Stepfamily wedding vow suggestions. Anyone? Help!

So, the Lovely Man and I are getting married.

And he wants to include something in the ceremony that includes and maybe even speaks directly to the Boys.

It’s hard to navigate. So I’m cautious.

There are a few “nots”.

I’m absolutely not going to say anything that doesn’t feel true.

I’m not ready to promise the kids anything that isn’t entirely in my power to deliver, or shouldn’t be solely my responsibility, eg I promise to build a strong relationship with you.

And I refuse to say anything that might tighten the choke hold of their loyalty binds – no “Yay, new family, love everyone, take you to be my children, yay!” kinds of things. Honestly, I Googled “stepfamily wedding vows” and there was so much schmaltz that I entered a whole new emotional state – kind of a cross between nauseated and despairing.

(Sorry if that offends anyone – I can imagine lots of stepfamilies where sentimental love statements might not be out of place in a wedding ceremony. Ours isn’t one of them, though.)

Please, could those of you who are married or planning on getting married or just have an opinion share what, if anything, your wedding ceremony had/will have/would hypothetically have specifically related to your stepchildren and stepfamily?

If you’ve already had a ceremony including stepfamily references, how did it work out?

The followup – How Much Should We Change Our Lives? by Urban Stepmom

I recently posted about Urban Stepmom’s dilemma regarding how much we should expect ourselves (and each other) to sacrifice for our stepkids. Wednesday Martin describes this set of assumptions and pressures (internal and external) as StepMartyr Syndrome.

It’s an interesting question, and as with everything stepfamily-related, there are starkly differing opinions out there. Married to Batman has a different take on it from me, for instance.

Lisa at Urban Stepmom has given the issue some more thought and come to a conclusion that will hopefully work for her and her family.

Here’s the start of her update; click through to read the whole post.

…Or Not Change Our Lives?

My last post got me thinking.  Do the kids really come first? Is the greater good of this “family” more important than my needs? How much should I change my life to accommodate this stepmom choice? And I came to a couple of conclusions:

1) Who do I think I am, Mother Theresa?

2) You can’t do something for others and then resent them for “making you” do it.

I realized that over the course of the last six and a half years, since I met my husband, I sacrificed HUGE things in my life, for him, for the kids, for his ex, for them, for what I thought was “us”, for what I thought I was supposed to do.

…..

Click here to read the full post.

Stepfamilies ARE different (and complex)

I got a serve recently for commenting that stepfamilies are different from first families.

Pretty obvious stuff, some might think.

But no, I was firmly told off for saying that stepfamilies aren’t “as good” as first families.

When it comes to stepfamily issues, it seems like very often people hear what they want to hear. Anyone else ever notice that? </sarcasm>

Anyway, the expense of spirit involved in explaining how and why stepfamilies are different, and what the impacts of those differences might be is probably best outsourced.

Next time, I’ll just refer people to this handout, reposted by Sonja Ridden at Stepmother Matters.

THE STEPFAMILY IS COMPLEX

Most people in this day and age understand that the stepfamily is a pretty complex structure. The following explores its complexity:

 

THE STEPFAMILY IS COMPLEX

The structural characteristics which are unique to stepfamilies are:

There is no blood tie between some family members.This is a fundamental characteristic of all stepfamilies.

The stepfamily is born of loss: individuals have suffered important losses such as relationships, community, unfulfilled hopes for the original marriage and family.

All individuals in the stepfamily come together with previous family histories. Initially there are no shared family experiences or traditions.

The stepfamily is constructed differently. An adult (and possibly children) is added to a previously established parent/child relationship. The parent /child relationship predates the couple’s relationship.

There is a biological parent elsewhere in actuality or in memory, with power and influence over family members.

Stepfamily boundaries are unclear. Children are members of two households if They have contact with both biological parents. Parental authority, decisions and financial contributions are often shared between two households.

Stepparent/stepchild bonding is not necessarily established. The major stepparent commitment is often to their partner not to his or her children.

Roles which are not ascribed through a blood tie need to be achieved over time.

Membership in a stepfamily can be unclear and is defined by an individual’s perceptions which change over time.

Sexuality can be heightened – appropriately (between the new couple) or inappropriately (between other family members).

The legal situation in stepfamilies is ambiguous: little legal relationship exists between stepparents and stepchildren; inheritance issues can be complicated.

Stepfamilies are often combining several family life cycle stages simultaneously e.g. bringing together teenagers and toddlers.

These differences mean that the stepfamily is structurally very dissimilar to both the nuclear and single parent family, and that it is certainly considerably more complex than either.

Used by permission: Gerrard, I. & Howden, M., (1998) Making Stepfamilies Work , Stepfamily Assoc. Vic. This handout may be copied for not-for-profit use only, provided the original meaning is retained and credit is given to the copyright owners.www.stepfamily.org.au

News

I know it’s been a while, and I’m not even going to apologise. Nope, not sorry!

The last month or so has been a really important recuperation time; it’s been so vital for me to take a break from stepmummery (or at least from writing about it…) and focus on reweaving the last few fraying threads of my normal self back together.

For those who’ve asked, my visit to Scotland was gorgeous. Short, yes, but filled with the generosity of friends, beautiful landscapes and cities, reconnecting with faraway cousins, exploring the history and the galleries, the parks and the tearooms (and the vintage clothing shops!) of London. I’m a hopeless history/vintage geek, and my much-younger cousin Rhys was enormously patient with my pokings and peerings around important Tudor-era landmarks and through the delights of every stinky vintage boutique in London….

(To be fair, he’s a very cool guy and *may* have enjoyed the vintage shopping even more than me. Clearly, I’m getting old!)

More importantly, I was able to stand beside my dear friend in the emotional lead-up to her wedding, tie what felt like a gazillion trios of ribbons onto napkins, administer spa treatments as required, get lost on the way to Sainsbury’s the day before her wedding and emerge five hours later with more boxes of grissini than three hundred of even the hungriest kilted Scotsmen could manage to devour. I got to be there to soothe her meltdowns and speak on her behalf as her family at her wedding dinner.

All of which turns out to have been unexpectedly good training, because….. the Lovely Man and I have recently gotten engaged and plan to get married late next year sometime! We’re both very happy and excited, and delighted by all the good wishes we’ve received.

I expected very mixed responses to our engagement news from the Boys, but on the first weekend the Lovely Man had the Boys after we became engaged he rang me from their city (it was his extra weekend with them, so I was at home in our main city) before getting on his plane to say that their initial responses were (mostly) fairly positive.

That was the Lovely Man’s take on it, anyway, eternal rose-spectacle-wearing optimist that he is. Reading between the lines I gather that “fairly positive” ranged from excitement and enthusiasm about the idea from Boy C, who is definitely mercurial but generally pitches his emotional tent in the “delighted with life” campground, to kind of neutral-ish pleasedness from Boy B, to less-than-overwhelming-jollity from Boy A.

And fair enough, because why would Boy A be pleased?

One thing I have learned about being in a stepfamily, though, is that initial reactions don’t mean much and it’s always, always a process. I’m sure that more stuff will come up for each of them. Maybe it already has.

I’m not sure whether it’s a Y chromosome thing, but rarely do the Boys display much in the way of fears or concerns about something when they first get information about it. Usually it seems to take a while to simmer their worries or upset to the surface, so we’ll be on the lookout. No doubt the fur will fly at some point.

I have never considered myself any less the Boys’ stepmum because the Lovely Man and I aren’t married, so it doesn’t feel like the “start of a family” or anything with regard to them. In practical terms I don’t imagine anything much will change about the day-to-day life of our household(s).

In non-practical terms, though, beneath all the fussing and planning and the congratulations of our friends and family, beneath the champagne and flowers, we are both simply and utterly overjoyed to be marrying each other.

The shame of exposure (via Stepsleuth)

Stepsleuth writes one of the most thoughtful, well-informed stepmother blogs around.

I always enjoy her writing and ideas; this post particularly resonated, though, since I’ve become so accustomed to the slow-up-and-down-eyes of first family wives when we are introduced and they realise that the Lovely Man’s Boys are not also my boys.

Accustomed isn’t perhaps the ideal word; nothing could “accustom” me to the unpleasantness of those judgemental, slowly appraising glances.

I wonder if/when it will stop?

I will confess—I love going to B&Bs. I love all the hokey decorations and the faux Victorian stylings. But the one thing I don’t love so much is having to talk to the owners and other guests at breakfast. I prefer my breakfasts quiet—just my husband and me—and (I have to be honest) I really don’t care about chatting it up with people I’ll never see again. But what makes every B&B breakfast ever so much more uncomfortable is everyone’s ine … Read More

via Stepsleuth

Meditations on conflict

A recent peek into my blog stats showed up this search string:

“killer care bear”

And this:

“vicious care bear”

And my favourite:

“care bears with guns”

As a mediator, I know that a “care bear” conflict style (often called a “teddy bear” conflict style) is more sinister and dangerous than the pastel-fluffy saccharine images the phrase conjures up would suggest.

(Kind of like My Little Pony: Reign of Buttercup Sprinkles, then.)

Seriously, though, being a typical stepfamily care bear – not speaking up, always putting the kids first, minimising your own needs – may have a short-term payoff in terms of not having to engage in confronting conflict, but it comes at an enormous price in terms of withdrawal, rumination and ultimately, stepmother depression.

I don’t know what the research says (or even if there is any), but it’s easy to speculate that a large proportion of stepfamily breakdowns could well be attributable to unmanaged depression. It’s hard to invest in your relationship when you’re depressed, and the normal emotional rough-and-tumble of stepfamily life quickly becomes overwhelming when your emotional resources are depleted.

By their very nature (and not because your family is a failure), stepfamilies are often rife with family conflict. It’s normal, especially over the first two to five years.

But it’s worth paying special attention to how you “do” conflict in order to learn strategies for managing conflict in your family.

For instance, you could use a self-assessment tool to investigate whether you have a care bear/teddy bear conflict style.

If you do, I strongly recommend Self-Assertion For Women by Pamela E. Butler. It’s available inexpensively on Amazon and provides insights that are potentially quite life-changing.

For instance, did you know that there are four main types of assertive behaviour (expressing positive feelings, expressing negative feeling, setting limits and taking self-initiation action) and that you may struggle with some areas but be appropriately assertive in others?

Whether this has anything to do with an apparent reader obsession with plush toys with fangs, I can’t say.

* * * * * * * * *

Less chirpily, my blogs stats also dredged up this search:

“when stepkids blackmail stepmum”

Hmmm. Saints preserve us.

* * * * * * * * *

As well as:

“what is mean stepmother’s day“

If that’s a question, I sure don’t have an answer!

* * * * * * * * *

Finally, though, there was this:

“i am lucky to have my stepmom”

[Smiles]

Umm, the kids don’t come first (from Skepticlawyer)

A snippet from a fascinating, stepfamily-relevant new post over at Skepticlawyer:

An oft-repeated mantra, everywhere from law courts to dating agencies, is that ‘children come first’. No-one ever provides any argument to back this assertion, and attempts (by me) to dig up social science research supporting the argument that privileging children’s needs over the needs of their adult parents, their teachers (or anyone else) is good for either (a) those children’s long term welfare or (b) good for anyone else have proven fruitless. This I find perplexing, and I’d be very interested to see what people think of the oft-invoked ‘in the best interests of the children’ (the standard family court line) or ‘my kids come first’ (spattered all over people’s online dating profiles).

See (contrarian that I am), I suspect it’s not true. Not only do I suspect it’s not true, but I also think it’s fed into a culture of child privileging that has led to the great bulk of young people — at least in developed countries — displaying the most extraordinary sense of entitlement. My feminist friends call this kind of thing ‘privilege’, and while the two concepts are similar, I’m not sure they’re the same. Most people, I suspect, don’t have any privilege by virtue of what they are. They have to have it conferred on them, and to my jaundiced eye, it seems that conferral is done, by and large, when they are children. Their needs are placed above the needs of their parents, their teachers and wider society. And then their sense of entitlement blows up in everyone’s faces.

…..

Ultimately I think this issue is really about permissive parenting and divorce guilt, something we stepfamily types tend to be all-too-familiar with.

Head over for the rest of the article; the lively comments are also well worth a read.

Casting shadows

I recently received a question from Vicki about being stepmother to children whose mother has died, and her words got me thinking.

While it is tempting to imagine that stepparenting would be a whole lot easier without the deep shadow a hostile mother can cast over your stepfamily, there are obviously difficult issues specific to partnering a widower with children that cast their own shadows.

Information specific to what is now an “alternative” stepfamily situation seems to be limited in stepfamily literature and resources; ironically even fifty years ago when divorce was still relatively rare but medical science so much less effective at dealing with illness, disease and accidents, stepfamilies were probably much more likely to be formed as a result of death than divorce.

Sadly, in the face of more recent social shifts, wisdom about stepfamilies formed following the death of a parent seems to have been overshadowed by resources focused on dealing with typical post-divorce stepfamily issues such as extended family conflict, parental alienation, and the day-to-day challenges of parenting across two households.

Anyway, I had a couple of ideas, but thought it might be more helpful to turn Vicki’s question over to the stepmother hive mind.

Here’s Vicki’s question:

Stepmumoftheyear…

Have you heard from anyone who has experience with step children whose mum died of cancer?

This is my situation, so I do not have the “other mother” involved. I do, however, know they resent me and my involvement in the house and their lives. Now I deal with them watching home videos of the “first” family, and having them resent me because I’m not her. I do not watch the movies because I don’t want to be sucked into that old life of theirs. My husband lets them watch these videos, out of our presence.

The older one is quietly angry because she knew her mother and must do without her. The younger one just thinks life would be better if her mum were alive…mum would do all the things for her I don’t do, but make her do (cleaning room, two days of loading dishwasher, emptying two wastebaskets…on a schedule, not at 10:30 pm)

I read much about step families with the biological mother involved, good or bad, but not with a deceased biomum. The girls are 20 and 15, and both resent me. My husband is wonderful! Works so hard to make everyone happy…and he loves me so. (Our sweet comment to each other is that I say I love him more than he loves me. He says not so…that he loves me more than that.) After four years of marriage, I am finally learning to “keep my mouth shut” and not knit-pick, tattle, or criticize. I try so hard to let my husband find the not-done chores and spilled drink on the floor. He, then, can deal.

Is there any word out there about this?

Does anyone have any suggestions or input about stepparenting bereaved children (whether or not from your personal experience…)?

More on Marrying the Wrong Person (via Marriage Gems)

Following on from my post yesterday Do you ever think your partner is Mr Wrong? is Lori Lowe’s sequel article More on Marrying the Wrong Person.

Lori’s Marriage Gems blog is a fabulous resource, and a timely reminder for stepmothers about the importance of insisting on investing in our marriage/relationship instead of throwing ourselves headfirst into wrangling the stepkids or fighting the ex-wife wars at its expense.

After all, we made this commitment primarily to our partners, and while we may have readily signed up for all the “extras” stepfamily life entails, it’s important not to get so caught up by the free set of steak knives that we leave the George Foreman Miracle Marvel Magic Grill Centre* to forlornly gather dust in a corner cupboard.

Or something like that…

*Product may be imaginary and may not be available, instore or online, now or ever.

“I have no way of knowing whether or not you married the wrong person. But I do know that if you treat the wrong person like the right person, you could well end up having married the right person after all. It is far more important to be the right kind of person than it is to marry the right person.” — author and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar This quote summarizes the discussion we’ve been having about marrying the wrong person. My post last … Read More

via Marriage Gems

Just asking

Does anyone else find it really, really difficult when your partner wants you to look through photos of his kids as babies that were taken when his first family was intact?

Mixed in are inevitably photos of the kids’ mum, posed with them and smiling, and I see them even though the Lovely Man doesn’t specifically show them to me.

Inevitable, too, are the accompanying stories beginning “This was when we had just had Boy A…” or “That was just after we had bought our house in X-ville.”

“Our” and “we” in these stories never means “him and me”, naturally.

The whole experience makes a sad little underline to my own childless outsider status.

Some days when the photos come out I can handle it, at least for a while. I don’t want the Lovely Man to feel that his Boys’ babyhoods are on lockdown and can’t be talked about or shown off.

Today, though, I’m not coping with it, and I think I need to find a way to tell him.

Does this kind of situation come up in your stepfamily, or am I being over-sensitive?