Part II – The Stepmom’s Self-Deception

Stuck in the Muck

Nearly a year ago, I realized that in my remarried equation and my life as a stepmom, I’m the only variable.  That’s the nice way of telling myself, “Peggy, you’re the problem.”  

Kristi, our Bonus Mom for June realized the same thing when she stated, “I am the creator of my own drama.”  

And a close sister stepmom friend has also came to the conclusion about how powerful her self-deception has been.

It’s so tough to come to grips that yes, you are the problem.  And because this is so hard to accept, we justify our thoughts, actions and behaviors, we get other people to buy into our story, and then we blame the other person for our problem.

…another spoonful of medicine…

As a sisterhood of stepmoms, we’re all in cahoots with each other!  If you don’t believe me, go back and read one of your posts in the forum you most frequent for stepmom support.  Go ahead…I’ll wait.

How many of you feel stuck or have felt stuck as a stepmom?

 

I think I just saw 13 million hands go up…me, too.  Even now, there are days I feel deeply stuck…like I’m up to my eyeballs in stepmom crap.

Ladies, gather round.  Depending on your time zone, pour yourself a cup of coffee or a martini and listen carefully.  I’m going to tell you a secret that the Arbinger Institute told me.  You are stuck in your remarried life and in your role as a stepmom because,

You have a problem that you don’t think you have.  A problem you can’t see.  You can see matters only from your own closed perspective and you are deeply resistant to ANY suggestion that the truth is otherwise.  So, you are [stuck in the muck]…cut off, closed up, and blind.”

Let me give you an example – a simple scenario that raises the hackles of nearly every stepmom I know, including myself:  

The Schedule 

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

“She never lets my husband see his kids.”

“She’s always late for drop-off”

“She’s never on time”

“She’s always changing the damn schedule.  I have a life, too”

“My husband never objects to last minute schedule changes.  He has no balls when it comes to his ex-wife and what she wants.”

“I never know when his kids are coming over.  I hate not having a reliable schedule.  I hate the constant intrusion.  I hate having to always be the flexible one.  I hate his ex-wife, I don’t like his kids,  and I’m beginning to resent the man I love.”

If you see yourself in one, two, or even all of these scenarios, let me ask you a few questions.

How do you see yourself in the scheduling drama?

Who do you blame?

–the kids?

–your husband?

–the dreaded ex-wife?

As the schedule drama plays out ad nauseum in your life, do you feel justified in how you feel about the other players in your scheduling sandbox?

Tomorrow I am going to share with you examples of self-betrayal and how self-betrayal plays into the self-deception that keeps us stuck in the muck.

If you haven’t checked out the Arbinger Institute, I encourage you to do so.  And if you don’t have a copy of Leadership and Self-Deception  I strongly encourage you to buy yourself a copy.  The success of your remarried life and your role as a stepmom depends on it.

 

Top 10 Suggestions for the Week Ahead

 

Alrighty faithful readers – I’m outta here! My brain has officially left the building!  Tomorrow around this time I will be on the island to your left with a beer in one hand and a book in the other. 

So…as I leave y’all for the week, I’m going to leave with

My TOP TEN suggestions for the week!

ONE  

If you find yourself complaining about something (your husband, your step kids, the ex-wfe, the crazy cat lady next door) STOP. And just ask yourself…”am I complaining to garner sympathy and perpetuate my inner victim?” Or are you stating a complaint and then actively seeking ways to resolve the complaint (I am She-RA…hear me ROAR)?

TWO

If you find yourself in the middle of a sticky ball of goo, are you looking for more goo or are you trying to figure the opportunity the goo represents? 

THREE

Have you told a stupid knock-knock joke lately? Or something corny yet so funny you make someone laugh til their sides hurt?

FOUR

When’s the last time you hugged your step kid? If you can’t remember, you might be long over due…

FIVE

Schedule a DATE night with your husband this week. And no…staying in doesn’t count. I challenge you to find something you can do for 1-2 hours for $20 or less. Reconnect, Recharge and the KIDS are a forbidden topic (so is the ex-wife)

SIX

Read two books this week – Either Stepmonster by Wednesday Martin or No One’s the Bitch by Jennifer Newcomb Marine and Carol Marine – and then pick something juicy and fun!

SEVEN

Looking for an new blog to add to your list? Read DOOCE – the most read blog in the known Universe!

EIGHT

Star Trek fan? DH a Star Trek fan? Take yourself and your man to see this movie…IT ROCKS! (And Captain Kirk is so sexy!)

NINE

Hug your dog…or cat…or pet snake if you got one!

TEN

Make out with your man to Max Sledgley’s song “Slowly” (and you never know what might happen after that!)

Have a fabulous week!

 

Wear Your Big Girl Panties

Being a mom is hard.  Being a step mom is even harder.  Sometimes, and you can’t plan for this because you don’t know when it’s going to happen, your feelings about being a step mom or not being the “first wife”  will creep up on you…or in my case sting me like a bee that leaves me with a persistent itch tougher than athlete’s foot.

 The Bee Sting

Yesterday, I planned my husband’s birthday dinner and I wanted all of his kids to be with him.  His ex-wife’s mom knew, so she called and asked if she could stop by to see the kids, especially since Richard’s oldest son was trekking up from Boston.  Sure, sure…no problem…come on over.  Mom is truly a beautiful and wonderful person. 

The kids start arriving.  First The Pregnant One and her adorable Chihuahua (my fur grandbaby) and then Richard’s oldest daughter arrives and she’s carrying what looks like a large cat carrier, so I thought she was bringing her kitty over to play with the Chihuahua and Ed the Wonder Dog.  Only it’s a box, not a cat carrier, and it’s loaded with pictures of Richard’s kids, Richard, Richard’s family, memory lane and all that it entails. 

The bee sting didn’t sting…it just left me with an itch…an irritating itch.  My husband’s ex-wife’s mother and her husband are sitting on my couch and my step kids are going through this box of pictures so they can select certain pictures that they’re scanning in for a something they’re giving their mom for Mother’s Day.

I should be cool with all of this right?  I should be.  Only I’m not.  I pour a shot of tequila for my margarita.  I’m processing.  I’m dealing with it.  Fortunately, I’m making dinner and have to make frequent trips to the kitchen.  I think my hair’s on fire.  My youngest step son is trying to shove pictures of Richard and his ex in my face.  I know they were married.  I know they had four kids together.  I know all this and my brain is really OK with it all but my stomach is doing a flip flop. 

Of course Richard is sorting through pictures he hasn’t seen in decades…pictures from high school, pictures of his parents and his family.  And there’s one of Richard in his Nova at the gravel pit…I remember the Nova.  We made out in the front seat.  I loved that car.  I loved seeing pictures of Richard’s dad.  I remember him and the time he walked in on me and Richard doing…well…let’s just say it was embarrassing and I was no longer allowed in Richard’s room unless he kept the door open. 

 Life happens and things change.  I left the town Richard and I grew up in in 1983.  I joined the Air Force and got married 5 months later to my first husband.  I had Jessica in August, 1984.  Richard married his second girlfriend and his oldest son arrived in March, 1985.  More kids came…One more for me and three more for him.  Pictures, lots of pictures were taken. 

Is There a Cream for That?

The pictures of Richard’s past are in  box on my living room floor.  Mine are in a white cabinet downstairs in the basement.   Our lives are documented on 3×5 and 4×6 images, along with the occasional 8×10 family photo.  He has them.  I have them.  So why the itch?  Why the irritation?  Is there a cream for that?

After thinking about this, I realized two things (maybe three things).

1.  It’s really good that my step kids feel comfortable sorting through a box of old family  photographs…in my home.  My inner cheerleader thinks this rocks…this is awesome…and it IS!

2.  I miss my own kids.  Terribly.  And I have this dull ache that won’t go away.  At the same time, I couldn’t be prouder.  My oldest daughter, Jessica, lives in Seville, Spain and just landed a job in Lagos, Portugal for the busy summer season.  She’s on cloud 9 and having the time of her life.  My youngest daughter, Christina, is currently in Spain visiting her sister.  But when she returns home, it’s not to my home, but to her home…in Vail, Colorado.  She loves living in the Rockies, teaching snowboarding in the winter, working at a golf course in the summer and supplementing both jobs as a kick ass waitress in Vail Village.  I won’t see my girls until they come home in August for The Pregnant One’s wedding. 

3.  Wistful.  I can’t change my past life nor would I want to.  But I can’t help but wonder, “what if Richard and I stayed together in high school?”  This is the most non-productive thinking I can ever engage in.  Truth is we didn’t.  And we’re better people today because we didn’t.  We traveled the path that led us back to each other – and that journey is what makes us so special. 

So…it’s time to wear my Big Girl Panties because there’s a box of Richard’s past sitting on my living room floor…and that’s ok.

 

Design Your Life Plan!

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” 

~ Jim Rohn

How many of you feel you are at the whim of someone else?  That your life is being dictated by other people…your husband, his ex-wife, your kids, your step kids, your parents, your boss?  And you’re running around with your hair on fire trying to please everyone…Or that you are standing on the sidelines of Life, waiting for someone to hand you an engraved invitation to join in…

And when you fall into bed, exhausted and spent…your brain won’t shut off because all your focus has been on other people or you’ve been standing on the sidelines watching other people live… and you wonder why you are where you are and not where you thought you’d be.

I want to tell you that I have been that person.  I want to tell you that I waited and waited for my ex husband to give me that engraved invitation.  I want to tell you that I was that person running around with my hair on fire trying to please everyone.  I want to tell  you that I was the person that went to bed wondering why my life was no where close to where and what  I imagined it to be.

And I want to tell you that I am no longer that person.  Funny as this sounds, but when I kicked the wasband out for good,  I remember Dr. Phil shouting in my head, “WHO. IS. DRIVING. YOUR. BUS?”  It’s as if I woke up from a very bad dream…and I had to ask myself, “who was driving MY bus” and “why was I a passenger on MY bus instead of driving it?”  I even questioned if I was actually on MY bus or if was I on someone else’s bus?  Certainly, there was a time in my life when I walked through my every day experience as if I were walking through fog as thick as pea soup.

As I swirled around in my divorce drama, I remember describing it as if I were shipwrecked on a deserted island and I had no compass…and I was pretty much clueless on how to fix my broken ship…at first I thought I wanted to find a way back…but then I realized that I couldn’t go back because  that’s not where I was going.  I had to find a way to go forward and that meant sailing my ship…or driving my bus…in a brand new direction…and that was scary!

As dawn broke over my marble head, there was a poem that helped me set my own course…and I copied it and taped it to my bathroom mirror…this poem became the first thing I read in the morning and the last thing I read at night:

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~William Ernest Henley 

I ask you – who’s life plan are you in?  Your life or someone else’s?  Are you driving your bus or just a passenger?  Or worse, are you a passenger on someone else’s bus?  Do you have an unconquerable soul?  Are you the master of your fate?  Are you the captain of your soul?

I look forward to hearing from  you!

Blessings,

The Bonus Mom

 

The Opportunity to Relinquish Hostility

As a student and certified teacher of Yoga, self-study is paramount in my practice.  In the course of my certification, I had to reflect and write about Ahimsa, “non-harming.”  Ahimsa is the first Yama in Patanjali’s Yoga Surtras.  I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but as I sit here with my January/February issue of Yoga Journal, I get another chance to reflect on Ahimsa, and how this practice of “non-harming” can help step moms everywhere.

Ahimsa

In yoga philosophy, ahimsa is “the opportunity to relinquish hostility and irritability, and instead make space within your consciousness for peace.”  (Yoga Journal, February 2009, page 79)

Many step moms view their husband’s ex-wife as their enemy or adversary.  Someone who must be fought against, thought ill of, or is seen as the villian and a constant intruder.  Let’s face it, if your husband had kids with his ex-wife, she most likely has access to him in no way another woman ever should…but she does.  

As a step mom myself, I had many negative thoughts about my husband’s ex-wife.  And due to my husband’s good nature, any time she asked him for something, I felt territorial and protective of him because I thought his ex-wife was manipulating him.  I was angry with his ex-wife because I thought she stepped out of being a mom to her youngest son, who lives with me and my husband (my husband has 100% physical custody of his son).  After a series of stressful events with my stepson, I was oozing hostility.  And not just towards my husband’s ex-wife, but at my husband and my stepson.  I was angry with all of them.

Anger is One Letter Short of Danger

My hostile and angry thoughts weren’t harming them…they were harming me.  Ahimsa is not just about practicing non-violence to others but it is also about not harming ourselves.  My own angry, negative thoughts were harming no one but my Self.  

After reading Cathryn Bond-Doyle’s article, “Hostility is Not FINE!”  I realized just how hostile I was being and how that hostility was affecting my relationship with my husband, his ex-wife, and my step son.  I pressed my internal Pause button, stepped back from my negative thoughts and just observed them.  For every negative thought I was harboring I asked myself, “Is that true?”  What I found was that I attached myself to the negativity…I believed in each hostile thought I had towards my husband’s ex-wife and quite frankly, not one of the thoughts were true.  

 Kick Hostility and Anger to the Curb

Just like forgiveness has very little to do with who is being forgiven, letting go of your negative thoughts has very little benefit towards the person you harbor hostility towards.  It does, however, benefit you a great deal.  According to Sharon Gannon, the co-creator of Jivamukti Yoga, “when you start to understand how karma works, you realize that how you treat (or how you think about) others determines how much suffering you experience.” (Yoga Journal, February 2009, page 80)

My own personal experience with this was nothing short of creating my own small miracle.  I challenged each negative thought, I asked myself “is that true?” and watched each negative thought I had towards my husband, his ex-wife, and my step son evaporate.  I felt as if the weight of a thousand moons lifted off my shoulders.  Peace invaded the space that once housed my hostility.  I felt lighter, happier, calmer, and more in tune with the hum of the Universe.  

If you are reading this…I challenge you to hold up each negative thought you have about your husband, his ex-wife, and your step children.  Of each thought, ask yourself, “is this true?”  I challenge you to let go of your negative thoughts and create an ever-lasting inner peace.

Nameste

The Bonus Mom