Posts Tagged ‘impact of divorce on children’

I found this article online and I thought it was very interesting. Although I don’t live with D. anymore and I’m not technically a stepmother, I often reflect on my experience and wonder what I did wrong… this kind of cheered me up The book also seems very interesting and I will look it up.

We’ve all heard the stereotypes: the wicked stepmother, the home wrecker, the stepmother who doesn’t care about bonding with her stepchildren. It turns out that this could not be farther from the truth. As a psychotherapist and stepmother, I know from both personal and professional experience just how difficult stepmotherhood can be. I counsel stepmothers individually, lead monthly support groups for stepmothers and facilitate an online stepmother support group. Without exception, instead of being uncaring and indifferent, all of the stepmothers I’ve worked with have been highly accomplished, lovely, intelligent, and attractive women who embraced the role of stepmother with enthusiasm when they got married. They all had the best intentions to bond with their stepchildren, and to create a loving new family. These stepmothers held onto the hope that the family would “blend” over time and applied the same can-do attitude they took to their jobs and other personal pursuits to their new role. They followed the belief that their behaviors make a difference in the life they lead; if they work hard, they will succeed, perhaps not immediately, but over time.

Their hard work, however, did not yield the desired result. Among a host of problems, some of them failed to bond with their stepchildren, while others could not hold a civil conversation with their husbands about their stepchildren without it deteriorating into a fight. After years of feeling in control of their lives, they now felt an absence of control. And when they expressed their needs and opinions to their husbands and other stepfamily members, many didn’t feel they received the recognition and support they truly needed. Over time, the stress and frustration became too much, and they grew depressed, anxious, and exhausted.

The good news is that there is hope: it is possible to be a happy stepmother. First, stepmothers need to understand that their struggle is not their fault — they have done nothing wrong. Their failures are not a result of any mistakes they have made but are related to the many challenges inherent in the role of stepmother. Part of the process of feeling better is learning the reality about stepfamilies and the variety of challenges that stepfamilies face. For instance, only 20% of stepchildren feel close to their stepmothers. That means 80% of stepmothers struggle to bond with their stepchildren — a staggering majority! Understanding this reality helps stepmothers realize that their problems are common to many other stepmothers. This information is a huge relief for them and helps them to reframe their struggles more objectively, enabling them to let go of feelings of blame and guilt.

Second, stepmothers need to figure out what they can control, what they can’t, and to take actions in the areas where they do have some control. This idea is very similar to the Serenity Prayer used in 10 steps programs. Recognizing what they can control helps restore their mind-set that their behaviors make a difference in their lives. For instance, stepmothers may not be able to control the visitation schedule, but they can control their responsibilities — what they choose to take on and choose for their husband, the biological parent, to handle — when the stepchildren are over. When stepmothers start doing things that they enjoy — make a conscious choice to see friends, take classes or play a sport — they start to feel better. One positive action can make a huge difference in restoring the belief that actions, in fact, do impact one’s overall happiness. The key to happiness is to remember we can keep growing and taking responsible for our own behavior. This reminder really helps stepmothers.

I also encourage stepmothers to reach out to other stepmothers for support and encouragement. According to positive psychology, the single greatest predictor of success during a challenging time isn’t intelligence or past experience but social support. Getting stepmothers to recognize that they are not alone in their struggles is very comforting, and moreover provides them with a tremendous network of wise and experienced women who understand exactly what they are going through. Through social support, stepmothers provide each other with invaluable sympathy, recognition, advice and encouragement.

There may not be anything we can do about the prevailing stereotypes, but there is help available to empower real stepmothers, facing very real problems.

© 2010 Rachelle Katz, Ed.D., LMFT, author of The Happy Stepmother: Stay Sane, Empower Yourself and Thrive in Your New Family

Rachelle Katz, Ed.D, LMFT, writes from a place of both personal experience — she’s been a stepmother for nineteen years — and professional expertise. A psychotherapist with twenty-five years of experience in private practice, since 2004 she has empowered thousands of women through her Web site, www.stepsforstepmothers.com.

I found this great article by Wednesday Martin, author of the really great book Stepmonsters. I went a little extreme in disengaging… I moved out. But to me, there was no other way. I wanted to keep my man but wanted to survive… even live my life! I will try to apply the three rules in the following article and I hope it will be easier by not living together. I now know that nothing regarding his child is my fault. It is not my responsability. I have a responsability towards my daughter and myself and I have to love and cherish my man and support him… not try to fix his life and his life with his son!

Top Concern of Women with Stepkids: His Kids!

Power imbalances in the household (guess who has the power?) are common in stepfamily life. That doesn’t mean we can’t do something about them. 

It seems we have concerns. Big ones. Lots of them. 

No surprise there. Stepmothering is one of the toughest roles around—ambiguous, demanding, depleting, charged, and frequently thankless. You told me about unduly empowered stepchildren, stepkids not getting the love and support from their mom you’d like to see them getting, undermining exes bent on preventing you from developing a relationship with the kids, financial anxieties, fears about your marriage/partnership, loss of identity, feelings of disappointment and even depression. 

Today’s top concern, gleaned from your comments, is problems with his kids. Whether they’re emotionally unhealthy (“spoiled,” “entitled,” “lazy,” “too much power in our household,” “angry,” “not getting the love they need from their mom”), hostile and resentful in the textbook ways, stealing your stuff or even physically violent toward you or your own kids, his kids seem to be The Problem. 

What’s behind all this—and what can you do to feel happy once again, rather than constantly on edge and stressed, fighting with your partner about how the kids of any age behave in general, and behave toward you in particular? First, you’ll have to let go of an idea or two. And the good news is, this can be remarkably freeing. 

Ask yourself, am I living the dream that something I can do will “fix it” with his kids, or that something I have done, some way I am, is what has “broken it” with them? Here’s the truth: Problems with his kids are generally neither attributable to nor fixable by you. It just feels that way. So the first order of business is Let. That. Idea. Go. And feel your sense of responsibility–and your resentment for not being appreciated for your efforts–ebb away. 

Problems you have with his kids are actually most often problems you have with him, problems he has with them, and problems with/courtesy of his ex. Here’s the breakdown of what’s likely making your life hell with his kids of any age right now—and what you can do to make it better: 

1. Loyalty binds. Kids of any age might believe, “If I like my stepmom, I’m betraying my mom.” Mom may be exacerbating this anxiety, even encouraging the kids in their arms-length or outright hostile treatment of you, for reasons that we’ll get to another day. But whether they’re 4 or 54, his kids may well feel that giving you a chance is the ultimate betrayal of Mom. What it means for you: here’s your permission slip–don’t try too hard with a kid in a loyalty bind! You heard it, don’t bend over backwards to ingratiate or please that kid as those efforts will backfire, and only build your resentment. Instead when the kid of any age in a loyalty bind shows up, show him or her that you have your own life, interests and priorities. Odd as it sounds, this makes you seem less threatening, demanding, and hate-able, and it frees him or her up to come to you in their own time and way. Or not. Either way, not knocking yourself out = not feeling rejected and hurt. Which gives you energy to be there as an ally down the line, or simply be civil and kind when they’re around. 

2. Often these kids simply have problems before you even show up. In her Virginia Longitudinal Study, divorce and stepfamily expert E. Mavis Hetherington had mostly good news about our resilience in the face of divorce and remarriage. But she also found that kids of divorce were twice as likely to have serious social and emotional problems as kids in general. Moreover, Hetherington and most experts assert that these issues are attributable to problems and conflict in the previous marriage, not from the divorce per se. Divorce doesn’t “ruin” kids. But all the conflict they experience prior to the divorce may prime them for social and emotional issues—so think of yourself as a bystander to that process, if you will. What it means for you: zero guilt, zero responsibility. When a stepchild has problems, you don’t need to take on any more than feels genuine or realistic to you, no matter what others think you should do. Your obligation is to step back and give the parents a respectful distance in their efforts to help a troubled kid, while you keep the focus on your own life and happiness, and on creating circumstances such that you feel safe and central in your own home when his kids of any age are around. Which brings us to… 

3. Your partner. Poor guy. Or gal. He or she is likely not making your life so difficult on purpose! But post divorce, permissive parenting may become the norm, because dad feels guilty and scared that he’s seeing his kids less so forgets the word “no,” because mom feels overwhelmed by single motherhood and starts letting the discipline go, and/or because smart kids of any age learn to “game the system” and play one parent off the other. And permissive parenting = unduly empowered stepchildren with little sense that others matter. Least of all their father’s wives and their father’s marriages or partnerships. Long story short: problems with his kids = problems between you and your partner. If your stepkids steal from you, coerce you physically or emotionally, or are violent toward you, my advice and the advice of many stepfamily experts is, calmly and firmly request an immediate, temporary moratorium on his kids being in the house until things are sorted out, and then get to a qualified therapist stat, since violence, stealing, and intimidation might reasonably be considered deal breakers in a marriage. 

More often than creating these types problems, a permissive, lax partner and ex in the picture will have raised kids who strikes us as (and may well be) spoiled, entitled, unhelpful around the house, immature, and unable/unwilling to be responsible for themselves and their actions. It also creates a “strict” stepmother in comparison. 

One solution is what we might call and “internal shift.” Ask yourself and your partner: what is the difference between stepchild behaviors that are annoying and those that are dire? Are you stuck in a dynamic where he’s permissive, you criticize, and he becomes defensive of his kids, causing you to ratchet up your criticism even more, so that he’s the defender and you’re “wicked”? Is there a way to instead appreciate and even enjoy the fact that you don’t need to fix your stepchild’s sense that the world owes her? Or his inability to hold down a job? That his or her bad attitude is someone else’s problem? What would it be like to “witness” rather than live or experience viscerally your observations that a stepchild has problems? Your partner may well find this conversation as freeing as you do: he or she may be constantly laboring under the anxiety that you disapprove of his/her parenting and his/her kids. Even if you do, suggesting that you as a couple come up with a way for you to disengage, and actually mapping it out together, could be a game-changer for your marriage or partnership. 

Tomorrow….actual steps you can take to make life with your stepkids of any age easier, alleviate your resentment, and improve your partnership (boy, that sounds easy!) (it’s not, but tomorrow’s steps can really help, promise) 

Tags: blended family, divorce, family, remarriage with children, step mother, stepfamily, stepfamily advice, stepmonster, stepmother, stepmother advice, stepmother support, wednesday martin 

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 11:25 am and is filed under book news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I’m reading the fabulous book Stepmonster right now and I want to beat myself for not reading it before. You see, before Christmas, things were as tough as they had always been in this stepfamily and with my man and I went online and bought 3 stepfamily books. Most of them were interesting but explained stuff like how difficult it was for his child etc. Things I already knew since I was, myself, a stepchild many years ago. I got that. I know how he feels, at least I can relate… we can never really know exactly how someone feels.

But this book! Wow! It is as if she met me, got me to really express how I felt and then wrote about it. Finally someone understood. I was sitting with my parents the other day, trying to explain why I simply wanted to quit and leave. I talked about how Toxic Bio Mom behaved and infiltrated our lives. They listen but did not get outraged. Then I talked about the tension it creates in our home. How I stress and get anxious every day when my man gets home from work. I wonder what else she has in store for us. What will now be changed in our schedule, who’s birthday we can’t go to because she has something else she wants to do. When there is nothing, I breathe a sigh of relief but when there is something, I freak out. I yell, I cry, I want to roll on the floor and throw a tantrum and yell: this is just not fair!

Supper time is the worst when his son is there. Everybody sits and pretends to be a family when it is clear there are two clans in this house. Whatever my daughter does bugs the hell out of my man and everything his son does just gets on my nerves. And then, comes the bomb. A sentence, seemingly innocent, that brings Toxic Bio Mom back into our live. “Daddy, what did you do with mommy today at work”, “Mommy cuts my sandwiches in little parts when she makes a sandwich” etc. All normal stuff. His son wants to make sure we don’t forget his mom. After 7 years of divorce, after his mom remarried and had another child, there is still that hope that his parents will get back together. He won’t actually say it this way but it’s clear. And then comes my showtime. When he ends his sentence, he looks at me. I feel my man, tense next to me and hold his breath and my daughter stares at me intently. Quick, think. What is the best reaction. What do I say, do? Do I smile, do I pretend I didn’t hear it? Am I making a face right now? Are my eyes showing how hurt I am?

IT IS JUST TOO STRESSFUL. My mother’s solution: why don’t you just ignore it. What do you think I am trying to do? She thinks that if I have more hobbies and stuff to do on my own it will get easier. And what? I live in this house, babysit the kids, do the laudry and pick up after them and when they are in bed, I throw myself into work or hobbies? Euhh… isn’t there the word FAMILY in stepfamily? If what I got is a living partner that helps pay the bills, then why would I have to take care of a FAMILY?

We split up. I was ready to move out. I still am in a way. I just can’t take this life anymore. It is litterally killing me. My man’s solution: let’s go back to the beginning. Exactly what my mother says. We go back to being super busy. He goes back to doing everything his ex tells him to and I do things on my own. Then, I guess we will appreciate the time we will spend together, since there will be so little of it. But… where is the family in all this? Where is my support? I just don’t know if it will work. I have so much work to do on myself that I just don’t see how I can say no to this solution. I want to distance myself from Toxic Bio Mom and even from my stepson. I even want distance from my man. I wish I had enough money to go away for a week, a month even. Let them see how much they miss me and need me… or not…

I feel alone… so alone…

Well it seems that after all this effort, everything is coming to an end. My adventures as a stepfamily are over. I need to get out to save myself. I really don’t know how people do it. First getting accustomed to another child that is not yours, then try to help your man get accustumed to yours and finally dealing with a toxic ex-wife who thinks only of herself and nobody else. I just don’ t know who has the strength to go through it all.

I’ve always been a romantic dreamer. I really thought that love could conquer all… but it seems it’s the other way around. It seems love is not that strong after all. Toxic people are stronger. The amount of frustrations and what it has brought out of me is awful. It has made me depressed, angry, resentful and frankly, just someone I don’t want to be. The strong love I had for my man is fading with every dissapointment, argument and struggle. Going through this has not made us stronger, it is tearing us apart.

I fell awful for this man I love and even for his child who I have grown to love and appreciate as well. They will be stuck with Toxic Bio Mom forever. It is awful to see how she treats both of them. How they fear her. I she causes such pain around her. I don’t know if she notices. But I am one less person she will be hurting. Same thing for my daughter. Without being as hurt as I am by Toxic Bio Mom, she is hurt by what it causes. She will be hurt at losing a family she so desperately craved but a family that is impossible to have with Toxic Bio Mom around. She will not let my man go on with his life. No woman is going to put up with this. She made him miserable as his wife and will continue forever.

What is sad is what she makes her son go through. With her, everything is a struggle. The haircut her son asked his dad and me for, she ruined last week. That placed her son smack into a loyalty conflict. He was the one who wanted his hair that way. He hates the haircuts she gives him. But he loves his mom and probably isn’t able to say anything. So instead he gives in. The poor child has one heck of  a life ahead of him. I pity his poor girlfriend and even his children! What an awful grandmother she will be.

Now, you may be thinking that a haircut is not such a big deal. It isn’t. Taken separately, everything can be dealt with. But I have seen her lie, yell, manipulate both her son and my man. They have both learned that there is nothing to do but listen and follow along. My man will be living in this big house by himself. He will go back to a life dictated by her. He will go back to going out with friends when she allows him to and has nothing else in mind for him. He will most probably go back to spending all holidays the way she wants if he wants to see his son. He will go back to taking out the checkbook every time she needs. He is better at not letting all this stuff get to him. He is used to this life. He just basically does what he is told so that she leaves him alone to live whatever kind of life is left.

This is not the life I want. I want a family. I don’t care if it’s a different type of family. I don’t have grand illusions of the typical nuclear family anymore. But with Toxic Bio Mom, it’s just impossible. I feel guilty at letting my man and his son to fend for themselves with this vulture of a person. But if I don’t get out now, I’ll die…  litterally.

I thought this article was just really interesting. It’s a different way of looking at our past and what we experienced with our parents. I am currently trying to sort out a lot of stuff from my childhood, to see how my relationship with my dad and the divorce of my parents affected me. This helps put everything in a whole new perspective. What if all those ordeals made me who I am today. What if that’s not such a bad thing. It may just help easy the pain I suffered and still suffer today…

Choosing Our Parents

There’s a Native American belief that before we are born, we choose our parents. It actually ties in pretty nicely with the reincarnation idea that we prearrange certain circumstances before each life so as to learn different lessons. Either way, our parents teach us so much more than they ever mean to. Through their choices, circumstances, faults, talents and ability to show their love and support, they mold us. If life is a rat race, then our folks determine what we come out of the starting blocks with.

The gifts they give us are so much more than biological. Yeah, there’s the basics of whether or not you go through life as pretty, ugly, or just sort of plain looking. I don’t have to tell you that physical looks, athletic abilities, and general health definitely effect how we go through life. Our parents can decide whether or not we’re deformed or mentally challenged by deciding to create alcohol syndrome or drug addicted babies. And they genetically predispose us to various future challenges, like breast cancer or heart disease. Other than by taking care of our bodies with proper rest and nutrition while growing up, there isn’t a whole lot that they can do about most of the physical characteristics they pass along to us.

Most of us are average, that’s what average means. So most of us inherit average bodies with average talents and average health. So what does it matter who we choose as our parents? For proof, just look at the people who were raised by adopted parents or those who were raised in blended step-families. Their biology isn’t really what comes to mind when we look at the gifts and challenges they received from their ‘folks.’

Our parents – whether biological, adopted, or stepparents – determined what our environment would be while growing up. They chose our financial health, spiritual health, educational health, social health, and mental health. They may have consciously sat down and made the decisions and acted on them, or they may have paid no attention whatsoever to how those things would turn out. Many parents are themselves uneducated or unhealthy in some of these areas and don’t even know that there were other choices to be made. It’s not always intentional, what they chose. Either way, they made choices that determined all of those things for us.

It’s really easy if we had blessed childhoods to give thanks to our parents for making wonderful choices on our behalf. If we believe in that theory that we choose our parents before birth, then we can nod and say, “Yep, I certainly did pick some winners! Sure am glad I picked those two as my parents. They supported me in everything I ever wanted to do and paid for my music lessons and never stopped loving me no matter what!”

But what if you were one of those kids whose childhood sucked? Was your dad an alcoholic? Was your mom the queen of guilt trips? Was your dad the overachiever who pressure
d you to carry on his legacy? Was your mother a gold digger hopping from one wealthy man to the next, never really paying attention to you? Were your folks ignorant and uneducated, not having a clue that you were a bored genius with nobody to talk to? Did they make choices constantly based on themselves instead of their children? Were they artists who got so carried away in the creative process that they’d forget you existed at times? Whatever the story, you get the idea. You may or may not love your folks, but you know that if you had it to do over again you certainly wouldn’t have picked those two people to be in charge of your early years. The last thing you want to hear is that you might have chosen that upbringing for yourself.

Shift gears with me here, for just a minute. Look into yourself and tell me what you are most proud of. Is it your tenacity? Your ability to pick yourself up and carry on no matter what? Your moxie? Your incredible ability to read other people and know just how to reach out and help them? Your artistic ability to create music that sings to the soul of the lonely and uplift them for just a minute? Your incredible work ethic? Your own ability to really be present and in the moment with your own kids? Sit for a moment and look at the incredible strength and amazing traits that you created for yourself despite your parents.

If I had been the spoiled pampered princess I wanted to be, I would never be able to write for you today. It’s because I come from a broken home that I know how important true loving connection is regardless of whether the original two parents are the ones raising you or not. It’s because I was under the impression that I was abandoned that I found out how to be strong and independent and no longer clingy and needy. I wouldn’t have the pride and self assurance that I can overcome anything life throws at me if I had always had the safety net of family to fall back on. Look into your own life. Would you be the amazing person you are today if you had been raised with a silver spoon and ideal parents?

Initially when we begin our healing process, we can identify what particular flavor of ’screwed up’ we are and who’s fault it is that we turned out that way. Continuing on the path of healing, we get to a place where we can forgive those who helped create the mess that we became. Finally, we come to realize what a blessing it was that we got to go through that particular journey and to learn those particular lessons and to gain those particular tools and gifts as a result. Then we can be grateful that we chose the parents we did.

I’m new at this stepfamily stuff and I can’t say I like it. Day to day life has gotten better. The kids get along, the parents get along when it comes to the kids, rules seem to be established for the household. Overall, the routine of day to day life is working. But the first family, the initial family, the sacro-saint family that came before we did, always disrupts everything! There is this need to make sure the first family is happy, is getting along that makes the second family feel left out, pushed aside.

Decisions as insignificant as buying skates for the winter turn into this HUGE thing. Negotiations about who will pay what, where the skates will stay, how the skates will be exchanged weekly, what rules there will be about the skates… Just little decisions take over everything! The first family decides, the second family follows along.

It is especially difficult when you have a child of your own that has nothing to do with this first family. That child always comes in second. And I’m not even going to talk about where the stepmother fits in! WAY WAY WAY LAST! The decisions are first made in the interest of keeping peace between birth mother and birth father, then in the interest of the child who has suffered through this horrible ordeal that is call divorce, then, if there is still room for it, the interest of the other child in the family, the child with no ties to the original family. You would think that my needs and wants would come after that, but they never do.

I’m 32 years old. Something like a birthday should not mean anything to me, right? But I’ve worked hard this year for this so-called family. I work hard and push myself aside so that this new family works and that the orginal family doesn’t fight. You would think something like my birthday could be important? I’m not asking for much. I didn’t want a big party or anything. Just a quiet little supper with the people I love the most and care for the most. A stressfree day where I could be surrounded by people I know love me and people I feel confortable around. But again, the original family comes first. It is the birthday of the son of birth mother. So move aside, temporary worker. The permanent employee has come back to take its post! Move aside replacement family. Move aside the not a mother, not a wife, not a much of anything.

Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a very small castle with her family: her father, the King, her mother, the Queen, and her little prince brother. Their kingdom was not a very big one and the King had to go to work to pay for the castle. While he worked, the Queen took care of both of her children and life was pretty uneventful.

The little princess longed for the attention of her father, but the King was more occupied withhis son the prince. Father and son spent lots of time together, and it was clear that the little prince was more valuable to the King. After all, he would become the next king.

Years flew by and the little princess longed for another kind of life. The King and Queen had begun to fight every single night and soon, the princess had to move to a different castle. She visited the King, but once more, it was clear that her father was more interested with his son the Prince. So, she longed for a prince of her own. Since her family was so dysfunctional, she longed for her own family, full of little princesses and little princes.

Very soon her father introduced her to various evil stepmothers, most of which detested the little princess and made her feel unwelcomed in her own castle. He mother the Queen started dating a knight who turned out to be a pretty nice guy. But even then, it was not enough for the princess to feel like she had a family. She still longed for the day her prince charming would come and sweep her off her feet.

And that moment came when she became an adult. Her prince came and made her heart flutter. She fell madly in love and imagined the great life she had ahead of her. Unfortunately, it was only after the birth of her very first child that she realised she had been deceived. Her prince was not a prince after all, but an evil sorcerer who had disguised himself as a prince.

The princess fled, taking her little princess with her. Thanks to the protection of her fairy godmothers, the evil sorcerer never bothered them again. She nevertheless hid in a little cabin in the forest and worked hard every single day. Gone were the days of dreaming of being a swept off her feet. Gone were the dreams of weddings, a castle full of children and dancing every night with her prince charming. She tended to her garden in order to feed her child, chopped wood and played with her daughter. Life was simple and safe.

But one day she met a knight of her own. He was as kind and as sweet as the man her mother the Queen had met. He too had seen his fairy tale end in a very horrible way. The princess he thought he had married turned out to be an awful witch who only wanted to turn him into one of her slaves. Because he was so strong and courageous, and because he had a pure heart, she did not succeed. He managed to escape but had to make a deal with her. He would give her part of his soul and part of his heart if he was allowed to see his son and be part of his life. The witch accepted the deal and the knight lost that part of his heart and soul forever.

The knight fell in love with the princess, but because of his missing heart part, he would not let himself go to passion. The princess had a brief moment of hope that her fairy tale could come true. That she could be married and have children and have the dream life she so longed for all those years ago. When she saw that the knight could not give her what she wanted, she decided to stay with him anyhow. She decided to build a life with him and figured they could protect and help each other.

The princess worked hard at creating a family, only it had another name now. It was called a stepfamily. Living under the constant threat of the evil witch was not easy, but the strength she had developed and the resilience that came from inside her was enough to survive anything. The knight loved her and she loved him back. They settled in a bigger house in the woods and raised their children together. It was a simple life really, but a good one. But sometimes, when the princess was sleeping, she would dream of giving a big ball in her castle, surrounded by tons of little happy children, and a smiling husband who would kiss the hand where he had placed a shining diamond.

I found this bill of rights for stepmothers on the following website: http://becomingastepmom.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/a-revised-stepmoms-bill-of-rights/

So,here are some things I will try to achieve… not sure how, but I’ll sure try. If I cannot be a mother the way I want to be or a family I long to have, then I’ll at least work with what I have and be the best I can be….

• I will create a rock-solid marriage with my husband so we both feel confident in our commitment to each other and the family. I vow to always make fun together a priority.
• I have the right to be on the parenting team with my husband but I realize that this takes time to develop.
• I understand that stepfamilies are formed out of loss and that the people I’m living with are carrying wounds that will affect them forever.
• I will congratulate myself every day on a job well done. Even on days when I’ve done or said things I’m not proud of, I will be gentle and kind with myself because I am a brave, courageous woman.
• I will work to feel confident and worthy of love.
• I will not look to my stepchildren for validation or self-worth.
• I will protect my heart with healthy boundaries that help me to be a more loving and present wife, stepmother, and human being even if that means making difficult choices.
• I will forgive my husband, the exes in our lives, my stepchildren, and myself for our human-ness.
• I will try to understand what living in our home is like for every member of our family.
• I will create a sanctuary for myself and make self-care a priority so I can recharge my batteries.
• I will choose my battles.
• I understand that control does not equal respect or love.
• I realize that I don’t have any control over what the ex or the ex-in-laws or the kids think or do. The only person I have control over is me.
• I will ask for what I need instead of making people guess what I need to prove their love for me.
• I will find the gifts in being the outsider in a family that formed before I came along.
• I will focus on building relationships instead of on who is right and who is wrong.
• I will take breaks when I’m angry so I can be calm when I discuss issues that affect me but I have little control over.
• I will hold on to the things that remind me of who I am.
• I will plan things to look forward to with my husband and with my family.
• I will remind myself often of the many reasons I decided to be with my husband.
• I will choose hope.
• I will choose love.

I have just finished reading this interesting article on the following website. This is something that I deal with intensely at the moment: grieving the loss of my idea of the perfect little nuclear family. With my man’s decision not to get married or have children, I am at a loss as to what sort of family I really have. I am raising two children. One of them is not my own. Yet I take care and care for him. My own child is not my man’s child and he does the same. But the bond is so different. It is very difficult to identify if this is a family because of all the preconceived ideas I have about what it means to be a family.

Being myself a child of divorce, I should be able to recognize that there are different types of families. Yet, what I always longed for is the typical nuclear family that I never had. Accepting that this is not the family I will have is a difficult process.

http://www.thestepstop.com/2010/01/stepfamilies-are-different.html

The book I am reading right now, Adult Children Of Divorce: How to Overcome the Legacy Of Your Parents` Breakup and Enjoy Love, Trust, and Intimacy, talks about the effect of divorce on children as they become adults. I realise now that the divorce of my parents has had a profound effect on me. I believe that some children cope with divorce better than others. I never coped very well with my parents divorcing. I understood that together they were toxic. There were many nights when I heard them fighting and hid at the top of the stairs to hear what they were saying. I don’t remember feeling surprised when they announced their divorce. I don’t believe I feel sad that my parents are not together. I always understood that they weren’t good together.

I believe what affected me is the fact that their divorce meant my life would be shattered. The moving between houses was awful for me. My brother coped with it remarkably well. It never seemed to bother him. But it bothered me immensely. I felt like I belonged nowhere. As I read this book, I realise that it has affected me in many ways…especially in my relationships with others, with coworkers and most of all in my romantic relationships. 

It has made me distrustful. It has made me insecure. One of the things mentioned in the book was that children of divorce often test the love of their partners. Usually, their partners pass the tests until the tests become impossible to pass. Then they either leave or we leave because they didn’t pass our impossible tests.  That was a shocker. I am always testing my partner’s love.  I am constantly testing him to see if he truly loves me. That is so unhealthy. I realise that it is as if I don’t think I am worthy of someone’s love. As if no one can truly love me.  I do know deep inside that he loves me. He shows me every day by his actions. The stuff I have made him go through this last year would have made anybody run. So why do I keep testing his love? Why do I feel so insecure?

This is truly an issue I need to deal with. I am with a wonderful man. I should just enjoy it. I need to separate the things that I missed out on, because of my parents’ divorce, and this relationship. It is as if I want this relationship to fill in this deep dark empty hole that was left from my relationship with my parents. But, in a sense, it is as if I am pushing him away; protecting myself from never having to trust that someone loves me.

I’m not quite sure what this all means. But I guess that realising what I am doing is a step in the right direction….