow burning resentment to out and out rage?

Usually when we get to this point, we also tend to get into a bit of a victim mode. We are being taken advantage of, we aren’t being appreciated, we aren’t being valued, we aren’t being seen.

Some of the most valuable lessons about how to maintain healthy boundaries in our stepfamily situations may come from other areas of our lives where we feel more self-confident. I finally learned the invaluable lesson of “Boundaries Connect” when one of my daughters was 15 years old. We were on the way to get her driver’s permit. Now, this daughter had been testy and feisty and difficult to get along with (Duh, 15).

I asked the unforgivable question, “So, how was your day?” ‘WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO NOSEY MOM? WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO ASK ME THESE STUPID QUESTIONS???!!!”

Quick background. I was recently divorced from her father and full of divorce guilt and how my divorce was going to screw up my children for life, and how I was accepting perpetual rude behavior from this one in particular because I had put her through this divorce and would be forever more making up for it for all eternity.

Well, I had just learned about the power of the mantra “BOUNDARIES CONNECT” and the two words came screaming at me. I had had enough and I made an illegal U-turn in the road and headed the car back towards home.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE ARE YOU GOING? THIS IS THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!”

Me, in extremely calm mother voice: “You are not getting one more thing from me from this point on until you learn to speak to me with respect in a civil and polite tone. I will never apologize to you again about the divorce. It happened. It’s done.”

The screaming and ranting continued with the expected, “HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME? I NEED MY DRIVER’S PERMIT AND I NEED IT NOW, BLAH BLAH BLAH.” No no. Wasn’t going to do it. Wasn’t going to turn around. The verbal barrage continued. We got home and she ran into her room slamming the door, threatening to run away, go to her fathers’, call Social Services.

I handed her the phone.

From that point on, our relationship changed drastically. It moved into a relationship of love—my daughter stopped her ranting, her demands. And if she slipped, I’d look at her and say, “You’re not getting one thing from me until you speak to me in a way that is respectful.”

It didn’t take long.

Stepmothers recoil when I tell them this boundary connects concept. It elicits fear. “What if I give a boundary and I get rejected?” “What if my husband pushes back?” “What if my stepchildren hate me for sure?”

I try to reassure. I can’t tell you the times that the “Boundaries Connect” in action gives people more love, more respect. It’s not about being stubborn or rigid. It’s about being true to yourself and holding fast to the anchor of your being.

Ultimately, it’s better to disappoint another to be true to yourself. And it’s like that airline analogy. You know the one…you need to put on your oxygen mask first before you can help others.

We can’t model self-love to our children, our stepchildren, our spouses, or our friends if we aren’t self-loving.

So experiment today. Pick one small thing you’re tempted to relinquish. And don’t. See what happens…take a chance.

As I’ve been giving a few talks over the last weeks and reading your comments and emails, I’m getting a sense of what’s keeping you up nights.

You’ve told me, It’s the economy, Stupid. Thanks, I get it now. Stepfamilies (you may chafe against that term because the idea of you being a “family” of any type just doesn’t seem to honestly or accurately describe the reality on the ground when it comes to finances) and couples in a remarriage/repartnership with children are subject to all the economic pressure the entire country is feeling –and then some. And that’s because casting your lot with someone with kids, particularly a guy with kids, costs (men are just statistically more likely to be paying child support than are women, and anecdotally it’s clear that divorced men with kids often allow themselves to be guilted into going above and beyond their financial obligation, often way past the expiration date of a kid’s needs–35 and dad’s paying the rent, anyone?– to “prove” they’re good fathers).

Let’s say what people often don’t like saying, and what many of our well-meaning friends don’t think we should even feel, let alone mention, shall we? Particularly when economic times are tough, it can stink to have to foot the bill for kids or all too often adult kids not your own. Especially when those kids, young adult and adult children of your partner do not treat you particularly well. It can really stick in your craw, and you’re telling me that it does.

“Who am I, Wonderwoman?” one of you wrote, describing working two jobs to help your husband with his child support payments, most of which did not in all likelihood go toward child support once they reached his ex’s house. No, you’re not Wonderwoman. You’re normal, and that’s why you resent it. I’d stop if I were you, since you asked. I’d also start a conversation about separate finances. Another of you asked, “Why do I so resent that we are paying for my 28 year-old stepson’s rent?” Um, because your husband is a pushover who is teaching his son that Dad (and his wife) Will Take Care Of It, Son, No Need to Grow Up. Who wouldn’t resent having a partner who parented so incompetently and guiltily? If it’s going on at 28, who can tell what 38 may bring? Again, I’d think about a bank account of one’s own.

For others, the national economic crunch is affecting your housing situation. Since I live in New York City, land of negative square footage, I’m on the front lines of this one. Recently I gave a talk at which two different women in attendance shared their own architectural challenges. One was living in a small one-bedroom apartment–with her husband and two stepkids. I won’t go into the reasons or the details in order to protect her privacy. But I think we would all be hard-pressed to imagine anything worse for a marriage.

Another woman lived in a tiny two bedroom apartment–one bedroom of which was cordoned off as a kind of shrine to the man’s young adult child away at college. It seems the husband felt that his 21-year-old daughter required an inviolable, sacrosanct room of her own even though she doesn’t live there, and in spite of it being impractical and costly in every way. IN MANHATTAN. That left the woman’s young son sleeping with her and her husband in their room–for three years. The woman hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in all that time–it’s hard to sleep with a toddler alternately kicking and clinging to you all night long, take it from me. When she complained about it, her husband’s solution was that she should sleep on a mattress in the kitchen. So his daughter who had lived in another state for three years, and does not even spend summers with them, could still have “her room.”

This is a smart, savvy and utterly competent woman. But when it comes to asserting ourselves in one’s step”family,” it seems, many of us forget that it’s necessary and healthy to advocate for our own interests. In fact, we forget ourselves entirely. We cave out of fear of seeming, of being accused of being, wicked and unfair.

And then, weeks or months or years later comes the tidal wave of resentment. Or the insomnia, or the hair loss, or the health problems our doctors tell us are stress-related. As summer approaches–and brings with it younger stepkids on vacation and older stepkids on break from college–it is imperative to get your financial philosophy in order. Get a therapist involved if it would help. Then have the tough conversations about what you are and are not willing to shell out, about how to structure or restructure your finances–including your wills, insurance policies, and estate planning –so that everyone’s best interests and desires, including yours, are represented. Because from what you’re all telling me, it will save you a lot of aggravation down the road to have these arguments and negotiations now. Your partnership is very likely worth it. I’m rooting for you. Tell me how it goes.

And let me know here and now: HOW DO YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND OR PARTNER HANDLE FINANCES? MERGED? PARTIALLY MERGED? COMPLETELY SEPARATE? WHAT WORKS FOR YOU AND WHY? I’ll randomly select one respondent to receive a free copy of my book, Stepmonster

*details in anecdotes have been altered to protect the identity of the subjects who tell me their stories

SPECIAL GUEST POST BY MARTY BABITS, LCSW, Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy

“I feel like my husband is married to his kids, not to me.”
“When the kids are over he doesn’t even hold hands with me! I feel shut out.”

These are just a couple of things you told me when I asked for a list of Top Stepmother Concerns. Power imbalances are a fact of stepfamily life. Many of you experience first-hand your partner seeming to choose his kids over you–and you’re not happy about it. Why should you be? The partnership is usually, at least initially, the weakest link in the stepfamily system. If it stays that way, the stepparent will continue to feel like, and be, an outsider in the home. And the partnership will take on water…even fail.

Yes, you can create a family and marital culture where your bond is solid, and you feel like and are an insider in your own home. No, it doesn’t involve shoving your stepkids to the side. And that’s not what you’re about anyway. Though you do feel guilty that being upset about now having your husband’s attention when they’re around makes you a stepmonster. You’re not–you’re normal.

I asked my friend an colleague Marty Babits, LCSW, of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, to weigh in, and offer you some solutions. Here’s what he had to say:

As a couples therapist who has worked with many remarried and second marriage couples, I can tell you these sentiments are far from rare. Faced with the feeling of disconnection, let’s keep in mind that what we need are connection and re-connection strategies and tactics. These are based on creating mutual understandings, and facing these problems TOGETHER. That’s our goal.
There are two major aspects to this feeling of separation – the first involves being separated from your husband, and the other that comes from not having a place – or at least a place that you feel good about –with the kids. Let’s talk about the first aspect today.
Your husband’s kids come over and he refuses to hold your hand. In other words, he is shielding his children from having to face the reality of his connection with you. That he not only lives with you but that he is viscerally, bodily, connected to you. Presumably, he shields them from this sight of the two of you holding hands because it would signify to his children that your connection with him is alive – and they would be unable to experience it. This would leave them vulnerable to the realization that he no longer connects with their mother in this way; it brings this reality home, literally, in his new home. It lets them see that he has created a new home base and that they are invited into it, but cannot ever feel as familiar with it as YOU are. It symbolizes that his new life is with you. And lets the children see, allows them to experience, that home will never be what it was. This is what they need to come to terms with.

Does your husband understand that he is doing his children a disservice by reinforcing their sense of denial about the fact that you are his number one (and only) partner? He doesn’t have to flaunt this realization, but he needs to convey it! It is important for their own growth and development. Holding hands would not constitute flaunting this reality, in fact it would be a gentle expression of this truth. However, his inhibition about holding hands may have more to do with his own difficulty separating from the past than his concern for his children’s perspective.

Perhaps it is HIS denial of the finality of the transition that causes him to struggle when the kids are over. If so, this can feel like a betrayal, like a sign that he may still be emotionally connected to his ex. What is more likely to be true is that he feels guilty about moving on, and this is common. Perhaps he is intimidated about facing the fact that his life has moved forward. The more he becomes conscious and comfortable with the disconnection to his ex, the more it registers with him that he has taken control and opted to build a new life rather than sink down and become buried in the rotted foundation of the old. Part of what he is going through may be a form of survivor’s guilt. Only in this case he has survived his own former life!

Leaving it all behind, and any actions that represent his separation from the past, is still challenging. New moves, like holding hands with you in his children’s presence, may feel surreal to him. Each bit of transition brings particular issues with it and must be dealt with on its own terms. The past and its habits disappear slowly; what is most important — between you and your partner — is the creation of new neural patterns, new ways of understanding what makes sense NOW.

And understanding why holding hands with you (and all that represents) is good for him and the kids and not the violation of a rule but a clarification of what is true now. It is one of the ways in which he can anchor himself and his children in the present: with YOU. His having trouble with this does not mean he still loves, misses or even feels and undue connection to his ex.

Here are a few suggestions -
Talk about the situation with him. Be specific. Talk about the hand holding in particular. Aim at solving one aspect of the problem (transition) at a time. Some of these conversations may feel difficult. Remember: your purpose in communicating with him is not to accuse or berate, not to vent disappointment so much as to empathize with his difficulties with this change process. I’m not recommending you coddle him, I am saying you need to struggle with him on this; you are not adversaries. His difficulties with this change-process are normal and expectable. If the transition is prolonged, your anger level may be high but that doesn’t mean his ability to cope with the changes are higher than exactly what they are. In short: he needs your support in making these changes.

Let him know that you can help him to bridge his way into the present. You, yourself, need to hold on to the realization that YOU REPRESENT THE PRESENT. Your relationship is what is really happening. Connections to the past are just that: PAST. Let him understand that you get that he may not be betraying you, so much as himself and the children by not taking your hand in front of them. He is leaving them in the lurch to figure out, on their own, how and why you and he belong together rather than sending them clear and consistent messages and reminders! You can help him do better and he can use it – this step-family stuff is not easy!