Oh please, we're like, so NOT the Brady Bunch??
This makes it look so simple
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.
Well, who knows? But she is a mother now. Will she remain a stepmother?
It
When I asked about your top concerns as a woman with stepchildren, this one came up again and again: a partner’s ex who is angry, undermining, and intrusive. Bottom line: this behavior indicates first and foremost that she is unreconciled to her ex-husband’s repartnership. And you are a convenient target for her wrath. Now what?
1. Know what’s going on. Acting out (“Come do chores for me/the kids,” “Give me more money above and beyond the separation agreement,” “Take the kids whenever I say/whenever it suits me with no notice, or ELSE,” etc.) is a classic and sure sign of an emotionally incomplete divorce and poor boundaries. And if your partner is capitulating to these demands, whatever his rationalizations (“I don’t want the roof to leak on my kid’s head”; “If I don’t do what she says I’ll never see my daughter again,” etc) that, too is a sign of incomplete divorce and unhealthy boundaries (feelings of guilt and fear about what his ex might do are actually sometimes a way of staying connected to her, even when that’s the last thing he consciously wants to be). You guys need to sort this out yourselves, with you initiating a completely low-key, compassionate, and non-accusatory discussion about why it won’t do for you for him to continue to be at her beck and call. Be strategic and understanding! Look to the work of John Gottman or my book Stepmonster for communication strategies and formulas that will help you start a discussion that goes somewhere rather than devolving into recriminations. Suggest boundaries that you think would be healthy for your marriage and for his kids (they need to understand that the divorce is real and that dad will always love them even if he’s not the handyman anymore, regardless of what mom’s saying, for example). Ask your husband what he thinks would be good, healthy boundaries and rules. If you need a professional to help the two of you have this discussion, DO IT. Rendering a divorce emotionally complete is a crucial step to having a happy remarriage or repartnership with kids!
2. Ask yourself, Am I unwittingly and out of good intentions doing anything to antagonize my husband’s ex? You may have been fed a line of BS by our society that the only good stepmom is one who looks, acts and feels “just like a mother.” Well guess what, in a culture that thinks of motherhood as something one woman alone does all by herself, nothing could be more antagonistic or provocative to an ex-wife than a “maternal” stepmom. Acting like the kids’ mom will not only provoke her; it will exacerbate the kids’ loyalty binds as well. Regardless of what the kids seem to want, what your husband might hope you will do, and what you feel the kids need, know that when you act “just like a mommy” you are very likely going to set off fireworks. And that will not serve anyone. Lucky you, then. Don’t accept responsibility without authority. Never be a doormat in your own home, of course, but give yourself a break from feeling that you have to go to every parent-teacher conference or get super involved if it feels inauthentic. If a high degree of involvement feels like something you and the kids can accept, bear in mind that you will have to be diplomatic (for example, sharing your parenting opinions with your partner and having him pass them along as his idea rather than yours may keep their mother’s sense of be threatened to a minimum). Simply being what stepmother and marital and family therapist Mary Kelly-Williams calls an ally to your parnter’s kids might not just suit you better–it might go a way toward smoothing the relations between households.
3. If it’s not the case that you are inadvertently antagonizing your husband’s ex, all you can do is wait until she has less influence (when the kids are older, she can’t play custody and visitation games, make unreasonable demands about child support, etc.). In the meanwhile, you might also be able to turn her bad behavior into an inside joke between you and your spouse, or an opportunity to bond, rather than letting it continue to be a source of exasperation, stress, and anger. Try it: reframe your resentment (“I can’t believe I have to deal with this because I married a guy with baggage!”) and shoot for the following mantra: “Every time she acts like an angry nut, she makes us stronger as a couple.” You and your partner can say it to each other every time there’s an enraged voicemail message or unreasonable demand. You might also try saying, “Honey, I’m sorry you’re dealing with this person,” and this will likely prompt your husband or partner to feel understood, compassionate in turn, and perhaps even lead him to say the same to you. Feeling appreciated by a partner can help you weather the worst stresses and storms of stepfamily drama.
4. Understand it’s not your problem to fix. Studies like Dr. Mavis Hetherington’s 30-year Virginial Longitudinal Study and Constance Ahron’s 20-year longitudinal study found that, while there are exceptions, women are simply angrier for longer after a divorce, and behave in more intrusive ways than do ex-husbands. No amount of your reaching out can help an angry ex accept that she is, in fact, divorced and her ex has, in fact, moved on. This is internal work for her to do herself. All you can do is your internal work (“I don’t need to be liked by everyone. I don’t need her approval or need her to like me. I don’t need to prove to her and the rest of the world that she’s wrong about me, that she’s telling lies when she smears my rep.”; “Hopefully one day things will be easier with my parnter’s kids, but I don’t need their love and approval to be happy in my marriage. And it’s useless to pour my energy into winning them over if they’re in a loyalty bind. I need to focus on my mental and physical health and my parntership”)
5. Be wary of overtures of “friendship” from a conflicted ex-wife. There is now significant pressure on ex wives and wives to “get along” at all costs. Sure, it makes sense to keep the relationship as low-conflict as possible This is important for the well-being of everyone, and especially the kids. But increasing anecdotal evidence suggests that women who go beyond civility to “befriend” a husband’s ex may come to regret it, to feel pressured, stressed, entrapped, and more. If your husband’s ex wants to be friends she will do the most friendly thing she can: explicitly release her children from their loyalty bind by telling them to give you a chance, and that doing so will not hurt her in any way, that liking you is not disloyal to her. If she doesn’t take this step (and you’ll know she has or hasn’t by the way the kids behave around you), there is no point in pursuing a “friendship.” She can’t be badmouthing you to her kids out of one side of her mouth and asking you to have coffee out of the other.
So simply shoot for civility and grown up fairness, even when she’s playing dirty. You will never regret not getting down in the muck and mire with your husband’s ex. If you do fire off a nasty email or comment, give yourself a break (you’re only human) and tell yourself you’ll do better next time.
It will help to remind yourself that for some women who are ex wives, conflict is like oxygen to a fire, fueling rage and satisfying a need to engage. Your goal, then, is to deprive her fire of the conflict that fuels it. Then she will die down and subside. She really will. You’re not interesting if you are consistently flat, bland, and simply, flatly, blandly, consistent about your boundaries.
TELL ME ABOUT IT: HAS THERE BEEN CONFLICT BETWEEN YOUR HOUSEHOLD AND YOUR HUSBAND’S EX, AND HOW HAVE YOU HANDLED IT?
Stepmothers frequently find themselves on the wrong side of power. Some may be trapped in a sadomasochistic reenactment.
My friend and colleague Stephanie Newman, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, has helped numerous women in difficult step situations over the years–including me–by asking why we might give and give without reciprocity, or choose situations that are ungratifying and then feel compelled, at some level, to simply endure them. And more than once, Dr. Newman has helped an adult stepchild re-think “what happened” with stepmom. For example, she tells us, a stepchild who talks about an envious, unkind stepmother is often projecting his or her own disavowed feelings of jealousy and anger about being displaced onto a convenient target–Dad’s Wife.
Most recently, Stephanie Newman has been thinking, writing, and lecturing about women trapped in sadomasochistic reenactments–patterns of self-sabotage rooted in early childhood experience. Yes, she tells us, these patterns can be reversed. As I read more and more emails from women with stepkids trapped in psychologically unhealthy situations where they sacrifice endlessly or fail again and again to assert themselves in healthy ways in their partnership and household, I wonder how many of us may be unconsciously repeating early childhood patterns that are destructive to us. Stephanie’s work is always smart and accessible. Have a look at her recent guest post for my Stepmonster blog on Psychology Today…and leave a comment!
Tune in for chat and advice about stepmother reality
Tune in this Monday April 19 as Mary Kelly-Williams and I discuss stepmother reality with Peggy Nolan of Stepmom’s Toolbox and Erin Erickson of the Erin Experiment on their radio show. Call in to ask a question or send a question in and you may win a free copy of my book, Stepmonster. Hope you’ll tune in!
Some of you have stepkids who think this is how money is made
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
ask away...I'll try to answer
Let's get to the bottom of this
How much internet/FB/Twitter/IMing is too much?
Ever wonder if your/your partner’s teen (or you) might actually be not only really into social media, but addicted to it? Today on my psychologytoday.com blog, check out the special guest post by Dr. Stephanie Newman…and leave a comment!
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stepmonster/201004/teens-and-the-internet-how-much-is-too-much
