If only my man, his ex and everybody around me could be as supportive as this article… things would not be over…

Protecting The Stepmother’s Mental Health

There are over 19 million people walking around depressed today, in America.  A large number of those depressed 19 million people are  mothers.  Many experts and society as a whole, acknowledge the fact that moms are the glue that holds the family together, and are often overworked and overextended. As a matter of fact, they sell t-shirts with a quote that says, “If mama ain’t happy, then nobody’s happy.” Television experts like Dr. Phil and Supernanny, Jo Frost, often encourage moms to take some time for themselves, learn to say NO (without guilt) and not feel bad for occasionally having feelings of dislike toward their children. They express that it’s just the resentment of being pulled in so many different directions that causes those types of feelings, and as a mom you need to set some boundaries in order to have balance. We’ve all heard this before, right moms?

That being said, as I stated in my Super Stepmom Syndrome article, what we don’t see a lot of is the same support for stepmothers. Historically, stepmothers have just been expected to accept any and everything because they chose to marry a man with children, and therefore chose to marry his kids and his ex-wife. It’s something that they shouldn’t complain about and realize that it’s not about them, but the kids who are torn apart by divorce.  We’ve all heard this before, right stepmoms? My question is then why shouldn’t mom be expected to just suck it up? After all, she chose to have children in the first place and it’s supposed to be about the kids, right? Why does she get to complain and then receive sympathy with kids that she chose to create, but stepmom has to just suck it up with kids who are not her own?

According to Linda Nielsen, a professor of psychology and women’s studies at Wake Forest University, stepmothers feel more stress than stepfathers and are overall the most stressed member of the stepfamily. In her research she indicates that 4 factors contribute to this stress: (1) our society’s attitudes about step/mothers and motherhood; (2) the mother’s and stepmother’s personalities, attitudes and circumstances; (3) the father’s attitudes and his relationship with the mother; and (4) the stepchildren’s gender and mental health.

As I stated above, stepmothers are expected to just accept everything without expressing themselves and are often told that they are evil and wicked if they do lose a grip every now and then. They are often battling an intrusive ex-wife as research indicates that ex-wives remain bitter for longer (years after) the divorce and are in fact the most intrusive. Their husband is still dealing with his guilt over the divorce and is often times an overcompensating, disney land dad and refuses to set healthy boundaries for his children and/or his ex-wife. Finally, age and gender definitely play a role in the step-parent/stepchild relationships in the stepfamily. For example, studies show that the stepmother/stepdaughter relationship is the most problematic relationship in the stepfamily, and can contribute to the dissolution of the remarriage and family if not handled properly.

All of the above mentioned and more, as you can imagine, creates a significant amount of stress for the stepmother and has enormous potential to send them to a downward spiral of depression. Being expected to please everyone without being able to express how you feel is an unrealistic and totally unfair expectation to place on ANYONE! Stepmothers need to have their role acknowledged and supported if we are to work at decreasing the alarming rate of second divorces in America. She can’t be expected to walk on eggshells, especially in her own home, just to pacify everyone else.  It will only leave her feeling totally isolated, resentful and depressed, just like those mothers that I mentioned above. The stepmother needs support, too; support from her husband; support from her friends and family and support from society as a whole!

I realize that everyone in the stepfamily has their challenges and own crosses to bear; however, the stepmother receives less support and understanding than ANYONE in the stepfamily and that just has to change.  Everyone else is allowed to act out and freely express themselves without judgment, because society has more sympathy for them, and historically, stepmoms have been deemed as wicked. We sympathize with dad because he doesn’t get to see his children as often. We sympathize with the kids because they’ve just experienced the loss of their family. We sympathize with ex-wife because she is just trying to “protect” her children.  We then we dump all of those emotions, responsibility and aftermath of a divorce that she didn’t create, mind you, on the stepmother and say, “now you deal with it and you better do it all with a smile. There’s no wonder that so many stepmoms are reaching for antidepressants and anxiety medication. And we wonder why so many are just angry all the time.

Hopefully, with stepmoms like Wednesday Martin, author of Stepmonster, and myself included,  speaking out and encouraging other stepmothers to do the same, things will slowly but surely begin to change. Stepmothers should feel free to say NO, just as we encourage mothers to do, without guilt or fear of being labeled as wicked. It must be understood that these women feel overwhelmed as well. It must be understood that unrealistic demands should not be placed on them. It must be understood, by husbands, that they need YOU to step up and be the partner that they married. It must be understood that these are women with feelings, and although they may not have directly experienced the divorce with you, they often times have to deal with the aftermath, and they need some support and understanding, too! They deserve to have a voice and a right to be heard in the stepfamily.

Stepmothers, I am once again encouraging you to aim for balance in your stepfamily life. You do not have to be everything to everyone, heal everyone’s pain and/or be everyone’s punching bag in order to be a good stepmother. You shouldn’t be expected or allow yourself to sacrifice your own mental health for the sake of everyone else’s. Below are ways in which you can protect your sanity and still be a good stepmother.

1. Learn to say NO! If it’s your husband’s weekend to have his kids, but you both know he’s going to be at work all weekend, it’s okay to express that you need a break and would like for your husband to choose another weekend. His ex-wife should understand that the primary reason for establishing visitation is so that they kids can spend time with their dad and not you. You are not bound by the visitation order, so if you need a moment, request it and then take it – WITHOUT GUILT!
2. Create a co-parenting plan with your husband regarding household rules and consequences, which you both agree on, and then stick to it. Children shouldn’t be allowed to use the divorce as a lifelong crutch. Allowing them to avoid rules and responsibility because YOU feel guilty as a parent is not parenting and only creates more problems for the child and the stepfamily.  Co-parenting plans help avoid conflict with the kids and your husband regarding discipline, and help you and your spouse create and present a more unified front. It also helps to re-create some normalcy in their lives again.
3. Constantly work on building and maintaining couple strength. Schedule date nights with your husband. Marriage is work and you have to work hard at remaining connected, especially in the stepfamily. During these times, make it a rule that you will not discuss ex-spouses, kids, stepkids or drama. Date night is a DRAMA FREE ZONE!
4. Learn to let some things go. Remember that you don’t have to be involved in every single aspect of your stepchildren’s lives.  For example, it’s okay to let mom and dad attend the parent teacher conference. It really isn’t necessary for you to be there. Instead of seeing it as some sort of slap in the face because you help with homework, too, use this time to either have some alone time with your own children or get your nails done, if you don’t have any children of your own.
5. Accept the fact that you don’t need to be perfect. You’ll be surprised at how relieved you feel when you have more realistic expectations of yourself than what is imposed on you by public opinion.
6. Realize and accept that you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PLEASE EVERYONE! Your primary focus should be on your immediate family. No matter what some say, you did not marry your husband, his kids AND his ex-wife, and suggesting this is only implying that it is your job to keep them ALL happy – NOT. You married your husband and you are the ones who have to build a solid team in order to raise your children and live happily ever after. If ex-wife doesn’t like it – TOUGH. There are two people in our marriage, not three or four. I’ve never seen a husband, wife and ex-wife rocking on their front porch when they are 80 years old. Ex-spouses are co-parenting partners, but they are not and shouldn’t be allowed to be participants in your marriage.
7. Finally, if you feel you are depressed seek the help of a medical doctor and then call a stepfamily counselor to help get you back on track to getting some balance back in your life again. It’s okay to ask for help!

My mother always told me that how you start out in any relationship is often times how you’ll end up. If you allow someone to walk all over you from the very beginning then that will be their expectation of you. She has always encouraged me to set my own boundaries and expectations of myself and others. So stepmothers, don’t start off allowing your husband, his kids or the ex-wife to think that you are going to be their punching bag. Setting boundaries for yourself and others is not wicked. As a matter of fact, it’s encouraged and expected in order for everyone to have some sort of peace of mind. And if an ex-wife or a husband has a problem with it, they are the ones who need to be examined, not you! The stepfamily can work and thrive, but the adults have to first have the same goal and be supported in their roles, even the stepmother.

Today is my birthday but I really see nothing to celebrate. I feel right now, as if my whole life is a failure. The family I always wanted to have does not exist, my relationship is unsatisfaying to say the least and career wise… ouf, let’s not even talk about it. I’m 32 years old. To many that seems like I have a lot of years ahead of me, but I don’t know if it’s the depression talking but I see those 32 years as wasted. Years learning lessons if we want to see it in a positive light but with all these life lessons, you would think my life would feel a little bit more fulfilling.

Sorry, depressing a bit today but that’s how I feel. Nostalgic of how life could have been. Depressed with how much work is needed to make it better… I just can’t wait for this day to be over so I can go on with my boring, daily routines. When I’m doing laudry or cooking supper, I at least feel like I serve a purpose in this life. Today, if I try to look at my life, I see nothing good…

As I try to figure out how to rebuild my life I have come to a realisation. I’m exhausted because I keep trying to teach others to change. I keep hoping and wishing that others will get it, that they will treat me the way I want to be treated. It never happens and that creates resentment, pain and sadness. As read more and more books and keep on with my therapy and I have realised that this method has never worked for me. I have therefore set two new goals for myself:

I will stop doing things for others, hoping to get recognition or appreciation. I will evaluate the things I do and ask myself if Iwant to this for the other person because it makes me happy or because I feel like I need to. This sense of obligation just makes me resentful when it is not recognized or appreciated. This one will not be an easy one to apply because saying no is difficult. I like helping others and most of the time, it makes me feel happy to do it. But if my actions stem from some kind of feeling of obligation, if I feel like I have no choice, if guilt or fear of hurting the other person by saying no is what drives me, it will only create resentment. I’m happy to help a friend move, I’m happy to do the laundry for my family because I love them. I don’t feel resentful and I don’ t get angry for doing it. It does not create a buildup of resentment that will later on explode. But I will learn to say no. I will not put my life aside and make myself miserable just because I want to please others… alright, I know, easier said than done. But it’s a start!

I will teach others how to treat me. I have, for too long reacted in the same way. I get angry, voice my emotions, hurt the people around me when my tyrade, but in the end, I give up and do what people want. I have therefore taught people that it is most of the time, scary to ask me something but that if they wait it out, I’ll give in. This of course are for things that have an impact on me. I’m not talking about asking for a glass of water here! It is asking for a sacrifice, for me to put something I love or like aside for the benefit of somebody else. This is the way I fight with my man as well. It does not lead to a compromise, it leads to him being afraid to talk to me and me feeling like crap after blowing up and giving in. Then comes the resentment because I feel cheated even though I’m the one who gave in and the next time I am asked something, it blows up. I will therefore respect myself. I’ll take a time out when something is requested and see how I feel about it. I will decide of an option that is best for me and I will trust that my man loves me enough to either find a compromise that fits both his needs and mine or will respect how I feel. I will also trust that he will still love me, even though I am not doing exactly what he wants.

All of this is not as clear as I would like it to be. But basically it means respecting myself so that I teach others to respect me. I have to start somewhere and the only person I can really work on is myself!

I’m trying to see the good side of life. I’m trying to see that life is worthwhile. That I’m a lucky person because I’m breathing, I have enough to eat and drink and I have people around me who love me.

What is most difficult is to let go of illusions. Accepting life the way it is. Accepting that your life is not so bad. Appreciate what you have and not long for what you don’t have.

Like they say: when you are handed lemons, make lemonade.

I just hope that we get used to the bitter taste of lemonade made with just water and lemons… cause without sugar…

I’m about to leave for my second therapy session. I have tried many therapists before and nothing has ever worked for me. But after spending months at home trying to figure out what is wrong with me, how I’m functionning, I think I finally have a better idea of what I need to work on. Before, going to a therapists was just a really expensive way to vent my frustrations. I could have done that with friends or family for free! Now I see that it can be different.

There are many different types of therapy as well, which I didn’t know about. I have read a little about that and found the type of therapy that I felt the most at ease with. I don’t know that this will actually make a difference, but at least this time I feel like I took control of my therapy, that I’m not just waiting for a miracle to happen.

Here are the different types of therapies I have read about… if it can help anyone out there

http://mcgraw-hill.co.uk/openup/approach/

I’m at a point in my life where I need to rethink everything. As a young woman, I had dreams, like everybody else. To me, life was simple. I grew up never feeling like I really had a home or a family. It hurts my mother deeply when I say this. She worked as hard as she could to create a home for us. But to me it wasn’t enough. She met a wonderful man and he filled in a place my dad never wanted to fill. But he wasn’t my dad. The one who was supposed to love me unconditionnally did not. I spent my whole teenage life longing for something else. For a family of my own. I knew I would love my kids unconditionally. I wanted to find a dad that would love them just the same. I wanted to find a man who would never leave, me or his kids.  Career wise, I did not care about fame and fortune. I wanted to find a fulfilling job. One that would give me enough money to live and enough time to devote to my family.

Things just didn’t turn out this way. I was blinded by wanting this family, so much so that I forgot to choose carefully. I recreated for my daughter a situation just as bad as the one I went through. Her dad took off when I was pregnant.  She feels left out, just like I did … and still do. I tried, like my mother did, to make up for this. I tried to be extremely present. But it wasn’t it. I had nobody to share the joy and the pain with. I was surviving. Struggling. I found a job that was exactly what I had planned. It gave me enough money to put food on the table and enough time to be present. But that’s all I had. No one loved me and my daughter enough… something was missing.

This time, I found a man who embodies everything that I should have looked for in the first place. But I’m just too late. The dream I had of a family, he has had already. Even though his family is broken, it satisfies him. It’s not what he is looking for anymore. The sadness I feel right now is immense. I feel lost. Completely and uterly lost. I will never be the type of mother and wife I wanted to be. I would need to focus on a career that fulfills me, but I just don’t care about that. I don’t want to value myself by how much money I make . I don’t want to wait for a boss to tell me I’m doing a good job. I want to feel it every day because my daughter is happy. Because my husband comes home every day. Because my newborn baby looks up at me and needs me.

I was heartbroken when everything fell apart with my ex. But never as much as I am right now. I still had hopes back then. I still thought that a family was possible. I know that what I have is a sort of family. But it will never be it. When my daughter graduates from universtity, I will be the only one with that immense sense of pride.  Yes, my man will feel happy for her, but never the way he will feel when his own son will graduate. We will both be grandparents, but separately. He will share his joys with his ex, the mother of his child. The one he lived the birth of his son with. They will share this feeling. They will know exactly how the other person feels. I will never have that. My daughter will never have real sibblings. She will never share that bond with anybody else. His son will, he already has a brother, a real one.

I know I should not place those barriers. Stepfamilies work out all the time. To my man, his failure came at the end of his marriage. Mine is happening every day. I will never get my second chance. It is just too late. My life will consist of doing my best for my daughter and being the best stepmom I can be. To love my man as much as I can. But I will never be content. Every day is just another day.  I don’t look forward to anything. I just live because I’m still breathing….

This entry really made me think. When do I actually know I’ve recovered and what does it mean exactl? I’ve been struggling with depression for a few months now and things are looking up, but I don’t know if I’ve recovered. I really don’t know what it means and when I’ll know it’s over. I’ve started thinking that maybe recovery is not something I should look for but rather, depression is part of who I am and that trying to have a better life is more of a life mission than a cure.

From Depression Through Recovery to Life as Creative Experience

I think of recovery as a slow process of change that aims at replacing depression with a new responsiveness to life. A key part of it for me has been deciding that I would not think of myself as always in recovery. Recovery would be the method for getting back to life. As Mary Parker Follett put it, the essence of life is creative experience – the constant interplay between the best we can put into life and all that it gives back to enrich who we are. I couldn’t imagine getting to that point if I thought of recovery as it’s defined in the prevailing medical model.

According to this model, a condition like major depression continues through life, though possibly “in remission.” Recovery means reducing the impact of the illness on daily living through ongoing treatment using medication and therapy. For me that would mean living the rest of my life with major depression, but its symptoms would be managed effectively. As I’ve written before, this sort of recovery is not for me. It’s a way of crippling expectations about my life – much the way depression itself does.

Perpetual recovery is not my goal, but recovery is nevertheless an essential step in restarting life.

I think of the process I’ve been through in terms of three separate types of awareness: the deadly stillness of depression, the reawakening of recovery and the creative experience of life itself.

Read more: http://www.storiedmind.com/2009/12/12/depression-recovery-life/comment-page-1/#comment-7069

I’m actually feeling happy today. I can actually look at things positively. I am looking foward to some things and I see a real change, something concrete.

I have set objectives for myself for work. I don’t know whether it will actually work but having a plan actually helps! My relationship is better. Granted, it has only been a week since our last fight but things seem really different now. My daughter seems happier and I can see a bit of light at the end of all this darkness.

I am working really hard at controlling my emotions and not letting them control me. I still feel sad, angry and hurt but I try to calm down and express them properly. I don’t think I’ll be able to do this all the time but at least I am trying.

So I have set a few objectives for myself:

1) Find a job that satisfies me

2) Have a healthy and happy relationship with my man

3) Have a healthy and happy family (I still have to work out my definition of family but…)

4) Be debt free by next year and not live off credit cards again!

5) Do things that make me happy!

Seems like a lot but I simply want to reach these objectives one day. I have my whole life to reach them!

I haven’t been able to write for the last couple of days. Any topic just depresses me. Everything seems so difficult. I’m wondering right now, how much can one person take. I see and hear about people who have gone through really, truly horrific things in their lives and they seem to be able to get over it. In my case, nothing horrific is going on but just a series of little crappy events that bring me down every time.

Finances, kids, family, relationship troubles… it just never seems to end. I feel as though my entire body is on automatic pilot. Still functionning but no one know how it’s even possible. It’s like the power is off but the tv is still on and nobody can figure it out. My life is like a series of failures, one after another and no matter how hard I try, everything comes back to a failure. Once one issue seems to be better, something else shows up and I just can’t deal with it. I don’t know how to get out of this. I don’t know how to make anything better. I don’t know where to start. I just keep on going for the sake of my daughter.

Right now my days are mostly sleep. For so long I have been unable to find sleep and now that I can, I seem to sleep all the time. It’s as if I want to sleep long enough for the days to go by. I want to my days to have the least hours possible. This way nothing new can fall on my head. Nothing else will be able to happen in that short amount of time. Yet, it still does.

Nothing I do is good enough for anyone. I work my but off but the bank thinks I’m not good enough. I bust my butt at home to make sure everybody has what they need, that our home is welcoming, that everybody feels taken care of and it’s still not enough… nothing I do is ever enough. Yet I keep on doing all of that. I just don’t know how to keep going anymore. This situation is not killing me, it has killed me. It has killed my spirit. I don’t even know how or what I am anymore. I don’t know how to go on…

Queen Victoria was reported to suffer from depression for over 40 years after the death of her husband Prince Albert.

Winston Churchill suffered from bouts of depression and was extremely sensitive to stress.

Edgar Allan Poe suffered from bipolar depression. So was Vincent Van Gogh.

Sylvia Plath also suffered a major depression in her life.