Three, writing about step parenting while you're in the trenches of it is a lot like writing about divorce as you're going through it -- emotions are running rampant and very few writers can steer through the subject with grace and objectivity. "You guys are doing great! Realistically, you're probably ALL partially to blame for the problems in your relationships.
We are all working toward that potential, in our own time and in our own way. "They tell me ALL their secrets! " My husband and I didn't visit a counselor until we'd been married eight years, which was a huge mistake. You can't fix what you didn't break. Suddenly, I felt like my relationship with my stepdaughters was disintegrating -- and nothing I did or didn't do seemed to help matters. You will come across other stepmoms who can't stop raving about how wonderful their relationships are with their stepchildren. There's almost always a honeymoon period, he said. Two, throughout most of the time I've been blogging, my stepdaughters were teenagers and they certainly didn't need or want me to be writing about them at that sensitive time in their lives. Or their 'Bonus Mom, ' for that matter. Don't let it get you down. To be fair, things started out great. Even if they CALL you mom.
You may agree -- you may disagree. I certainly don't want to make being a stepmother seem all gloom and doom, because it isn't. Remember what I said earlier? This was initially a tough one for me, because I thought my girls needed me to act just like I was their mom. I really, really, really needed to hear that. Work on that, and hope that your efforts inspire others in your family to try harder, too. One of the hardest parts about being a stepmom is the need to keep quiet about the tough stuff and how it's affecting you. Ultimately, zealously protecting your marriage benefits everyone -- your stepchildren need to see you and your husband stay together and fight for your relationship, even when times are tough. Do you know that I hear your exact same problems from nearly every blended family that comes in this room?
If you've got to let it out, limit your thoughts to a very close, trusted friend, or even better, tell it to your counselor or therapist. More than 70% of blended family marriages fail. Divorce is one of the most devastating things a person will ever go through, and no one needs to hear from you how the ex-wife is handling it, or how her kids are acting out in the aftermath. You're keeping it together. And then all hell breaks loose. In retrospect, that was a HUGE mistake. I am gentler with myself. My stepdaughters and I got along right away from the moment we met, and the first two years of blended family-dom were pretty awesome. Protect your marriage at all costs. You are not their mother. Somehow, we all muddled through adolescence and made it through to the other side. So many issues a blended family faces come from the divorce, which the stepmother (hopefully) had nothing to do with.
I thought it was all my fault, and I was so ashamed at my failure that for years, I didn't tell anyone what was going on. It will teach them to do the same some day. Now that I have raised my stepdaughters and had time to look back on the experience, I feel like I ran a gauntlet of tremendous emotional challenges and came across the finish line truly changed. I'm not their mom, and acting like I was probably caused some resentment and confusion on both ends. Silence is the best policy. We live in a world where everyone loves to vent, whether it's on Facebook, over the phone, or during a girls night out, but take it from me -- no one likes to hear a stepmother vent about her husband's ex or her stepkids.