creating joy despite divorced mom/stepmom conflict
There seems to be an epidemic of stepmoms divorcing. I don’t know the details of every situation, but it’s a pretty good guess that their husbands did not step up and support them. Experts agree that the marriage needs to be the primary relationship. If your husband doesn’t realize this, you have a high chance of… [Continue Reading]
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about generosity. And wishing we could be more generous to each other. Websters defines “generous” as : –adjective 1. liberal in giving or sharing; unselfish: a generous patron of the arts; a generous gift. 2. free from meanness or smallness of mind or character; magnanimous. In the context of these relationships,… [Continue Reading]
Last week, I described how my strong sense of self is partly responsible for me surviving my stepfamily journey, sanity intact. The other crucial part of this is my husband’s support. I don’t think men know just how much influence and power they hold. After all, they’re the whole reason we’re here, right? We fell in… [Continue Reading]
On Thursday, Jenna’s post “One woman’s frog is another’s woman’s prince” lit up our blog and Facebook page with massive hits and fascinating feedback. She really struck a nerve. Most of the feedback was from stepmoms, but her post was important for moms to read too. We often forget that the men we divorced can… [Continue Reading]
Note: I’m apologizing ahead of time for anyone that I might piss off with this post. It is not my intention . Okay, here goes! There are 2 complaints I hear often from moms regarding their ex-husbands. The first complaint is that if he’s remarried and the stepmom plays an active parenting role, then he… [Continue Reading]
Since none of us would be here if it weren’t for the kids, I started thinking about how some parents can’t help but put their children in the middle of their mess with their ex. And every time I think of it, I’m reminded of an extraordinary book my husband and I read, called “Keeping… [Continue Reading]
Maybe you experienced a long, slow slide towards divorce. The communication dwindled. The awesome sex became lost in the tidal wave of daily life demands. It was always one thing after another with the kids. Or perhaps you were unlucky enough to be blind-sided by the sting of infidelity. However you found yourself in the… [Continue Reading]
The relationship between mom and stepmom is a tense one. Add a dad into the mix, and all effective communication can get thrown right out the window. Not because he’s not good at it, but because men are wired differently than women. Ever notice when you’re talking to your husband or ex-husband that a few… [Continue Reading]
Who wants a break from all the ugliness you feel when you think about “the other woman”? OK, put your hands down. Since we all know we can only change ourselves and not others, the key is to find a way to calm ourselves regardless of what the other woman is doing. And one of… [Continue Reading]
I just discovered the blog of a dear friend, Joel — one of my favorite people to climb with. I had no idea he was such a talented, closet scribbler! Here's a link to a thought-provoking post about how the names we have for each other in these newfangled family relationships don't really do justice… [Continue Reading]
Imagine if children young and old could speak in keen, poignant words about how parental conflict affects them – in terms that adults would not only understand, but get their attention as well. Then imagine that those words have been channeled into a book by a child psychologist who’s surely put in his years consoling… [Continue Reading]
On Friday, I covered some of the biggest mistakes you can make with your ex-husband and promised four more. Without further ado, and because I’m behind already when it comes to writing Wednesday’s post, they are: Denying the what-if fantasies I think these are only normal, and yet, they’re squirmy for even me to… [Continue Reading]
Relationships between ex-husbands and ex-wives are minefields fraught with potential explosions. Toss a few kids, a stepmother or second husband, and plenty of strong opinions about the way “things should be” into the mix, and it’s pretty much guaranteed you’ll be doing lots of tiptoeing through the tulips. Or cowpies…. Even in the most amicable… [Continue Reading]
Dating while you’re a single mother can be quite the balancing act. If you’ve never done it before and find yourself dipping toes into dating waters for the first time, you may wonder how anyone manages to juggle it. If dating is old hat, you know of which I speak. You may find yourself looking… [Continue Reading]
This is us together… Our sunset “golden hour” was more like the gloomy gray-hour, weather-wise. Here’s what we came up with (Jennifer’s on the left, Carol’s on the right): We had a lot of fun and it was nowhere near as painful as we were expecting it to be…. Thanks to David Marine for being… [Continue Reading]
So half the dog and pony show would be leaving the building. Fine. I could regroup — always do. Piece of cake, no problem. I stifled a rising sense of panic as I explained my dilemma by phone to my good friend Kim Lane (writer and publisher extraordinaire of AustinMama.com). Moments before, I had rewritten… [Continue Reading]