The Stepfamily Letter Project

“If you could write a letter to someone in your stepfamily and they would never find out what you wrote, what would you say? Would you let them know how much you’ve cared about them all these years? Or do you have some anger you need to get off your chest? Are your feelings hurt? Are you proud of someone or thankful for their presence in your life and you’ve never told them?”

(Quote from The Stepfamily Letter Project)

I’m sure some of you will have come across this wonderful site already.

Hosted by Jacquelyn Fletcher, author of Becoming A Stepmom and the fabulous Stepmom Circles podcasts, and Erin Erikson of The Erin Experiment and the Stepchicks online community for stepmums, The Stepfamily Letter Project gives us an insider’s snapshot of stepfamily life, and a unique chance to “tell” our truths and chronicle our experiences anonymously. If not therapy per se, then certainly (potentially) therapeutic!

The collection of letters, many by stepmothers, unfolds all the sorrows and celebrations of life in a stepfamily.

Today, as the Lovely Man and I approach our own anniversary, I’m loving this Dear Husband letter that made me cry and reminded me all over again (not that I needed it!) of why I do what I do.

Tales from outside the circle

So, it happened again.

We were at dinner the other night in the home of a very pleasant, well-educated married-couple-with-two-kids who are colleagues of the Lovely Man.

We’d been asked, and told, how we got together. I’d been asked, and had told (as much as we ever tell!) what it’s like to have stepkids.

They’d told us how they came to be together.

And then, inevitably, someone (I think it was him) asked

So, any plans for the two of you to have kids anytime soon?

I can’t begin to explain how uncomfortable this question makes me feel. Especially when asked in a social setting, in front of the Lovely Man, or worst of all, when the kids are around.

I just freeze up. Little Miss Talks About Anything becomes Madam Can’t Make Eye Contact.

Everyone was listening as intently as if the entire purpose of the dinner party was to find out the answer to this ever-intriguing question.

So I kind of stammered through, as noncommittally as I could.

Oh well….. you know…. it’s hard to say….. there are lots of things to think about…… it’s complicated….. it’s not straightforward when you’re in a stepfamily….

And then came the clincher:

Yes, well, I suppose the Lovely Man would have to make an honest woman of you first, anyway.

To which I had to reply:

Well, we’re not quite at that stage, seeing he’s still legally married to someone else.

That shut him right on up.

An. Honest. Woman. Huuummmmmph!!!

Because I’m so dishonest at present, I suppose.

I know it wasn’t meant “that way”. It was said lightly, with a smile.

However it was meant, I am heartily sick of being asked these questions, of our prospective parenthood and/or marital status being canvassed at whim by people outside the “circle of trust”.

The hardest part is not letting the askers realise that they’ve just ripped a great big bandaid off my feelings, exposing all my fears, all my pain, all my sense that I have little control over something they, with their two cute little daughters, seem to have been able to take for granted.

Ultimately, though, I can rant and rave about how people “should” be more sensitive and not attempt to satisfy their curiosity at my expense, but what other people choose to ask me is not in my control.

And as painful as I find the question, it’s also not their fault I feel this way.

So, if I accept that these questions will continue to be raised in all kinds of (to me) inappropriate social settings and that there’s nothing much I can do to stop it happening, I’m clearly going to have to take responsibility for what I can control – my response – and come up with a script.

Something that will give me a line to fall back on, that won’t offend anyone but will change the subject quick-smart.

Any suggestions?

The Bane….

…of my existence isn’t the stepboys.

Or their Mum, either.

As some of you may remember, the Lovely Man and I rent a house in the city where the boys live with their mum.

Our house in our city: well cared for, tidy, clean (unless you look under our bed, anyway).

Our house in their city: not so much.

Aesthetics are usually quite important to me; my taste is for eclectic interiors studded with mid-century furniture, and while nothing in our regular house is particularly expensive or fancy or (mostly) less than forty years old, I love it all.

Our place in the boys’ city isn’t a pretty house; we couldn’t afford to rent anything lush, given that we need to accommodate ourselves in our city for the other 60% of each year.

And the decor leaves more than a little to be desired.

It’s stocked entirely with Ikea furniture and random cast-offs from the Lovely Man’s previous marriage. As tends to happen when at short notice you have to furnish a family house in a city far, far away from home.

(I struggled for ages against asking the Lovely Man what he and his ex were thinking when they chose the fabric for the couch. Really, there wasn’t going to be a way of putting that query that wasn’t going to have offensive potential, whoever originally chose it. Eventually, though, the fear that it might have been the Lovely Man’s cherished pick got the better of me. The answer was reassuring; it hadn’t been his selection. But I guess that’s stepfamily life for you – living with a trillion artefacts of your partner’s previous life.)

We’ve tried to make it comfortable and home-like and to add punches of boy-friendly red, navy and white, but the interior style could aptly be described as “Child Care Centre Chic”. Or perhaps “All About The Kids Shabby Provincial”.

The lounge room is absolutely dominated by toys. Shelves of toys, drawers of toys, piles of toys. Books. Magazines. Comics. Projects. The coffee table is almost always so completely covered with the unholy trinity of books, toys and comics that there is literally no space to put a cup of coffee down.

I find it a hard place to relax or be comfortable. As glad as I am to be there supporting the Lovely Man and hanging out with the boys, the space really emphasises that I often feel like an alien fringe dweller in a parent-child world.

When I’m there, though, the true bane of my existence isn’t the morass of comics covering every surface. Or even the couch.

Any guesses?

I’ll give you a hint.

Yep, Lego.

I’m always picking it from deep within the soles of my feet, resentfully “saving” it from between cracks in the floorboards and trying to safeguard complex masterpieces of design from the ravaging hands of other visiting kids.

The Lovely Man is constantly setting himself vast organising and tidying projects related to the toys, books and comics. But it’s the Lego that keeps him up at night.

I thought I was perhaps being oversensitive to the Lego. That the four cubic metres of primary-coloured plastic in the loungeroom was just standard, just what every other kid had.

Recently, though, came a glorious, glorious message from beyond that reassured me that I’m not becoming Cathy to Lego’s Heathcliff. Reassuring me that the Lego really is alive and out of control and looking to take me down.

A couple of weeks back, we offered to let a friend who is between houses stay in the Kidhaus during the fortnight we’re not there. He was given the run of the place – keys, fridge-raiding rights, use of the car.

The afternoon he arrived, we got this text message:

I found the key ok – thanks for that. Nice place, but has a BAD Lego infestation. I will head off to the supermarket for Lego repellant later.

If only. Or maybe the supermarket sells those aerosol roach bombs, but for Lego?

The Kidhaus already looks like a bomb’s gone off. How much worse could it get?

What “stuff” around the house pushes you toward the edge of your sanity?

Stepmum’s Bill of Rights – the sequel

So, I’ve finally got to the followup on this post.

Soon after posting this musing Rights? What rights?, part of which included an old meme The Stepmother’s Bill of Rights (“SMBOR”), I came across Jacque Fletcher’s article A Stepmom Bill of Rights…. Dangerous To Stepfamilies?, followed swiftly by Carolyn’s post Another View on the Stepmom’s Bill of Rights at The Grown Up Child. Peggy Nolan also posted briefly on the topic, which I gather has become a bit of a hot one. I was especially interested to read the debate in the comments at Becoming A Stepmom.

For non-clickers-of-links, Jacque’s post makes the point that she feels, as per the title, that many of the “rights” outlined in the SMBOR are actually potentially dangerous to stepfamilies, in that they encourage unrealistic expectations and may fuel a counterproductive sense of angry entitlement in stepmothers when their “rights” are infringed.

I think Jacque and Carolyn make some great points, and it feels challenging for me to stand up and say – actually,  I’m not completely with you on this one, ladies.

Because for me, the SMBOR plays the much-needed role of an emotional compass.

It helps remind me of what is a fair basic standard (as opposed to providing a checklist of behaviour to demand each and every day with a stamp of my foot).

For me, the (forgive me) headfukkery of the stemothering role demands I have a strong emotional compass.

It’s not just a stepparenting thing, either.

Once upon a time, I was in a relationship that was emotionally abusive.

During its course, I was gradually reprogrammed. Endlessly, I heard that I was unreasonable, that my expectations were flawed and unjust, that my concerns and requests for basic standards of behaviour within the relationship were “needy” and “co-dependent”.

I couldn’t tell up from down, right from wrong, fair from unfair. I didn’t know if what I requested was as straightforward as asking for air to breathe or as ridiculous as demanding the moon.

My emotional compass got skewed.

When I finally left, it took a long time for reality to come back into focus and for me to realise that it was ok to ask for basic consideration or decent treatment or that there not be double standards in my relationships.

The thing is, many of the ways my stepkids behave are not that different to what happened in that relationship.

They have hurt me. Hit me. Belittled me. Criticised and undermined me. Tried to bully me. Told untruths about me. Sought to undermine my relationship with the Lovely Man.

Regular stepkid stuff, I know, and perhaps none of it so dreadful in isolation.

If an adult did these things, though (and I know this will upset people), it would be called emotional abuse. If I did these things to them, it would be considered appalling, and it would be appalling. I don’t.

Instead, I make allowances. I recognise that children cannot be held to the same standards of accountability as adults. That they are still learning empathy and developing their critical thinking skills and growing their emotional intelligence.

I know they are children. Normal children, doing what children do when they go through the pain of their parents separating, and I believe that if they had full comprehension of what they do, they probably wouldn’t engage in these behaviours.

But in order to retain my emotional health in the face of these behaviours, I can’t allow my sense of right and wrong, reasonable and unreasonable, fair and unfair to get skewed like it has in the past.

I need to maintain my emotional compass.

Many things contribute to me being able to do this.

The support of the Lovely Man. My family, especially my wonderful sister, who gets it from the inside, being a stepmother herself. My blogging and the online stepmother community. My reading and research. My friends and all the things that keep me “me” outside of step stuff.

But the most helpful things in maintaining a clear sense of what amounts to reasonable and unreasonable standards of behaviour towards me have been my inner boundaries, my own Stepmum’s Bill of Rights, for want of a better description. It’s not precisely the one I posted, but it’s not that different, either.

I’m not saying we stepmothers should should stamp our feet and throw a tantrum whenever something doesn’t go our way, but, truly, if we reach the point where we’ve forgotten what a reasonable expectation looks like, we’re in trouble.

I remember one of my early commenters saying something that went straight to my heart in response to this post:

She said

I have to thank you for the line “hold on, what kind of idiot loves someone who criticises them and their family, hits them and is rude and disrespectful?” [....] After hearing my husband tell me what an awful person I am for years because I am not ‘loving’ towards his daughter, I was really starting to feel like i was a terrible person. With that line alone, I know I am not the only one.

I think there are far, far more stepmothers out there who question their own right to have basic input in their own lives because their partner’s kids “must come first” than there are women who will have a relationship-risking hissy fit because their “right” not to be treated as an outsider has been “violated”.

In my view, these kinds of manifestos validate us and our experience of our families, serving to remind us of what’s acceptable.

Most powerfully, they encourage us to begin thinking about what might be acceptable and unacceptable to us, at where we need to call for help with or call time on particular behaviours that threaten to corrode our relationships or self esteem or mental health.

Recognising that a situation isn’t working is the first step.

The next (thousand) steps are skilfully discovering what, if anything, you can do about those behaviours, and working toward change.

“Rights” are always socially contextualised, never absolute. Screaming in the heat of conflict that someone is violating your rights is unlikely to ever get you what you want or need.

Reflecting on your values, on what is and isn’t an acceptable way to act or to treat you, and being able to communicate about those standards and seek ways to have them met…. Well, that’s got a much better chance of working out.

And so, for me, these “rights”, or “rights” like them, are necessary.

As a tool, not a rule.

For you, maybe, it’s different…?

Help Haiti

Having seen first hand the amazing work World Vision does in India while visiting the young girl I sponsor there, I trust the organisation to use my donation effectively in Haiti.

World Vision has existing projects in Haiti, leaving them well-placed to know what is needed and where.

From the organisation’s website:

World Vision has been working in Haiti for more than 30 years and had 370 staff members in Port-au-Prince when the quake hit. Although World Vision’s office in the capital sustained significant damage, all staff were confirmed safe and are initiating a response to the devastation. Financial donations are urgently needed to continue and escalate this response.

Read more about World Vision’s response to the disaster, and how you can help here.

You can donate in $USD to the World Vision Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund.

For donations in $AUD, visit World Vision Australia’s Help Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

Thankyou. Thankyou. Thankyou again!!!

Thanks so much to Peggy from The Stepmom’s Tool Box for awarding Stepmum Of The Year the Best Blog Award.

It means a lot coming from you, Peggy, and it also means a lot to be receiving it in the company of blogstars like Wednesday Martin, Jacquelyn Fletcher, Jennifer Newcomb and Izzy Rose (whose books I own to the last woman!).

Now, to business:

My solemn duty as a Best Blog Award recipient is to nominate my fifteen (fifteen! eeek!) most read blogs.

As newish blogger, I’m kind of unsure about the etiquette of awards. Ideally it would be nice to spread the love more widely and avoid awarding the blogs that Peggy awarded, but I’d be lying if I didn’t replicate just a little.

Wednesday Martin, whose book, Stepmonster, saved my life when this story was oh-so-new and oh-so-scary. Even the reader comments on her blog rock!

The Wicked Stepmom, who writes with such humour and grace about being anything but wicked.

Becoming A Stepmom. Jacquelyn Fletcher’s Stepmom Circles podcasts are absolutely required listening when I’m commuting to work.

Fools Rush In. Jacob’s recent post on Measuring A Stepmarriage in Dog Years is a scream. A true scream. Enough said.

Jennifer Newcomb Marine and Carol Marine, author/bloggers at No One’s The Bitch. Their book was the first place I turned when the Boys’ Mum said she wanted to meet me for the Very First Time.

A Touch Of The Crazy, and not only because her 10 things never to say to a stepmother post should be syndicated onto the sides of buses.

21st Century Stepdad Man. I love hearing about stepfamily life from a bloke’s point of view. Especially thoughtful ones with such fabulous turns of phrase.

There are lots of other fantastic stepmother blogs I read each day, but many are either password only, or the content is fairly personal, so I’m loathe to send links their way.

My other favourite bloggy morsels include:

The Sartorialist. I once read a confession on PostSecret that went something like “Every single morning when I get dressed, I ask myself whether The Sartorialist would photograph me in my outfit.” Not being a sensible shoes type, I can relate.

Making Things Up for the rough and tumble plus giggles of life with kids.

Dooce, of course. I’m reading in the hope she’ll spill the beans on how her baby’s eyes got so damn blue.

A Dress A Day. Check out the Secret Lives of Dresses series if you’ve ever wondered what your frocks are saying to each other about you.

Peter Black’s Freedom To Differ for a bit of politico-legal-media bite with breakfast. I don’t agree with all you say, Peter, but I often chuckle at your special way of saying it.

Kitchen Retro for some “pop culture retrospectacular” action. The toast wheelbarrows may be the silliest piece of food frippery I’ve ever seen.

Tales of the Read Headed Devil Child. I first came across Nikki through her post 10 things you probably shouldn’t say to a teenage mum, but kept reading because I so admire her feistiness. If I’d been a teenage mum I would have been a pathetic mousy little thing, quailing before societal disapproval; I love that she speaks up strong.

Pithy & Cleaver. I’m planning to make the Chewy Ginger Cookies with Cardamom and Black Pepper…. well, not this weekend maybe, but Sometime Soon.

Thanks again, Peggy!

But wait, there’s more! Five extra things not to say to a stepmother

I’m shamelessly piggybacking on Stef at A Touch Of The Crazy in today’s offering – she wrote such a great post yesterday discussing the 10 things you should never say to a stepmother that I had to jump on board.

Because, call me touchy, but I can think of at least five more. Here goes:

So, are you and the Lovely Man planning to have kids together?

This little gem of insensitivity has been known to make me cry on the spot. This could be socially embarrassing for you; I don’t recommend you risk it.

Oh, and if you say this anywhere even vaguely within earshot of the Boys, I will kick you in the shins as hard as I can, assertive communication strategies and social mores be damned.

Seriously, can people not just, somehow, sense that this might be a fraught issue in stepfamilies?

Yet they ask it over and over and over again. On camping trips. At cocktail parties. At stepfamily support group. At a music festival, despite never having met us before and the fact that we’d been together only six weeks.

Please. If you’re not a close friend AND we’re not talking privately at the time, let me keep my own counsel about whether and when I/we are scheduling contraceptive-free sex into the calendar. After all, if we do and it works, you’ll (eventually) see the evidence for yourself.

When I see the two of you, I’m glad I’m not divorced/I think getting divorced isn’t such a good idea, even though my wife/husband is mad as a cut snake/selling our CDs for money to gamble/actually a werewolf.*

(*Not a sexy werewolf, either)

Right. It’s good to hear that we make the list of top ten poster families for the Anti-Divorce Lobby. How flattering.

Nobody is saying divorce and stepfamily life are the first choice. People don’t marry hoping to divorce. I didn’t dream of having stepkids as a little girl; the Boys certainly didn’t choose me; the Lovely Man didn’t fantasise about Parenting Plans and Child Support Agreements when he married.

But, please, don’t say things that leave us feeling like we’re a Hard Lesson you’re Learning From.

How can you stand to live so far from your kids?

Again, it wasn’t our first choice. The Lovely Man wishes it was different. We have tried to make it different.

(Hint: Saying this could, possibly, make him feel like you think he’s a Bad Dad. That would hurt his feelings. See my earlier comment about kicking you in the shins.)

Instead, why don’t you compliment him on the enormous effort he puts into spending significant amounts of time with his kids? On his incredible levels of commitment. On the amazing amount of energy and money and flight time we both invest in that goal.

I’m so proud of him.

Poor little things! That’s terrible! Tragic!

I agree that the kids did not enjoy their parents’ marriage ending. Not at all. It’s very sad for them.

Catastrophising and tragedising doesn’t help, though. Not them. Not us.

It probably makes them feel isolated, overwhelmed, that what they’re experiencing can’t ever be recovered from.

It may possibly make the Lovely Man feel guilty.

It definitely makes me mad. This is my family. It is not a vale of tears!

And what about the Lovely Man’s ex? How does she manage to make ends meet?

Oh, you know, there are always dumpsters, and cardboard boxes come with thicker walls these days…

Actually, she’s a successful professional woman. And the Lovely Man pays very generous child support, because we both believe that’s the fair thing to do.

Just because she’s a divorced mum doesn’t mean she’s destitute.

Underlying this assumption is a particularly nasty stereotype about separated Dads inevitably being Deadbeat Dads.

Some, I know, are. The Lovely Man isn’t.

I’ve got a stepmother and she’s a complete bitch!

Oh. I’m really sorry to hear that. It must be tough.

I’ve got a Siamese Fighter Fish, and he’s a complete bitch! Let’s bond.

Truly, unless I’m your stepmother, I’m sorry that you’ve had a tough time in your family, but it’s going to be difficult to turn the direction of cocktail party smalltalk around from here.

What other things should people never say to a stepmother?

What will be different?

I did a series of posts recently, thinking about the advice I wish I’d been given before becoming a stepmum about adjusting to stepparenting, settling into life with a ready-made Dad, and specifically what I wish I’d know about my stepkids.

My focus today is what in your day-to-day life will be different, after stepkids come along?

This question is probably most relevant to childless/childfree stepmums like me. And La Belle Mere. And any number of formerly single women who sometimes wonder how, exactly, their lives got kidjacked.

So, what will be different?

If your stepkids are boys, there will be wee on the floor at the base of the toilet.

This may also be true if they are girls. I don’t know. I’m sure someone will comment to confirm or deny this.

Those fluffy base-of-toilet mats that you’ve never bothered with before? You will now.

I suggested a pingpong ball with “Hit me!” or a smiley face on it could go in the toilet for “aiming practice”. I have a younger brother, I know the drill!

The Lovely Man said “The boys don’t wee on the floor, do they?”

Ummm, yes. They do.

Privacy may soon be a luxury.

Boy C and even Boy B feel quite free to wander into my bathroom while I’m showering or weeing to ask me where their Lego such-and-such is or if they can have a snack.

My ensuite is entered via my wardrobe; there’s no door, just a winding passageway, which more than suffices to provide privacy when adults are in question.

I’m not fussy about nakedness taboos, generally. But it did give me a bit of a turn at first.

There will be exciting new phrases to learn to cope with.

You may hear “It’s not your house!”

See here for my recommended response.

You will hear “But why?”

Over and over.

But when I heard “Why are you wasting money painting the kitchen? You should be sending that money to my Mummy so she can buy a house!!!!”, I nearly died of shock.

Nothing will be sacred.

I’ve heard “You’re not really a grownup because you don’t have children of your own” in the same breath as “You’re an old, ugly, stinky granny!”

Humphh.

As well as “Your house sucks! It’s tiny!“

Ditto “Your car sucks. It’s tiny!“

And “People in your family have stupid names!”

You may have to fight to be able to use your beloved iPhone to, you know, make phone calls.

There will be changes to your home environment.

Paper planes will whizz and soar around your head.

Lego pieces will camouflage nicely into the rug as you run to answer early morning knocks at the door. Hello, stone bruises!

Your house will never feel clean while the kids are with you. Please, if you value your sanity, stop trying so hard.

Your habits and priorities will change.

The supermarket will become somewhere you retreat to at times when you need to get away from it all. Nobody ever argues when you say you need groceries. Nobody ever suggests “Let’s all go together!”

You might discover unexpected enjoyment in reading aloud.

Your heart will feel warm if they hug you.

You will laugh and laugh and laugh.

And when one of the little guys puts his arm around you and says, out of the blue, “You know, you have a very special place in my life”, your smile will unfold right out and the tears will leak out onto the top of his head.

Feeling blamed

I’ve been following Peggy Nolan’s Self-Deception & Betrayal articles, particularly this one, drawing on the Arbinger Institute’s teachings, and thinking about how they relate to my life.

I’ve also been following the sometimes heated debate that’s arisen about the Arbinger concepts amongst a number of stepmother bloggers, including Nine Kinds of Crazy who, to distill their broader arguments, basically, seem to feel (please forgive me if I’m misunderstanding this) that the teachings can often seem to blame the stepmother for intractable conflict not of her making.

In another take on the debate, we have Jennifer at No One’s The Bitch, and her thoughtful post The Best Defence Is Some Ugly Truth.

It’s interesting, isn’t it?

It’s interesting to consider the idea that we’re functioning defensively so much of the time in our relationship with our stepkids’ mothers.

I know I am, at times, in denial of my own contributions, of how much the image of the Lovely Man’s ex as she exists in my head is made of a toxic papier mache of legal correspondence glued together with negative emotions.

I’m sure this caricature I’ve made of her isn’t how she is experienced by her friends, her neighbours, her family or (obviously) her children.

And it’s also interesting to see this debate as evidence of how ready stepmothers are to feel blamed for the dynamics in their families. Yes, they may bear some responsibility, but don’t we know that ultimately the way things are in a stepfamily is likely to have least to do with the stepmother?

And yet many stepmothers have felt blamed by the exercise. Maybe, just maybe, they’re not actually being paranoid or defensive.

Maybe they’ve actually become accustomed to being blamed – by their partners, their stepchildren, the ex-wife and the community more broadly.

Yes, powerlessness can be said to be a choice to some extent, even if only in a go-or-stay-in-the-marriage sense. But given how powerless so many of us feel as stepmums, perhaps it’s not surprising that we sometimes feel that a call to ‘take responsibility’ for what we feel utterly unable to change might seem like a case of blaming the victim.

(Please understand, I’m not saying the exercise ‘blames’ stepmothers. In itself, it’s neutral. I’m talking about the reaction I’ve seen many stepmums have recently to the Arbinger Institute concepts and tools.)

Personally, I’ve found the exercises a helpful reminder to look for my own contribution to stepfamily conflict. But I can easily see how that response might feel like an unattainable emotional luxury to a stepmum living in a warzone that she feels helpless to change.

(I really hope nothing in this post is problematic for any of the stepmom bloggers I’ve referenced. If anyone feels that I’ve misstated their views or misunderstood their materials, please let me know.)

Dear Kate

(Recently, I got a comment that shook me a little about one of my earlier posts, The Mother Question. Take a look if you like, then you’ll find my response below.)

Dear Kate,

I’m trying hard not to respond reactively to your comment, and also not to be defensive, but it’s difficult. I stand by my choices in this blog and in my life. After all, by my own decisions, I have access to way more of the details on what the Lovely Man and I are dealing with than my readers do.

I agree with you that it would be respectful to meet the Boys’ Mum, and doing so has always been my intention.

What I don’t intend to do is have it all organised for me without my input, as though I have no say in the matter. Particularly when, for logistic reasons, I will either have to fly thousands of kilometres or spend a number of extra days away from home to do it.

I have used your comment as an invitation to carefully consider the tone of what I write about the Boys’ Mum.

Sometimes I certainly feel very hurt, very angry and very impatient at her actions, particularly since they often cause damage to the relationship my Lovely Man has with his children. I also see the pain and confusion that those actions create in her children, who I care about.

Sometimes it may be that this impatience and hurt and anger shows in what I write about her.

Before I began blogging, I considered this issue carefully and decided that it is ok to draw on my own experiences of stepfamily life as a way of entering into some of the different issues stepparents face, but not (for me) to turn my blog in to a knock-down-drag-out-blow-by-blow of wrongs done.

Given that my blog is anonymous, identifying details have been carefully obscured and altered, partly out of the respect you mention, and that I have written about the real responses I have to the Boys’ Mum’s real behaviour to date, I still think it falls on the right side of the line I have set for myself.

Incidentally, I also find that being able to speak freely here in this forum allows me to avoid showing my anger and hurt at the Boys’ Mum’s actions at the most important times – when we have the boys with us.

I found your suggestion that I should ‘work on’ myself a bit patronising. Obviously, you don’t know what kind of person I am to be around, pleasant or not. Your suggestion is unlikely to be effective, and my sense is that it was made to be provocative rather than to encourage me to act on it.

All of that being said, I will think about what you have said and continue to consider carefully what I write here on my blog.

Thanks for your comment.

B