Now what? The secret to a happy marriage on psychologytoday.com

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

Kosher for Easter

Do you do a seder, Easter Sunday, neither, both? Hope you will have a look at my latest post for psychologytoday.com. As it turns out, interfaith couples can learn a lot from stepfamilies…

You, giving it the boot

If you’re feeling like you just got “tacked on” to your husband’s life–that it’s all about the way he and his kids do it, that you have lost your connections to your traditions, your family, your strength your identity, your self–and are experiencing it especially over the holiday season, here’s what’s likely going on…and what you can do:

1. Feeling like a Barnacle means there is an imbalance of power in your marriage or partnership with a man with kids. Stepfamily and gender researcher Jamie Kelem Keshet writes about how women with stepchildren are more likely to be married to men who are older and more established; to move into his place “because it’s easier for the kids” or because it’s bigger; to move away from their families of origin/relocate to be with their husbands (who sometimes move to be closer to their kids); and, if they are themselves childless, to feel special pressure to take on a “maternal” role with his kids. I’m personally a poster-child for Barnacle Syndrome. When we married, my husband was seven years older, much more established, living with his adolescent daughter. I was younger, single, more mobile. I lived hundreds and hundreds of miles from my family of origin, was less established in my career, had no kids of my own. And so it only made sense for me to sell my car and most of my stuff and move in with him. And become a mother-like figure to his daughter. Right?

Holy inequalities, Batman, what a recipe for potential disaster! I remember looking around “our” house one day and realizing my contribution was a couple of throw pillows and a lamp. Meanwhile, my husband’s daughter already had a perfectly good mother and didn’t need another one, thank you very much. She was also an adolescent and like all healthy adolescents, felt the need to separate and differentiate far more acutely than the desire to have another quasi-parental figure in her life. My feeling of losing myself and my past and my very identity, and feeling overwhelmed by a role I didn’t even understand, came to a head as our first Christmas together approached, and my husband informed me that his plan for Christmas day was to spend it driving six hours round-trip to pick up his daughters from their mother’s place, “Since that’s what I’ve always done.” Cue tape of confused, frustrated wife and stepmother going postal (my husband, to his credit, listened to me and realized this was not an auspicious way to begin our annual Christmas tradition as a couple. He opened up his mind, and we made a plan that worked for both of us, and for our marriage).

Feeling and being “tacked on” like a barnacle to your husband’s previous life is common–but it’s not a normal, inevitable, or natural state of affairs. It’s a sign that you and your partner need to reset the balance, and get to a place where you feel like and are true partners, equals in the household and the relationship.

2. If you’re feeling like a barnacle or outsider, make a priority to change that, and do it stat, since power imbalances create resentment. In fact, you might say that the road to divorce is paved with power imbalances! Whether it’s an unequal distribution of household work, a sense that his kids have more say than you do in the family, or a feeling that you are living in a “haunted house” since you moved into his place, Barnacle Syndrome is a sign that you and your spouse have work to do. It’s not the end of the world. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Once you give this feeling of imbalance and being on the outside a name, you are in a much better position to address it!

3. You might need help from a professional when dealing with the charged topic of feeling like a barnacle or outsider in your own home. Until you and your partner get there, though, there is plenty you can do. Let your partner know–without a trace of anger or resentment in your voice (I know, it’s hard, but let’s be strategic here!)–that you want this holiday to feel balanced, festive, and comfortable for everyone. To that end, let him know you’d like to have your own family, your own friends, anyone who helps you feel supported and understood, around a lot this holiday season. Avoid situations where it’s just you, him, and his kids. Not only because you will feel better, but because the research shows that often, when stepparents, parents, and step/kids all come together without others around, it activates everyone’s anxiety about being an outsider. His kids of all ages will likely feel relieved if your friends and family are there to make things a little more interesting, and cut down on the sense that you’re all trying to feel like a “real family,” whatever that means. With that pressure off, you might find that his kids are open to some one-on-one time with you (stepfamily members also bond well one-on-one).

4. In addition to bulwarking yourself with supportive friends and family during the holiday time, consider doing less. If his kids are in a loyalty bind, the less you do on their behalf, the less they will have to feel indebted to and ambivalent about you. Rather than being a martyr who bends over backwards to cook all their favorite foods, for example, set the bar at being welcoming and appropriately open to interactions with them, based on their cues. It can make the difference between feeling depleted and drained and enjoying the holiday.

5. Finally, remember to get out. We’re so stuck in the “first family head” when we think about what’s best for stepfamilies. Guess what? Experts agree that stepmothers especially need time away from their husbands and stepkids when they’re around. It helps us rejuvenate and reset, and prevents stepmaternal burnout. In addition, you will seem like less of a “Dad hog” if you let the kids of any age have alone time with their father while you’re out doing something you really enjoy.

Self confidence starts with standing tall in your life

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/

Have you heard the news? Being a stepmartyr makes no sense!

In the end, problems between women and their stepchildren of any age can be traced to problems with the couple. If you have a partner or a husband or wife with whom you share a common vision of your stepparental role; who communicates to his kids that you are to be respected at the very least, and that you’re not going anywhere and treating you like a piece of furniture is not okay; then whatever his kids and ex throw at you, you can withstand. It’s not necessarily going to be fun at some points, but if you’re in an equitable partnership, you can survive just about anything steplife presents.

If your partnership is not there yet, there are steps you can take in the interim to reduce your resentment of stepchildren of any age who act out toward you or are simply ungrateful for your efforts on their behalf. Most importantly, you have got to start doing less. Today. This instant. Listen: Stepmartyrs are complicit in their mistreatment by his kids. In fact, stepmartyrs engineer their own mistreatment by his kids. No one can make you a stepmartyr but you. And you can stop it, too. Most women who write to me about finding steplife unbearable mention doing and doing and doing for his kids–and never receiving any acknowledgment whatever–let alone thanks.

So why do you keep doing it? Do you think it’s your job to be a stepmartyr? Who put you up to this? Is anyone holding a gun to your head? I doubt it. You’ve got to relax your expectations of yourself–radically and dramatically–and stop doing much of anything for anyone who doesn’t appreciate it if you are feeling depleted, resentful, and angry about your stepkids and your marriage or partnership.

Call it whatever you want–disengaging, stepping back, dialing it down–the words don’t matter but the reframing of your role, the redefining of your expectations of yourself, does.

Techniques for distancing themselves from unappreciative stepchildren that women with stepkids and experts alike have suggested to me all have one thing in common: they strive to transform the woman from a “stepmartyr” into a person who is healthily empowered and central in her household.

-Stop doing housework for your stepkids. Unless they are very little, they can wash their own dishes, help with dinner, make their own beds. Big ones can do their own laundry and sheets. Or their dad can. Or he can hire a cleaning person, if you have the financial flexibility for that. If you don’t feel like a maid, you might actually enjoy time with your stepkids. Or at least resent them less. “What do I do about the dishes piling up in the sink and the unfed dogs?” you wrote. You can have a conversation with your partner about the fact that you are going to be dialing back your involvement a bit for the sake of your marriage and your ability to have a relationship with his kids down the road–so this won’t come as a surprise. And so that, when the dishes pile up, it’s clear that they’re not yours to wash.
-Keep separate finances to lessen your sense that you are their financial maid as well. Think about it.
-Top your reserve tank off before a weekend or holiday together by doing something you want–and giving the kids or adult kids time alone with dad to boot. When they first show up, do something indulgent and satisfying for yourself (rather than just “hiding out” and feeling exiled from your own home). What would YOU like to do? Massage? Pedicure? Night out with friends? You might find that in this way, you actually look forward to his kids showing up. I’m not kidding. Or at least you’ll have a nice pedicure.
-Establish a rule that the couple gets to spend time alone when his kids are around, no matter what. If they’re visiting, make time to go for a walk without them. If the kids are in residence, weekly date night is a must. I say this as a person whose own date nights are notoriously lame (we once went to the post office and then Starbucks for our “date night,” but as least we got out). One smart couples therapist I know requires his couples in a remarriage with children who have weekend visitation to spend Monday morning after the kids leave alone together unless it’s utterly impossible. This way you reconnect after what may have been a stressful couple of days. Or even a fun couple of days without a lot of down time together.
-A written stepfamily contract. That’s right, a document you and your husband or partner come up with together to get on the same page about what’s to be expected of his kids of any age when they’re around. It might be a charged undertaking, but it can also help you and your partner come to an understanding about what you each expect. Depending on their age, dad might expect them to sign the contract, too. It can spell out what is no longer okay (ex. “taking stepmom’s stuff without asking” or “swearing at stepmom,” “smoking in the house,” etc.) but also sweeten the deal and make you seem reasonable with offers like “some alone time with dad every time you’re here.” For adult stepkids, this can be a contract between you and your husband about what you can both reasonably expect of one another when his kids are around.
-Bulwark, bulwark, bulwark to decrease your sense of being overwhelmed and outnumbered and on duty. Have YOUR friends in the house when his kids of any age show up. Make plans for people who help you feel supported and understood on hand all around you the entire time his kids are around. Isolation is your worst enemy so buoy yourself with pals. In your house. As needed. Call in for reinforcements.

“How do I sell this to my husband?” Good question. Let’s be strategic here. It never helps, no matter how angry you are, to come across that way. Men are notoriously quick to retreat in the face of female rage, no matter how righteous! So present yourself to your husband as what you truly are: sad, disappointed, and needing to give this one more try. “I think that part of the reason I’m so resentful of your kids is that I’m doing too much. I think if I did less, it wouldn’t matter that they don’t always remember to say ‘thank you’ or that they sometimes don’t acknowledge me at all. I might be able to salvage my warm feelings for them, and those feelings might even grow, if I were less resentful.” Explain to your partner that, since these kids aren’t yours, you need to be extra careful about allowing a relationship to grow–since it’s not an automatic thing–and that stepping back and doing less is one way experts recommend you do this.

You can explain the bulwarking in the same way. The more buoyed and supported you are, the less vulnerable you will feel–and be. That’s better for not only you but for your partnership and your relationship with his kids down the line.

Tell me about it–what are YOUR techniques to decrease your resentment of stepchildren who do not acknowledge your efforts–or perhaps even your presence? What has worked for you?

The doctor is in. Now you just have to find her or him.

First, a psychologytoday.com post by Mary Kelly Williams, on a marital therapist’s thoughts about “The Marriage Ref”:
www.psychologytoday.com/

And now, a few of my favorite shrinks…find their links under “resources” on the right hand margin of my blog:
-The National Stepfamily Resource Center lists therapists with stepfamily training and experience
-Jacque Fletcher, author of Becoming a Stepmom, offers coaching for stepmothers and couples in remarriage or repartnership with children
-Mary Kelly-Williams is a family and individual therapist who also happens to be an ex-wife and stepmother. She runs a Stepmonster support group in Boulder, CO but also does phone coaching
-Kela Price, certified stepfamily counselor and co-founder of Today’s Modern Family (formerly blendedfamilysoapopera.com does phone coaching
-Susan Swanson of The Stepfamily Center in Los Angeles, is tremendous resource for those of you in LA and surrounding areas. She has a radio show as well
-Joan Sarin of Stepfamily Solutions has a track record of helping stepmothers survive and thrive
-Rachelle Katz is a psychologist in Manhattan who also does phone coaching
-Susan Wisdom, author of Stepcoupling, counsels couples in Portland, OR
-The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in Manhattan has a number of highly qualified therapists, many of whom know about stepfamily life and dynamics from first-hand experience

If you have personal experience with a therapist you found to be knowledgeable about stepfamily issues and helpful to you, please let me know: email me at wednesday@wednesdaymartin.com

And the top ten concerns of stepmothers are...

Top Concerns of Women with Stepchildren…
-My stepkids don’t like me
-I don’t like my stepkids
-My stepkids and my kids don’t get along (or, what can I do to make life with stepsiblings easier for my kids?)
-I feel like an Outsider in my own home/ I feel less than an equal partner with my spouse/partner (my partner puts his kids first and our marriage last)
-Stepfamily tensions are taking over my life/my marriage
-I feel jealous of my stepkids/my husband’s ex
-Finances (child support, husband paying above and beyond child support, not enough money, etc.)

What are your top concerns?

Did you know friendships have a greater affect on your physical and emotional health than your marriage or partnership does?

Fun fact: Did you know friendship benefits your health and emotional well-being even if you’re not in regular touch with your friends according to at least one study?

TELL ME ABOUT IT:
How many friends do you have? How many do you feel can listen to you talk about problems you might have step-wise in a supportive, non-judgmental way? When was your last get-together or contact with a friend and what did you do? Are you part of an organization–temple, mosque, church, support group–that gives you a feeling of community and support? Make a plan to see a friend right now, and tell us about what you’ll be doing.