I’d painted myself into a corner with my writing here recently and felt less and less able to really be myself.

What popped me into clarity was reading about how stepmom Becky Lippett of La Belle Mere transformed her previously wretched relationship with the ex-wife, while on the cusp of divorce. Look at what she’s created by taking some very brave risks:

• “I have a new friend. And I mean that sincerely. I have to admit, to my surprise, that I haven’t had to try very hard to like her. It actually came fairly naturally. We have lots more in common that either of us realised.
• The children seem over the moon with the situation. Their excitement and happiness is impossible to miss.
• My marriage has improved beyond measure. In fact, we are stronger and more in love now than ever before.
• I no longer suffer from “Outsider” status. Rather than having the sense of being on the outside of something that is “theirs,” I now feel on the inside of something which is “ours.”
• I am less likely to feel the sense of persecution that I felt before. I no longer feel under attack or like I am forced to share my husband and my world with “the enemy.”
• Events such as parents evening, school plays and sports days are no longer likely to induce an anxiety attack that can be measured on the Richter Scale.
• My heart feels bigger.”

Becky credits our book, in part, for her big change. And Erin over on the Erin Experiment also had a recent epiphany that’s led to more peace and happiness by ironically, taking a step back from being a Super Hands-On Stepmother. Read more in Learning the Art of the Stepmom Stepback.

THIS, folks, is why we wrote this book!

This is why I’ve been writing this blog for three years (we turned 3 last month!). It makes me deliriously happy to read Becky and Erin’s stories of change and healing.

Becky’s terrible relationship with the ex-wife was one of the main reasons she was heading towards a split, but instead, her family life has been transformed. If she can do it, then maybe you can too! And don’t miss her update, answering questions on this cool turn of events.

With all my heart, I want to help others create happier extended families after divorce and remarriage. And yet… I’ve been struggling myself.

I’ve been thinking things that have created a sense of separation and disconnection for me and I miss everyone. I want to get back to feeling like we’re in this together. So in that spirit, a list of some surprising things we have in common:

I’m on my own too

Sometimes I felt like such a poser. Where’s the stepmom in our picture? If she’s not typing away with me, doesn’t this cancel out our book’s message of Kumbaya and mom/stepmom harmony? I’ve mentioned before how Carol’s art career takes up a huge part of her life, but even if she had eight arms and two heads, Carol doesn’t have the slightest interest in writing anything here. She has that right, much as I wish it were different. In the meantime, I’m lucky enough to call her a close friend and I love her like a sister. So interviews, videos (more on this in Part Two – they’re in the can and ready to go!) and me picking her brain will have to suffice.

This can be hard because….

I can’t get the moms involved either

Their backs are turned to me too. I say “too” because that’s who’s reading our blog and book: the stepmoms. So here I am, a mom/ex-wife talking to (mostly) all you stepmoms, telling you to not give up, to keep plugging away and trying… when really, I’m in the same boat (minus the heart-pounding tension).

Why is this?

My theory: moms hold most of the power. The kids usually live with them. The kids are “theirs,” whether they’re appalling parents or candidates for Mother of the Year. Who wants to let go of control? The ability to call the shots? Not many folks, once they have it. Most mothers just wish you weren’t around. Simple as that. But it’s still possible to create a life that works, in spite of it. More on that later too.

I know what it’s like to be betrayed

Carol and I are close friends, but that doesn’t mean I can’t relate to your pain. Recently, I became involved again with my first love, long-distance. Because I knew him long ago, I foolishly ignored some glaring red flags and got massively burned. This was someone who had done something fairly hurtful to me over thirty years ago and believe it or not, every few years I would dream about him so I could ask him WHY??? Why did you treat me this way? I finally have my answer….

I ended up being nothing more than a rebound—and perhaps even worse—a secret. So I still know what it’s like to put your heart on the line and offer it up to be sliced open. Many, many good lessons here, excruciating though they were.

(If anything, this recent experience makes me think it’d be a good idea to talk a lot more here about what makes a good relationship and how to keep them alive and healthy! Lord knows I’ve still got a lot to learn….)

Okay, so romance and stepmom/mom relationships are very different. But aggression and deceit, no matter who serves it up, still stings. Lies can make you doubt yourself. In our naïve surprise and confusion over being mistreated, we can gnaw on a situation over and over, trying to make sense of something that cannot be understood.

Being screwed over by someone is a great opportunity to gauge your self-love — the areas where it’s strong and where it needs shoring up. Although these lessons are of the “oh crap, MUST I learn this stuff this way, through pain?” nature, the breakthroughs they can lead to are invaluable.

Just like what it’s like with the conflict in mom/stepmom relationships.

It’s hard to create peace in your life when you feel like there’s a leak in the submarine. Which is why…

It’s better when we’re in it together.

More on this in Part 2!

(Her comments start at about 2:20 in)

“…There are so many people to thank–not enough time–so I would to thank what this film was about for me, which are the moms that take care of the babies and the children, no matter where they came from. Those moms and parents never get thanked….”

If only the mothers of stepchildren would realize what a gift they can give to their children by making it okay to love their stepmoms.

If only the mothers would acknowledge the hard work of the stepmoms in person. If only they would open their hearts to partnership with the other hands-on parents in their kids’ lives….

And to all you stepmoms out there doing the hard stuff with the babies and the children, day in and day out, I salute you and all that you do for your family!

© 2010 Jennifer Newcomb Marine       All Rights Reserved

But sometimes, the two linked households after a divorce and remarriage fill that function and it can be such a relief.

On Sunday night, I got a very calm call from my ex-husband David from the emergency room. He had cut his hand with a chainsaw (the very phrase makes me feel queasy) pretty badly, but was doing alright after two shots of morphine. I could hear Carol and Jacob (their four year-old) in the background. Since they live about an hour away from Austin, they needed to know if it was okay for Carol and Jacob to come over and hang out while they stitched up David’s hand (nerves, tendons and muscles had been severed).

Of course it was — they’ve killed time here before while in town. I told David I was willing to do whatever they needed, whether that was watch Jacob, have him spend the night, make dinner, whatever….

Carol and Jacob  opted instead to wait at the hospital, since they didn’t know how long it was going to take. I got a report before they left for home and was happy to hear that David had the most positive prognosis possible (trying saying that really fast three times), given that type of injury: no loss of mobility — only permanent numbness from half his pinky finger on up and perhaps the inability to stick his pinky finger out sideways.

“How’re you going to properly drink tea from now on?” I teased him.

Now imagine what this whole situation might have been like if we hadn’t all gotten along. No easy place for Jacob to stay and go to sleep, if need be. The stress of a strained phone call, where I’d be asked to pass along information to our daughters  — or even the lack of a phone call altogether.

As it was, I was one of the first people they called because our little dual-family dynamic means that we operate as each other’s extended families.

I’m incredibly grateful for this….

In other blog-related news, there’s an interesting discussion about the relationship with the ex-wife going on over at a cool new find, Stepmum of the Year. Check it out!

(Sorry for the picture-less posts – haven’t been able to upload an image to Wordpress for the last three weeks! Any advice appreciated.)

© 2010 Jennifer Newcomb Marine         All Rights Reserved

You can read more about previous words here….

My word for 2009 was “success” and I think I can look back at some career milestones and feel a certain sense of satisfaction. It was really important to me that all the hard work I had put into writing about this topic and my continued efforts to learn more about conflict resolution and creating a happy, cooperate “extended family” actually WENT somewhere!

It’s been enormously gratifying to hear people say that our book has helped them create a breakthrough in their relationship with the mom or stepmom. That’s the kind of feedback that can make my day — or week!

Even though it seems like eons ago, our book came out this summer and hit the Amazon bestseller list in several categories, several different times. We were on the Dr. Phil Show and that was a crazy, surreal and very positive experience. We ported the site over to a new host and it looks all pretty and sparkly (albeit with wonky formatting left over from the old site, here and there).

In my personal life, I can look at my two daughters and see that they have made great strides with their level of independence and creativity. They’ve both pursued passions to the point that they’re developing some real competence in their chosen fields and I’m very proud of them.

There are also areas of my life that were most definitely NOT a success, but nevertheless, I learned a lot from them….

So what would be YOUR word for the new year, only days away?

What word would serve you best?

In what direction would you like to “point” yourself?

My word for 2010 is going to be “trust.” I would like to trust myself more in certain ways, instead of doubting myself. I’d like to feel more of a sense of trust when it comes to relationships and finances. Luckily, trust is alive and well with my friendships and most family relationships, so that’s a huge bonus in my favor already.

I’d like to be able to trust my body more. I have regular, debilitating migraines and recently they’ve created some real problems in managing my life (which always makes me wonder, which comes first? the stress of things not going well and then the migraines, or the other way around?).

This past year, I made the mistake of placing my trust in someone who wasn’t capable of, for starters, earning it… or keeping it. I will be much more discerning about where I place my trust in the future and will rely more on experience and time to reveal character, rather than blind, naive, hopeful trust!

A lot of us are suffering from a sense of fear and dread, after hearing all over the media that the sky is falling. I’d like to have a calm sense of peace and trust that everything, in the end, will be all right. I’d like to be able to trust that feeling….

So what about you? What words pop into your head as possibilities?

One little word is easy to remember. And it can have a real impact on your life as you go about your day-to-day activities, but make new, healthier choices with your word in mind.

Here’s a very cool – and free – ebook by Seth Godin on What Matters Now, that might stimulate some thoughts about your word for 2010. And lucky for you, each page has a one-word title!

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

© 2009 Jennifer Newcomb Marine       All Rights Reserved

It’s a normal human impulse… when you can’t escape ongoing conflict with another person, you often feel compelled to prove who’s more at fault. Surely it can’t be you! The thing is, our ability to accurately interpret reality and take productive action is weakened by a little conundrum called self-deception, which is the problem of not knowing – and resisting the possibility – that one has a problem.*

This is greatly oversimplified, but there are two potential primary sources of mom/stepmom conflict:

1. One side — or both sides — are behaving in a truly harmful, crazy manner.
2. Each person is basically “normal,” but one — or both sides — are in emotionally-reactive mode.

BOTH scenarios can involve some pretty nasty behavior. You might be experiencing:

• name-calling, yelling, anger, aggression
• being set up to fail due to withheld, incomplete or deliberately erroneous information
• a competition to be the better parent — in the eyes of the children — and others
• legal battles over custody, visitation, and child support

Sometimes it fairly clear-cut when you’re dealing with Scenario A. For instance, when there’s evidence of:

• substance or alcohol abuse
• diagnosable mental illness
• abusive or negligent parenting
• parental alienation syndrome**

But other times, you’re not so sure where you are on the spectrum of responsibility. I mean, c’mon – isn’t mental illness and poor parenting subject to (massive) interpretation? How do you know whether it’s Scenario A and you need professional help? Or whether it’s simply Scenario B (and you still might need help)?

You might be wrestling with:

• invasions of privacy
• hearing that the other parent is maligning your name (from the child or others)
• rudeness and sarcasm/ being snubbed / cold, unfriendly behavior
• roadblocks to basic communication
• huge differences of opinion regarding discipline, diet, TV or computer usage, appropriate friends for the children, etc.

Believe it or not, there’s one very basic way to tell whether you’re dealing primarily with Scenario A or Scenario B.

And once you know that, you also have some great information on what you should do about the conflict.

It’s not pleasant, but it’s simple.

You take off the self-deception blinders.

Be brutally honest and look at your own behavior. Are you:

• happy to see the other person fail?
• repeating your hard-done-by stories to anyone that will listen?
• tallying up your resentments and criticisms?
• rigidly trying to maintain control of the situation?
• succumbing to your lowest impulses in a way that makes you feel embarrassed or out of control afterward?

Now… some of this behavior above might seem like a perfectly “reasonable” reaction to have if a nutcase bent on destruction was coming after you, right?

Maybe…

After all, we’re only human. We can only take some much wacky behavior before we lose our saintly intentions to be good all the time.

But here’s the beauty of being willing to look at the ugly stuff: if you can admit to yourself how YOU’RE actually benefiting from keeping the conflict going, something magical happens.

Suddenly, even though it first seems like you’re joining the other person down in the ditch and getting muddy yourself, you’re now able to see the other person’s behavior more clearly — without the swirl of negative emotions that normally keep you locked into a position of self-justification.

Some possible benefits to keeping the conflict going? You get to:

• feel superior, self-righteous, smarter, better all around
• enjoy being the eternal victim/ you get sympathy, anger and indignation from others that validates you
• feel blameless, clean and innocent / are clearly the wronged or injured party
• kick back and relax and let the other person hang herself
• have the safety of not having failed – it’s someone else’s fault that things aren’t working

If you run through the list and find yourself going,

“Check, and Um… check. Yep, that one too… and that one. Ugh….”

… then what happens when you think about the other woman?

You’re probably better able to see where she’s participating in the same kind of behavior — and where it goes a lot further than that.

If the other person is truly crossing some scary lines and is making your life a living hell (it happens), then the next step is to strengthen your boundaries and protect yourself, the kids, and your marriage.

Anne Katherine has a great analogy in her book “Boundaries” where she compares boundaries to the skin that covers your body. Your skin keeps the right things in and the right things out of your precious system.

Same dynamic here. Healthy boundaries give you a feeling of safety, comfort and control. You may not be able to control someone else’s behavior, but you can fortify your ability to keep their destructive behavior from taking over your life.

Now, you might be thinking that being aware of your boundaries simply means you understand the limits of what you are and aren’t willing to tolerate, but boundaries actually involve so much more than that.

• To establish healthy boundaries requires that you first ask for what you want.
• Barring the result you desire, you enforce a limit on future behavior by creating a consequence if your request is not met.

As women, we’re not socialized to clearly state what we want, much less create consequences if it doesn’t happen. Asking for what you want might mean you come across as bossy or selfish. We’re socialized to be “nice” and put the common good above our own desires. And enforcing a consequence might put you squarely in “bitch” territory!

If your boundaries seem to be fairly intact and you suspect that one or both of you are simply in emotionally-reactive mode, then it might be time to look at whether there’s anything you’d like to change in your own behavior.

Either way, facing up to some potentially squirmy truths in your life will get you closer to peace and perhaps eventually… partnership.

More about how to create healthy boundaries next week!

* The Arbinger Institute has a free, upcoming call on “The Anatomy of Peace” on Thurs., Jan. 7, 2010. More information here. I love both of their books and highly recommend them for their brilliant insights on conflict resolution, from the heart.

** Dr. Richard A. Warshak’s classic book “Divorce Poison” has been newly updated and will be released on January 19^th. Take a look at his updated website for lots of information on parental alienation syndrome and a great list of resources.

© 2009 Jennifer Newcomb Marine          All Rights Reserved

W’e're working on it! Hopefully we can get the comments back in particular – there were some really good ones. Didn’t want anyone to think I’d deleted them!

Thanks for your understanding,

Jen

Mutual understanding is one of the most important ingredients in the ex-wife/wife coalition mix. This post is in response to a guest post from the stepmom’s perspective by author Wednesday Martin.

Let the dialogue begin!

It’s not easy to feel judged and misunderstood

It’s not easy for me to be constantly seen at “the enemy” either. I know that you and your husband likely bonded over a vivid dissection of my flaws and shortcomings. Part of your relationship fantasy about how you two so right for each other probably includes a lot of evidence about he and I were so wrong for each other. This may very well be the case, but please consider how uniquely exposed and vulnerable and yes, even defensive this would make anyone feel.

And give some thought to the overall quality of the energy you’re bringing to our relationship. If I continue to sense like you’re gloating over my tiniest mistakes or keeping score on a You Wouldn’t Believe What She Did This Time roster, I’m not going to be very inclined to cut you any slack either. If you’re rude and competitive and snarky with me, how am I supposed to imagine you being patient and kind to my children?

My kids aren’t perfect

If you have your own child with my ex, you know how hard it is to raise kids. Everyone’s a parenting critic, until they have one! I may love my children with all my heart, but does that mean I’m automatically perfectly consistent as a parent? A model disciplinarian? Forever loving, patient and attentive? No, of course not.

The truth is, I often feel helpless, embarrassed, confused, and ashamed of the things I can’t handle or improve as a mother. Sometimes I’m just as overwhelmed and clueless about my child’s behavior as you are. The strong-willed toddler, the pre-teen mood swings, the ill-conceived forays into teenage independence, they throw me for a loop too. It seems like just when I get a handle on one of my child’s more difficult “phases,” they move into a new one, rattling my parental confidence. When you criticize my children, you incite my protectiveness, but my unconditional love gets tested too! Giving birth to a child doesn’t mean you are always in control of that child’s behavior, personality, or the trajectory of their life.

Also, some of the existing behavior or discipline problems you’re now seeing in my children are a reflection of the things in my marriage that didn’t work between your husband and I. And as you might have experienced yourself as his co-parent, my ex-partner and I were often at odds when it came to reinforcing rules and consequences. This likely contributed to the demise of our marriage, so don’t lay the blame for parenting mistakes squarely on my shoulders. Distribute it fairly.

I’m not expecting everything between us to be all hunky-dory

I’m not looking to be your best friend, but I would like to feel like we’re on the same page as hands-on caretakers of these children. I would like to know that the priority between both households is raising these children well together, instead of proving the other side wrong. I would like to be able to call you to follow-up on a child’s cold, late (or missing) homework, or suspicions that one of them is falling in with the wrong crowd before it becomes a major problem.

The thing that keeps me from going there, in part, is knowing how much you talk about me with my ex. I can’t trust you or confide in you about things I may not be handling well because it doesn’t feel safe. If I knew you weren’t going to be so quick to judge me, it’d be a lot easier to problem-solve together. I know this goes both ways.

I’m scared of my kids loving you. There, I said it.

I have to admit, this strikes fear in my heart: I’m scared of my kids liking you, because if they like you, that could lead to them loving you. Plus, it’s hard to feel like the areas where you’re shining as a stepmom also happen to shed light on areas where I fall short as a parent. So is there a part of me that’s happy they don’t like you? Have I subtly or directly encouraged this? Yes, and I know it’s wrong and selfish and ultimately not in their best interests. But I don’t know you. And I don’t know what your intentions are with my children. Would you be willing to tell me?

It’s also hard to feel like a bomb blew up in your family. It’s difficult to see your kids forever schlepping their stuff between two homes. It’s tough to have them go away and not know what’s going on in their lives. I don’t have a crystal ball to see into your household and I worry about them. That’s what moms do! Sure, I want as many people as possible loving my children, but it’s also scary on some level to have it happen out of “viewing range.” And what if love for you mean less of an attachment to me? If you have your own children with my ex, you may think you understand what this primitive fear is like, but if you’ve never shared your children like this with another woman, I can assure you, you don’t.

I’m not my children’s “bio-mom,” I’m their mom. Period.

My children were not created in a test tube! Nor were they adopted (where this term originated). I gave birth to them, much as you don’t want to think about this. Yes, your husband – my ex – and I once went through our own little bubble of history that included joy, wonder, excitement and all the rest of it when our children were born. (Perhaps you two have experienced this yourselves.) Why do you feel the need to belittle my role by changing my name? Are you trying to diminish my sense of power or authority?

The things you’re doing out of a sense of competitiveness to prove that you’re the better mom to my kids (“I’ll show them what consistency and higher standards should look like!”) really only serve to objectify your stepchildren, if you think about it. And that can’t be good for them either, just like the blind parenting mistakes I’m making.

Perhaps part of your behavior is fueled by the pressure to solidify your marriage and validate your husband’s belief that he did indeed choose the right woman by being with you. But keep in mind, demonizing me lets him off the hook when it comes to him dealing with the deep-seated patterns that led to the demise of his first marriage. You should have a vested interest in seeing those issues resolved, because they may affect your marriage someday too.

I probably still have baggage with my ex

Yes, yes, it’s been however many years, but no matter who initiated the divorce, in some ways emotionally skirting too close to the divorce still causes me great pain and sadness. My family is forever in two pieces now, there’s no going back. This is reality for my children. When they came into this world, I never imagined this was how their lives would be…. I’m sure it’s the same for you, if you have children.

Parenting is even harder now that I’m divorced. I don’t have access to a ready ear from the only other person in the world who knows and loves these children (hopefully) just as much as I do — their dad. Now I’m in the dark, trying to do this all on my own. Even if I have a partner, he’s not their father. His patience is tried too. I can tell when he’s trying to bite his own tongue about aspects of their behavior that he doesn’t like. It feels lonely and sad and sometimes I fear for my children’s future because of it.

The only way out of this mess is to move through the pain, assign accountability fairly on both sides and forgive. But I’m reluctant to fully grieve the loss of my little original family unit because to do so feels like jumping off a cliff into the mouth of an active volcano. I’m afraid to go there, it seems overwhelming and scary. I don’t know how. So it’s easier for me to just resent my ex and blame him and unfortunately, that means you get thrown into the mix too. I do weird passive-aggressive things with both of you, I get angry. I inappropriately stick my kids in the middle and then I secretly regret my bad behavior. You might not believe me, but I know it’s wrong and I know I need to change. I’m just not sure where to start!

I promise to play nice if you do.

We both need to try harder here. If we simply give in to the temptation to see each other in the worst possible light, things could easily continue on like this for years. And in the meantime, the children are growing older and experiences where OUR conflicts take precedence are piling up, instead of the normal developmental milestones they’re SUPPOSED to be having. Let’s work on minimizing our conflicts and model healthy emotional management skills for the kids to use later on in their own families.

Can we at least shake hands on trying to do better?

© 2009 Jennifer Newcomb Marine   All Rights Reserved

Please note: If you tried to leave a comment earlier and couldn’t, please try again, as comments should be working now. Host issues – we’re working on it…. Thanks!

(Like it or not, the two women in your child’s or stepchild’s life are typically the hands-on parents. Gender roles die hard! With both sides vying for control over the same position, there are bound to be problems and misunderstandings galore. And with power struggles come one-dimensional thinking, an abundance of perceived slights and the temptation to demonize the other side.

In the service of  better understanding each other and putting yourself in the shoes of the “other woman”, here’s Stepmonster author Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., with a raw and heartfelt guest post.

I’ll post my response, “What your stepchild’s mom wants you to know about her life” on Friday.)

Mutual understanding is one of the most important ingredients in the ex-wife/wife coalition mix. In that spirit, here are some of the things that the women with stepchildren I interviewed for my book Stepmonster told me they’d like their husband’s or partner’s exes to know.

Let the dialogue begin!

It’s not easy to feel judged and misunderstood

You likely feel, especially if you’re unpartnered, that the deck is stacked against you, that it’s me and your ex against you. From my perspective, I’m perceived as a wicked stepmother and a homewrecker even when I’m not, no matter how hard I try and how nice I am. Being the fall guy when I’m trying so hard takes a toll on me. And while you might feel shut out, I wrestle with the knowledge that I’m not and never will be “first.” We’re both struggling, you and I.

Your child isn’t perfect

Do you find yourself thinking of me as a rigid control freak? Too harsh or strict toward your kids? If that’s the case, ask yourself what role you and your ex may play here by being permissive, indulgent parents post-divorce. I might have to tow the line in my home because you two are afraid to, or can’t be bothered, or feel too guilty to parent effectively, since you “put the kids through a divorce.”

Have you told your kids it’s okay to like me, let them know it’s imperative to at least be civil and polite to me? Or do you secretly like that they don’t like their stepmom, that they’re disrespectful and rude, even hostile, toward me? Does that arrangement make you feel better, more secure?

What am I up against here that’s any harder than what you’re up against? you’re wondering. For starters, kids of any age resent getting a stepmom way more than they resent getting a stepdad. For a long time, too. And while plenty of kids of divorce do just fine, they are twice as likely to have serious emotional and social problems as kids from intact homes. Remember that when it comes to adolescence, I don’t have the foundation you and your husband do to tolerate all the drama, sullenness, and more. At some point, if your kids are rude to me and I am rebuffed enough, I may withdraw to preserve my dignity. Think about that next time you’re about to tell a friend that I’m “cold” to your kids.

I don’t want to be friends with you, do holidays together, or vacation together

And I’m a little tired of all the pressure I’m feeling from people who haven’t a clue that I “should” want to do, and be doing, just that. We can have a parenting coalition that works. I welcome that, and I welcome civility and friendliness. But if I’m like most women with stepkids, it just doesn’t feel appropriate to me to be close to you. My loyalty is to my husband. I want to get stepmothering right for his sake. Beyond that, I don’t want to feel pressured to be pals with you. I already have pals. So please don’t take offense that I’d like us to be friendly enough, but not necessarily friends.

I don’t love your kids just like my own, just like they don’t love me like they love you!

There’s way too much pressure on women with stepkids to “draw no distinctions” between their own kids and their stepkids. And it flies in the face not only of research findings about what stepfamily “success” actually is, but common sense as well. I might really like your kids, love them even and come to feel extremely close to them one day. But I might not.  Can you blame me, given all the stepmother hatred out there, and given the very real fact of kids resenting getting a stepmother? There’s a whole range of “normal” here, a whole spectrum of stepmother involvement. They have you and their dad. So please, don’t expect me to “love them just as if they’re my own” while also expecting me to follow the sacred directive, “Don’t ever try to replace their mom.” Especially if I have my own kids, as likeable and great as your kids are, they’re not mine, I’m not theirs, and it’s okay for me to just be a supportive ally.

I’m not your husband’s “new wife.” I’m his wife. You’re his ex-wife.

It’s that simple. When you ask him to do chores, come over for dinner or do holidays at your place “for the kids’ sake,” you’re being disrespectful of our partnership. Yes, you are. Please respect my marriage and have healthy boundaries. This includes not putting your ex in-laws in a loyalty bind or using the kids as leverage (“You won’t see your grandkids if you spend time over there with your son and his new wife”).

I promise to play nice if you do.

Most women with stepkids really want to get it right, and try very hard in the face of significant challenges. Getting along would be the best outcome for everyone. I know that, and so do you.

It’s a start….

What Jennifer and Carol have managed to do is impressive. And if you’re reading the No One’s the Bitch site, it’s because you wonder if you and your partner’s ex, or you and your ex-partner’s partner, can do the same. If all the adults are committed to getting along, the rewards can be tremendous–easier lives, happier kids, and less stress for all.

(Thanks, Wednesday!)

Great… Just what I wanted to hear.

I write, as best as I can on this blog and in the book, about owning your own shit. We didn’t actually call Chapter Two that, because I guess one expletive a book is enough. So Chapter Two is called Own Your Own Crap, but the idea is the same: one of the first steps in creating a breakthrough when a situation is bad is to own your own shit. In other words, take responsibility for the muck that you’re bringing to the table when there’s ongoing conflict.

The very notion is completely counter-intuitive for most people. We’ve got an entire lifetime’s worth of habit helping us to look outside ourselves at external circumstances — and using them to decide whether things in our life are “good” or “bad.”

But really, we all inherently know that what determines how our “reality” really seems to go has mostly to do with what’s in our own little marble-filled noggin….

It’s just that most of us (self included) often feel perpetually resistant to looking at what’s rolling around inside our noggins.

We walk around feeling as if we’re mostly “right” and know how things should be. End of story.

But ironically, we also walk around also feeling like if only people could REALLY see inside us, they’d run for the hills, so we’re also mostly “wrong,” but that part is supposed to be a secret.

What’s ironic is that everyone feels this hidden sense of shame and random guilt, but no one is supposed to know it! So we pretend we don’t and work hard to cultivate our surface presentation of who we are. And we’re like some little cartoon microcosmic universe of busy people, living purposeful lives, zooming around — on task and on target.

Which leads me to my confession….

In a moment at the end of the show, I found myself feeling pretty stirred up, after hearing the mom, stepmom and dad who were on during the second half of the show talk at length about their problems with each other.

Emotionally, I kept coming back to their teenage son. After hearing various stories from each adult about situations they were struggling with, I started to get truly exasperated.

No, you’re not supposed to have emotional reactions like that on national TV, especially if you’ve written a book about that particular topic. You’re supposed to be impassive, detached, operating from a higher level of professionalism and objectivity.

But damn, the stuff I was hearing just made me think about what this kid’s experience of his parents and stepmom must be like and how painful it must have been. And judging from what the adults were saying, there was only going to be more of it, possibly into perpetuity.

I was thinking, THIS is what we’re doing to our children, making them feel schizoid and fragmented, putting pressure on them to buy into one parent or teams’ version of reality, of being right, of being the better parent, supposedly fueled by their love for the child. We go back and forth with the other side as if someday they’ll wake up and realize what an idiot they’ve been this entire time, say they’re sorry and start doing things YOUR way.

And in the meantime, the kid is like a old football, being kicked across a field.

So I had a little “moment” there, at the end, where I tried to say to them that their behavior had to change, for their son’s sake.

I was kind of worked up. I think there might have been finger-pointing (cringe). I felt passionate about what I was saying.

And if that had been the end of it, it could have made for some pretty good TV, because hey, isn’t that what TV is all about? Passion? Intensity? Vulnerability? Kleenex?

But the problem is, what I said was also fueled by a sense of judgment. I felt judgmental towards the adults. And even for a bit here and there, superior, like I had figured out something they hadn’t.

Hate to say it, but there it is. You’ll probably see it for yourself anyway.

Now, have I ever put my kids in the middle of battles between Carol and David and I? Have I ever used them as ammunition?

Nah….

Okay, actually

Yeah….

Plenty. Not really so much anymore, but before we were all skipping through the fields of flowers in slow motion, you bet your ass I did.

And I STILL feel guilty about this, and rightfully so, which is maybe also why it was easy to just slide into feeling judgmental with the other adults on the show. You hide from stuff inside yourself – it still finds a way to leak out.

My ex-husband David told me it seemed like I was scolding them, even though he could tell "my heart was in the right place." He said I looked pissed. Carol assured me it was the right thing to say, "given the moment."

Personally, remembering the whole thing makes me want to crawl under my bed.

So… if I come across like a total sanctimonious scold, I’ll live — and I’m sure the shame of doing this in front of millions of people will fade eventually, like maybe when I’m in my eighties or something.

But more than that, my little “moment” is a great example of how easy it is to slip right back into our ego-filled positions of self-righteousness, even when we’re also responding to something compassionate and caring in our hearts.

Sure, we love our children. We want to do right by them.

But we get caught up in the experience of war with the adults in these bi-nuclear family situations, because it’s all too easy to be offended by the other side, for our own actions to be misinterpreted, for the lines of communication to become horribly mangled and crossed.

Our fallback position of wanting so very much to be “right,” to be better, to be in control — that stuff always seems to rise to the surface, no matter how altruistic we might be in our calmer, more centered moments. It’s human nature.

But we always have a choice about how we ultimately respond to our very human natures.

What happens when you make a mistake? Do you make amends, at least eventually? Do you brush it under the metaphorical carpet, hoping no one will notice, grateful for the passage of time and the obscuring dustcloud of busyness that we all seem to live in?

I apologized immediately after the show to the stepmom and dad who were on the show, but I still haven’t done so with the mom, whose contact information I have (she was on by satellite).

I need to handle that…. And will.

We all screw up.

And we will continue to, despite our best intentions and “knowledge” about how not to do that.

It’s what we do with our mistake afterward that matters.

Facing the discomfort is the first step. And kind of like going to the dentist or exercising, once you get going, it’s not so bad. You face that brakes-on feeling of resistance and then, lo and behold, you actually create room for change, growth and healing.

It’s a work in progress – this learning about being human, connecting with others past our own egos, owning our own shit. I know I’ll be learning about it ‘til the day I die.

And you?

Where are you
in the dung pasture? How far to the safety of the fence? Most importantly, what kind of shoes are you wearing?!

The show is on one week from today (Tuesday, Dec. 1^st).
I hope you’ll tune in!

Your thoughts?

I had big plans to write a summary of what the whole experience was like, but I swear, we must have used up a year's worth of adrenalin last week and I just couldn't muster the wherewithal to put my thoughts to paper. Let's just say it was pretty surreal. We were terrified, but everyone was incredibly, unbelievably nice, which helped.

And Dr. Phil was tall.

And my heart went out to the other trio on the show, for different reasons. I could identify with each one of them and they seemed to be having a tough time, even though the two parents divorced nine years ago. I won't spoil the story and tell you what happened between them – you'll just have to see for yourself and come to your own conclusions!

By the time the show was over, I think the three of us had to suppress gargantuan yelps of joy that we had made it through alive. But no… we were now seasoned professionals, so we simply smiled and nodded to everyone as we did the royal wave down the long halls, returned to our bulb-lit dressing rooms, and performed a reverse-Cinderella (washing our faces THREE times and returning to Slackerville, clothes-wise). 

This week, I'm in San Francisco to help out with a family situation and won't have access to a computer during the day, so I won't be posting much until next week.

But I just wanted to say I really appreciated everyone's help who sent in questions (which I passed along to the producers) and helped publicize our search for additional guests. Thanks people's! Y'all are the best!

I hope this show plays a small part in getting a bigger discussion going about theses challenging bi-nuclear family issues. Lots of folks are suffering in isolation, thinking they're handling these situations poorly, when in fact, they're right there with the rest of us, stumbling around.

More soon!