I’ll be gabbing with my good friends, stepmoms Peggy Nolan and Erin Erickson tonight on the Stepmom’s Tool Box radio show (Monday, May 3rd / 8:00-9:00 p.m. EST).
Have a burning question you’d like to ask? Disagree or agree with a recent post? Please come join us, I’d love to hear from you! Any and all input is welcome!
From Peggy Nolan:
“I know I say it about every show…but OH! This is going to be a great show!
When: Monday, May 3, 2010
Time: 8:00 – 9:00 PM EST
Where: http://blogtalkradio.com/thestepmomstoolbox or dial in (347) 843-4229
We realize it’s not always possible to create a working relationship with your stepkids’ mother (and vice versa) because of a variety of reasons, but for the most of us, what’s holding us back from moving forward and creating a strong united front are fear, insecurity, doubt, anger, resentment, jealousy, and a number of other things that keep us trapped inside our own heads.
During the hour we have with Jennifer, we hope to give moms and stepmoms practical tips, tools, and advice on how to build a bridge towards mutual understanding and compassion so that everyone wins. We’re not talking about becoming best friends forever or insist that you have coffee together once a week. We’re talking about forming a working relationship that benefits both households and the kids who live in two places.
(Yes, this show, like all our shows, will be available on demand shortly after we air live!)
Don’t forget to login to BlogTalk when you listen over your computer – Live chat will be open for questions! And don’t forget to click on the ♥ symbol – it will mark our show “favorite” and help boost are ratings.
Be a friend and tell a friend about this show! Or better yet, tell your stepkids’ mother about the show and send her the link so she can listen, too!
After the show, we’ll head over to StepChicks for a post show wrap up!
See you on the Radio!”
Love,
Peggy
I listened to the show. I’ve read your book and found it very interesting, but did feel that it rendered the Step Mother Powerless in many ways due to some of the arrangements you all had created. I was not surprised to hear that Carol continues to be resentful about it, as I imagined. I thought this because I am a Step MOM and I have gone throught the same exact thing, and so there is a deep understanding from me. While I understand it, I feel she needs to let go of the control she wants to have re: discipline. I’ve learned to let go of the need to discipline my husbands child, and unless it is dangerous I don’t get involved. What Carol said at the end about viewing your role as an Aunt as opposed to the “Stepmom” resonates with me, but it still feels that she is unhappy with things as they are. It makes me wonder what else is bothering her. She seems to regret being involved with her husband and his extended family.
While I love my Stepson, I often wonder how long I will have to be faced with his mother. I found it a little disturbing that you and your ex spent a lot of time on the phone crying about your “ended” marital relationship. I can understand mourning, but I’m not sure I’d want my DH going there. If it needs to be done, it needs to be done when the marriage ends. It sounds that Carol and her husband didn’t start with a clean slate and I’m sure this is part of her resentment, even if you and your ex weren’t thinking of getting back together, and while I know you are thinking of the children, Like you said there are alot of unspoken things that linger. I hope you ALL make it to the other side of this before Carol leaves the scene. Good Luck
Celisa, thanks for your comments!
I’m a little confused – were you referring to the interview that we did with Communication 360? Because Carol wasn’t a part of the interview I did above…. If you’re referring to the older interview, my memory is a little fuzzy on some of the details, since it was done last year (anything older than a week starts to leak from my brain!).
A couple of clarifications…. I would never presume to speak for Carol, but I think it’s quite a leap to assume that she regrets the family life that she has today. She has said in many interviews that being a stepmom is one of the hardest things she’s ever done, but I also know that there are several important things she figured out along the way that made her life easier. One of them is taking a step back from discipline. We wrote in the book about how my ex and I had inappropriately put her in the middle of some of OUR problems with discipline. We all saw the error of our ways and made adjustments accordingly. Carol now leaves the hands-on disciplining to her husband. There’s a lot of genuine love in our extended family and I can’t imagine her wishing that away….
As far as the characterization that my ex and I spent a lot of time crying on the phone together, mourning, this is untrue and if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want this either! At most, this happened 2-3 times over about a two-year period. And it wasn’t a big sob-fest — there were some tearful moments as we realized the GRAVITY of what we had BOTH done to our children. Pretty sobering stuff, but something I wish EVERY set of exes could eventually go through, because doing so enabled us to move to the other side and say, “Okay. Got it. Now what? How do we make the best of this for our kids?”
In our case, and I think many others, this often happens in the form of a **delayed reaction.** When you’re getting a divorce, the focus is on the immediate future, worrying about the kids’ reaction, sadness, anger, being hurt, etc.
I think grieving comes later, when life seems safer and more stable. It’s not very realistic to expect that everyone gets this out of the way during the dissolution of a marriage — or even before the start of another romantic relationship. One of the reasons these mom/stepmom/ex-husband relationships are so volatile IS because of all the unprocessed baggage. I can honestly say that it feels like over the years, we’ve symbolically “swept the floor clean,” so I can live with that with a clear conscience.
I have every confidence that Carol and David will continue to have a strong marriage. And for this, I’m genuinely happy.
I appreciate you writing in! I know being a stepmom is fraught with challenges and it’s very hard having the presence of the other woman in the picture. If you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend Wednesday Martin’s “Stepmonster.” She validates some of the the most common feelings that stepmoms wrestle with and feel hopeless about.
Cheers,
Jen