What was once considered a rarity—step-siblings, step-parents, and step-in-laws—has become more common than not. When couples marry, there is a very good chance that one of them brings an extended family that branches by halves and steps. And if that couple winds up divorcing, the tree splinters even further. Because there is no biological bond that obligates a step-family member to stay in contact with other steps, the rules of engagement can be confusing and tense. In a recent article, marriage experts explain how to navigate the rocky road of step-relationships after divorce.
Take, for example, the case of an ex-wife who spent decades raising her step-children. Should she continue the relationship with these nonbiological children, even though she has no legal claim to them? Mary T. Kelly, a marriage therapist from Colorado, notes that often step-children can be a contributing factor to divorce. Many blended-family parents disagree over how to raise his, hers, and their children. Tension that exists between step-children and step-parents seems like normal childhood rebellion, but in many cases may actually run deeper.
Paul Hokemeyer, a New York therapist, says couples and children need to determine if they want those relationships to continue after divorce. Many children may not be permitted to make contact with their ex-step-parents while they are minors, but can make the choice whether to have a relationship with that significant person when they reach adulthood. Even step-grandparents get caught in the mix when step-families divorce. Grandparents who become attached to step-grandchildren, only to have them taken away, may not be willing to invest as much into future step-family members.
One Massachusetts psychologist, Patricia Papemow, recommends that clients try to initiate contact through letters rather than personal visits or phone calls. It is important for step-children to be allowed to have time to process the shift in the relationship on their own terms. Letting them know a step-parent is there through cards and letters is a noninvasive and subtle way to continue contact and keep the door open for future communication. Regardless of how an individual chooses to stay in contact with their step-children, Hokemeyer insists that they review their motives so that all parties will be receptive. “Make sure that you are acting out of genuine love and concern for the other person, and not out of anger and attempts to manipulate,” Hokemeyer says. Following these tips could help step-exes maintain important family ties in a world of ever-changing family dynamics.
A US mother has shared a post to Facebook saying that her daughter calls her step-mother mummy and she's good with that.
Hayley Booth, 26, of Oklahoma, shared the post in which she thanked her ex-husband's new wife for caring for her daughter so beautifully and revealing that her daughter also calls her Mummy. She went on to say that this was just fine with her.
"My daughter calls her bonus mommy 'Mommy'.. and you know what? That's okay, because that's what she is to her, she IS her mommy," wrote Hayley.
"She is there for her always, she takes care of her, she plays with her, she teaches her life lessons and how she should behave, she gives her hugs and kisses goodnight, she does everything any mother would do.. But most of all she loves her like she is her own. It takes a very special woman to take a child that they didn't give birth to, under their wing and become their mother."
The post immediately went viral and was shared more than 20,000 times. It attracted dozens of comments, the vast majority applauding Hayley's stance. Many also suggested that if more separated parents adopted her attitude the world would be a better place. And I have to agree.
But Hayley also said that other women who don't feel the same way are being selfish. And that's where she lost me.
"I see so many women say 'I would never let my child call another woman mom or mommy, because she's NOT her mom I AM!'," she wrote.
Source: http://honey.nine.com.au/2017/08/22/15/43/mum-says-daughter-calls-step-mum-mummy-and-shes-good-with-that
Your child's happiness and comfort should be your priority
Seldom is the decision is sudden; divorced dads typically know well in advanced when their ex will be getting remarried. Regardless of the details of their courtship, the new union will not sit well with any parent that does not have primary or sole custody. There are so many factors to this addition to the family, it can be hard to know how to react. The most important thing is always the kids, but where does their father fit in?
Some feelings are completely natural; men may feel a need to compete for the affection of their children or prove their worth through material gifts. It almost feels like this other guy, who has no connection with your kids other than being married to their mom, is barging in and disrupting the delicate balance that already exists in a separated family. While we frequently hear in our society about how hard it is for a divorced woman to see her ex-husband get remarried, it can be equally challenging when the tables are reversed.
Read on for some tips on how to deal with a new stepfather in your children's lives.
Dealing with Your Feelings
So, how does a dad deal with these feelings? How can he still stay the "father" to the kids when there is another man in their daily life? First, it is important to recognize that it is best for the children to have a positive relationship with their stepfather in their new blended family.
Regardless of how you feel, he has a major presence in their life.
Creating distance between the kids and the new stepfather is a sure recipe for failure. Having Mom remarry is already a difficult reality for any child, and it would be twice as hard if their father works to undermine it. So, talk to the kids about their new stepfather and help them adjust to the new reality.
Putting their well-being ahead of your new competitive feelings is a good first step.
Don't Compete with the New Stepfather
Sometimes dads who find themselves in this situation will try to compete with the new stepfather by being a "Disneyland Dad," and giving his kids everything they want and being really relaxed with rules and standards. It is natural to want the kids to have more fun with you than with him. But allowing the rules to go out the window and letting them get away with anything does not do the children a service. In fact, maintaining consistency in your relationships with the kids will actually be positive when so much in changing in their world otherwise.
Don't Put Down the Stepfather
You probably will not get along with or like to be around the new guy. Still, it is important for your children to see that you respect him and their mother. If you do the opposite, say, by giving the impression that this is a person that your kids should not respect or take seriously, you will find yourself struggling with the entire family. Say nice things about him and their mom whenever you can.
That said, if the guy exhibits risky behaviors, you have to protect your children. A custody challenge could be warranted if the stepfather is verbally or physically abusive, or if he is regularly overly intoxicated, or if there are other violations upon your children.
Talking to Other Dads Who Have Been There
Opening up to another separated father may be outside your comfort zone, but it is the best way to gain perspective. You will have the chance to see how others have handled this transition and whether the experience was good or bad, which will help you find your own best path. If you don't know any non-custodial fathers with this kind of experience, find a fathers support group near you.
Have a Great Life Outside of Your Family
Get involved in activities outside of work; service clubs, PTAs, and the like will give you some release. Stay healthy and physically active. A good life balance will help you, in the long run, to keep being a positive influence on your kids and will put many of these things into perspective.
Your children need their father to be a positive, fun and loving influence in their life.
While they should also have a good relationship with a stepfather, the best thing you can do is to be their real dad, to live up to your obligations and to be a positive and upbeat part of their lives.
Source: https://www.liveabout.com/coping-with-your-kids-new-stepfather-1270393
In working with stepfamilies, I’ve found that a common expectation from divorced dads is that their partner will step in and parent their children. They might think that if their partner spends more time with the child, a bond will occur quickly and they’ll be a “real” family.
But this can often backfire as there are many challenges a stepparent faces that usually don’t exist for the parent; challenges that make it exhausting, and sometimes impossible, to “parent” another’s child, especially early on in the relationship.
The relationship between stepparent and stepchild will take years to develop and forcing it may actually delay things, or prevent it from ever happening, as negative feelings and resentments build.
But since a lot of dads don’t know this, they get frustrated when their wife wants a break or is resistant to parenting their child. The fact is, there are some very good reasons why it’s often harder to stepparent than it is to parent.
- Children are more forgiving of a parent than a stepparent. Parents might learn as they go as too, especially first-time parents, but the cost is less. There may already be so many negative emotions around having a stepparent, that one wrong move might cause the child to hold a grudge, making it impossible to ever get close to him. Stepparents often live in fear of misstepping, especially when they don’t know what that might be until it’s too late.
- A parent has a higher level of tolerance for their own child than the stepparent has. The stepparent didn’t go through nine months of carrying the baby in their womb. They (usually) didn’t have those very precious first few years with the child where they bonded. The child is not an extension of the stepparent. It’s just natural to have more patience for something that’s yours, than something that isn’t. The mess, the noise, the tantrums, the stress — I don’t believe any parent loves these things, but they tolerate it because, well, that child is theirs. Something happened when that baby was born that gave them unlimited ability to put up with anything and everything the child throws at them. Even when they do need a break or get angry, their love for that child never wavers and they’re ready to get back in the saddle in record time. Most stepparents don’t have this super power and it can often take a long time to trust the child again or have positive feelings towards them.
- A stepparent never knows when they should speak up. A stepparent is always worried about stepping on toes, getting backlash for something she said, or even something she didn’t say — something that was misinterpreted by the ex or incorrectly passed on to the ex by the kids. And because of #1 above, there’s always a fear of her stepchild not liking her anymore. What an awful existence, living with someone who doesn’t like you — but often holds so much power in the house. It’s exhausting to be so unsure of oneself. And walking on eggshells for an extended period of time will wear out even the strongest of spirits.
- The child wants to be parented by their parent, not their stepparent. Children are craving time and attention from their parent. They don’t see their stepparents as authority figures, meaning the child doesn’t see them as someone they have to listen to. If they feel resentment that they even have this extra person in their life, listening to and respecting them as an important person in their life isn’t at the top of their to-do list. And even if the relationship is decent between them, it can still feel an intrusion when a stepparent tries to intervene.
- Children naturally want to please their parents, not so with stepparents. Children don’t look for the approval of their stepparent the way they do their parent. There’s not a natural sense of wanting to be accepted by them. Don’t get me wrong, we all want to be liked, but what I’m referring to is happening on a much deeper level. In fact, sometimes they want to make things as difficult as possible for them, hoping on some level that maybe they’ll just leave and the child can have their parent all to themselves again.
- A parent has unconditional love for their child, whereas a stepchild can feel like a foreign entity to a stepparent. People love to judge a stepmom who doesn’t automatically fall in love with her stepchild. But the reality is these are basically two strangers who didn’t choose each other, now finding themselves part of the same family. Since it can take years for a stepfamily to feel and function like a family, so those first years are an adjustment, to say the least, for everyone. A child doesn’t automatically think of their stepparent as a parent - or of any importance to them at all. That bond will take years to develop. And sometimes it just doesn’t happen.
- There might be an unhappy ex in the mix, discouraging the kids from having a relationship with the stepparent. When a parent places a child in a loyalty bind, the child thinks “If I like my stepparent or have fun with her, it will hurt my mom.” Therefore the child may resist a relationship with their stepparent, or even worse, start acting out against her. Research shows that the more a child actually likes their stepparent, the worse he may act towards her. The guilt he feels may be too overwhelming, as he thinks he’s betraying his other parent.
Dads: If you want to be your wife’s hero, listen to her when she says she’s having hard time trying to parent your child or when she’s asking you to do more of the heavy lifting, that is rightfully yours. It’s not because she “doesn’t like” your child, it’s not because she doesn’t care for you. It’s simply because this is the nature of stepfamily dynamics and sometimes it’s just impossible for her to be what you expect.
The development of the stepparent/stepchild relationship doesn’t happen overnight, so If you want to preserve the space for that relationship to happen, honor the process by letting it evolve naturally, at a pace everyone is comfortable with.
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenna-korf/why-stepparenting-can-be-harder-than-parenting_b_7195588.html
I once read an article about Jenny McCarthy where she stated that her famous ex Jim Carrey is no longer close to her son now that they’ve broken up. Jenny has a son from a previous marriage who Carrey became very close to during their five-year relationship, which ended in 2010. Fast forward to 2014 and McCarthy is now engaged to Donnie Wahlberg. I’m guessing…or maybe hoping…that Wahlberg’s relationship with her son is just as close, if not closer than the one he shared with Carrey, but child/step-parent relationships can be very complex. Which brings me to this question: Should step-parents be allowed, or required, to stay in a stepchild’s life even after a breakup or divorce?
Some step-parents who have divorced someone with a child might not care if they no longer have contact with the child depending on what that relationship was like. The child might not be extremely affected either, especially if he never really became attached to his step-parent in the first place. But what about the kids who grew up with a step-parent who treated him like his/her own and now has to separate from that parent? The devastation could be the same as if he were separating from a biological parent. And if the couple shared a biological child, then a stepchild might also suffer from the possibility of becoming separated from a sibling that he’s bonded with.
Then there’s a case like Jenny McCarthy, where she’s now moved on to a new guy who will be in her son’s life. Perhaps Jim Carrey felt that it would be best to distance himself from her child because he knew that one day she’d move on to someone else who would play a fatherly role. And if Carrey is dating someone new himself, would she take kindly to him staying in his ex’s life by remaining close to her son? I think a case can be made that if a couple doesn’t share a biological child, and were never married, then there’s no reason for an ex to remain in your life period for the sake of child that doesn’t belong to the both of them.
So what is the protocol in situations like this one? My guess is that there is no set rule when it comes to step-parent/child relationships since none are exactly the same. It would depend on the bond that was developed…or not. And it would also depend on how the relationship ended between the parents, and the maturity level of the adults involved as well.
Marrying someone with children is not a decision to make lightly when there’s a possibility that you’d have a huge impact on a child. If that child lives with a step-parent, then that person will be in a position to help raise a child, mold him and shape his views and outlook on life. If the child bonds with the step-parent, then the relationship becomes independent of the biological parent, therefore making a breakup very painful. In this case, both adults should give proper attention to the impact their divorce would have on the child. This is where maturity makes all the difference.
It would be a biological parent’s legal right to keep his or her child away from a step-parent in the case of a divorce (unless that step-parent has legally adopted the child or has been granted custody), but if he or she sees that it’s hurting the child, then the best thing to do in that situation is remain cordial with your ex so that the child can maintain contact if he or she wants to. The step-parent should also keep that door open should the child still crave his or her love, attention and guidance. While a step-parent may not be able to demand visitation for a child that isn’t biologically his/hers, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to request some time together if a bond has developed over years that would be no different than if the two shared DNA.
If the child is of an age where he or she can express themselves freely, then consider their feelings in the breakup and ask them what they’d like to do. Some may be so young that they can’t properly express their desires without upsetting either parent, in which case the parents should use their best judgement as to what is in the child’s best interest. But if you’re dealing with teenage children, then they can continue the relationship with the step-parent or let it drift away. In this case, a biological parent should just step aside and allow your ex to come to his games or his graduation and support the child together. And ideally, isn’t that what one would want? After all, more love is always better.
Source: http://madamenoire.com/427603/relationship-with-a-step-parent/
The learning curve is steep when you merge two families together. If marriage has a blind spot, remarriage with offspring on one or both sides, is like driving straight into the sun. Here’s what nobody tells you about having a blended family:
1. You will have a much more difficult time putting your marriage first. Heidi Klum and Seal were often quoted saying their partnership came before parenting their four children, because it was best to have two solid, committed parents. With their divorce recently finalized, we all see how that worked out. If you are part of a blended family, chances are you’ve already spent time as a single parent where your children came first. Switching up the order is tough and causes hurt feelings. Don’t get me wrong—the order is going to switch practically every minute and if one of those minutes collides with your partner in the same spot, literally and physically, well than that’s just magic.
2. You are more set in your ways than you realize. All it takes is a kid or two (or three) and a spouse to show you just how much you prefer your way, because chances are that you have been the head-of-household adult making the decisions for a while.
3. You will have a hard time not comparing this life to the life you had before. Because this life was chosen so carefully. Because, no matter how you went into your past marriage, this marriage you went into with your eyes wide open. But…having a comparison will often prove to you what a smart choice you made.
4. You will be jealous of the ex. Even if she is the craziest woman on the planet, and the thought that he would have chosen both her and you in the same lifetime makes you question everything that got you here in the first place. The fact that their DNA has blended and formed little humans is a connection that surpasses every level of certifiable crazy.
5. You will love his children. You will even love them well. Maybe right away, maybe it will take years. But you will. You will hold them to the same expectations as you hold your own children. Your heart will break and soar when theirs does. Their accomplishments will provide pride, their setbacks will break your heart. They will be the closest thing ever to your own children. Maybe you will experience a love extremely close to that of the love for your own children. Or maybe it will always be just a bit shy. Either way, you will love them as you need to, as they need it.
6. You will never be comfortable with even the slightest negative comment about your kids, even if it comes from the man you have promised to love no matter what. It may as well be written in the vows, “through sickness and health, til death or you saying something mean about my kids, do we part.” I am allowed to complain about my kids being bratty or needy or driving me crazy, but you, Love of My Life, must find them to be wonderful every moment and if you don’t, best keep it to yourself forever and ever.
7. You forgive easier. Because you have to. There is a whole slew of people requiring your forgiveness on a daily basis. People who haven’t known you long and want to take your patience out for a test drive. And there will be a lot more things that require forgiveness. My 14 year old step-daughter loves my taste in expensive hairspray, jeans, and shoes but lacks the desire to ask me each time one of these is required in her life. So I forgive. It’s much easier.
8. You will be disappointed that there isn’t the big fuss. Because this time it feels a thousand times more real. I’m not saying I wanted to pick out new china. But I did commit to a life partner and the co-parenting of several more children. I think that’s worth at least a salad bowl, if you’re my friend. Better yet, a bottle of wine as we will need it more than most newlyweds.
9. You will become more private about things. If only because it means not having to explain to a complete stranger at Target how five children shot out of your uterus like rapid fire. Or because you get sick of people asking which ones are “yours”.
10. You will have no road map. While there are a thousand books about blended families, none of them will be able to speak to your exact situation. Helpful advice will often be only the bits and pieces you can relate to that you have to fuse together yourself. Every single day you will want to pull out a What To Expect When…… book but instead you will have to make up your own answer on the fly.
But you will. And the best part is, because there are no straightforward and exact answers for remarriages and step parenting, no one gets to tell you you’re wrong.
At least that’s what I tell my family.
Source: http://www.scarymommy.com/having-a-blended-family/
On a recent Sunday morning, 10-year-old Kaia woke up in the mood for crepes, something her mom, Alison, makes like a pro. So Alison whipped up the egg batter while Kaia's dad, Wes, pulled out the frying pans. Big brothers Oliver and Noah sliced strawberries and tracked down whipped cream. "The kids love when we do family breakfasts," says Alison, 42. "On the weekends, we form an assembly line so everyone can pick their toppings." The kitchen of their Minnesota home is large and comfy. On the wall is a calendar that tracks soccer practices and doctors' appointments. Tacked up next to it is another schedule, one with alternating weeks labeled "Mom" and "Dad." It's a custody chart.
To say that Alison and Wes are still close seven years post-divorce is a laughable understatement. In 2010, they scrapped their separate living arrangements and moved back in together with their children, Noah, 15, Oliver, 13, and Kaia. The whole brood now shares a rambling old Victorian that Wes, 43, a carpenter, gut-renovated to accommodate everyone--including Alison's partner of five years, Shari. The parents say the screenplay-worthy move came after seeing the tailspin effect their split had on the kids. "They never seemed to find a peaceful place, moving back and forth between our two houses and keeping up with two sets of stuff and two sets of friends," says Alison.
This type of living situation, in which exes share or rotate through a single home that their children stay in full-time, is called "nesting." As kooky as it may sound, Margaret Klaw, a Philadelphia divorce attorney who's been in practice for 25 years, says it's on the rise: "I wouldn't have seen this even 10 years ago, but now more couples try it, sometimes just for a year or two during transition." Rob Crane, M.D., an associate professor of family medicine at Ohio State University who nested with his ex and their daughter, explains the motivation: "Allowing kids to stay put in their house instead of uprooting them every couple days can minimize the psychological injury of divorce and give a sense of normalcy at home." His arrangement attracted so much interest from friends and strangers that Crane started a website, kidsstay.org, where those considering it can get more info.
Nesting is obviously not an option for everyone; it could prove disastrous in a split that involves violence, for example. But it's one of the many new ways that exes with children are becoming better and happier "apartners." Exes who are not only amicable but loving are part of a divorce revolution, along with mediation and collaborative divorce (in which both parties hire lawyers but agree to keep it out of court). "It's the beginning of a nationwide change of thought that divorce has to be a confrontational thing," says Richard Kulerski, a Chicago-based lawyer who now specializes in friendlier tactics after 40 years on the battlefield of divorce.
Even in these happier splits, tensions are high at first. Alison, who now teaches co-parenting classes with Wes at a local community center, says, "When Wes and I first broke up, we couldn't be in the same room without our mediator. Gradually, we found a way to relate by focusing on what was best for our children." Their setup isn't without its critics, who tell Alison that she's "messing up" her kids. She says divorce equals hatred to these people because that's all they've ever seen. "It only takes one parent--even if the other is out there getting a restraining order--to say they're willing to work together. Rarely do partners get to that point at the same time, so you have to be patient."
The key moment for Wes, whose own parents divorced when he was young, was the Sunday evening when he asked Kaia how the weekend had gone with her mom. "It was clear she had done something fun with Alison and someone she was dating. I could tell she was pulled apart, not knowing if she should tell me," he recalls. "Finally, she let it out. That's when I realized I had a choice: to close off, or say, 'Oh, that's awesome!' And that's what I did. I couldn't stay tied up in despising Alison anymore. After I let go, living together didn't seem so crazy."
When Alison and Wes first brought up the idea of moving back into one home, their children worried that they would fight as often as they did during the death throes of their 10-year marriage. Alison admits they still know how to push each other's buttons, but now they make a real effort to acknowledge when they slip up and criticize each other unfairly--as they do from time to time, being human and all. "We're not avoiding conflict; instead, we're dealing with it differently," she says. Their son Noah says the turnaround in his parents' relationship borders on miraculous: "It's hard to believe. Almost right away I noticed that the fighting had died down. It seemed like heaven."
The new communal custody
Making things easier on the kids is, of course, the most powerful incentive for ex-spouses to keep turbulence to a minimum. Numerous studies have shown that having combative parents increases children's emotional volatility and aggressiveness. The general rule in the mental health field, says John W. Jacobs, M.D., a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York University, is that the worse the conflict between parents--whether they are married or divorced--the more difficult it will be for their children to form close relationships later in life. To protect their kids from this potentially nasty fallout, some exes are working hard, if not harder, at their relationship after the marriage is over.
Linda Kietzer, 50, got divorced 11 years ago and now lives only a half mile from her ex, Jonathan, whom she meets frequently for dinner to catch up on their two children's lives. Yet she says she still runs into people who expect her to bad-mouth him, because they just can't picture a split that is anything less than bitter. "We're fiercely loyal to each other," she says. "I shut down any negativity immediately." Milwaukee-based family therapist Holly Hughes Stoner says she's seeing more couples like Linda and Jonathan, who are really trying to find some common ground. "The more parents can say, 'We're still a united front'--with a lot of focus on the we--the better," she says.
"This idea of a dad pulling up in a woodie station wagon to take the kids every other weekend while the mom can't even look at him is really not what I'm experiencing as my reality," says Magda Pecsenye, 39, who with her ex-husband, Doug French, created the candid divorce blog When the Flames Go Up. Magda and Doug aren't the first exes to blog about divorce, but doing it together? That's what made them such a novelty when they popped up in the blogosphere in 2010. One of the things their readers appreciate most, says Doug, 46, is that they write so honestly about the challenges of true 50-50 custody. After coming across a sweet note that Magda had slipped into their 9-year-old's math textbook, Doug posted: "As it turns out, you can...create something that is, though not ideal, eminently livable: the situation when you're glad she's no longer your wife, but you're also glad she'll always be [your kids'] mom."
The Huffington Post picked up on this new, open conversation and in 2010 launched an entire section devoted to working through divorce. "Obviously people don't get divorced because they're happy with each other. Nobody is saying this is easy," says the site's founder, Arianna Huffington, whose marriage to former California congressman Michael Huffington ended in the late '90s. In the years just after their breakup, it took "real effort," Arianna says, for them to meet face-to-face, but she knew how important it was to her two daughters that she and her ex-husband come together without seismic eruptions of animosity. Now the exes take regular family vacations. "The pleasure of being with our children and seeing them happy became more important than hanging on to our own grudges," she says.
Pushing the boundaries
Fifteen years ago there were few alternatives to filing papers, says Kulerski, the collaborative divorce attorney. Mediation is an increasingly popular, less abrasive--and less expensive--option. "A divorce that goes to court can cost more than $25,000," he says. "People are fed up with spending more on their divorces than they did on their weddings." Kenny Smith and Geri Donenberg chose mediation when they split, saying it was better financially and emotionally. "There wasn't a lot of bitterness, but there was a considerable amount of pain and guilt," recalls Geri, who says that her frequent work trips caused conflict at home. At the suggestion of the mediator overseeing their divorce, she and Kenny sat down to write letters to each of their children--Emilia, now 13, and Sean, now 18--describing the lives they'd like their children to have in 10 years. "My daughter asked, 'Will we still do things as a family?' And in my letter to her, I promised her we always would," Geri says.
They kept that promise with joint outings to Sean's track meets and annual Hanukkah celebrations at Geri's. Last fall, Kenny and the kids joined Geri and her new husband (also named Kenny, which makes them all laugh) on a trip to Los Angeles for a nephew's bar mitzvah. "This was the first time we'd traveled together since we split," says Kenny. "I can't call Geri's husband and me close, but, you know, I really like him." Kenny says the trip solidified for him that he and his ex had done the right thing. "When Geri and I were withering in couples therapy, we knew it would be better for the kids if we met other people who made us happier," he says now, choking back tears. "It was an insanely hard decision, but it worked--the kids have two happy homes."
An alliance between an ex and the new partner was once the stuff of Desperate Housewives plots; now it's a common factor in many real-life splits. In fact, Amy Elliott, 38, considers Candie, her ex's new wife, a friend and almost a second mom to her daughter, Amani. For Amani's sweet 16 last year, Amy and Candie, 35, took Amani and four of her friends to St. Louis for a weekend celebration, with the mom and stepmom sharing one room while the girls crashed in another. Amani, who calls both Amy and Candie "Mom," says the trip was "the greatest ever. Some of my friends with divorced parents say, 'You're really lucky to have that. I wish my family got along that well.' And it's true--I am lucky. My mom and dad were friends first, and they're friends now."
Amani sounds truly content, doesn't she? In the end, finding an outcome that's best for the kids is what Thellen Levy, a San Francisco--based attorney who's been in practice for 33 years, wants for all her clients. "Having been in the litigation trenches, I used to get sick to my stomach representing clients who were making horribly devastating decisions that would affect their kids," says Levy, who now works only with exes willing to stay out of court. "There were no winners, just losers. But when divorcing couples have the right kind of support, they can put their kids at the center of all this--without putting them in the middle."
"Nobody is saying divorce is easy, but seeing our children happy became more important than hanging on to our own grudges."
Source: http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/advice/a14116/living-with-an-ex-after-divorce/
Q. My parents broke up years ago and chose new partners that are far better suited for them. I was raised by four people I knew loved me. I was never asked to choose homes or parents. However, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day poses a problem for me. Got any ideas how I can acknowledge my stepparents while not slighting my mom and dad? What’s good ex-etiquette?
A. Good ex-etiquette is good behavior after divorce or separation based on the best interest of the child you share, and it sounds as if you have had parent figures who have done their best to do just that — put you first. Based on that, you may be worrying for nothing. If it was common place for your mom and dad to put their issues aside and let you love everyone who cares for you, it’s unlikely they will be offended by your affection for their partners. That’s how they raised you. Unfortunately, your question is proof that even though parents do a good job at co-parenting, a child of divorce can still feel torn. No one asked you to compare, yet you still feel as if acknowledging one means you may be slighting the other. It doesn’t have to be an “either/or situation.” It can be “also” if you let it.
The truth is, you have already answered your own question. It’s obvious you have a clear understanding that Mom is Mom and Dad is Dad, plus, you feel lucky to have two other people in your life who have loved and cared for you — so that’s exactly what you say. (Ex-etiquette rule No. 8, “Be honest and straightforward.”)
“On this day of all days, when it comes to mind how grateful I am to have a Mother (or Father) I adore, I would also like to thank you, (name of the partner), for your love and support.”
Sounds a little formal, I know, but something like that in your own words acknowledges your parent as a priority and lets your bonusparent know how grateful you are for his or her contribution. You may also want to consider acknowledging mom or dad. Good ex-etiquette does establish a pecking order — “Parents make the rules; bonusparents uphold them.” (Ex-etiquette rule No. 4)
From a mother’s perspective, it’s a great comfort to know your child is loved in their other parent’s home — and it goes a long way if it is acknowledged. Right around Mother’s Day was the first time my bonuskids’ mom acknowledged my contribution — she started out with something like, “Now that time has passed, and things have calmed down I know my kids are safe with you, and that’s all I really ever cared about.”
Then she came out and said, “Thank you for loving my kids.”
I liked that a lot. Still, do.
Finally, be kind to yourself. Do your best not to put yourself in the middle. Your parents didn’t. That was good ex-etiquette.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Source: http://www.circlevilleherald.com/lifestyles/ex-etiquette-honoring-parents-acknowledging-stepparents/article_6e3e190f-cc44-595e-acbd-6e0e2d315542.html
