Stepmonster workshop (hand-holding optional!)

Rachelle and I will address the issues that matter to you, provide validation and helpful advice, and help you connect with other women partnered with men with kids.

More details closer to the date. Hope you will be able to make it!

Tell me about it: Do you keep secrets from your husband or partner? Your comments will be kept secret, as always…

-”My husband is married to his kids, not to me. He’s so close to them. Whenever they show up I feel and am shunted to the side. If I complain, I’m a petty wicked stepmother. So I don’t say anything. And then I’m furious at him, and at them.”
-”When his kids are around he won’t even hold my hand. That hurts. And it makes me dread their visits.”
“He’s not finished with his ex. He does chores for her. He bickers with her like they’re still married. He’s at her beck and call and I’m fed up with it.”
-”This is a shadow of the marriage I hoped I would have–the fighting, the disappointment, the stress of dealing with his kids and his ex.”

You are right in your sense that when it comes to stepfamily life, without a good partnership you are nowhere. And with an airtight, satisfying alliance where you feel valued, loved, and part of a team of two, you can put up with and even thrive in the context of just about anything an uncooperative ex or resentful step/kids dish out.

Your partnership is what counts and is the key to success. Everything else–games of chicken about visitation with his ex, teen stepkinder with slovenly rooms and bad hygiene, stepkids who are disrespectful, sullen, or unwelcoming to a stepparent–are so much noise. What I mean is, fix the underlying issue by recalibrating your marriage so that it is a true partnership, and these other issues with repair themselves, or recede so much into the background that they matter less.

For example, if your teen stepson in residence is using drugs, that’s a huge problem and a huge stress on a marriage or partnership–particularly if you find yourself in that typical dynamic in a remarriage with children wherein you point out the problem with the kid’s behavior, and your husband dismisses your concern and minimizes the importance of what’s going on. At which point, you escalate your criticisms so he’ll take you seriously, and he grows ever more defensive and withdrawn and suggests, implicitly by ignoring you and explicitly by saying it, that you’re way too hard on his kids and there’s something wrong with your reaction.

Feels like a deal breaker, doesn’t it? Here’s another scenario: you’re both on the same page about what to do. You’re not thrilled to have your life once again waylaid by a teen stepkid who’s constantly creating drama and difficulty in your marriage and your life. You calmly tell your husband as much while also telling him that you feel bad for the stress it’s creating for him to have a kid breaking the rules. Your husband nods and says, “I know. It’s so frustrating for me and I’m his parent. I can only image how much you must resent this, and I don’t blame you one bit. Thanks for putting up with all this teen crap. I really feel lucky that you married me and you’re sticking it out with me.”

Yes, you can. Over the next weeks I’ll have stepfamily and martial and relationship experts doing guest posts to tell you how to realign the power imbalances in your home so your partnership feels and IS equitable, satisfying, and yes, happy.

A great place to start is psychoeducation–learning what’s normal for a couple in a repartnership with kids of any age, what dynamics are typical. One of the most common is putting the partnership last on the list of priorities as we put out fires with stepkinder and uncooperative exes.

Two great guest posts, one by Mary Kelly Williams, MA of www.marriedwithbaggage.com, and one by Susan Wisdom, author of Stepcoupling, illuminate why your couple bond is so important, and steps to take to keep it thriving.

Here’s Mary on “Finding Love in a Crowd”:

And Susan’s piece called “What Were You Thinking?!”

Have a read (have two!)….and leave a comment.

Kela Price of todaysmodernfamily.com (formerly Blended Family Soap Opera)

I love Kela’s piece, “Why Did I Get Married?” and feel it’s the perfect follow-up to my recent ruminations about whether marriage is “necessary.” Thanks to Kela for permission to run the piece, and to Kela and Diane for serving all the modern families they do. Check out Kela’s article…and leave a comment!

http://www.todaysmodernfamily.com/index.php/2005

I'll be discussing the state of marriage on various CBC morning programs Friday FEb 12 from 6-9 am EST

I’ll be discussing how too often we fail to understand that real marriages between real people are tied to Marriage the social institution. When it becomes less relevant and necessary, we need extra help.

Read the article “Is Marriage Necessary?” here.

Knowing what you do now, would you marry him again?

One Boston University study found that nearly 75% of women with stepkids they interviewed would NOT do it over again–would not marry a man with kids, that is. Would you? Tell me about it (and remember your posts here are anonymous!)

Why did our ancestors marry? And why do we? Is marriage necessary?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stepmonster/201002/love-stories-is-marriage-necessary