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Who Supports You?
Depending on the age of your
stepchildren and how often they live with you it is just a
matter of degrees in difficulty!
The one person whom you thought you could go to for
support in this new marriage or relationship is your
husband. Very often he has the least amount of
understanding for your problems. Did either one of
you know how long it was going to take to integrate the
two families? Did anyone tell you that it would take a
good five years for everyone to start feeling like a
family? And that is five years of hard work and good
communication skills to drive all of the kids and
adults to a connected, stable and comfortable place.
If someone did tell you that it would take that long, did
they tell you HOW to do the work? There are very few
people qualified to offer relevant instruction in forming
a new stepfamily.
An even bigger obstacle is the new stepmother not
being able to define what the real problems and
issues are without her husband's defenses going up
and start blaming her for "not knowing." The truth is,
noone can or does predict what will happen after the
new stepfamily forms except for stepfamily
professionals.
Your husband doesn't know how to support a new
stepmother, his experience is in supporting his
children's mother. As much as he wants to, he just
doesn't have the education and experience it takes to
support the new stepmother.
The best way to get support as a new stepmother is to
find a qualified stepfamily coach to work with for the
first few months. There were a lot of things about the
new stepfamily that you could never predict and
haven't had experience or education to help you
handle. You are not lacking or incompetent, you just
need a guide who has been there, done that, and is
trained to coach!
Find out more....
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Greetings!
The techniques one uses in handling biological kids
can be very different from those necessary for
stepkids. Because of the different dynamics involved,
there is a whole new set of proceedures to add to your
checklist. In other words one set of rules does not fit
both sets of kids. Your stepkids have been used to
different rules, religions, work habits and
expectations, and more. They also bring their own
baggage of mourning their parent's divorce,
resentment of YOU the new authority, loyalty feelings
towards WHATEVER their bio-mother feels and more.
Keeping all of this in mind as you try to co-parent with
your new spouse makes it all a very difficult balancing
act. Most stepmothers feel very overwhelmed by this
new responsibility and are in a position of authority
with no rights!
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| On The Other Hand |
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Speaking from one stepmother to you (another
stepmother), I can tell you that it is important that you
give the same nurturing and support to your
stepkids as you always give to your bio-kids. Our
stepchildren have super sensitive radar that is always
focused on us (the stepmothers) and will be keeping
score in their heads, if not verbally, to make sure that
they are getting fair treatment.
These new stepkids of yours have raw, if not open
wounds that need a huge variety and amount of tender
understanding to help heal. I know that it is difficult to
be kind to a strange kid who attacks at any opportunity,
but maybe it will help you if you think of him as a
frightened, wounded animal. That is basically what
most kids of divorce are. Remember, we the
stepmothers are supposed to be adults with a lifetime
of experience to draw from. Some of us have already
been mothers, so we should be able to handle this,
right?
Like I said in my introduction: our experience as
mothers does not necessarily prepare us for being
stepmothers! Sometimes we need additional support
and education. I have many years of experience as a
stepmother as well as an educational background
which helps me coach stepmothers and their families.
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Read on... |
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| Mother's Day Gift |
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I am offering a gift of my coaching services to the first
three NEW stepmothers who apply this month. By
new, I mean women who have just started
stepmothering in the last six months, or women who
are on the verge of starting a stepmother relationship.
The first three who step up will be given four months
of coaching at $50 a month!! It would be my pleasure
to give the lucky three such a great head start with
their stepfamily. Just mention "Mother May I" in the
subject line of your email application to me and we'll
get started! You will find my email address in the
bottom left area of this newsletter.
If you have been considering hiring a stepfamily coach
but felt you could not afford it, this is really your lucky
Mother's Day. For the stepmother subscribers who
have been with Step Family Success for a long time
and are not NEW stepmothers, drop me an email and
let me know how YOU are making out! I'd love to hear
your stories and get to know you better. Also, if you
are a divorced Dad who sees this as an opportunity to
give a great mother's day gift, you are right! If you
would
just like to know what it would be like to be coached,
click on "Read on" below to find out more.
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Read on... |
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