We often enter into our steplives with the perceived power of Wonder Woman, Superman and Mighty Mouse combined. We have great hope and focus, full confidence in our abilities, our patience and our strength – superhuman even.
And often we succeed! We’re able to have a refreshingly positive influence on our families and serve as intermediary, peace broker, and stabilizer for those around us. Sometimes, though, being able to solve the problems around us is like flying off the tallest building without a magic cape in sight. Not gonna happen.
Sometimes the problems our families face are problems no parent can solve – bitter ex-spouses who plan to stay that way, geographical constraints that make parenting sad and hard, young adult children with self-destructive tendencies. We’ve learned the lesson fast: so very much is out of our control.
What does your list of problems out of your control look like? Is it affecting your marriage, your health, perhaps your job? Here are a few tips that might help:
Think supporter, not solver. How can you support those hurt by the problems? Sometimes our focus is better served there than in trying to attack the problem. Your husband may be troubled by his kids’ behavior and especially if they’re old enough, there’s little either of you can do to change it. But you can be supportive, not judgmental. You can listen and offer advice without trying to take over and “fix” everyone. You can be a quiet source of strength your husband and family need.
Think present, not past. We can’t change anything that’s already happened, superhero or otherwise, so dwelling on others’ or our own contributions to the problem won’t help. What might help is taking the opportunities before us each day to focus on growth and forgiveness, to refuse to fall into old patterns that only make things worse, to practice what we learn one day at a time and expect no more from those around us. Every day gives us a new and better grip on ourselves and our world – we start fresh and leave the past in the past.
Think adaptation, not abandonment. We all have those "things we cannot change” in our lives, step and beyond, but we continue to work to make things better as long as we don’t give up and abandon all hope. We can resist the urge to throw our hands in the air and swear “she’ll never be different.” we can refuse to let the problem “tail” wag the life “dog” we cherish. We can adapt our approach to the difficult people in our lives, adapt our focus and shift from the negative to the positive, to what brings us joy. We can adapt to the problems around us without letting them overtake us or pretending they don’t exist. As long as we keep doing our best, we have hope, and that’s powerful.
Think goal, not problem. We’ve talked about this before – to reframe the problems in our lives that we can’t control as goals that involve behavior we can control. You can’t make your stepkids’ mom tell the truth, but you can work to create an atmosphere of honesty and integrity in your home. You can’t make your husband stop his kids’ manipulation, but you can work to improve your relationship with them and refuse to allow your values to be compromised. You can’t make problems go away, but you can work to lessen the impact and fallout on yourself and your marriage.
Clearly, all this work on our part takes time, energy, commitment, consistency and – did I mention – time?? Complicated problems invade our lives, but our lives are still worth living, our marriages worth saving, our stepkids worth our investment. Little steps on our part won’t solve every problem today, but they can’t hurt. That’s a start.
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