Wednesday Martin

Save the date–I will be co-conducting a workshop with Dr. Rachelle Katz (author of The Happy Stepmother) on Saturday March 3 and the Open Center of New York City. Women with stepchildren of any age and their partners are welcome. So are therapists and other professionals who work with repartnered couples with children, or want to learn more about stepfamily dynamics and the issues remarrieds with children of any age face.

Happy New Year, and happy 3rd birthday to Stepmom Magazine. The January issue has more of what you count on it for…sound advice, reassurance, and insight from stepparenting experts and authors like Mary Kelly-Williams, Susan Wisdom, Jenna Korf and Heather Hetchler, to name a few. Check it out…including my piece, “Pulling the Plug on Perfect,” about how letting go of our fixation on happy endings and blended families frees us up to enjoy our lives and our relationships as never before.

If you are married to or partnered with a man with an ex and kids, you need every leg up you can get to keep yourself sane–and keep your partnership alive. Hope you will read my latest on psychologytoday.com. Then tell your husband or partner what happily married people are doing all the time…and leave a comment!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stepmonster/201112/give-it-me-often-the-surprising-secret-happy-marriage

I will be discussing the emotional reality of childless and child-free stepmothers with host Mary Kelly-Williams, M.A. on her Blog Talk Radio show September 27 at 11 am EST. Hope you will tune in…you can also call into the show to ask a question.

What are your biggest concerns and issues regarding your parntership with a man with kids (and and ex)? Tell me about it. I will be co-conducting a workshop with stepfamily expert Dr. Rachelle Katz on Saturday September 24 in NYC. Register by clicking here…and tell us about your biggest issue in the comments section below…

The September issues of StepMom Magazine has posted! In it you will find all kinds of informative and helpful articles by stepmothers and stepparenting experts who walk the walk. Mary Kelly Williams on the importance of the couple bond. Heather Hetchler on loyalty binds. Susan Swanson on why women with stepkids need social support–and good girlfriends. And Susan Wisdom in stepparenting teens. And much much more. I do recommend you subscribe today because knowledge is power, and can make this gig a lot less insanity-inducing!

I am the special guest expert on CafeMom’s Stepmom Central board this week. Hope you will stop by the site and ask a question

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!

Joanne Richard wrote this article about stepchildren and adult stepchildren in loyalty binds and what a stepmother “should” do to improve the situation. My answer was…nothing! Joanne also quotes my colleague and good friend Dr. Rachelle Katz, author of The Happy Stepmother, one of the only reasearch-based books out there for stepmothers other than my own. Hope you will have a read…and leave a comment.

No, that’s not a typo. Some of you who read my blog are mothers who also have stepchildren. Some of you are straight up stepmothers, and today is likely more complicated for you than it is for those stepmothers who also have kids of their own.

Yes, I just said that, “kids of their own.” Because as anyone who reads my blog knows, I am not one of those people who urges you to think of yourself as their “other mother” or a mom figure or like a mom in any way. Unless you want a whole world of trouble, loyalty binds, and resentment heaped upon you. Instead, women with stepkids can feel free to consider the whole range of options available to us–from very involved, if kids and their mom are okay with that, to not very involved at all, just a welcoming presence. There’s a whole stepmothering spectrum, and sentimentalizing and romanticizing how the “bond” between women and their stepkids of any age “should” be only sets us up for hurt and disappointment.

If your husband’s kids didn’t call you for Mother’s Day, that might just be the very best development ever. Most likely, they have a mom, and being in touch with you today could make them feel disloyal to her. It’s not about your efforts, which have been wonderful, or your personality, which I know is far from wicked. It’s just that, since parents and stepparents are not the same, it’s different. Happy Other’s Day to you. Because you’re more than “another mother”–you’re a person with the freedom to live this relationship with his kids that way that feels authentic to you.