The Stepparenting Journey, January, 2008

An alliance like no other . . .

No matter what kind of a relationship you have with your stepkids' mom, most likely you expected a bad one -- complete with animosity, jealousy, bitterness, anger, stress, lack of cooperation, hair-pulling (well, maybe not that) -- basically anything but genuine friendship and respect. Hopefully you were pleasantly surprised, or if not, maybe you've been able to build the kind of relationship that stuns your family and friends. Maybe you're just trying to hold on and see if that idea in yourlife will ever materialize.

Enter Jill (the stepmom) and Kathy (the mom), two women who know the best and worst of each other while love prevails. They collaborate on their blog, The DHX: The Doughtie Houses Exchange, and this month and next, share with us what it's like to defy all expectations and preconceived notions to make "stepmother" and "ex-wife" not such dirty words anymore. Let's meet them:

Jill (stepmom): “I moved in with (husband) G in 2004, and we got married in 2007. I'm a new official stepmom, but unofficially, I've been around for a few years. Once I felt like things were solid between me and Kathy, I felt comfortable marrying G. Things can get so complicated, and I think a good mom-stepmom relationship is really important in building a solid marriage with a man who has children.”

[Karon: wow, can any of us say we predicated our marriages on our relationship with our stepkids’-to-be mom??? Jill gets the “look before you leap” award!]

Kathy (mom): “I've now been divorced from G for as long as I was married to him. We have two boys, who were 3 and 6 at the time we split up and are 12 and 15 now.

“Time is a great healer and giver of perspective. Jill came into the picture about four or five years after we split up so everyone was ready to handle a new, serious relationship in G's life. I had been through some relationships, mostly disastrous, but fairly visible. So there weren't any residual feelings between G and me that could complicate things.

“In my ‘real’ life, I wear many hats. I'm a Business Analyst in the music business, have written a book (Aphrodite in Jeans: Adventure Tales about Men, Midlife and Motherhood), have my own blog, Aphrodite in Jeans,and have worked as a theatrical technical director for decades.

“My two sons are my biggest source of accomplishment and pride, however. Whatever we all collectively have done to make them into the men they're growing into, must be on the right track. They are just really cool human beings.”

[Karon: did you see that last point? Kathy is unafraid to give some credit to Jill for being part of rearing her sons in a positive way. We applaud her generosity.]

How was your relationship with each other at first, and how has it changed?

Jill: “I think we had good, warm early impressions of each other. Once I was living in G's house, we were suddenly thrust into each other's lives really deeply and I, at least, was really shocked and surprised at the deep, almost day level of intertwinement and influence the houses had on each other. Suddenly, my schedule wasn't just my own, and it wasn't just my own and G's, and it wasn't even just my own and G's and the kids' -- all five of us affected each other's schedules on a regular basis. That was a big, big surprise. That's just one example.

“So there was about a year and a half or so of adjustment. It wasn't all that pretty. Kathy and I stopped talking to each other for about a year. I was miserable -- it was one of the hardest times in my life. I eventually realized that being with G meant this kind of deeply intertwined package deal. AND I eventually realized that I felt a connection with Kathy that I wanted. I was looking for all kinds of answers reading stacks and stacks of books, and maybe it was an exercise in one of the books -- I'm not sure -- but one day I imagined my life with G and the kids but without Kathy interested or involved or concerned at all -- and I was surprised when I felt sad and lonely at the thought!

[Karon: dear reader, please breathe deeply into a paper bag and regain your composure – I know that last sentence almost did you in, lol.]

“That scenario seemed disappointing and empty. It's almost enough to make me laugh just thinking about it. All that time I'd been fighting her involvement in my life on the surface, while wanting it underneath without realizing it. Some people say conflict is a form of connection. I realized I WANTED the connection, and set to work trying to figure how to do a better job for myself, for her and for G and the kids. Now I'd say we're very close. We're still deeply intertwined in each other's lives. I've learned a lot about intimacy, collaborating and courageous conversations.”

Kathy: “We have come full circle. I instantly liked Jill and hoped that she'd end up being a ‘keeper.’ For starters, she's the first girlfriend G had ever seen fit to introduce to me, which meant she was pretty high quality. She was smart and had a good sense of humor and seemed to relate well to the boys: all good signs.

“When she moved into G's house, we went through a period of radical readjustment. From my perspective, we were suddenly in ‘archetype’ land . . . where I suddenly ceased to be Kathy, a person, and became that tyrannical and unfeeling bitch known as the Ex Wife. After about of year of collective misery, in which tension was excruciating, the kids were miserable and I was turning into a very angry person, suddenly Jill ‘came back’ and we were OK again.

“We talked a bunch, cried a bunch and got everything out onto the table. After a couple of months of that, we were back to where we were – but way better. We have a depth and a history and know we can navigate the treacherous waters. It's gotten better and better ever since.”

Jill, how has your relationship with Kathy affected the kids and your husband?

Jill: “I'm not sure entirely sure how it's affected the kids. I think they were very, very, very stressed out and unhappy when we weren't getting along, and they seemed reassured right away when we started talking again and getting to know each other. I think they like that we get along. I know it stressed G out a lot, too, when we weren't getting along. I think he's happy that we've built this relationship with each other that he doesn't have to always be in the middle of. It can be very stressful on a marriage to have another adult outside the marriage so deeply involved in the day to day details of life, even when it's a good, strong, loving relationship though. It's always a balancing act. I think we're mostly in balance these days. The sense of extended family -- the feeling of connection between houses -- is very nurturing. It's worth working for. It's worth balancing for.”

[Karon: and that’s what keeps us going when the going gets tough.]

Kathy, how has your relationship with Jill affected the kids? How has it affected your relationship with the kids' dad?

Kathy: “Well, it's obvious that the kids thrive when they're not worried about their parents hating each other. I grew up with parents who were married, between them, a total of 8 times (only once to each other!). I've seen some pretty contentious fighting and I've directly felt what happens when the child's needs are placed a distant last to the spectacularly important needs of each parent to make the other one miserable.

"G and I started off (pre-Jill) as pretty good friends. We were known as the couple who had made divorce work really well. Jill changed the dynamic a lot, especially during the ‘dark times,’ and it grieved me that all the things that I had tried to do in terms of making the divorce very amiable (like refusing to deal with child support or any other exchange of money) were just being wasted because there was a new sheriff in town. So suddenly we were back to being a typically divorced couple, with seething glances and everyone uncomfortable any time we were in the same room together.

“Thankfully, blissfully, when Jill and I got better, G and I were able to relax again. He no longer looked like a deer in headlights every time we were all together, the kids no longer tensed up and looked unhappy, and now we are all able to just hang out and be ourselves. It's really easy to do, once you get over how much you're ‘supposed’ to hate each other.”

Jill, how is stepmothering different than you expected? What's the hardest part? What's the most rewarding part?

Jill: “The sense of perpetually feeling like an outsider was a big surprise. It still hasn't really gone away. I think one of these days I'm just going to declare myself an insider and be done with it. The most rewarding part is the family, the love, the ideas and jokes and kid-energy the kids bring, and all the opportunities to connect, to grow, and to be part of something bigger than myself.”

Kathy, how is having a stepmom in the kids' life different than you expected? What's the hardest part? What's the most rewarding part?

Kathy: “Learning how to share my kids and trust that a third person is also looking out after their best interests has been a hard lesson to learn. I'm very independent, and I'm pretty well organized (which G is, admittedly, not). I just did everything for two houses in terms of keeping track of schedules, taking the kids to appointments, etc. It was hard to know how much Jill wanted to take on when she moved in, and truthfully that was part of our difficulties early on.

“I just assumed she was going to be like my other mom friends -- in which you just grab any kid that happens to be around and take them to wherever they have to go and it's fine to ask anyone to help you out because you'd do that for them in a heartbeat. But Jill was young and didn't have any kids and this kind of collective swapping and sharing of responsibilities was really foreign to her.

“So I stepped on her toes quite a bit in the early days, assuming that she was there to help out in the same way I'd help out with another mom's kids. That annoyed her because it felt invasive, and it put me in an awkward spot because (a) I no longer was able to coordinate both households with autonomy and (b) I couldn't ask her to do things to help out. That was the most difficult thing to negotiate, and I had to learn a lot in terms of just letting go, letting things drop through the cracks if they needed to, and letting other people have a learning curve when I stopped taking up the slack.

“This has been an incredibly important thing for me to learn in all other aspects of my life, and has helped me relax a lot more and start having a bit more fun because it's no longer all up to me to do everything.”

How has your relationship with each other changed you?

Jill: “I've grown up. I've learned a lot. My capacity to connect with other people without losing myself has increased exponentially. I'm happier. I'm stronger.”

Karon: And isn’t that really how stepmothering changes and impacts our whole lives, whether we really mean for it to or not? We have to grow up, we have to develop a broader way of looking at things, we have to make room in our hearts and minds without losing either one. We can become more or less because of our stepmom role, and more of that choice than we realize is up to us.

Kathy: “I get a new friend in my life. And I know I've done a really great thing for my kids, by reducing by one more issue the fallout from not being able to live with their dad. To me, that's huge. It's not their fault their dad and I didn't get along. They shouldn't have to pay the psychological bill for any of this, so the most you can do to deal with it, the better off they'll be.”

Karon: Amen to that. Next month, we’ll finish up our interview with Jill and Kathy. In the meantime, stop by their blog and say hello. Thanks for reading. Take care. Many blessings for your new year!

Happy New Step-Year to YOU!

What to leave behind . . .

Greetings to you and please accept my very best wishes for your very best year yet!

Here's the first two paragraphs from a piece I wrote several years ago. It's still true:

"The first day of January is my favorite day of the year. It's not because it's my birthday or my anniversary. It's not because it's a holiday or a day off work. It's because it's the epitome of new beginnings, the fresh start that you can feel in your heart and your soul. It's because, as a stepmom, I need that day now more than ever. How about you?

"Resolutions are traditional as the new year starts, but before you strive for something more, I encourage you to leave behind a few things first. This year, as you take the old calendar off the wall, don't just throw it away all at once. Tear off each of the 12 months, one page at a time, and as you crumple them up and throw them away, discard something else, too -- these 12 things that you can leave behind."

The piece goes on to talk about some of those things that none of us needs to hang on to -- jealousy, judgment, hurry -- and how it will help us if we can let all the bad stuff go. It's a practice I work to reinstate every new year. Maybe you'd like to do that, too.

This piece is called Leaving It Behind and it's on page 52 of the "The Stepmom's Sideroom and Other Favorite Stories" that you can get free with a blank email here. You may have seen some of the stories before and some may be new to you, but I hope you'll find something helpful and inspiring as you begin this new and wonderful year!

Thanks always for your interest and support, enjoy your day :-)

Many blessings,
Karon