Being a stepmom is not an easy task. There are rewards but also deep sadness that comes with the job. I read this a couple of days ago. I don’t know who wrote it, I wish I did so I could give credit where it is due because it is a profound writing. I know about this feeling. This is the reason why I am resolved to talk about the journey of blending a family. This is the reason why teaching and support is so vitally important in the church and why I can’t stay quiet.
I am a StepMom. I am on the front burner, yet I stand in shadow. I am the pseudo mom, the substitute for the one who, for a time, would not be. I am visible, yet invisible. I am looked to for guidance, yet I pass on little to nothing as a result. My values are esteemed, yet in most part, not emulated. I am connected by… feelings of love and by their insistence I be Mom, yet I am disconnected by the harsh reality of biology and loyalty conflicts. I am the foil for all of her failures and I stand forever on shifting sands, always advancing then retreating into the relative safety of ambivalence. I am asked to be what she is not, yet I am never completely acceptable. I am the Shadow mom and this is my reality.
This is an ongoing series on Blended Families. To read the previous post click here.
I’m sure Cinderella loved Lady Tremaine in the beginning. It always starts out with a love fest. I don’t think any stepmother would enter into a relationship with children who hated her. Cinderella, being an only child had to have imagined having two sisters would be a blessing. Lady Tremaine must have felt that one more daughter to love would be wonderful as well. Finally two broken families would become one complete one! Sounds romantic and safe doesn’t it?
If only that were the end of the story, we’d smile and go home bored. We don’t know the middle part of the story but we know it ends very badly. We know we’ve never seen Lady Tremaine smile. Not even once. We know that she has become angry and bitter. Have you ever asked yourself why?
Further we know from Cinderella’s perspective that she feels she is a slave, she gets no love and everyone hates her. This is pretty typical even today. In the story of Hansel and Gretel their dad was a woodcutter. How long must their dad had been out in the woods that their stepmother got fed up, and sent them to the witch’s house?
While these may be fairy tales of our childhood and great Disney animated movies we can learn a lot from them. For example, will the biological parent please stand up? Where are the parents in these scenarios? Where are the grandparents and the support systems that these families need? This is an important key to the entire process.
The honeymoon phase is that dating part of the relationship where everyone is happy to know each other. Only I wonder how much of this is imagination and wishful thinking and how much of this is real? In a dating situation it’s a lot easier to overlook the underlying issues but if we are honest we see the issues, it just that love clouds judgment in this stage.
I know a woman who thought her boyfriend’s kids were out of control and needed some discipline. When she broached the subject with him, he answered, “Of course my kids are out of control, I’m out of control, that’s why you are so good for us, you will bring us balance.” Instead of heeding the warning signals that were being thrown at her she became a Lady Tremaine within a year. The problem was the family clinged to her. They had fun with her, they wanted to be around her and she was flattered enough to overlook her intuition.
Other women I have spoken to say all was well until they got married then the children turned on them. It really wasn’t that the children turned on them, it was that there are such delicate dynamics here. Day to day living is a much different animal than the honeymoon phase.
You must go in with eyes wide open. What are some of the obstacles? What do the biological parents think of this new relationship? In the movie Stepmom, there is a scene where the children are horse-back riding with their mother played by Susan Sarrandon. The children are discussing Isabel their dad’s new love interest, played by Julia Roberts, and they seem to like her. There is a poignant moment in the film where the children see the reaction of their mother and sense that she is not pleased at all. So they tell their mother, “If you want us to hate her we will.” Remember that a child’s first allegiance is always going to be with the bio parent. Even still Hollywood makes endings simple. Real life is not.
One of the healthiest thing a parent can do is give their child permission to love. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case in a divorce situation and so a war ensues where the prisoners of war are the children.
So what are some boundaries to consider discussing before you get married and blend a family? Here are some basic questions to get you started but there are many, many more and it is wise to begin to get a list together.
Will children have their own rooms or will they share?
Who will clean the room?
Are children allowed to play with each other’s things without permission?
If a child visits on weekends, will that child have special exemptions from the everyday household chores of the children who live in the home permanently?
Will the children be allowed to bring their pets from their other family home on visits?
Will the non-biological parent be allowed to discipline the children?
What does discipline look like to you?
What do children’s chores look like to you?
Are you allowed to open each other’s mail?
Are there certain things that are off limits? For example, can children come into your room and get your favorite lipstick, razor, blouse, watch?
How much input, into your new marriage, is allowed to be made by your former spouses?
Is a pet snake an acceptable family pet?
How will holidays be handled?
How much is too much to spend on clothing, video games, Christmas?
You can see how problems can arise quickly and escalate into pitting two camps against each other. Nothing is too petty to discuss at this point. It is no wonder we find Lady Tremaine angry when we meet her. I don’t believe any woman sets out to marry a man with children just to torment them and herself.
Finally, a word of warning, do not put this off or think it’s going to work out on it’s own. It just isn’t. Also beware that if you are compromising your answers to get this marriage started, you will face the consequences later. It is much better to discuss and find out that although you love each other, this will not work, than it is to drag yourself and your family through another divorce.
Finally, if you are already married, it is never too late to sit down calmly, not during a battle, and strategize. You already know what the issues are, now it’s time to lay them on the table and come to reasonable solutions.
This is third installment to read part 2 click here.
From Cinderella’s perspective we get the story that she was made to do all the chores and her only friends were mice. This is pretty much the perspective overall of stepchildren worldwide. While the biological daughters were getting their hair done, poor Cinderella was slaving for this family.
When a couple gets married for the first time, boundaries aren’t really an issue. They are established together and little by little as life unfolds, they discover things about themselves and about each other and boundaries are set and discussed. So it is no wonder that we believe that the same process of the first marriage is exactly how you would begin a second marriage.
Not so at all. A second marriage comes with a whole cast of characters that you didn’t have in a first marriage. A second marriage often has children already in place, it also has ex-spouses, ex-in-laws, friends who are friends with your ex, and well, you get the picture. It is a serious misconception that you come into this marriage as a man and a woman getting ready to begin a life together. You come in as two camps trying to make a life together. It is a much harder proposition to make several people happy, rather than just please two people in love.
Boundaries must be set before the wedding. This is one of the pitfalls I see to second marriages. The boundaries are necessary or there will be a lot of presumptions, miscommunications, hurt feelings, and battles. Think about it. If you live in a house, it has clear land boundaries. Let’s say you have great neighbors. You guys BBQ out in the back yard, if you forget to take the trash out to the curb on trash day, if he notices, he halls it out there for you, you guys like each other. One day your neighbor buys a new RV. Only it doesn’t fit in his carport, but if he removes your fence, he can park it in your yard because you have plenty of room! He neither asks you nor considers that you’d mind at all. He simply does it. You arrive home from work, your dog has run away, because the fence is down, and there is this big RV in your yard. Your neighbor looks shocked! How could you be mad? After all, he’s taken your trash out for years. Suddenly you have problems.
There is a saying that says: Good fences make good neighbors. This applies to second marriages. You are bringing two families together there must be boundaries or there will be battles. Those battles can increase and become a war in no time.
Next week, we’ll discuss what boundaries should be set and some serious questions that need some answers.
I once heard Dr. Laura Schlessinger say love is about 30% of a marriage. Being a romantic I thought surely it was more than that, but when you look at a marriage realistically, you find that Dr. Laura and the song by Patty Smyth are right, “Baby, sometimes love just ain’t enough”. You would think that in a second marriage we’d be a little wiser with our hearts but that really isn’t the case. The heart falls in love the same way it always does and the head needs to be the voice of reason. There are some good reasons to postpone or walk away from a potential partner even when you love them.
Look for the warning signals and listen to your gut. Are either of you too involved with ex’s? Be real here, where there are children involved, there are going to be conversations, I’m talking about being too involved. Does the ex have keys to the place? Are family dinners still taking place and are holidays still spent together? Having you come into the scene might be a really confusing thing to a child whose parent has moved out but everything else looks like a family to them. That will create a war with you and the child and it will not be pretty. Is the ex couple still at war? There are no wars when it’s not personal anymore.
Do you agree with parenting styles? This will be the number 1 debate in a second marriage. Do you agree with his parenting style? Does he agree with yours? Is he constantly in court fighting over custody? Ask yourself, do you want to be a part of that? Are you financially equipped to handle that? Does the amount of money it costs to raise the children going to be an issue for you? Will there be things one set of kids will be able to afford to do, say summer camps or luxury gifts, that the other set of kids will not be afforded the opportunity to do? How will this affect your household? Be honest!
Now look at the blame game. Is his divorce all his ex’s fault? Has he claimed to have no control over his life whatsoever? Did everything just happen to him without his participation? This is the mind of a victim thinker and you walk into this relationship knowing that fact. Then ask yourself if you have accepted your responsibility in the demise of your marriage as well? Are you playing the victim?
Often when we see someone who we feel is a victim we tend to think we can fix it for them. We think we can make it all better and they will love us forever for making it all go away. We neglect to think about what happens to the relationship, and the changes it will go through, once one or both of you become whole again.
A second marriage is different in that it brings on added stresses and realizations. This isn’t just about the usual questions of money, career and how many children you want to have. No, the issues in second marriages are even greater than that. I believe that most often we ignore all the other issues that go with a second marriage and we neglect that we are bringing with us baggage that just doesn’t exist in a first marriage.
In my honest opinion I don’t think anyone should go into a first marriage with someone who is on their second marriage, if there are children involved. It’s way too complicated and best left alone. The heartache I’ve experienced in these situations just are too much to bear.
What happens if you are reading this but you are already married and living out a nightmare? Can it be repaired? The great news is it can. It will require serious work. You’ll both have to get some therapy and go through a lot of self-examination, letting some dreams go, letting some control go and have a lot of patience and grace, as you wade through this. Are you willing to do the work? Are you willing to do some changing? I’m praying that you are.
You probably don’t even know her name. You’ve probably just heard of her reputation. She is the one by whom we are all measured. We take the story on as fact, never wondering if there was a back-story, and as all tales of evil women go, the man is always missing or is the one being fought over.
Her name was Lady Tremaine. It sounds respectable doesn’t it? It sounds like someone you’d want to meet. Lady Tremaine, the name has an air about it, as if, at some point, it was aristocracy.
Only if it was, when we meet her in the story she has nothing relating to aristocracy besides the fact that she gets an invitation to the ball. By now, if you haven’t figured it out I’m talking about Cinderella’s stepmother. Yes, we all know her as evil and mean and angry. She has a name and like most stories of angst, it seems unimportant.
Only we know that there was progress because the Brother’s Grimm wrote a story about a woodcutter’s wife and she didn’t get a name at all, she is merely known as the evil stepmother. Her stepchildren, Hansel and Gretel were given a loaf of bread and sent out to the witch’s house to be eaten. Now that’s an angry woman!
Unfortunately, those are the characters by which we are measured. Stepmother’s have gotten a bad rap for centuries. Now in 2010, the majority of families in America are stepfamilies and even though we are the majority, there still isn’t a lot of help out there for us stepmoms. Further, there is very little help in the church for us.
I believe that those in the church don’t want to contend with the fact that many marriages are broken and in need of help. We don’t want to acknowledge divorce and death and remarriage, or maybe it’s that the church leaders have never experienced these things and therefore aren’t really sure how to handle it. So most of the advice from the church has been from the perspective of a marriage, but not a second marriage and that, my friends, is a completely different ballgame altogether. Only we must handle it, because there simply is too great a need for some resources and help.
I often wondered why God selected me to become a stepmother and a Pastor’s wife? I believe it was because in this place, not only could I experience the heartache of blending a family, but also write some things down to help others and a platform in which to access the church.
These messages are not popular. We prefer our lives to be of the fairy-tale variety, omitting the ugly part and focusing only on the fact that Cinderella lived happily ever-after. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much life experience to realize that it’s not always the plan God has for us. Sometimes, he needs to send someone to walk it out so that they can teach it. He does promise to work it out for us in the end, and the great part is that I sit here as living proof that it does work out, but he never promised that it wouldn’t be painful and life changing. (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28)
So over the course of time, I will unfold these lessons before you and give you strategy to make it work. After all, 75% of second marriages end in divorce before the 5-year mark. The problem is that statistics also show that it takes about 7 years to blend a family or about 1 year for every age of the child. Can you see the dilemma we have? It’s a big one because statistics are saying we are blowing out a marriage just before we get some relief. If we don’t address it, teach on it, and help you stepmoms, then these numbers can’t get better.
This Mother’s Day, I was given a great gift. Casey, my daughter who lives in Los Angeles came home to spend the weekend with me and brought me lots of presents. My husband, bought me the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. The only thing missing was my son, Anthony, who had to work Sunday and couldn’t drive down, but he called first thing in the morning and his girlfriend, Frances, whom we love, came to stand in his place. Steve, who is like my second son, and a man who is like a brother to Anthony, came and gave me a hug in his place.
All of this was perfect already but those of you who read this blog know that as a stepmom, I’ve had some long and hard days blending this family. I’ve stood my ground and loved my children, bio and step and it has finally paid off. I want to share what Lauren, who is 17, and whom I’ve tried to be a mentor and a surrogate mother since she was 9 and her father and I married, wrote in her card to me.
Thanks so much for being my mom. I’m starting to appreciate you more than ever, especially when I see how other girls’ moms are. I realize I’m the one with the greener grass. 🙂 I’m not really sure how to say just how thankful I am for everything you do, and how much you put up with. It makes me so happy to know you consider me one of your own daughters. I can’t say thank you enough. I love you! Lauren
Hang in there stepmoms! Some of you are in the storms right now, and I have that t-shirt, so I know it’s no light thing you are going through. Some of you are struggling to stay in a marriage where it seems you are attacked and vilified because of the kids. Hang in there dear stepmoms, this will pass! If I could hug each of you, I surely would. I understand the loneliness you are feeling and the feeling that no one understands what you are going through but there are more stepfamilies in America than “real” families. Beloved, you are the new normal. I’ve had my battles, I’ve been angry and I’ve felt that I was a bystander in this family, but this letter shows me and YOU that you will make it. Things do turn around and just when you want to get off the roller coaster, things smooth out.
Lauren and I had some serious issues but ultimately I love her, want the best for her, desire for her to fulfill her God-given destiny and whether she recognized that or not, I acted on her behalf as a mom would have. Trust me when I tell you that I know we have some sunny days ahead and I don’t kid myself, we have some dark days ahead too. After all, she’s still a teenager and I’m still standing in the way of her doing as she pleases for a little bit longer. But there’s hope! I have to let you all know that there is hope!
Stay the course, keep praying and keep moving forward in the things you know are right to do!
Well after 8 years of being a stepparent I think I’ve figured out a thing or two and I also think I should be awarded a GIANT crown for my efforts.
All kidding aside, I have learned some valuable lessons and thought I’d share.
1. It’s not personal. You may have to repeat this to yourself several times a day, but the fact is that nothing that another person does is personal. So in my case, my step kids don’t do things to get back at me, they simply don’t do things for whatever reason they have. Anything from ignoring a chore, to ignoring me. It’s not about me, anyone in my role would be the target.
2. They are a family. I had this idea that I was going to come along and enter in and be loved and love and we would all be one big happy family. When that didn’t happen, I became resentful. Guess what? Just as my kids and I were a family, my husband and his children were a family. They had their own dynamics, in other words, they had a way of doing things that whether or not I agreed with, had already been established. My job wasn’t to change their family, it was to learn to adapt within the system of their family, and come up with a workable solution. That meant that if I didn’t want food in the kids room and dad would allow it, I really had no say. Of course when the smell of rotten eggs that had been hidden and forgotten reached the bottom of the stairs, I had a right to complain and my husband had to go on a scavenger hunt to find them. Well, ’nuff said about that as I’m sure you can imagine. 😀
3. Learn boundaries. Just because it was okay to go through dad’s drawers in his bedroom, doesn’t mean that it’s okay to go through mine. Clear cut boundaries had to be set, no matter how ridiculous the bio-parent may think the boundaries are you have a right to them. We had to learn to respect each other’s bondaries.
4. Take a deep breath! Find some time alone, even bio-kids get on your nerves sometimes. It’s not a crime to decide that you are going to go shopping for the day alone. Learn to have YOU time. It can de-stress a situation and it can give you perspective.
5. It’s not a reflection of you. I think as mothers we see our children as a reflection of us. The problem here is that step kids aren’t always. I see my step kids now after 8 years quoting me or I see mannerisms of myself in them but it wasn’t always the case. If they act up or do things out of the character of your family remember that it’s not on you. You are a mentor. You were called to be a solid godly mentor.
Finally, pray, pray, pray and then pray some more. The fact of the matter is that blending a family is not for wimps. You will have challenges, you all will say things you don’t mean from time to time, and forgiveness will be a daily ordeal, but you can and will get through it.
After 8 years, I love my step kids. They aren’t perfect, neither am I. We have learned to dwell in love and peace. Of course we have our moments, everyone does. When you take the ultimate responsibility off your shoulders, and put them squarely on the shoulders they belong on, the bio parent, you will find you aren’t feeling so trapped and resentful anymore.
Click here to read a very good article about a child’s perspective on stepmothers. Here’s an excerpt:
Everyone’s heard of stepmonsters: those evil second, third (forth?) wives who cruelly shuffle stepkids off to the sidelines and compete for their dad’s attention. This isn’t about them. I’m talking about stepmoms in crisis who are really trying to make it work. They all wonder why, after knocking themselves out for their 21st century Brady Bunch, they still end up with stepkids who treat them like they are auditioning for The Little Rascals Reality Show. On top of that disrespectful drama, toss in an already frustrated stepmom overhearing the little darlings bandy about the dreaded stepmonster jab one too many times – and snap. Off goes the wedding band, pop goes the Xanax, and out come the tears.
Pastor Susan 