15 minute read
Family & Relationship
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Are You Ready To Be A Stepparent?
Maria Natapov Stepparenting Coach & Strategist
When I first started my stepparenting journey, I definitely wasn ’t ready!
At least I didn ’t feel like I was. I took lots of time to think about it and came up with many good reasons for not having children.
Many of my “
” reasons came down to fear.
Fear of uncertainty. Fear of the tremendous responsibility. Wondering …
Do I have what it takes to do this? Am I good enough? Can I raise a healthy and well-adjusted child?
When I started dating my partner, I was honest with him from the beginning. I shared these good
reasons with him presenting solid evidence and logic. expression on my face. Then sat there with an I-rest-my-case
He looked at me earnestly, smiled … and said,
It took me a few weeks to sit with his words and take them in. As I reflected on it more, I realized
that he was right. this journey. Eventually, his words gave me the confidence and courage to move forward on
It was a long and difficult road with many ups, hurdles. plummets, twists, break-your-neck turns and
But it’ s been an incredible experience of growth, love, connection, patience, strength, and meeting
my edge in ways I could have never imagined. Being on this adventure for almost a decade, I’ ve
had to learn to navigate many hardships on my own.
If you ’ re considering jumping on this bandwagon and are at the beginning of your journey, some advice I wish I had when I was starting mine … here ’ s
1. Consider Safety Safety is at the top of the list. Some questions to ask yourself …
If you have a child …
2. Quality Time For most parents after going through a divorce, the bonds with their kids strengthen even more because the kids often become partners in several decisions that they might not have weighed in on when the parents were still together.
Often those bonds are largely what gets both the parent and children through the messy and painful business of the divorce.
So,
having a quality time alone with their parent without the stepparent is critical for children. small way to keep some consistency from before the stepparent entered the picture. It’ s an opportunity for the child to speak candidly to their parent about everything that’ s going on for them and to feel like they have their own relationship with that parent who ’ s been there from the beginning through it all.
As a stepparent, you have to be okay with this and not take it personally. Because children look to
their parents as the number one source of comfort. They rely on their parents to help them
process their feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Especially during difficult and all-encompassing
transitions – like divorce and blending a new family.
3. Discipline
Remember, this is a difficult and sensitive situation you’re walking into. Kids often have strong feelings about the divorce of their parents well after that divorce is over. And since kids have far less experience navigating challenging and complex situations, it may take them longer to fully process their feelings about it.
Not to mention the physiological bonds that they have to their biological parents. So when you’re a stepparent coming into this new dynamic, take your time getting to know the players and the rules. Watch the dynamics from the sidelines, let things play out a bit. Then take time reflecting on things.
Try your best to understand where everyone is coming from, but also share your thoughts and feelings. Create a safe space to discuss. Discuss things with your partner first, and do so one on one without the children present.
As you build a relationship with the children you can explore things with them as well. Be sure to come at all conversations from a lens of curiosity and don’t assume how they think or feel, but rather ask them. By doing so you will not only be building a connected relationship, but you’ll be teaching them the valuable skill of reflecting and tuning into their emotions and thoughts.
Leave the disciplining to their parents, and as time goes on and your build the relationships with your partner and the children, you’ll be able to explore the possibility of growing your role. Allow that growth to happen naturally and organically. Whatever you do, don’t force it! That will only bring out their defenses and create resistance and resentment.
4. Co-Parenting
There will be conversations and situations when your partner will have to discuss, meet with, or even spend time with their expartner, your stepchild’s other parent. This is necessary and the way it is. It’s important that you understand and respect it.
It’s important that you not get jealous about it. Usually, jealousy is about your own insecurity. Work through the emotions and prepare yourself for these situations to occur. Try these steps…
1. Processed your own emotions looking thoroughly at your behavior. 2. Is there truly cause for concern? 3. If after doing steps 1 and 2 you feel like a conversation needs to happen with your partner – talk to them.
But be prepared to be open to what they have to say and really hear and understand their perspective. If you find yourself getting upset by your own emotions, better to take a break and return to the conversation later when you’ve calmed down and are ready to hear each other again.
5. Giving Up Control
No matter how strongly you feel about your stepchild, the bottom line to get used to is giving up control because you are not the final decision-maker when it comes to them.
You can be a source of love, wisdom, caring, and support. But the bottom line is that is not your child. And their parents have the final say.
Prepare yourself to navigate a lot of unknowns and be able to flow with them by letting go of outcomes. Try these 5 things …
1)Do your best 2)Have patience with yourself and your new lovable clan 3)Show yourself plenty of grace 4)Make sure to lean on your support system 5)Practice self-care regularly and often
I invite you to give this a try and see for yourself the impact it’s going to have on you and your blended family.
Through showing up, staying grounded, and being responsive to the needs that arise during these interactions, you are earning your place in your blended family.
The rewards are well worth it!
Maria Natapov
www.Synergistic Stepparenting .com
Nicole Mason,
isn ’t finances or communication anymore; it is wives doing too much
Relationship Coach + RTT Practitioner
Doing too much is how women have learned how to excel in the workplace, but it’s hurting their home life.
Every woman starts their relationship wanting to be a good partner, a good wife. Our mothers and grandmothers modeled a different version of what’s required for today ’s women to be a ‘ good wife.
Good wives haven’t always equaled happy wives. But, being a happy wife is the only way to be a good wife today.
Confusing, right?
Real talk: Social norms and your conditioning isn’t designed to make you a happy wife… Think about it. Unload the dishes! Fold the clothes! Pick up the kids! Cook the dinner!
A little list of things to check off in the quest to be supermom and superwife…except you ’re checking off the wrong things to actually have the titles of supermom and superwife. These things will actually garner you the titles of impatient mom, tired mom, and stressed mom.
Instead of appreciating all the work you do, your family acts like it’s just expected. They don’t even see everything you do. Which makes you feel invisible and resentful. And with good reason!
Instead of helping, they make it harder! So much so, that when your husband’s out of town, you ’re secretly relieved because things feel so much easier. Time for a little dose of truth from your favorite divorce lawyer turned relationship coach… All those things on your To-Do List: You ’re doing those things for YOU. Nobody ’s grateful - because nobody actually asked you to do it all. And, even worse, your resentment from doing it all and no one appreciating it is actually hurting you AND the people you love.
I know you think you have to do these things; your brain even tells you all these things need to be done on a set, regular schedule. But, your brain really only wants one thing: security and to keep you safe. Safe to your brain means “ not changing anything. ” You probably saw your mom and grandma doing all the things – having dinner ready every night at 6, ironing clothes, doting on your kids. If you didn’t see it at home, you definitely saw it on sitcoms every night in your home. And, often still do.
Somewhere along the line, when women joined the workforce, we never thought to formally delegate all the operational parts of running a household. We’ ve delegated dinner to fast food restaurants and parts of chores, like putting dishes away, to our children. Maybe, we’ ve even hired a cleaning company to clean our houses…but we also make sure the house is picked up before the cleaning people come – to clean.
Women make their daily lives so much harder on themselves because you worry that showing your true vulnerability will make you seem weak and you’ll be rejected somehow. Or, that you’re asking for too much…too many things that you don’t even deserve in the first place. This brings up the age-old fear - whether you’re good
enough… a
‘good enough mom, a ‘good enough’
enough at your job, on and on. wife, ‘good
Which only makes you feel more unappreciated, frustrated, and tired. And, it makes you lose your shit (can replace with temper, if shit is not allowed!)…often
on the daily
It’s time to end the madness.
Carrying the mental load for your family is not something you have to do; it’s not even something you need to do. It’s something you want to do. You’re
keeping all the information –
the wifi password, the vacation plans, the dog’s vet appointments – because it makes you feel needed and important. Until it comes to actually have to DO all of these things, anyway. By then, you feel exhausted, annoyed, and disappointed this is all you seem to be good for.
Being responsible for the planning and execution of all the things to run your household is not something you actually need to do. Just like, asking for help isn’t something you want to do.
I know what you ACTUALLY want and need, not only to make your household run smoothly but also to make you be superwife and supermom – by doing LESS.
It’s time to break the cycle of overwhelm and actually start showing up as the wife+mom you thought you’d be before you actually had kids and life got stressful. The fear of not being enough is where we start. These beliefs that you have to do it all or can’t receive help stem from a false belief that you are inherently flawed and must prove your worth to your husband, your children, even yourself. Your subconscious is protecting you from not being needed. Your brain believes that if you’re needed, you’re important. And, if you’re important, no one will ever leave you.
@kleineachiles _ coaching
Newsflash: you ’re more likely to get a divorce from the impatience and resentment from doing everything than you are if you barely did anything on your To-Do List. I know it’s a hard truth. And, you might even think I’m wrong. You ’ ve learned this through years of conditioning – both in your own family and on television. But, it’s also the highest underlying cause of divorce I saw as a divorce attorney.
It would often be reframed as a lack of communication, inability to trust, or even a financial issue that couldn’t be overcome. But, when I’d dig deeper, it always ended up being the wife doing too much and letting the resentment simmer until it boils over because of a dish left in the sink, another sick day from school, or a sock that justttt missed the hamper, again.
It’ s your subconscious mind’ s fault The reason you can’t just calmly, respectfully ask for help when you need it – in a way your husband can hear it and makes him want to help you is because you ’ ve been trained to keep it all inside. You ’ ve seen women carrying to load of the household your entire life. What you didn’t see is the internal struggles they had. What you don’t realize is that life is much more demanding as a two-income household in 2022 than it was in 1985.
There are more sports practices and clubs, there are more networking events for both your husband and you, there are expectations to throw Instagram-worthy birthday parties for your dog, all while keeping your children safe online, keeping your house immaculate, and working 40+ hours a week.
Your subconscious mind – that part of your brain that has been trained through tv and movies –is in charge of 97% of your daily habits and actions. It was fully intact and locked in the beliefs and assumptions you were making at 8 years old, and we don’t usually put much effort into changing them after that point. This means, your mind is filled with outdated, irrelevant beliefs and a bunch of misunderstood assumptions. This also means you ’re essentially making an 8-yearold responsible for your marriage and home life.
When you ’re doing something you don’t want to do, but feel obligated to do, for whatever reason, it’s because your subconscious is running the show. You may be triggering a belief from your childhood: -You aren ’t good enough so you have to work hard -You can ’t trust people to stick around, so you make their lives easier to keep them around -There aren ’t any reliable people, so you have to do everything yourself
Even though these are deep-seated beliefs that you ’ ve probably had for 20+ years, there’s a simple system of healing that creates a feeling of internal security you could never imagine that sets you up for success in all areas of your life.
An easy way to start that is getting your mind used to making small moves. Want to delegate a chore to someone in your house? First, decide which chore you don’t want to be responsible for. Then, communicate that to the people in your home. Tell them all in a kind and respectful manner. It doesn’t need to be a long conversation; it can be a short, genuine request. Tune into any resistance you feel as it gets closer to tell them what you want and need. Where is it coming from? Did you have a similar experience not go well? Once you pinpoint why you ’re feeling uncomfortable, you can decide you don’t have to feel that way when asking for help – tell yourself why that feeling doesn’t make sense anymore and let it go.
like them to help you with – give them reasonable expectations, like you are now responsible for the trash, this involves paying attention to the trash cans and emptying them when they get full. Every week, all the trash in the house needs to be taken out to the trash can on Sunday night, the trash can needs to be pulled to the end of the driveway every Sunday night so it is there for trash pick-up early Monday morning, and when you get home on Monday, the trash can needs pulled back up and put away.
And, then the hard part: let them do it.
Do not remind them. Do not help them by emptying the trash Sunday afternoon because you’re cleaning the kitchen and want it emptied before sitting down to unwind before the week starts. Even if the trash can is overflowing, leave it. It is not yours to hold anymore.
You may find it is annoying and frustrating that others don’t do things the exact way you want them done, and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. But, it does make your life harder than it has to be. The more you accept that, process it, and allow people to complete tasks in their own way, the faster you will become the supermom and superwife. Being a good wife is simple once your subconscious is on board.
Relationships are easy – we, as women, overcomplicate them because we’re subconsciously repelling help. Your mind is telling you to keep it to yourself. That you’re asking for too much. Or the opposite, that it’s everyone else’s responsibility but they don’t care about it, which means they don’t care about you. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t need to do everything; you just need to do enough of the right things – the things that really matter. Don’t assume your instincts can be trusted to know what the right things are. Your subconscious mind is always trying to keep things the same. It’s your job to convince your 8-year-old subconscious brain that growing and changing – and giving someone else trash responsibilities – is safe to do and does not have to be done perfectly. At least, not if you want to have a long-lasting loving, and happy marriage.
Nicole Mason
