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]

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?

Storm’s coming

You know how maestro piano players are sometimes described as playing a piece of music “stormily”?

The Lovely Man is in the study at the moment, and I can tell he is writing his email response to the Boys’ Mum’s most recent sound-and-light-show communication because his typing is noticeably stormy in volume, tone and rhythm.

It’s a bit sad that the amount of conflict she orchestrates means that I have learned to distinguish between an email being typed to her and an email being typed to any other random person FROM ANOTHER ROOM!

What are the storm warnings that stepfamily drama is brewing in your home?

Shades of beige

Monday was the first night of our regular week with the kids.

As usual, Boy A was fairly hostile towards me: he refused to respond to my hello, and every comment I made (not to him – I don’t waste time trying to make conversation with him directly) was met with a shrug or a smart remark.

For instance, I was talking to the other boys about making Crepes Suzette for dessert this week and describing how we would set fire to the crepes before serving them.

(Setting fire to foodstuffs has gigantic appeal to boys, in my experience.)

At this point, Boy A butted in to snidely suggest that he’d rather pour petrol than liqueur on the crepes. To which I replied that he was quite welcome to add petrol to his own serve.

Normally I wouldn’t have responded that way; that night had me teetering alarmingly close to the cliff edge of my self control.

His rejoinder?

“Yeah, that’s really funny.”

Oh, right, because it was all about me being funny at his expense.

Anyway, by 5pm I’d had it and retreated to the bedroom with my laptop for much of the rest of the evening, feeling besieged and frustrated but glad to be avoiding further hurtful comments and pointed exclusion.

Later, once the kids were finally in bed, I asked the Lovely Man how he felt the evening had gone and whether there was anything extra I could have done to support him with the kids.

I was expecting to talk about specific tasks, like me doing dinner so he could cover homework duty – that kind of mundane stuff.

Instead, I heard:

“I think it was good that you kind of made yourself scarce and kept a low profile in the bedroom, because Boy A finds it difficult when he thinks you’re too much in the foreground.”

*Cue crickets*

Finally, I found my voice.

“I’m all in favour of keeping things low-key, especially in the first 24 hours we have the Boys, but I am NOT going to hide out in the bedroom or generally fade into the wallpaper because Boy A prefers it that way. His behaviour is the problem here, NOT MINE.”

Turns out that the Lovely Man hadn’t even noticed Boy A’s nastiness, and just thought I was relaxing in the bedroom because I wanted to.

I found it disturbing and a bit hurtful, though, that it’s considered preferable that I minimise my presence and role in the house to keep the peace and keep Boy A “happy”.

Ultimately, I think those kinds of accommodations devalue and disrespect me and enable Boy A to continue deferring his adjustment to our family situation.

I understand that the Lovely Man feels stuck in a lose/lose situation, juggling to keep everyone happy, but this incident has made me wonder – if my best contribution is made by downplaying my existence in what is meant to be my part-time home, why am I here at all?

As a stepmother, are you ever asked or expected to downplay yourself or fade into beige to keep others in your stepfamily “comfortable”?

Speak Up Week Challenge – first check-in

The Speak Up Week challenge continues.

Our last few days with the Boys were spent taking them interstate to visit the Lovely Man’s extended family. I find travelling with the kids a real “hot button” time when the biological force field is more in evidence than usual, and my outsider status tends to throb like a particularly bad bruise.

During our time away, I…

- expressed to the Lovely Man that I preferred Boy C not share the bedroom he and I had when we all stayed with relatives, given there was space for him to sleep comfortably elsewhere;

- explained how disposable I feel in the family when we’re all out somewhere and the Lovely Man and boys just cruise off without me while I’m in the bathroom, leaving me looking around for them in a panic; and

- spent a happy morning alone trawling the markets for vintage clothes while the Boys and the Lovely Man browsed Lego stalls, instead of tagging along because I “should” and feeling irritated the whole time.

The sense of freedom this honesty brings is wonderful. Yes, there’s a degree of fronting up for potential conflict in the process of speaking out, and that’s scary, but it’s so much less burdening than the internal conflicts that result from pasting on a smile and stewing inside.

What kinds of things do you try to speak up about?

Stepmother mantras

Reading this post from stepmama metamorphoses (who has been so inspiring as she works through the process of stepping back from her husband’s ex’s dramas) as well as Sherri’s weekly affirmations at Too Many Toasters, I got thinking about the unspoken mantras that help me cope with the Boys and their Mum when things aren’t going so well.

The first is something I remind myself before every visit to or from the children.

How this goes is up to me.

Obviously, I can’t control what happens during our time with the kids. But I find that my sense of satisfaction is almost entirely linked to how well I feel I respond when challenges come up (and there are always challenges!).

So, for me, it works to remind myself that success, in these terms, is actually something I can control.

Boy A can be as sullen or even as actively rejecting as he likes, the other Boys can be behaving like orangutans on stimulants, the Lovely Man can be grumpy or tired or shut in the office, but if I manage my responses/reactions in a way I’m happy with I can still feel like I’ve done well.

What this involves has varied over time; it used to be that my benchmark was “keep your mouth shut and keep smiling” but increasingly, and with the help of our counsellor, I’m recognising that it’s more important to be authentic and voice my concerns and boundaries than to be a perfect Stepford Stepmum.

The second and third mantras are questions I ask myself.

What is this person really saying here?

This helps me to listen for the true interests and concerns buried in another persons’ words or actions, and hopefully to address those directly rather than get distracted by the emotions or information that we all sometimes use to “top-dress” our communications, for whatever reason.

And finally,

What is my truth here and how can I speak it?

This has been a big barrier for me. As much as I say I believe I matter in this family, I have tended to not speak up about things that bother me or assert my boundaries, mostly through not wanting to burden the Lovely Man or create extra drama, or through fear of nagging and criticising.

What I’ve found, though, is that one way or another the stress comes out.

And it’s better for me to clearly say how things are for me as they arise and ask for what I need than to have a sobbing conniption at 10pm ostensibly because the Lovely Man is late home from work.

So, when Boy A next tells me or says in front of me, for what feels like the eleventy-billionth time, that his Mum is very intelligent, instead of just repeating “Yes, I know” like an automaton I can hopefully say something like:

Yes, I know she is, Boy A. You’ve said that before. It’s great that you’re proud of your mum, but I’m not sure why you think it’s important to be telling me this?

(As suggested by our counsellor, who says it’s time to for me to start insisting on respectful boundaries in these situations, as opposed to my previous style of just putting up with any old shit in the name of being positive about the Boys’ Mum.)

And while it’s not exactly a mantra, I’ve found in general that waiting to respond to something that is upsetting until I’ve taken time to think about it from the perspective of the other people involved makes me a lot less likely to react in anger or out of pain.

As well, I’ve learned to be watchful about getting dragged down into a spiral of negativity. When I find myself making negative comments or statements about the Lovely Man’s ex or the situation generally to people, then feeling bad or disloyal about what I’ve said, it’s a cue that I need to address my underlying unhappiness, and usually, that there’s something I’m not speaking up about.

What mantras and reminders do you use to get through?

Making rules…

…but for pity’s sake don’t even think of calling them “family rules”! I can almost hear the reaction now, echoed back from eleventy million step households: “You’re not my family and you don’t make rules for me!”

[Sarcasm switches off]

Anyway, the Boys arrive tomorrow and I’ve been attempting to negotiate our first formalised set of house rules with the Lovely Man.

Rules and boundaries generally seem to be touchy topics and getting to this point has taken ages; the first time I raised the idea of house rules was nearly eighteen months ago! Even talking about it has been delicate, particularly the bit about introducing set bedtimes.

I gather that lots of separated parents, and especially dads, really struggle with firming up on boundaries for their kids. One blog I particularly remember described a dad saying to his wife, the stepmother of his two children, that he was “OK with having rules but not comfortable with there being consequences”.

And doesn’t THAT sounds like a hiding to nothing and nowhere for the unfortunate stepmother trying to get some kind of grip on the behaviour of the kids in her house?

The more superficial stepparenting books suggest that it’s a bad idea to “assume” an authority figure role with your stepkids, but I’m convinced those authors must have full-time nannies at their disposal. If not, there will be situations when the stepparent is forced to be the adult in charge and needs to direct the kids in some way. I try to minimise it, but basically, if the Lovely Man wants to work while we have the Boys, it’s inevitable that I have to step up from Wingman to Maverick status sometimes.

I described being an adult in charge in our hitherto (mostly) “rule-free” house to the Lovely Man as “a bit like trying to herd lobsters underwater”. That’s right, I think it’s harder than herding cats.

Not being one of the Boys’ parents, I don’t have natural authority with them, other than a little with Boy C perhaps. And yet there are many times when I need them to do what I ask, like when I’m doing the school run, when they’re hurting each other, or when I can’t in good conscience do one more speck of cleaning up without them contributing.

And those times are when I hit a brick wall, because without either (a) the natural authority that blood parents take so much for granted OR  (b) clear house rules fully backed by the Lovely Man, I often may as well sing to whales as expect the Boys to obey me.

So, rules are good. Ultimately, of course, they’re at least as necessary to our stepkids as they are to us. Our stepfamily psychologist reminds me that rules help stepkids feel that they actually live a normal life with their other parent, rather than just being occasional visitors. And that despite the whingeing, that sense of normality, of having a place and a role, is something children of divorce crave.

BUT…

Whether it’s about Dads wanting to avoid being the bad guy, feeling afraid of losing the “popularity contest” to a more permissive mother or just wanting their limited time with the kids to be all fun-fun-fun, it seems that setting and enforcing even simple rules is a fraught process in many stepfamilies.

So far the Lovely Man’s and my rules list is running to about four pages and is full of fluffy abstract concepts. Not exactly a collection of snappy ideas that I’d choose to post on the fridge, then.

It needs whittling big time. Like with a chainsaw.

So I’m wondering:

Do you have specific house rules in your stepfamily?

If so, what are they?

And how did they get put in place?

The Unnegotiables

Boy A once described something as “unnegotiable” – I’ve never forgotten the clumsy word.

A brilliant post from Urban Stepmom got me thinking about what is “unnegotiable” for me.

In the past, I’ve tended to put up and shut up a lot, endeavouring to silently tolerate situations that leave me grinding my teeth.

It’s not that I’m planning to institute a Reign of Terror, but there are certainly aspects of our stepfamily life that give me so much stress or plain niggling annoyance that I need to try to change them.

In the end, gritting my teeth and trying to endure just causes a kind of overflow effect, where the pent-up stress makes me less able to handle other stresses that wouldn’t normally rock me.

The little things often seem to create more frustration that the Big Bad Majorly Ugly Issues.

I’ve always taken the view that I can’t make changes happen by myself; without the Lovely Man on board nothing will be different. Some of these I’ve half-heartedly tackled in the past, been met with assurances that things will change and then watched, frustrated, as the same old song kept on a-playin’.

Maybe it’s a question of really speaking clearly and firmly about my feelings, negotiating solutions and then following through with determination.

In a stepfamily don’t ask, don’t get sometimes translates to don’t insist, don’t get.

One thing I’ve learned is that in selected matters that are REALLY important to you, you can’t afford for your concerns to represent the path of least resistance, or the extended family members who don’t mind recruiting Nasty or Whingy to get their way will automatically prevail.

After all, if I say I really want something, but back down from insisting, the Boys or their Mum’s contrary wishes will always bulldoze through, leaving me waving my tiny garden trowel and squeaking But!.. But!.. in their wake.

So here are some matters I’m going to aim to have formally added to the Family Unnegotiable List over the next few months.

No kids in my ensuite bathroom.

The Lovely Man recently commented that if we were to do a planned remodel where we move the weirdly-sited back toilet into the main bathroom and turn the extra space into a walk-in pantry, we would need to be flexible about letting the Boys use the ensuite if another kid was already in the main bathroom.

If that’s the deal, I’d rather keep my cooking appliances in their current unreachable ten foot high storage cupboards and retain my ensuite sanctuary.

After all, we have another bathroom that the Boys can use in the studio.

Our ensuite is the only place I have in the entire house guaranteed kid free. Otherwise known as The Sanity Room.

Sanity and wee on the floor are mutually incompatible, in my view.

No toys in the loungeroom

Our loungeroom is basically a wide hallway. I’ve tried asking the Lovely Man to encourage the kids to keep toys out of the walkway. I’ve even corralled toys onto one rug so we can transit the loungeroom without clocking up painful Kid Recreational Equipment Injuries.

No matter what I do, the lounge instantly becomes an obstacle course of Lego, remote-controlled vehicles of various descriptions, comics and general junk the moment the kids arrive in our city. I can’t handle the complete encroachment of kid chaos any more.

From next visit, there will be a designated playroom set up near the kitchen.

(Oh, and please don’t tell me That’s just living with kids. We are talking about domestic crazy of Hurricane In ToyWorld proportions here, not just normal kid mess. I have the pictures to prove it.)

Pleases and Thankyous – every time!

Self-explanatory… I don’t feel good about giving or doing for the Boys unless they Use Their Manners.

They’re getting a lot better already – at the instigation of the Lovely Man, impolite requests and answers are met with Pardon? Pardon?

I’m sure it’s violently irritating to them. But it’s also highly, highly effective.

Effective is good.

Kids who don’t answer when offered food/asked for their flavour preference/their opinion don’t get what’s on offer/don’t get consulted further.

I am not going to stand begging them to pick from raspberry or chocolate like they are doing me a favour.

Currently they know that the Lovely Man will make sure he persists until they eventually decide to pay attention.

This visit, they’re going to learn that if they’re not on the ball by my second inquiry, the opportunity to get whatever it is will just fade away.

What’s on your “Unnegotiables” wish list? Or what would you like to put on there if you could?

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?

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