Disengaging

Disengaging is not a new concept in step-land.

But it was new to me when I first came across some articles a few months back.

At that time, I was trying trying trying to get the Lovely Man’s kids, and especially Boy A, to like me.

There were thoughtful little gifts, special efforts to make their favourite foods, questions about their interests and opinions.

Boy B was mostly ok, though he was wary and occasionally rejecting. The day I overheard him tell Boy A that he hated me I went into our bedroom and cried.

Boy C was, as ever, fun and funny to be around, offering me a level of mostly unconditional trust and pleasure at our friendship that felt like it was all that was getting me through.

Boy A, though, was really letting rip. Everything I did was stupid, he felt free to criticise my appearance, my cooking, my family. The sighs of disdain rang out and the eyes rolled and his gaze and ears were always averted from me. He actively sought to exclude me and tried to build alliances with the Lovely Man against me.

My poor sister used to patiently hear out my venting and say:

B, you’ve got to stop trying so hard! Just ignore him if he’s being nasty.

That was her approach with her own (heavily alienated) stepdaughter, and she found there was less pressure on them both.

But me? I Wasn’t Giving Up.

But then, after a particularly awful visit, I came across the disengaging concept.

Here’s the classic piece about The Disengaged Stepparent.

And Help! My Wife is Disengaged, an article aimed at men with frustrated stepparent partners.

And finally, Disengaging Made Easy.

(A lie, I’m afraid. It’s not actually easy. But it’s easier than the alternative!)

I didn’t follow the suggestions exactly.

I haven’t refused to do laundry, or made any big announcements. I will if I need to, though.

Here’s what I now do differently:

I’ve mostly given up cooking for the Boys.

It was causing me way too much grief to have my nice meals rudely rejected, so mostly I allow the Lovely Man make the dinners. If I do cook, it’s something their Dad makes that they’ve had a million times before, or a dessert that they’ve eaten in the past and liked. School lunches, when I make them, are exactly what they had the previous day.

The best thing? I’m not giving anyone a hook to hang their loyalty issues or desire to reject me on.

I now almost never buy little treats or presents for the Boys.

I liked doing it, but I didn’t like being expected to do it or not being thanked, so I stopped.

If, for instance, I decide to go to the fancy deli to buy Boy A’s favourite gourmet jam so he has an extra breakfast option, I don’t mention it, or I let him think the Lovely Man bought it.

It’s not that I don’t want to do nice things for the Boys – I do – it’s that I don’t want the stress of being unhappy with the way they choose to react, or to add to the “pity spoiling” they already get from other family members.

Instead, I aim to be completely present in the time I spend with them, whether that’s wrestling on the floor or helping with their homework.

I play with Boys B and C and hang out when and as much as I feel like.

Generally, we have a play session each day, but if I feel like staying in my bedroom with a book, then I do it without feeling guilty.

And because I’m actually enjoying the time I spend with the younger Boys rather than forcing it, we have more fun. They beg me to come and play now.

I no longer try to include Boy A. He’d be welcome if he wanted to join in, but he never does and I don’t mind at all.

I try to do what I say I will rather than “give in” to be popular.

So last visit I told the Boys they could choose a treat for two days of smooth morning school runs. If both mornings hadn’t ended being smooth, they would not have gotten their treat.

I tell Boy C exactly what time I will read until in the evenings, and it is his job to be in his PJs and in bed with clean teeth before that time. The longer he takes getting ready, the shorter his reading time. I don’t give in to cries of “just a few more minutes!”

Because I said I wouldn’t, that’s why. And I want them to know that I can’t be swayed by begging, pouting or bad behaviour.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Ironically, I’m both happier in myself and more popular with the Boys as a result of my decision to disengage.

There are different approaches to disengaging as a stepparent. Depending on the situation, it may not need to be full-scale, on-strike, you’re-hitchhiking-to-school revolution. But I bet there’s a few things in almost every stepmother’s life that might benefit from a strategic disengagement.

What do you disengage from in your stepfamily?

What could you disengage from?

There’s an app for that – iPhone applications for stepmothers

Ok, perhaps I’m being a trifle silly and self-indulgent with this post. But a bit of frippery is good in the middle of the week, and silly is sometimes surprisingly sustaining.

And for me my iPhone is more than a phone; it’s a family member. One that never complains on long car trips. Which gets it extra bonus points.

And yes, it’s true that probably most of these apps are no more applicable to stepmums than they are to Mothers Who Birthed.

But if you have the care of children (not infants – given that I first menaced into the boys’ life when Boy C was five I’m going to let that aspect slide for want of credibility), and sometimes those children, or you, need distracting/managing/pacifying (point me out either a stepkid or a stepparent that doesn’t!), then these apps come tested and recommended.

Exercise. I already wrote about Couch to 5k, but Gateway to 8k and (especially) Runkeeper are also pretty nifty for those times when you just need to escape. Exercise is one of those self-justificatory, don’t-need-a-reason activities that give you a get out of jail free card when you’re about to throttle someone.

Byline. For reading my stepmum blogs. Anywhere. Anytime. And it will cache them for reading even when I’ve got no reception.

Pzizz Relax. This incredibly useful guided mediation tool allows you to have timed power naps and wakes you up refreshed when your snooze is up. Can be used with optional hypnotic suggestions and “Aurora 3D” effects, also known as “binaural beats”, which are said to help induce a relaxed and suggestible brain state. Give Pzizz a go when you’ve been up late with kids who won’t settle, when you can’t seem to stop ruminating about the difficulties of steplife or just when you need to relax. It really, really works. And it’s great for regular self-care.

Epicurious allows you to search recipes based on one or more main ingredient, meal or course you are catering cooking for, a cuisine type, dietary considerations, the type of dish and the season or occasion. You can search by keywords, save favourites and generate shopping lists.

I’m a keen cook, and the thought of stirring industrial-sized vats of the bland gloop that results from eliminating almost every known ingredient or flavouring because one or other of the boys won’t try doesn’t like it nearly does my head in. Epicurious at least lets me explore a range of options.

The boys also love using it to choose recipes; and when they are involved they tend to try much broader groups of foods.

Another free app with a database of less foodie-type meals and a super cool high-kid-appeal slot/fruit/poker machine-style format for spinning up recipes is Dinner Spinner. I’ll mention that a lot of the recipes it links to seem to include cans of Cream of Mushroom soup and leave you to judge whether that communicates “time-saving homestyle deliciousness” or “gloopy 1970s casserole” to you…

Stanza is a book reader. It’s so well laid out that the format is being adopted by other purpose-built reader gadgets. It’s very pretty, with a page-turning simulation that the boys love. And I love being able to download hundreds of classic books with kid appeal for them to read in random moments of boredom or when we’re travelling. For free!

At the moment Boys C and sometimes Boy B are listening to me read aloud The Wind in the Willows. We can’t find our lovely old hardcover edition amidst the chaotic forest of Lego sculptures at present, so it was iPhone to the rescue. And the benefit is that with the lit screen I can read to them in the dark, helping them to settle for sleep that much sooner.

Games. The Boys looooove playing games on the iPhone and we mostly keep it as a special treat, or to palliate annoying waits and car trips. Enduring favourites include Yahtzee, Flight Control, Doodle Jump and Touch Physics; all of which are non-violent and/or cooperative.

Apologies to non-iPhone geeks, but the little plastic and metal phone thingy really makes a big difference in my time with the kids, and I sometimes, quite frankly, wonder how I’d manage without it.

Self-Care Challenge – Day 7

Ummm, I didn’t walk the dog yesterday.

Bad. Evil. B.

My self-care challenge has been most useful by showing just how much I need to make self-care an active priority. If it’s not actively planned into each day it just doesn’t happen, I’ve found.

And given that we’re about to head interstate for a week with the Boys, becoming aware of the need to plan self-care and getting into the habit of scheduling and doing it before we leave has been good practice for the next few days, when I’ll be in the KidHaus with the chips down and the stakes high.

I think a self-care diary would help me stay on track, even if it’s just a stack of post-it notes on the bedside table. Or maybe I could use my iPhone. Surely there’s an app for that!

Today, for the final day of the challenge, I’m going to bake something yummy with Billie Holiday playing in the background. So soothing!

And (finally) take the dog for a walk.

Thanks to everyone who has followed, commented and been involved in my inaugural Self-Care Challenge Week!

Let’s keep asking ourselves –

What’s one thing I like to do, just for me, that makes me feel good about myself and that I can do today?

Self-care challenge – Day 6

I’ve still got sunburnt legs from surfing on Saturday morning (who’d have thought that the surfboard would rub all the sunscreen off my legs!?), so running is out for today’s self-care. Hot, itchy thighs are not fun!

It does need to be exercised-based, though, so today I’ll plan to take the dog for a walk along the loop where I usually run. There are some steep hills, so we’ll both get to work our muscles a bit, even if not at high speed.

My little sojourn on the front step was really soothing last night; I came back inside in better and less troubled spirits and was able to talk what was bothering me over calmly with the Lovely Man.

That small step of recognising what I needed to do to self-soothe and doing it in turn allowed me to think the situation through and gain access to more adaptive ways of thinking and talking about it.

As a bonus, I got to spend time listening to the night noises, which I love.

How are you going to take care of yourself today?

Self-Care Challenge – day 3

Yup, walked the dog yesterday.

And, frankly, I don’t think I would have done it if I hadn’t made this public commitment, so, so far, the reader-scrutinised self-care challenge system is working.

The dog is curled up on the couch next to me with her fluffy flank pressed against my leg, so clearly she’s happy with the arrangement, too.

Today the Lovely Man and I had a sleep-in, which scores high on the self-care star chart.

As some of you might know, we have an absolutely ballistic work and travel schedule.

My working days involve getting up at 5.50am and travelling for up to almost two hours on public transport each way.

The Lovely Man quite often pulls working days that begin before 7.30am and finish after 10.00pm. One memorable morning he left for work at 7.00am and arrived home again at…. 2.00am the next morning. Gulp.

Then there’s his/our travel to see the kids: twelve days per month spread over at least two trips for him, and one visit of around seven days per month for me.

Not, perhaps, quite the relaxed “lifestyle” we’ve been accused of prioritising above the kids!

So, as you can imagine, the days that we get to sleep in together are truly few and far between. I especially love pretending to rouse on him, telling him that when I come back to the bedroom with his morning coffee he had better be horizontal with his eyes shut – or else!

Tomorrow’s self care commitment isn’t a freebie. We’re staying at a friend’s beach house this weekend as a special treat, and I’ve booked us a surfing lesson.

(I’ve always wanted to learn to surf with a professional instructor as opposed to with male friends who use the “lesson” as an opportunity to show off their moves – in the Barry Manilow rather than the Kelly Slater sense.)

What self-care did you do today? And what do you have planned for tomorrow?

Self-Care Challenge – day 2

Well, I headed off for my run yesterday as promised, so day 1 of my Self-Care Challenge is therefore officially done and dusted!

I’ve only been a runner for around six months; prior to that time I would have sworn black and blue that there was no way I would ever run for any reason less pressing than having a fair-sized pack of slavering beasties on my tail. Even then I probably would have tried to climb a tree.

There are two factors I credit in my transformation to runnerdom – the Lovely Man, whose base level of fitness and dedication to exercise are inspiring, and the Couch to 5k application on my iPhone.*

C25k works you up oh-so-gradually; the first few runs involve jogging for 60 seconds then walking for 90 seconds, repeated over 20 minutes.

At first even that amount of effort nearly killed me. But gradually, as I followed the plan and scheduled in a short run/walk every second day, a habit built and I found myself looking forward to… not the running itself so much as the high and the massive sense of achievement I got afterwards.

My fitness took a hit over Christmas, and of course it’s very hot here at the moment, but I’ve just given myself permission to step back a couple of stages in the program as I need to, and however much I do it always feels really, really good.

It’s not for everyone, I know, and I’m sure lots of you have your own exercise preferences, but in my experience NOTHING (except maybe 90 minutes of Bikram yoga, which is both expensive and takes ninety minutes!) gets me out of the stepdrama better than a run.

Running is cheap, quick, rewarding, achievable, with minimal equipment required – could it be worth a try?

Today being Day 2 of my Self Care Challenge, I’m committing to taking the dog for a walk before heading out this evening.

It might be a push to fit it in between my work teleconference and various pressing chores, so please keep me honest by staying tuned with the rotten tomatoes…

*(You don’t have to have an iPhone, either – there are similar inexpensive programs that you can download to an mp3 player as audio tracks, or you can Google a Couch to 5k training program and time your own intervals with a stopwatch.)