The stepmother clicked the button to end the call before it started ringing. Then she took a deep breath and began to dial again. She stopped halfway, remembering some of the worst verbal insults that had made their way back to her, some of the angry and hateful facial expressions—all the ugliness that the mom obviously hadn’t had any problems tossing her way.

She looked over at the magical little blue book that had prompted all this, sitting innocently on her nightstand, and she frowned at it. This is all your fault, you stupid thing. You have no idea what I’m up against…..

She set the phone down and thought about all the things she needed to get done around the house. Her mind turned to an automatic inventory of the fridge, what she needed to get from the store, then it wandered to the laundry room, the bathrooms. How were they doing on toilet paper?

The blue book sat there, waiting. Oh fine, she huffed to herself and picked it up, opening it in the middle.

A heart of war needs enemies to justify its warring. It needs enemies and mistreatment more than it wants peace.

She thought back to her original impulse, her knees clacking against each other under the table as she and the mom faced each other with nothing more than two steaming cups of liquid for defense.

She stared out the window for a few moments, her mind blank and empty. Then she dialed the number again.

“Hello?”

There it was. That voice. She hated this woman, after all she’d done to them. What in God’s name was she doing calling her? Her husband was going to kill her. Her heart was pounding a thousand miles a hour, her chest suddenly felt tender. She needed more air. And dammit, she knew when she opened her mouth she was going to sound nervous.

She cleared her throat. “Yeah, um—hey. It’s me.”

What a rude way to start a phone call, thought the mom. No surprise there. This had better be quick. And why wasn’t HE calling her instead? Something must be up. She checked her watch.

“Yes?”

Well now, THAT wasn’t very friendly, was it? thought the stepmom. No “How’re you?” or manners, or anything! See? Here I am trying and this is what I get? There are some people that are just simply impossible. What the hell do you know?, she accused the authors of that stupid little book.

“Um, yeah. So, uh…. I—“ The stepmom cleared her throat again. She didn’t want to sound like a pansy, like she was wheedling, pleading. Where was all that blustering confidence she felt only moments ago? “I’ve been reading this new book and uh, I thought I’d call… and talk.”

Silence.

The stepmom bumbled on.

“To you. I thought I’d call and talk to you.” Why wasn’t this stupid woman making things any easier. Damn her! Maybe the stepmom could just come up with an excuse and get off the phone right now and stop this slow filleting of herself alive.

The mom was instantly wary. She could hear the nervousness in the stepmom’s voice, which certainly made her curious, but she’d be damned if she was going to have anymore contact with this other woman than was absolutely necessary. And hopefully, that would be… none.

“Talk to me about what.” The mom kept her voice flat and plain.

The stepmom was now actively kicking herself. Her innards were turning over and over and rearranging themselves. Maybe an alien would pop out of her stomach—that’s what this was all about.

Coffee. Laughing, remember? Human being. Heart of war or heart of peace, the stepmom recited mentally like a mantra. Suddenly, she thought, fuck it. She can’t kill me if she’s not actually here to bite my throat and drain me like a vampire. What do I have to lose anyway? It’s already bad enough.

The stepmom took a deep breath and tried to clear her panicky head.

The mom heard this exhalation through the phone and thought, wow, this is really weird. Something’s going on. I wonder if I’ll be able to use this against her later somehow. Maybe they’re having problems? The mom filed these thoughts away and continued to listen, waiting for the stepmom to verbally hang herself. For some unknown reason, she had a mental image of a mountain lion at Big Bend National Park, lying in wait while the unsuspecting hikers walked by on the path, down the hill from the silent, tightly-wound feline. Focus, focus, the mom reminded herself.

“Well, it’s about conflict and how it happens. How it gets generated.” More silence. It was clear the mom wasn’t going to help her out—no surprise there—she would just have to plow through on her own. “Well, and it made me, I mean—I know you’re going to think this is crazy, —but it made me just want to pick up the phone and call you. I thought maybe there might be a way for us to— “

Us. Now there was an unusual grouping the mom had never heard out loud before.When was the last time she and the stepmom had ever been an US? She stifled a manic giggle.

All of a sudden, it occurred to the mom that the stepmom was actually scared. She imagined her over there, in their house, gripping the phone. The mom could feel two instant roads stretching out in front of her. The familiar one was all about strategy, advantage, amassing your weapons, building your arsenal. The other one gave her a twinge in her stomach. What would happen if she cut the other woman a bit of slack for once?

“To—” the stepmom reluctantly repeated.

“Go on,” the mom said in a warmer voice. Something peculiar was happening to her. She felt like a curtain was being pulled back and she was seeing more of the other woman than she’d ever seen before, like the stepmom had stepped out from behind a desk and had actual… legs. She had the bizarre sensation of watching the stepmom go from black and white to Technicolor, just like in the movies.

The stepmom rushed on, encouraged. “Well, I know you probably think I don’t like you and actually,” she hesitated, aware of the need to choose her words carefully, “I’m not actually sure what I think of you—like, you know, the real you. I mean, honestly—I don’t even know you.”

The mom leaned forward in her seat, paying close attention. She thought of all the things he’d probably told the stepmom and got a sick little feeling in her gut. Watch out, she warned herself. You could be walking straight into a trap.

“Just like you don’t know me. And yet…. and yet, there’s all this tension between us. And we’ve had all these horrible moments, these bad experiences of not getting along. And all the fighting. And disagreeing about things—big, small, whatever. And you may not even believe me, but there have been times when I actually stood up for you when ___ was trashing your name. I mean, sorry—I probably shouldn’t say that, but I just want you to know that I just wish we could…. I mean, I just wish it were possible to maybe set some of that aside, like in a box, and— “

Perhaps the stepmom had gone too far. She sensed an incorrect breach there, what she had just said, as if she was going against her own husband in the face of the enemy.

There was a long awkward silence.

Finally, the mom just threw it out there, like fruit landing softly in a basket. She felt a momentary flush of pride at her generosity.

“You mean, like actually, get along?”

It sounded as absurd as planning an arduous mission to Mars together, from beginning to end.

They both laughed, breaking the tension. This must have been one of the world’s weirdest, most awkward phone calls. Moms and stepmoms weren’t supposed to talk to each other for a good reason!

It dawned on the stepmom that this was the first time she had ever laughed with the mom about anything.

It dawned on the mom that this was the first time she had ever laughed with the stepmom about anything too.

The stepmom soldiered on, feeling emboldened. “Look. Would you be up for maybe getting together in person and talking about this? Like maybe just for coffee or something? Or at the park? Whatever works for you—” It occurred to the stepmom that she’d never used those last words with the mom either. Hmm, something to think about later…..

The mom looked again at the two roads stretching out in front of her. If you took a new road and went off course, you could find yourself in a real crisis, running out of water, having your trail of breadcrumbs eaten by birds, losing your way. Night falls and you are royally screwed.

She thought of the kids and got an instant pang in her heart. Never once in her wildest dreams would she have ever imagined—breathing in their soft, sweet little heads—that she’d be negotiating a park date with that strange bitch of a woman who was now also in charge of their lives, in her own little kingdom. Then she thought of the confusion she could see in the kids’ faces sometimes when they returned home, a certain emotional fatigue that popped through here and there. This must be so hard for them….

The stepmom hesitated. If the mom turned her down now, there would be hell to pay, because this would be it. This would have been evidence of her sticking her neck wayyyy out on the line, and if that bitch of a bio-mom threw THIS back in her face, well, she’d regret it—once she saw what was coming her way. Fine, so the mom had the power to trump the stepmom in all KINDS of ways, but the stepmom could be as wily as the best of them. You just wait. She was about to crisply say, You know, forget it. This was a mistake calling. I don’t know what made me think I could—

“I would love to meet you.” said the mom, although her tone of voice sure didn’t make it seem like that was the case. It was more like she was saying, Meet me at the park at sundown and I will calmly shoot you in the forehead—because I am a really good shot. Either that, or, Sure, come at dusk, when I turn into a bat—and unless you’re wearing a turtleneck made of steel, prepare to die.

The stepmom was confused, flustered. She wasn’t sure which way to go here. “Really?” she said.

The mom’s voice softened. “Yes, really. It might be the dumbest thing we ever did, but sure, what the hell.”

There was that pairing again. We.

“Should we bring weapons?” the stepmom offered helpfully.

They made plans for tomorrow and got off the phone, disoriented and slightly dizzy. But also… oddly hopeful. And very, very curious.

© 2009 Jennifer Newcomb Marine      All Rights Reserved

Once upon a time, there was a mom and stepmom, stuck with each other in their lives, like a splinter in their thumb that couldn’t be removed. Thumbs get used a lot, so this was a bad thing, this constant, wincing reminder of the splinter as they went about their days.

It was a pretty typical situation in that they couldn’t stand each other. It was also pretty typical in that they both felt mistreated and put upon.

The mom bristled at having to unwillingly “share” the parenting of her children (children that came from her own body!) with a perfect stranger. She took her leftover anger at her ex-husband for his uneven parenting, mixed in a little jealousy, fear, confusion, defensiveness, and the stomach-curdling knowledge that all her private secrets had been lain bare between the two new partners and probably laughed over – and focused her parenting irritation on the stepmom as well.

She didn’t mind making life harder for the husband and stepmom. Weren’t they always trying to undermine her as well? Tit for tat, as they say. Maybe one day they would come to their senses and realize how their poor behavior was only emotionally damaging the children and would change. But she wasn’t going to hold her breath.

For her part, the stepmom bristled at the unwanted presence of the other woman in her life. It was worse than having the world’s worst boss, this looming spectre of the mom (lording her sanctimonious, “maternal” preferences all over them!). At least with a boss, you could go home and escape, but here, their troubles with the other woman were still evident everywhere – in the children’s lack of self-control, in her husband’s haphazard approach to discipline, in their dangerous marital fights over the children’s bad behavior and hurtful rejection of her.

She didn’t mind making life harder for the mom. Wasn’t she always trying to undermine us as well? Tit for tat, as they say.
Maybe one day she would come to her senses and realize how her poor behavior was only was only emotionally damaging the children and would change. But the stepmom wasn’t going to hold her breath.

One day, the stepmom was tooling around online when she heard about a book on conflict resolution* that seemed to hold the promise of creating more peace in her life, or at least help her understand why things were so bad between their two houses.

She was tired of all the stress, the subtle (or sometimes overt) struggles for power between ALL the adults, between the kids, between herself and her lower and higher impulses.

Something had to give.

She spent the next several days devouring the book, during breaks at work, while stirring a pot on the stove, and alone in the bedroom in the evenings, forgoing TV — even Facebook.

The following ideas held a part of her consciousness captive as she went about her daily routine, motivated by the sense that she was onto something big and potentially life-changing.

• When we have problems with someone else, we turn them into an “Other,” a cardboard cut-out of a human being.
• It’s easier to accuse and blame someone else this way, if they’re not a nuanced, flesh-and-blood person.
• When we are in conflict with another, we exaggerate their wrongdoing, the damage they have inflicted upon us, our sense of victimization and our justifications for our own sometimes poor behavior.
• We also almost immediately seek to increase agreement from others to back ourselves up and “prove” that it’s the other person who is wrong.
• When we are at the height of conflict, we are simply duplicating an age-old dynamic of seeing things in the most limiting, childishly basic terms. We cut ourselves off from new ideas; the powerful energy of good intentions and its ability to blast through logjams and debris; the stretchy, open, expansive nature of possibility.

An idea was forming in the stepmom’s mind.

What if—

What if… she reached out to the mom? What if she just basically said, Hey, look — can we talk? Not as arch enemies, but just as two people?

What if she was able to say, I know you don’t like me and probably think I don’t like you either, even though I barely know you. And sure, I guess I actually HAVEN’T liked you, off and on, over the years. But—

Do you have a moment? Would you be willing to try and set all this stuff aside, so can try and work together on some of the more basic stuff?

I mean, it sure would be nice being able to talk to each OTHER about some of this stuff, don’t you think? Instead of always having to go through my husband? I mean, your ex. I mean–their father.

It’s not like we need to shoot for becoming best friends or anything, but wouldn’t it be nice to at least feel like we could work together on some of the simpler things?

What do ya think?

She felt her stomach drop considering the thought, like she’d driven over a sharp hill with a sudden dip on the other side.

Her friends would think she was fricking nuts, especially after all the stories she’d told them, how pissed off they’d gotten on her behalf. May as well walk through the fields past enemy lines, take off all your clothes, set your hair on fire, and dance around until you were pulverized with machine gun fire!

Come to think of it, her husband might not take too kindly to the idea either.

But she thought back again to an image that was coalescing in her psyche….

She could see the two of them having a cup of coffee, knees shaking under the table, maybe laughing over something stupid.

Could they laugh over something stupid?

It would be the closest she’d ever actually got to the woman, having the chance to stare at her face, absorb her personality, sit back and observe.

Would she get her head bitten off? Would her efforts be seen as an admission of guilt, inferiority or worse, acquiescence? She thought back on all the conflict between them, the silent tension, the scary legal hassles, the harsh words.

Wouldn’t this be insanity, trying this?

She picked up the phone with a pounding heart, and dialed the mom’s number.

(Come back on Wednesday for Part Two!)

*The Anatomy of Peace, by the Arbinger Institute

© 2009 Jennifer Newcomb Marine      All Rights Reserved

What do I do when I’m stumped? I look for a book on the subject!

Back to the book.

Before I tell everyone you should go out and buy it (Hey! Run to the bookstore NOW and buy this book!), first, a short overview.

I’m not sure who actually WROTE the book, or whether the characters in it are simply fictionalized versions to help move things along, but the book is written like a story, with lots of dialogue and cliff-hangers at the end of each chapter. I stayed up ’til almost midnight devouring this thing.

The story centers around two men, an Arab and a Jew, who run a wilderness camp for drug-addicted teens. They have both lost their fathers at the hands of the other’s ethnic cousins and they’ve learned a thing or two about hatred, violence and war. The tension begins on the first page, as the two men interact with the parents of the teens for two days, while the kids are driven off in a van to begin their treatment.

Let me see if I can wrap my head and words around one of the concepts in the book that is most making me go, Wow….

The book discusses ways of being and whether one operates with a “heart of war,” or a “heart of peace.” Even in simple, daily interactions, we often operate with a heart of war. This means we are seeing someone else as an object and not as a human being, with needs, fears, hopes, and their own equally valid agenda.

Essentially, you can’t feel them….

When someone is an object, your emphasis is on what you can get from them, or getting them to do something for you. I have been guilty of this myself on my blog, focusing on our readers as simply numbers climbing (or dropping) on our stats page. Sometimes, I struggle with what to write about and lose my connection to the actual emotions, needs, fears and hopes of our readers as I instead lament the drought in my brain and self-imposed writing schedule.

We always have a choice about how to react in any given situation.

When we choose to go against what we think is right inside ourselves (something we do all the time out of convenience), we put ourselves in the position of having to justify our actions — and there you have the beginnings of objectification.

Once we find ourselves there, we forget we had a choice to make in the first place — and that we actually MADE one. Usually, we’ll see ourselves as being forced to act as we did by outside circumstances and feel victimized.

You can see this at play in simple domestic disagreements between parent and child, between spouses, between friends, co-workers, countries – all around us.

Ring a bell at all?

I know it does with me, as uncomfortable as it feels to see it in myself.

Hopefully, this is not too analytical and dry for y’all…

The book is absolutely riveting and I think some of the concepts have enormous ramifications for transforming conflict in our families, at work, and in the world at large.

Where are you making someone in your life an “object?”

More as I plow my way through this thing later. I’d love to hear your thoughts as well!

Here’s the book at Amazon.

Happy reading!

© 2009 Jennifer Newcomb Marine    All Rights Reserved

Relevant Posts:

• Power: Struggle or Sharing between Moms and Stepmoms?
• Monday Maybe: First, do no harm…
• Digging up the dirt to plant flowers
• On not even peeking behind the curtains, because there are no curtains…
• Drunk Buddhist Clowns

Here's a really cool idea, courtesy The Step Mom's Toolbox: on Mother's Day (Sunday, May 10th), send a card to the "other woman." Meaning, if you're the mom—send a card to the stepmom. And if you're the stepmom—send one to the mom. Madness, isn't it?

Peg Nolan of The Stepmom's Toolbox is challenging 5,000 women to step up and try something crazy in her post, The Mother's Day Dare.

Will you do it?

You can enter your answer into a poll (she's got two separate ones – one for stepmoms and one for moms – will be interesting to see how the results stack up over time).

I know a lot of you might be rolling your eyes, as in, Why the hell would I want to send this woman a card? I can't stand her? Well… think of it this way. If you send her a card, perhaps she'll have a heart attack and die and then think how happy you'll be to be rid of her!

(Okay, kidding. Hopefully that joke translated properly through the internets.)

Seriously, when two sides are tugging on the same rope, what happens if the one side stops pulling so hard (slowly, so the other woman doesn't fall)? The other side feels it. And then, that person becomes curious.

And sometimes curiosity leads to openness.

And openness leads to movement.

And who knows, you might even be able to set some wonderful changes in motion with one simple gesture.

Your card doesn't have to be all schmoopy and weird. You could just simply say, "Thank you!" and leave it at that. Here's an excerpt from our book in Carol's words about this very subject:

"On my first Mother’s Day, Jennifer gave me a very
simple, elegant card that said something like “Thank you so much for being a
great stepmom to my kids.” It really moved me. A card shows that you’ve gone
out of your way; it shows you were thinking about the other person. There’s
intention behind it, it’s pre-meditated. There’s also something about a card
that allows you to say something truly sappy that you could never bring yourself
to say in person. And that’s how I took it: It was real.

Also, they had nothing to do with David; they were
meant only for me.

I couldn’t just ignore this the next time I saw her
either—I had to thank her. Just imagining that act alone made me realize
something. I kept playing out over and over in my head how I might do this,
even visualizing giving her a hug, which was something we’d never done before.
I mean, physical contact is huge! And whenever I’d imagine that, I’d feel
really good. I’d imagine the relief of it all, instead of what it was normally
like, not getting along.

But along with all the positive feelings, there were
also still the negative ones, because challenges continued to happen. We would
go backward on a regular basis, but it was all those good things peppered in
there that eventually pulled us
forward, because the good things went both ways.

She became my friend. And what better place to have
a friend than in the enemy’s camp? Except gradually, there was no more enemy.

For a while, there were two of her in my mind. The
Jennifer I liked and got along with ,and the Jennifer I disagreed with about
parenting/money/etc. issues. I had to keep them separate so I could move
forward with our relationship. Eventually, I realized that you can love someone
without having to like everything about them.

Creating a harmonious relationship with the other
woman is a very gradual process and it doesn’t happen overnight. But it can
work."

(Note from Jennifer: I don't remember doing this on the first Mother's Day that Carol was in my children's lives. More like the second. But as you'll see in our book, we often have completely different memories of the exact same event. Or… no memory of it at all. Chalk it up to two completely different experiences. And the aging process, ha.)

Now if you wanted to be TOTALLY hard-core, you could even take the initiative and help the kids do something special for the mom or stepmom in your life. That takes some huevos. Or as writer Rivka Solomon likes to say in her awesome book, That takes ovaries!

I dare you.

Let us know what you decide to do… and why!

© 2009 Jennifer Newcomb Marine All Rights Reserved

Question for you, moving forward….

First, let's assume that you do indeed have some changes to make when it comes to creating a better relationship with the mom or stepmom, and between both families. Ask yourself—

Do you have anyone in your life who gives it to you straight?

Someone who's willing to tell it like it is, even if you may not like it?

Someone who is brave and honest enough to point out the error of your ways, even if it might be awkward, uncomfortable, or make you feel defensive?

Someone who tells you these things from a place of wanting to serve your highest self, instead of your sometimes blind social self?

Who is it? And when was the last time you talked to them?

Friends like that might scare you on some level, but admit it: you also crave and respect their honesty!

Do you serve this same function for your closest friends?

Friends like this circumvent the little story we're trying to tell ourselves about problems in our life, which sometimes involves

• justifications for our behavior,
• the convenient denial or omission of a few telling details,
• the focus on the other person's mistakes and shortcomings.

Friends like this just stick a few plain facts in your face and say, hey… but— what about this?

Brilliant!

And often make us feel like the Emperor with no clothes, at least… temporarily.

If there's conflict between you and the other woman, or between the two families, a friend like this can be an incredible source of insight and new ideas to be acted upon.

Lacking anyone like this in your life, do you have guaranteed tools you can fall back on to help you drill down to the truth about any behavior of yours that's actually perpetuating conflict?

Things like:

• journaling
• meditation
• cognitive therapy (slowing down your mental dialogue and then analyzing whether it's accurate or not, which it often isn't!)
• goal status checks (which assumes that you're clear on your goals in the first place – a lot of us aren't)

If you've figured out a predictable way to sort through your emotional turmoil on a predictable basis, bravo. You're reducing your stress and making your life clearer and easier. If you haven't, dabble in one or two methods and see what happens.

There's an incredibly simple litmus test you can take to see whether your friend's questions, or your conflict resolution tools, are serving you….

Ask yourself—

• Do I feel lighter after talking with them, or sitting down and looking at this situation?
• Do I have a new sense of possibility here?
• Do I now see some angles and perspectives that I was blind to before?

Sometimes we run from uncomfortable truths about our automatic behavior like someone trying to outrun an attack dog.

What would happen if you didn't?!

© 2008 Jennifer Newcomb Marine All Rights Reserved

If you’re wanting to create a friendlier relationship with the mom or stepmom and aren’t sure where to start, first, consider doing something simple and stopping any subtly combative behavior.

Is your voice tight when you talk to her on the phone?

Do you have a hard time smiling when when you see her in person because you get yourself all riled up, hitting the “refresh” button about past grievances?

Are you engaging in a tit-for-tat dynamic when it comes to logistics with the kids (school issues, pick-ups and drop-offs, food, TV, etc.)?

Genuinely shoot for understanding. Work hard to go deeper.

THEN let her know why you’re doing things as you are afterward. I bet it will be easier for her to hear you too.

Now can you both move a little closer to each other?

So see what happens this week if you just pull back a bit and refrain from “fencing” with her. Pay attention to any automatic behavior that isn’t moving you towards cooperation and ease and just… stop doing it.

It may feel weird and you may have lots of mental dialogue about how you’re leaving your neck exposed, she’s going to screw you over, this is strategically insane, etc. etc. but just thank your alarmist monkey mind and move on.

See what happens!

You just might make some room for curiosity and connection….

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

© 2008 Jennifer Newcomb Marine      All Rights Reserved