healthy stepmother

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Photographs

The wallet photo. The mantel portrait. Senior pictures on the picture rail. Snapshots under fridge magnets, all in a jumble. Digital frame, ever framing.

Years pass, decades pass. Piles of photographs. My life. My parents’ life. My siblings, their life. My stepchildren, life. Great grandmother, ancestral life. There, all there, in the photographs.

Back when my husband’s children where younger, we took the boat, three kids, and one small dog to Yale Lake in Southwestern Washington. The kids, despite being good swimmers, wore life jackets. The dog, never in the water as far as we knew, wore one too. After the initial thrill of tubing, my husband cut the engine and we floated while we traded places on the tube.

Into the quiet moment, the boys called for the dog. 

Without hesitating, the dog leaped. Almost immediately, she popped up in the cold water with what could only be described as a surprised expression. She paddled ferociously toward the boys with all the power her small feet could muster. The eldest, lounging in the boat waiting her turn to ski was also a certified life guard. She threw off her towel and jumped in after the dog, just in case.

In moments, the dog reached the boys and they pulled her up on the tube before any of us had time to worry.

Lucy, the wonder dog.

All that, captured in photographs. All that, now digitized. A moment of unity. Five humans pulling for the same thing: one little dog getting to a safe place.

You never know how much you’ll want an image, sometimes only years later.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Place
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Place

When I think of place, I can’t help but think of the song, Home on the Range.

Home, home on the range,
Where the deer and the antelope play.
Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word,
And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Isn’t that what we’re all looking for? Home. A place. A nest. A bed.

We’e especially hoping for the part about no discouraging word. 

When we move in with our beloved and his children we bring our things, we put clean sheets on the bed, we try to settle into the obvious space.

Less obvious is the settling we must do inside that place in the heart, the heart inside our chest, not the heart inside the beloved’s chest. The heart that houses the deepest place of our belonging. Before we will fit in any other place, we must have belonging inside the self.

In the beginning, an invitation is extended, to enter into the home of the beloved. Consider that invitation and whether space was made for you, separate from whether you feel you have a place. Was there space vacated to make room for you?

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Lucy has a place and she knows how to settle within it. 

Then, the invitation is accepted. Consider the acceptance. Did you fully accept the invitation or secretly leave strings attached like a lifeline back to some other time, just in case this one doesn’t work out. When you’ve severed old lifelines, only then will the settling and adjusting to your new circumstances have begun.

Finding place is easy. Settling into place and heart can take years.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Peace
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Peace

Where is the peace? Show me the peace.

I’m looking, always looking for peace. Finding ways to make things easier, better, smoother, less complicated, more obvious. All for peace.

Full of that desire and motivation, I took my husband’s hand and entered into my stepfamily.

Squish.

The sound of peace under the boot heels of the past, the familiar past up against the cold and unknown future.

img_5902One day, I came face-to-face with an image of peace. As if I was expecting some grandmother rocking by the fire and telling stories while she handed out cookies. I can count the people I know who live that way, on less than one hand. 

These days, I can show you bits and pieces of peace.

I’m building a new image of peace as I go.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . Reflects on Anniversaries
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Reflects on Anniversaries

Happy Anniversary! My friend exclaimed as she got in her car to leave our lunch date. My husband and I had celebrated our tenth anniversary as a remarried couple over the weekend and my friend has been a staunch supporter of ours.

Happy Anniversary! The card arrived from my in-laws and my husband’s sister. They have been strong supporters of our marriage, opening the family circle to make space from the very first time they met me.

Friends and extended family, the ones intimate enough to know us, all congratulated us on our milestone, a decade. A decade is nothing in the life of my women’s circle. I’m the only one who’s been divorced and remarried. The rest of them have been married nearly forty years and counting.

When I say a decade is like thirty years in a remarriage, some of you know what I mean. You know there has been a lot of water under the bridge. You know the adjustments and integrations taking place. You know.

Ironically, our celebration is the anniversary of the death of the marriage my husband was in before me.

“For the child, the parents are always together.” Suzi Tucker, Constellations Facilitator, said these words as we worked through one woman’s story.

img_1243“Amen.” I said it to myself as I stood in the place of one of the woman’s children. I know this to be true from my own experience as a child and from my experience married to a man with children.

In the early years of my remarriage, it was difficult to respect a child’s perspective while so many emotions churned and the past loomed larger than the future. These days, now ten years into the married part, it feels less foreign.

“For the child, the parents are always together.” It makes more sense now that there have been more memories laid down that support a sense of community. The funny thing is, you can’t create those memories or supports immediately. It really does take time, years in fact. Seven to twelve years according to the experts.

And, that’s what settles my heart. No one is expected to get it right the first try. No one is to know what a child needs until that person knows and understands the child in a deeper way than one or two years brings. And no child is expected to know how to handle a new person in his or her life. There’s an evolution to relationships. There’s a developmental process to relationships.

For me, the evolution was in the letting go of every single expectation I had carried over the threshold with me. For me, it was in the letting myself off the hook for not being some superhero. Maybe that’s the title of a stepmother book, “No Superheroes Needed.”

Because there’s nothing to be saved.

I do mean that literally. No one needs saving. Sure, some people in the extended stepfamily might be misbehaving. Some of them might be misbehaving a lot. Still, in those chaotic and crazy moments when it seems the world has ended, you are an idea person, you are a problem-solver, and you are your spouse’s deepest support. But it isn’t yours to go wading into the fray and set the boundaries or fight the fires. You can do that together with your partner, but it isn’t yours to lead the way or make the definitions of what will be best for children that aren’t your own.

That’s the harsh part. That’s the part that makes us feel vulnerable. That’s the point where we want to stomp our foot and shake a fist to express our frustration with our disenfranchisement. It’s the part that makes us get on our high horse which isn’t the same as taking the high road.

There are no simple answers. There are no easy solutions. Some of us have husbands and partners who are not as good at solving these problems or at even acknowledging they exist. Some of us have partners who would rather bury their head in the sand and watch a child struggle than deal with an ex-spouse. And, some of us have husbands who do a great job of boundary setting and take care of the emotional work with their children and ex-partner. So many differences within families and no easy answers.

I hope you make it to the happy anniversary stage. I hope you wade and slog your way through those days that make you want to stay in bed. I hope the many edges of your self haven’t been chipped away so that you no longer recognize yourself. I hope you come out on the other side of that swamp with your heart intact and your marriage stronger.

I hope you find ways to soothe your feelings so you can take on less and less of the goings ons as a personal affront to you. This family was going to survive, or not, before you came along.

I hope you realize your priority is your relationship to that person to whom you said “I do.” 

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Gets Up Each Morning

Some days I wonder how we survive. Not to be melodramatic, but this business of getting up and getting kids off to school and greeting them when they come home and feeding them and educating them and getting them to the place of being able to go out into the world on their own in this day and age, this is emotionally challenging at best.

When this scenario plays out in a stepfamily, it’s nothing short of a miracle.

I wonder how fathers go to bed at night without an aching heart, I wonder how they hold an arm around the one who isn’t the mother of the children, seeing her pain and feeling her pain.

I can guess many a father would like to escape memories of the argument with the children’s mother. I know many a father who pushes those emotions down day after day to deal with Little League and driving lessons. I know many a father who is there, who shows up no matter what the children need.

I’ve heard from women who marry men with children with full knowledge remarriage is difficult at best. These same prepared, successful women are then knocked to their knees by the tidal wave of unbelonging. The wave is so high and so powerful, few stepmothers escape it regardless of background and family history. It’s a wonder more don’t run, it’s a wonder so many stay. Many a stepmother’s courage should be the subject of legend. 

Maybe you’re like me and you’ve spent many hours considering what it takes to be in this remarriage stewpot? You’ve wondered just what could be done to improve the situation because you intuitively know if the situation were better for fathers and stepmothers the situation would be better for the children and likely even the children’s mother. You’ve marveled at the strength of those who only have one strategy, the strategy of pushing out and pushing away.

Those stepmothers who stay in their remarriages have found a way to keep living in their skin, a way to stay rooted to their own experience and not be sucked into another person’s view of them. They have developed an ability to let things bounce off and fall away. They stay deeply connected to their resilience, that ability to not be sunk by any one event or even a whole bunch of events. They know how to stay afloat.

Ask a stepmother what she’s doing. Keeping the faith, or trying to do so. Focusing on her relationship with her partner/husband, or intending to do so. Feeling like a good person but not so much she feels like a slave, or hoping to do so. Because several things are true, she is not the mother. She is not responsible to replace the mother especially since the mother is likely alive and well. Even if she is the custodial stepmother, the marriage will be more successful if she isn’t automatically conscripted for a certain role in the child’s life. She should discuss this in-depth with her beloved and ease her way in rather than get sucked underwater. She knows that and sometimes she lets it slide when they don’t get around to the conversation. She might regret it later and even blame him for not taking the initiative.

She gets up and tries her best. Sometimes her best is too much and she can’t know that until it’s too late. Sometimes she gives and gives and leaves herself open. Sometimes she goes out on that limb and ends up falling or being pushed off.

Often she regrets giving too much.

Often she is exhausted. Often she can see her husband is exhausted.

Some days she wonders how she survives.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . Liberally Applies Time Outs, For Herself 
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Liberally Applies Time Outs, For Herself 

Recently, a friend of mine sent a text to me and another friend. Her parents were arriving for a week’s long visit and she was worried about repeating the same old habits that weren’t comfortable for her or her family. She said, any ideas you have for me to focus and keep a level head much appreciated.

Immediately, I shared with her all the secrets I’ve shared with you, my stepmother kindreds. Take time for yourself. Go to the bathroom. Often. Use the time behind that locked door to breath and settle into your body. Walk the dog. Watch a movie with the kids/parents. Participate in activities that involve parallel play, otherwise known as side by side activities. Not having to look one another in the eye is a blessing in many circumstances, no matter which relationship feels difficult.

Later, she told us the most useful suggestion was to take a time out when things were spinning into uncomfortable territory. She had. She mentioned that her mother had needed a time out, more than once. And, she reported matter-of-factly, she took the time outs for her mother.

IMG_5871-2When I heard that, I grinned. How perfect. When someone else is misbehaving in the relationship, if they won’t calm down and discuss, or change the topic, or find a way to manage and move forward, then you take yourself away, for five minutes, or fifteen minutes, or an hour. Repeat, as necessary.

So, over the next two weeks when you’re in close quarters with family and high on the expectation roller coaster, consider taking a time out. Whether it’s your own or someone else’s behavior, it is possible to interrupt the negative interaction and let it die. The kids are pouting and yelling? Take a few minutes elsewhere. The husband has a frustrating day because the kids are not connecting with him and he starts to take it out on you? Take a bit of a break and come back and interact later.

Use the time out as one of the ways to keep healthy boundaries. Keep your internal self balanced and ready to respond in the way you choose. Behave on your terms, not in reaction to someone else. No matter who it is, liberally apply time to process the situation and decide how to move forward.

Your sanity and well-being might depend on just that.

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Writes Her Tales at the Beach

Some of you may know, I’m working on a book. Yes, a book. Not only that, it’s a book for you. For stepmothers of all stages of family integration. It’s not a how-to book, giving you the ten things you can do to make you family happy or improve your outlook or learn to tolerate the bullying. It’s a book of tales for you to find solace, validation, and inspiration.

I’ve taken the themes I see and some of the stories I’ve heard in my dozen years of navigating this business of being in the life of my man and his kids. It’s a wild ride and I don’t expect we’re done. The good news is that it gets less unnerving than in those early days.

I have more work to do on the book, it’ll be ready for a few select readers soon. Then, more revisions and then find a publisher. Hmmm, wonder who wants to publish a book of tales for stepmothers?

This weekend, I went to the beach with Jen Violi for her inaugural Story Watch retreat. It was a great chance to work on some of the revisions and problem-solve a couple of story development issues and share with other women who listened and asked questions. One woman is a stepmother, one is a stepdaughter, and the others were so supportive and respectful of my topic. I couldn’t have asked for more generous encouragement.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . Writes Her Tales at the Beach

On one of my writing breaks, I took a walk on the beach. What a beautiful day it was.

I’ll keep you posted from time to time. I mostly wanted you to know there are supportive people out there. People who aren’t stepmothers who are pulling for peace and family respect and the possibility of family health.

May you be finding moments of peace . . .