CHAPTER 1
Perspectives

Before we dive into the practical tools that will mold your stepmomming skill set, let's start by understanding the key players in your family dynamic. Understanding how everyone else is experiencing your stepfamily will enable you to empathize with their situations and reach resolutions quicker and easier.

It's so easy to become overwhelmed by the stepmom experience and lose sight of the reality that this situation is overwhelming in other ways for everyone else too.

• Your partner is attempting to balance your needs with the demands of their ex-partner and their children.
• Your stepchild is learning how to adapt to a new parental figure in their life, a new person in their home, and (likely) new norms and rules in their home.
• Your stepchild's other parent has been jolted by the reality that another person is going to influence and be intimately involved in raising their children-a massive reality check for which they likely weren't ready.

You have every right to be overwhelmed by the stepmom experience and all that comes with this role. Your feelings and reactions are completely normal, friend. I don't want you to stay stuck in the suck, however. I want you to be able to sort through your overwhelming feelings and learn how to navigate whatever stepfamily life may throw at you.

A big part of learning how to do that is gaining an understanding of others' points of view. Not everything in stepmom life is personal-even when it feels really personal. It took me a long time to recognize that even though I was the impetus for the change (my partner met me, fell in love, and wanted to bring me into the fold), I was not responsible for the change. If it wasn't me, Kevin would have found someone else to marry (rude!), and his ex and daughter would have reacted the same way as they did when he met me.

Let's spend the next few pages going through the perspectives of each main character in this dynamic: your partner, your partner's co-parent, your stepchild(ren), and of course, you-the stepmom.

Your Partner's Perspective

For many stepmoms, the blended family experience is so overwhelming that it can be impossible to empathize with anyone else's perspective. But to be a good partner and have a successful, sustainable relationship, you must understand your partner's point of view. In this section, I provide some of the most common experiences of a stepmom's partner, and at the end, I speak specifically to the male experience. If that's not applicable to your partner, you can skip right over it and continue on to the next chapter. If your partner is male, I highly recommend that you do not skip it.

Your Partner Operates Out of Fear

To share custody is to always live with a little bit of fear. Fear that your child will choose to stop having a relationship with you. Fear that you'll be replaced by a stepparent. Fear that your co-parent will steal them away from you. Fear that you have ruined your child's life.

This fear is an unwelcome but powerful motivator. So, the next time that your partner doesn't want to enforce the chores you two agreed upon for the kids, consider how fear might be driving that hesitancy. Or, if your partner is slow to text their child's other parent about something they disagree with, consider how a fear of retaliation might be at play.

I recently had a client lament that her partner signed his kids up for rec volleyball without discussing it with her first. She expressed frustration to me, explaining that with her three children and his two children already enrolled in other extracurricular activities, she had no idea how they'd logistically get his kids to a second activity as well. They had agreed that each child would participate in one activity at a time, but he signed them up anyway. When she asked him about his motivation, he simply said, "I can't let volleyball be the reason I lose my girls." His ex had made enough comments about the sport and threatened taking away custody so frequently that he became ruled by his fear of losing them.

Your Partner Feels a Lot of Guilt

Even though you and I can clearly see that sharing custody and living in two separate homes was best for your stepchild than staying in an unhappy home with unhappy parents, your partner feels like they have failed their child(ren). Society teaches them that the ideal is a nuclear family. And when that doesn't work out, they internalize it as a personal failure. Your partner is coping with their perceived failure on top of feeling like they have chosen their happiness over their child's. They wonder if they should have stuck with it for the kids. They fear that their "selfishness" (as they would describe it) has negatively affected their children and thus, feel guilty.

These guilty feelings can appear in many ways, and you likely don't need any examples (though I'll give them to you anyway). When your partner lets your stepdaughter have ice cream for dinner because she "didn't like" what you prepared, your partner's guilty parenting won out. When your partner lets your stepson stay up late playing video games, it's likely there was some guilt behind their "yes."

Disneyland Parent

If your partner is seemingly paralyzed by their guilt, it can lead them to become what's often called a Disneyland Parent.

A Disneyland Parent is a noncustodial parent who focuses more on enjoying time with their children and less on structure, rules, and responsibilities.

A Disneyland Parent may spoil with gifts, time, and extravagant experiences (like a trip to their namesake's Disneyland), and they will often leave most of the less-fun parenting and discipline to the custodial parent. When a single parent has restricted access to their children, they often don't want to spend it enforcing rules and aiding with homework. They'd rather spend their time doing fun activities and soaking in all of the joy.

When you're not with your children for an extended period of time, there's less of an immediate need for structure and discipline. For example, if most of the time your children are with you, it's not a school night, then there's less cause for a strict bedtime. Understandably, stepmoms partnered with Disneyland Parents become frustrated by the lack of structure and concerned about the message this parenting style sends to their stepchildren.

Your Partner Wants You to Feel Protected and Respected

Above all else, your partner wants you to feel protected and respected. They might sometimes have competing motivations (like fear), which means they fail to protect or respect you. But that doesn't change the reality that as a guiding principle, your protection and feeling respected are paramount to them. As your partner, they want those things for you.

When your partner agrees to a custody swap without communicating with you, they've acted out of impulse and desire to see their child, not intending to disrespect you in the process. When their ex disrespects you and your partner chooses not to defend you, you feel unprotected. Your partner's fears caused them not to pick that battle with their child's other parent but left you needing protection in another way.

Your Partner Feels Caught in the Middle

Many partners feel caught in the middle of everyone else's competing desires and can't make everyone happy. The other parent wants to be your partner's teammate in raising their child together. You, understandably, want to be your partner's teammate in life, instead of their ex. And your partner's child has demands and desires of their parent too. Even worse, sometimes these three needs are all in competition with one another, and your partner knows no matter which decision they make, they're going to let someone down.

They want to keep their ex happy, so they don't lose their children. (Remember: They're ruled by fear.) They want to keep their children happy, so the children don't choose not to have a relationship with them anymore (because they're fearful). Finally, they want to keep you-their new partner-happy (because they want you to feel protected and respected). Do you see how decisions that seem easy to you and I aren't as straightforward to our partners?

In coaching sessions with stepmoms and their partners, I often hear the partner express, "I just can't make anyone happy! I'm failing everyone!" This isn't uncommon. Our partners are exasperated trying to navigate the dynamics in a way that maintains harmony.

Your Partner Needs to Know You Believe in Them

We've already explored the ego hit that sharing custody of their child and not having the praised nuclear family was to your partner. They're a bit vulnerable, heading into a new relationship, so treat them with care. Make sure your partner knows you believe in them, you trust them to protect you, and you know they make good decisions. This confidence builds them up individually and within your relationship.

You might be thinking, "Kristen, of course, I believe in them! I wouldn't be wasting my time with them if I didn't!" and I hear you loud and clear! But are your actions communicating that? For example, if you're reviewing all...