Your Questions Answered

Hi Jacquelyn,

My name is Jeff. I am happily re-married to the most wonderful woman in the whole world. We have 5 (15, 13, 11, 7, and 5 years of age) children from my previous marriage, she had no children. Every other weekend the children come stay with us and once a week we go see them and it takes about 50 minutes to get to the children (one-way). My wife says she loves me and has no problems with me and our relationship. However, she is wanting to leave due to the ex-wife being in our lives. I have put forth great effort to minimize any contact with the ex and have been quite successful just dealing with the children. The children adore their stepmom and love her more than myself (which has been great) due to lack of the proper attention at home. She (stepmom) has been a source of security and stability for me and these 5 children. She is tired of the monotony and seeing 1/2 my pay check go to a woman who does nothing but sit in her chair, watch tv, talk on a cell phone, and then leave the kids a few times a week and spend money on herself. My wife is a hard worker and sharp as a tack. She is angry for letting herself get into this situation, angry because of the wasted money, and has quite frankly had it.

I am not a stepmom. I have read a couple of books and can see where she is coming from. Issues of how society treats her, how is she supposed to act, not being herself etc. I try to stand in her shoes, I have treated her like the queen she is. I help with the house, laundry, cooking etc… She gets flowers once a month, cards, notes, daily hugs n kisses, thank yous and appreciation. I love her more than anything in this world ( I am not saying I am perfect, though. I am male ). How can I help relieve her anger and frustration? I try to get her to focus on us / me rather than the ex and future issues. She seems to go through a cycle where we are doing great and then she is walking out the door. This cycle used to be monthly and has now been not as often, around every couple of months since the beginning of the year.

We have been to counseling that was superb.

She is tired and I am hurt because she is hurting.

Any suggestions?

Signed

Losing My Soulmate

Dear Losing My Soulmate:

If only all stepmothers had a man as aware and engaged as you! (Sorry dads, but stepfamily life really asks dads to step up to the plate like never before.) It’s tough to know exactly how to advise you because I don’t know enough of your particular situation but here are a few general rules of thumb that you can share with your wife that will hopefully help alleviate some of the pressure you both feel.

Lighten up. I don’t mean to be flippant here. I really mean that. Have some fun! Since you don’t have the children all the time, go out and have some inexpensive fun. Laugh together. Create a list of activities that would interest both of you so you can build some really strong, wonderful memories together. Do this with all the kids, too. Create some fun rituals so that your stepfamily can begin to create an identity.

Hire a financial advisor or take a money class. We all know that with the economy the way it is, money is tighter than ever. Join a stepfamily and Dad’s money now goes to support two families. Though this is a tough concept for a stepmom, she really just has to accept that you are sending money to the other household. You are financially obligated to support your children. (She knows this I’m sure.) If mom is really not using the money on the kids then you always have the option of going back to court. (Though I would HIGHLY recommend mediation first because the courts rarely handle these cases intelligently, well, or fairly. Little rant there.) Check out these books for a place to start:  

For Richer Not Poorer: The Money Book for Couples, by Ruth Hayden. A money class in a book that helps couples learn to view their financial lives as a partnership. Hayden doesn’t address stepfamilies specifically but her approach to dealing with money as a couple is fantastic.

Money Advice for Your Successful Remarriage: Handling Delicate Financial Issues Intelligently and Lovingly, by Patricia Shiff Estes. A guide to financial systems, options, and solutions that work in remarried households as well as how to deal with the complicated emotions connected with the subject of money.

Create boundaries with the ex. It sounds like you’ve already set up the ways you two will handle your ex wife and that’s great. Sit down with your wife and brainstorm together ways you think you should handle the ex as a couple. The more you do the job of co-parenting, the better off your wife will be in the long run. If she is feeling jealous of the ex or angry at her for intruding on her family life, then tell her to write me a letter so I can help her by knowing more of the facts. It sounds like this is your wife’s biggest issue. Depending on what kind of ex you have, this can be a major stressor. Is she open to co-parenting? Or is she angry and bitter and in your faces? That makes a big difference in how things will go in your house.

Thank your lucky stars. The fact that your kids love her should make your wife jump for joy! There are so many families who are struggling because the kids are resentful of and angry at stepmom.

Chin up. You didn’t mention how long you’ve been remarried, but I want to toss this out there: The two of you are not going to figure out everything all at once. This is why that lighten up section is so important. Balance the icky parts of stepfamily life with fun times and lots of laughter and intimacy and you’ll be just fine. (If you’ve read my book then you know about John Gottman’s research: 5 positive interactions to every one negative interaction equals marital longevity and satisfaction!)

 

Your Questions Answered: Getting Started in a Stepfamily

Dear Jacque,

I (26) am in a serious relationship with a girl (20) who has never been married or had kids. I have one of my own who is 5. We have recently been discussing a possible future together with kids and marriage. I have also never been married. My son’s mother and I found out she was pregnant after we had split up so marriage was never on the table. My ex has full custody, but I have him pretty much any weekend I want and for extended periods over the summer. My girlfriend expressed some serious concerns about her role as a stepmom to my son and how our future kids and my son would handle a blended family situation. She is also concerned about her role now, as my son’s dad’s girlfriend, and what amount of time spent with my son would be appropriate. I am ashamed to say that I did not have any good answers for any of these questions. Neither of us have any experience with blended family situations. Can you please give me some advice? I guess the main questions I would like addressed are the following:

*Should I segregate myself and my son from my girlfriend (while she is still just my girlfriend) when he visits? If not what level of involvment would be appropriate. How much of a say should my ex have in regards to this question?

*How is my future wife going to have any authority over my son. Is it ok if she derives this authority through me (for example: Don’t do this or your father will ground you.)?

*How should we handle jealousy that my son might have toward future kids?

Thank you very much, and any input would be extremely helpful and much appreciated.

These are all big questions! Bravo for searching out information on stepfamilies. That will serve you extremely well in the future. You and your girlfriend can do a few things to prepare so you have some idea what to expect. The first resource I would offer you is to sit down with your girlfriend and read my book together. It’s for women who are in her exact position: women who don’t have kids of their own who are dating, engaged or married to a man with kids from a previous relationship. You can read the first couple of chapters for free on my website. Check out the “Browse inside this book” on the right hand side of the page. I address a lot of the topics you are worried about.

It is absolutely okay to have your girlfriend meet your children if you are sure that this is serious with your girlfriend. If you are planning to marry her, it’s even more appropriate and in fact, important. It’s a mistake to introduce the kids to your significant other shortly before the wedding without giving everyone a chance to get to know each other.

Your ex wife does not have a say in who you introduce your son to when he’s with you. This is a hard pill for biological moms to swallow (and dads too, when the kids are with mom), but that is part of blended family life. You have to give up a certain amount of control when it comes to your kids. This is not easy!!!

As for your girlfriend’s authority, your instincts are right on. It all has to come through you. You set up the rules (see the house rules section of my book) with input from your partner and then you present them to your stepson along with the consequences for not following them. And then you tell your stepson that your partner has the authority from you to uphold those rules when you’re not around. It is a mistake to have her be a disciplinarian to your son right away until they develop a strong relationship. The bottom line is slow and steady wins the race. Take your time. Stepfamilies take a long time to feel comfortable and stable.

The jealousy issue is best handled by treating all of the children who live in the house the same. There will be things that a child will naturally feel jealousy about (a new child has more time with dad, for instance) and so the best thing to do is continue to spend time with the older children one-on-one and sending messages of love and acceptance.

You might also try these resources for more education about stepfamily life:

National Stepfamily Resource Center (NSRC)
www.stepfamilies.info
A vast resource for stepfamilies, the National Stepfamily Resource Center develops educational programs for stepfamilies and the professionals who work with them. Dr. Francesca Adler-Baeder, director of the Center for Children, Youth, and Families at Auburn oversees the NSRC, which serves as a clearinghouse of information for stepfamilies that links family science research on stepfamilies and best practices in work with couples and children in stepfamilies. The organization’s website includes links to resources for stepfamilies, frequently asked questions, and research summaries.

Stepfamily Living
http://www.stepfamilyliving.com
Stepfamily expert Elizabeth Einstein has created this site which lists her books, DVDs, and workshops for stepfamilies.

Successful Stepfamilies
www.successfulstepfamilies.com
Author, speaker, and marriage and family therapist Ron Deal’s site with books (including The Smart Stepmom), DVD programs, free articles, and links to support Christian stepfamilies. Includes a list of conferences and workshops for stepfamilies.

Your Questions Answered: Age Differences

Dear Jacque, I just finished reading your book and I thought maybe you could help me with a couple of things. I am on the path to becoming a stepmom – I found my soul mate and we live together. He is divorced and has joint custody of his fifteen year old son and unfortunately no contact with his 19-year-old daughter. We are not yet engaged, but we do plan to marry. I am trying not to guess when he will propose! Our relationship with his son has its ups and downs, it is going well now but we know there will be challenges in the future and we are prepared to do our best to keep communication with him free and safe.

His daughter is also an issue but we try to be as positive as we can about it. They were very close for most of her life – only after she met me did she divorce herself from her dad. She says that she won’t talk to him “as long as he is with that woman.”  She ‘allowed’ him to come to her birthday dinner, but only upon the condition that I not attend. He sends her messages occasionally that he still loves her and that he misses having her in his life, but there is not yet progress. Eventually, but the wait is hard on him.

What I am looking for is help with your ‘Rule of 20.’ My situation is a little different from what I can find in advice books. I am career minded, though right now I feel as if my work is in creating our family so I don’t actually work. I am also half the age of my significant other, 24 to his 52. It works because he thinks he is 12. 

I think we are doing a good job with his son, and the best we can with his daughter, but do you know of anywhere that I can look to learn about being in a relationship with such a drastic age difference? Advice, stories, message boards, books – I have always thought that the more you know about something the more successful you are apt to be. I value the ideas in your book and I look forward to your reply.

Dear Reader,

I’m so glad you’re out there reading books about stepmotherhood and learning about how stepfamilies work. It will serve you well if you become a stepmother! You mentioned that your relationship with your stepson is good. I’m glad about that, although I have to warn you that often the day of a marriage marks a change in the behavior of a lot of stepchildren. So heads up!

Now for the hard part. I fear that you will never have a good relationship with your stepdaughter. If you were older, you would probably have difficulty with her as it is but the fact that you are not very much older than her makes you a peer in her mind and not an authority figure. That doesn’t bode well. You didn’t mention the relationship this girl has with her mother so I can’t say if those dynamics are influencing this but it sounds like she does not approve of you because you’re so young and might also feel that you are replacing her in her father’s affections.

Since there are 28 years between you and your boyfriend’s ages I suspect that this stepdaughter is extremely uncomfortable with your relationship with her father. Your language about her was very respectful, which is great, but I urge you to think about your own relationship with your dad. It’s a sacred relationship in some ways and so your job as a possible stepmother is to help her feel safe and not threatened by you. Saying things like, “Your father is your father and he will always love you and need you in his life,” can help even though she’s 19.

Dad can also reassure his daughter that he will always love her and be her dad no matter what. He can tell her that he loves you and that you will be a part of his life and he wants her to accept you.

Stepmotherhood is challenging and when there is such a drastic age difference between stepmom and dad, it can make things even more difficult. Most likely the children will never accept you as any kind of authority figure so it would be better for you to approach them as a friend. The best thing you can do is make sure that you and he have a strong foundation for your relationship–a lot in common, communication skills, and of course, fun times.

Ultimately, you also must consider this difficult question: If your boyfriend never reconciles with his daughter because of his relationship with you, how will that pain he feels about that affect your relationship? As we know remarriages have a higher rate of divorce than first marriages and many people say that they divorced due to issues around the kids.

One idea that might help is for dad to have an open discussion with his kids about their inheritance. It’s not a topic many people like to discuss but if he is completely open with them about how he plans to provide for them when he’s gone, it can help ease their relationships with you.

I hope this hasn’t been to much of a downer! I’m so glad you’re employing the Rule of 20. Now check out what your other 19 people say. Best of luck to you!

New Podcast: A Grown Up Child of Divorce

After stumbling across Carolyn Grona’s awesome blog The Grown Up Child, I knew I had to interview her for my Stepmom Circles podcast. Carolyn and I are both children of divorce and we talk about what it was like to be from two homes. Carolyn has created an online space for adult children of divorce where they can articulate how divorce and subsequent remarriages have impacted their lives. 

Carolyn shares her tips for divorced parents and stepparents about how we can make our stepchildren and children’s lives a little easier.

We talk about Dads, Moms, Stepparents, Half-Siblings, and what happens when a kid has too much power.

This is an important podcast, gals. I hope you’ll check it out. And once you’ve listened, join us on FaceBook in my Stepmom Circles group to discuss your thoughts.

A Happy Report

Ladies:

I’m happy to tell everyone that the library card fiasco has a happy ending! After my three stepchildren were denied library cards by a librarian who said I couldn’t sign them up for cards because as their stepmother I wasn’t a legal guardian, I emailed an irate letter to the county library administration offices. The director of the entire library system emailed me back to say he would do some research to discover what had happened because as a stepparent himself, he was appalled at our experience.

This is part of the letter he sent me yesterday:

“Do we want to preclude step-parents from assisting kids in their care to get a library card? The answer is a clear “no”. Just to clarify that intent, at our next re-printing, we will revise our registration form to add “step-parent” to the “parent/guardian” line. We will also cover the topic next week at a circulation team meeting so supervisors are aware of our intent in this area.”

Yay!!!! I will be doing more research on the topic of legal guardianship, power of attorney, and medical power of attorney and will post more on this soon.  I’m also writing an article for Stepmom Magazine that will run in the September issue. In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple more thoughts on this.

I could have lied. A lot of stepparents I heard from after my original post said they either just didn’t bring up that they were a stepparent in similar situations, or lied outright when asked because it was just easier. If I had lied, the kids would have their cards and the librarian would never have exploded this issue. I have certainly allowed people to assume I’m the mother to make our lives easier. But now the staff of the whole county system are going to be trained in how to deal with stepfamilies. They are reprinting the library card application form to include stepparents!

I know that legal guardianship is a complicated issue. Ostracizing stepfamilies, however, is not complicated. It is very simple. It shouldn’t happen. Yet stepfamilies feel like outsiders all the time in churches and schools on sports teams and in our neighborhoods. Enough already!

The Power of Guilt

In blended families, there are few things more powerful than guilt. It is the emotion that fuels many of the negative things that happen in stepfamilies. It is the reason that Dads become permissive parents and allow their children to run wild. It  is often one of the reasons Moms are combative and challenging to co-parent with. In 2003, the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage published a study called Divorced Mothers’ Guilt. The study found that the guilt they felt for putting their children through divorce often kept them stuck in one emotional place and unable to move on with their lives.

Anecdotally, I can attest to this just from listening to moms during interviews. I have always been curious about the moms who originally ask for the divorce and then act as though they are the victims or become vindictive or angry later when they weren’t at the time of the divorce. It could be the guilt talking.

And so for all of us, how do recover from guilt? How do biological and stepparents move on from feeling guilty about an affair, or a divorce or a remarriage? If anyone has some good ideas, please feel free to comment. In the meantime, here are some of my thoughts:

Say your sorry. Take the children out for one-on-one time and apologize. Call or e-mail your former spouse and tell them you are sorry for everything that happened. Marriage researcher John Gottman describes in his books how repair attempts can reduce conflict in relationships. If the breakup of the marriage happened because of an affair, leave defensiveness behind, own up to your responsibility and say your sorry.

Look to the future. Instead of remaining stuck in anger and guilt about what happened in the past, focus on your hopes for the future.

Remember we’re alone. Each of us has our own particular path to walk in this life. A divorce and remarriage will affect children for their rest of their lives, but at the end of the day they will have to deal with it on their own. Give them the tools they need to move through their emotions in a healthy way instead of letting them manipulate you with your guilt.

Let go of what doesn’t serve you. Guilt is really a useless feeling. It doesn’t move you anywhere, just keeps you stuck in the past. Wouldn’t you rather choose to let go of the guilt? Challenging things happen to children. How they respond to it can build their character and yours if you allow everyone to move on emotionally.

Be true to your inner truths. Guilt can strip biological parents of their core values. For instance, if a parent would typically believe that boundaries are good for kids but lets them all go because he feels guilty, he is not only depriving his children of the parenting they need, he is abandoning his own belief system. Seriously, guilt is that powerful.

So what do you feel guilty about? How does the guilt of your partner or the ex affect the dynamics between all the members of your blended family?

What stepmoms can do for dads and their kids.

Before you read this post, please read the research by Constance Ahrons that sparked this list. In my book and on this blog, I have said many times how important the relationship between your husband and his kids is. Not only because I value my own relationship with my father, but also because much research has been done on how negatively impacted children are when they don’t have their fathers in their lives.

So what can we do to help foster the relationship our partner has with his kids?

Encourage one-on-one time. When your stepchildren are visiting, suggest that your husband take each one of them out at a time for a walk, a visit to the park, a meal, so they can have time together.

Support involvement. If your stepkids have school events, games, or concerts tell your husband to attend them with or without you. I clearly remember looking for my father at my sports games and feeling such deep disappointment when he didn’t show and joy when he did.

Let him do the parenting. As a stepparent, you play second fiddle to the biological parent when it comes to discipline. If Dad is showing signs of becoming a permissive parent because he feels too guilty about what he’s done to his kids to parent them, then show him this post. He needs to parent his kids for them to feel loved and safe. Disneyland Dads are harmful to their children’s development. And as the stepmom, you shouldn’t be asked to discipline his kids. It’s not fair and it has the potential to ruin your relationship with the children.

Create traditions. Because stepfamilies take so long to feel like family (7 to 12 years according to researcher Patricia Papernow) do everything you can to build traditions that are just for your new family. One tradition my stepmother started that I deeply appreciated was a gift she made. Every year she put together a photo album of each of us kids with our dad. Though she was a part of those albums, too, she stayed in the background. By putting together those albums every year she was fostering my connection to my father.  

Let go of jealousy. Your stepchildren will have a relationship with their father until the day he dies. So think big picture here. That relationship will affect graduations, weddings, funerals, the birth of children, etc. etc. etc. If you’re really in this relationship for the long-term, then you simply can’t be jealous of the time he spends with his kids. If you have your whole lives together, then there is plenty of time for Dad to spend with you, any children you have together, and your stepkids.

Do you have things you do to support your partner’s relationship with his kid(s) that have worked well? Let us know what you do so the rest of us can try it!

Stepmoms Speak

Christina Hines is the author of Navigational Skills for Stepfamilies. The following is an excerpt from her book. Used with permission.

Lack of Awareness

When we navigate without awareness, we still remember the “Wicked” Stepmother in our Cinderella stories. We live inside the lingo, the language of “Broken Homes” and “Step” and everyone suffers on all levels. “Broken” takes on a tone as If there is something fundamentally wrong that will always be fundamentally wrong. Step has a tone as if someone is stepping on someone else’s toes or property, as if by stepping “in and on” you are doing something morally illegal.

Inside of this broken stepping on toes limited thinking…. 

We teach our children that love has conditions. “You are free to love everyone! Except the woman who now lives with your father.”

We provide our children with “Disney Land” weekends to ease the guilt we feel inside of us for not being there in the day-to-day.

We get divorced and cling fiercely to making sure our children experience “family traditions” only we don’t stop to understand what we are really doing to them.

Let’s see how this works. We tell our children “Get dressed, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, put your jacket on – you are going to Dad’s for three hours to have his tradition. Next, while you are in mid-play, you will need to put your jacket back on, come back home, we’ll drive to grandma’s and have our tradition (notice, at Dad’s you had HIS tradition but when you are with me, you are having “Our” tradition.) Take your jacket off and then mid-play, you will need to put your jacket back on. Next; we will get back in the car, drive to our house. Take off your jacket it’s time for bed! Now wasn’t that fun?

Children literally spend half of the day in the car. A quarter of the day taking their jackets off and putting their jackets back on.  A quarter of the day just digging into a wonderful play experience only to have it cut short once again.

Family traditions start to take on a tone of hurry up, let’s go, wasn’t that fun and we do this for your sake. Children’s little heads spin. They can’t remember whom they are playing with and everything feels to the child like there isn’t enough time. We literally teach our children how to not focus fully. We teach our children how not to experience something fully and then we label and medicate them when they can’t seem to focus.

More of what’s Inside of this broken stepping on toes limited thinking…

We send them over to the other parent’s house exclaiming “Oh I will miss you so much while you are gone,” and then the child spends half the time at the other parent’s house worrying about how lonely and upset the other parent is with visions of the “missing” parent crying missing them so much and unable to enjoy their time fully because they are too busy worrying about the other parent’s experience. We teach our children to always feel like something is missing.

We get out of one relationship to get right back into the “same” relationship with someone else or we go for someone completely different and spend all our time comparing, complaining and “pining” for what we no longer have when we didn’t enjoy what we had when we had it. Never fully enjoying our present moments.

We watch a child grow and develop and we have reverence for the process yet we have no tolerance and lack reverence, time or patience for the emotional evolutionary process of growth and development that needs to happen inside of marriages or inside of divorces or our remarriages.

We treat our children like partners and our partners like children.

We ignore our pain, bury it, pretend it doesn’t exist and we hide behind children using them as an excuse on why we can’t move on or worse, we use them like bait on a fishing rod to attract a potential parent for them verses trying to attract a partner for us who will eventually be a good stepparent.

We set our new relationships up to be stressful and chaotic because we didn’t take the time to process our emotions and then we get mad at our new partner for expecting us to be fully present to them.

We expect our new partners to love and accept our children and us unconditionally while we don’t accept and love them unconditionally.

We set the stepparent up by sabotaging their relationship with our children by bending the rules when the stepparent isn’t home or by blatantly coming out and saying, “I don’t mind but your stepmother is on my back.”

We set our children up to feel abandoned and to resent the person who does what we do for our children – by allowing our children to sleep in bed with us at night and then “kicking” them out when an adult comes into the picture.

We blame the “other” parent when our children lie, manipulate or act out on our time with the children. We say the children are doing that because of who the other parent is and oh what a great parent we are.

 We blame the stepparent for pointing out our children’s behaviors and focus on the stepparent instead of focusing on parenting our children 

Women walk around comparing themselves to each other while competing for who’s better, prettier, has a better body, looks younger, makes more money, has a better house. As if a child cares about any of those things. (Who is that really about?)

Men are so confused, not knowing who to listen to, the biological mother or the stepmother. Knowing perfectly well that he’s completely screwed either way, lying to each woman causing more problems for themselves crying, “Women are crazy people!”

We haven’t learned to “play nice” inside of our adult relationships while we tell our children to “play nice” with others. Or, we no longer care about teaching our children how to play nice, we would rather they think of only themselves. We haven’t learned to share the joys of child rearing while we tell our child to share or, we tell our children that they don’t have to share. We haven’t learned to respect each other while we tell children to respect others or, we don’t care if our children respect others and enjoy our children’s ability to be fully self expressed to the point of pure rudeness. We play a lot of ego oriented superficial games and waste our time and life energy on things that do not matter and have absolutely nothing to do with our children.

With all or half of this going on inside of the lives of stepfamilies, it’s easy to see why there is so much stress involved. Most of it has nothing to do with being a parent or having a child. Children are not the problem at all. Most of it has to do with our inability to navigate the issues that belong to us.

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Say “I Do” to Your Stepchildren

Raising kids is tough. Raising kids who are not your own is really challenging. Whether you are a full-time, part-time or twice-a-year, only-on-holidays stepmom, it’s important that you say “I Do” to the kids. Some stepmoms make a ritual out of it by including kids in the wedding ceremony. Some women just commit in their hearts to help raise the kids or to have a positive impact. What you’re doing when you say “I Do” is setting the intention to be present with the kids, to say “yes” to what they have to teach you about yourself, about your partner, and about the world. Saying “I Do” is saying “Yes.” Even when stepparenting is not the most fun job in the world, it can still teach you something. You can get something good out of it. I encourage you to say “Yes.” Say “I Do.”

Be an Empowered Stepmother

What does a strong, successful stepmother look like? What does a stepmother who enjoys her home and her life act like? Is being strong and confident as a stepmother something you can learn? Or do you have to be born one of those really strong people? It sounds like you have to be superwoman!

No, you don’t have to be a superhero in order to be a stepmom who feels comfortable in her own home. The traits of empowered stepmothers are all things you can practice and grow better at doing over time. It’s like learning how to do anything – playing the piano, learning a new piece of software. You learn a little bit every day and you build on what you learned the day before. Then one day you realize the tensions in your home have relaxed and things have begun to feel normal and, dare I say, good. Or you wake up one day and discover that even though your stepdaughter is screaming at you because you won’t let her stay out until 2 a.m. with her friends, you’re still okay. You’re still strong. You’re still you.

Here are ten traits for you to practice:

1. Calm. When you’re in the middle of a tense stepfamily situation, the calmer you can be, the better. If you answer a kid’s hostility with verbal anger, it will add the proverbial fuel to the fire. If you shout back at an ex-wife, what will happen? Practice being calm – calm with your stepkids, the ex, and your partner. If you’re feeling less than calm, you can say to your family, “I need a moment.” You can go into your bedroom until you calm down enough to talk. Then you’ll be able to communicate with your stepfamily more effectively.

2. Flexible. Things change. Such is the way of life. Moms move to other states with the kids. A child acts differently from one day to the next because they are going through puberty. Empowered stepmothers have the ability to be flexible.

One of my greatest challenges with being flexible was, and continues to be, the family calendar. We set our calendar with our other household a year in advance so we can all plan our lives, knowing when we’ll have the kids and when we won’t, but when we get calls to change things at the last minute, it drives me crazy because I have no control over it. I used to write my appointments in pen, but to begin practicing being more flexible, I started using a pencil in my calendar so I wouldn’t get mad every time I opened my calendar and saw scribbled-out dates. I just erased them and penciled in the next date.

If you’re having an issue that absolutely sends you through the roof, what small thing can you do to practice being flexible?

3. Honest. Just how honest can you be with yourself? How in touch with your personal integrity can you be? One woman who is dating a man with two kids ages 12 and 15 described an uncomfortable situation in which she and her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s ex-wife were all in the same room together for the first time. One of the kids was in the room, and when this future stepmom said hello to the ex, the woman looked away and didn’t say anything to her. When she said goodbye, the woman again ignored her.

This future stepmom knew that she could try to catch the woman’s eye and force the woman to acknowledge her, but instead, she said what she had to say to her stepchild and then left the room. This stepmom is a warm, open person and she knew that she had to be honest about her own integrity. She had to say hello and goodbye to this ex because she would do that to anyone. However, she also had to be honest with herself and say, “This woman clearly is not in a place where she can be open to any kind of even merely polite behavior. It’s not my job to push her. It’s my job to maintain integrity.”

But if you had a deep desire to be accepted by everyone and you took this woman’s rebuff personally, it’s easy to see that a situation like this could bring out a scene that would make this stepchild, already caught in the middle, feel even worse. If you’re the type who needs to be liked, can you be honest about your need? Can you be honest about your own weaknesses as well as your strengths? If you can, it’s much easier to witness an ex or a stepchild who is acting out anger or hurt feelings or hostility, and to realize that there’s sometimes nothing you can do but walk your own path and not add to the tensions by reacting to their behavior.

4. Willing To Go Deep. In order to be honest about your motivations, you have to figure out what they are. You have to be willing to explore some painful parts of your own life. You have to be willing to admit your own weaknesses. Sometimes it means seeing a counselor who can act as a mirror for you. And when you have a challenging moment in a stepfamily, use it. Use every dark moment you have as an opportunity to learn something about yourself.

5. Empathetic. One of the most empowering things you can do for yourself is to try to understand what everyone else in your family is going through. Can you imagine what it must be like to be a kid who has to stuff his backpack full of his things and bring it to school on the days that he switches from mom’s house to dad’s house? Can you imagine what it must feel like for that kid to be transplanted every few days? If he forgets something – a library book, a homework folder – at his other house, he feels bad about asking if he can go get it. Can you imagine what it would feel like knowing you can’t say anything about one house to the other because you know, even at ten years old, that your parents will use it against each other?

Consider your spouse. Imagine how you would feel if you had gone through a divorce. Imagine if your own children had to be shuttled back and forth. What if it was your fault that your children were hurting?

The more empathetic you can be, the more you can put yourself in their shoes, the more empowered you will be.

6. Relaxed. Perhaps one of the most useful tools a stepmother has in her quiver is the ability to self-soothe. That means you know how to make yourself feel better. You know how to pat yourself on the back and say, “There, there now. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll get through this.” A stepmother must learn how to take care of herself so that she can be as present as possible in her family.

7. Responsible. It’s amazing what happens once you begin paying attention to your thoughts and emotions. You get to have control over what’s happening inside of you. A stepmom who thinks, “This isn’t fair! I wasn’t the one who decided to have kids!” can consciously allow herself to feel those feelings, express them, get them out on paper or to a best friend, but can then consciously decide what to do next. You have control over what comes out of your mouth. You have control over your actions. The fact is that you are the only one creating your life.

Pay attention to when you use phrases such as “But they don’t let me…” or “It’s not my fault…” or “No one listens to me…” Put aside the victim role and ask yourself what you are doing to escalate the tensions in your home. What is your fault? What can you do to make the situation better? No, you can’t control another human being, your spouse or your stepkids. But you can control your responses to them. You don’t have to sit silently at the dinner table if no one asks you a question throughout the entire meal. You can speak up. You can make a joke. You can tell everyone at the table to say one good thing that happened to them during the week. You don’t have to sit in mute silence. If you do, that is your choice.

8. Confident. It’s challenging to be confident in a situation that can easily make you feel like second best. No matter how well you get along with your stepkids, they will still do things that make you feel like you don’t belong. When my stepchildren come into a room and completely ignore me because their dad is there, it hurts my feelings. When I build up my confidence in myself, in my worth, then it’s easier to look at a situation like this one and do something about it. I say hello and ask them how their day was instead of holding on to that hurt, hugging it close to my chest and using it as something to keep me angry and spiteful.

How would a really confident stepmother handle the situation you’re dealing with? Can you pretend to be her for a while? Eventually, you will be her.

9. Forgiving. Holding a grudge is an easy thing for a stepmother to do. The daily slights can really build into anger that’s hard to let go of. But you don’t want to be a woman who twenty years from now is still mad about the things your stepkids did to you. You don’t want to still resent how much money you spent on them, or all the things you didn’t get to do because of them.

Instead, find creative ways to do the things you want to do, and forgive. Find a way to let go of the anger at the ex or your husband for putting you in this situation in the first place. Scream and get it out, dance to really loud music, write it all down, vent to your friends, and let it go. Please don’t carry that anger with you for the rest of your life.

You’ve also got to practice forgiving yourself. Because let’s face it, you are bound to do things that you aren’t proud of. If you flip your lid in front of the kids about something their mother did or said, you’re going to have to deal with it. You’re going to have to apologize, forgive yourself, and move on.

10. Visionary. Ultimately, it is your ability to get clear about your big vision that will help you weather the ups and downs of stepfamily and married life. What kind of stepmother do you want to be? How do you want to affect those children? What kind of relationship do you want to have with them? This is crucial. If you don’t identify where you want to go, how will you steer your course? How will you get what you want if you don’t work on finding out what you want? Go back again and again to check in with yourself so you can have that vision of what you really want in your head at all times. If you see a scene of your family together playing and having fun, then you can call up that picture in your mind’s eye when things are not perfect.

Practice being an empowered stepmom. You’ll get there. A moment at a time. A day at time. You can do it. So what will you do today?