Stepmonster

I have no biological children and am in my first marriage. My husband has 2 children from his first marriage (I am wife #2). I can completely understand why stepchildren cause divorce! We have been married 4-1/2 years and have been in court w/ the ex for the last 3, to the tune of roughly $50,000. When it all started three years ago, after a scant year and a half of marriage, I was ready to bail. His kids liked me before we got married, then BM met me and got jealous, and voila - the kids didn't like me anymore. It has been an uphill battle to keep our marriage intact - he's significantly older than I am and can't have any more children, his ex is asbolutely a nightmare (alcoholic narcissist) and there are some days when it feels like more baggage than I can carry. But, I do love my husband - we get along and have the same values, goals, and dreams - so I am waiting for the youngest to finish high school so that BM's involvement in our life can be minimized. I do find myself wondering, though, if I should get out while I'm still young enough to find someone else who doesn't have quite the baggage that my husband does. At my age eligible men are "re-treads" as I recently heard it called, but even if that "re-tread" was still able to have children and didn't have quite so psychotic an ex, I wonder if I'd be better off. But then I think about how long it took me to meet the husband I have now and figure I'd just end up staying single forever, which I don't really want to do. Not that I am afraid of being single, but now that I have someone who understands me and who gets along with me, I would rather stay with him than be without someone who understands me. I do wish every day that he had not ever married his first wife, though. Being a stepmom, especially to children who have a psychotic mother, is probably the toughest job in the world, and not being able to have children and at least have a family of my own makes it 10 times more difficult to put up with.

I have read several books and articles in the last few years about how to have a happy marriage. They all claim to be based on "studies." They all have quite a bit of advice, much of it contradictory: for example, don't bottle up anger, but don't express too much anger at your spouse. What's the exact right amount of anger to express? Or, respond to most of the "bids" for attention that your spouse makes, but detach, from him and his problems. You wouldn't want to be "codependent," would you? (It turns out that women in bad marriages DO respond to almost every bid for attention their husband makes, but husbands in even good marriages don't!)

What these books all seem to be doing is teaching women how to put up with a bad situation. (As we all know, men don't read books about "relationships"; hell, they don't even read books!) These contemporary advice books try to avoid the outright sexism of earlier books about marriage, in which wives were urged to defer to and flatter their husbands, or dress up like prostitutes to keep him interested, but the underlying, semi-covert message is the same: you can't win, so go along to get along.

I am beginning to conclude that the best way to avoid divorce is to avoid marriage and marriage-like set-ups. Best to keep your independence: your own money, your own place to live, your own family and friends. The reason that remarriage-with-children is so crazy-making for women is that it's the arrangement most like patrilocal captivity-marriages, where a woman is in a strange place with people they don't know: the powerless outsider.

Ok, and the worst case scenario is if all this happens in a red state!

Nice post, good data and practical. Myth busting as well....THAT'S never popular!

The evo part of stepchildren is obvious, genetic investment and all that...on addictions the congential out of whack dopamine systems seems the culprit...these folks' brain can never get relaxed...or satisfied for that matter....sad really...

As always Wednesday, a thought-provoking article. Conflicts and differences require skill to negotiate and resolve. The conflicts generated by step-parenting can be extremely corrosive to a relationship as you cogently argue. Why is it that differences pose such a severe threat to partners who had generated enough good feelings between themselves to become a couple in the first place? Perhaps because our abilities (as individuals and as a culture) to modulate our emotions, regulate our responses to stress, negotiate rather than go to war over our differences – all this sorely needs development. Then pile on the step-child tensions and things, as the statistics indicate, can get out of hand. The hopeful note, and you sound it, is that if a couple that gets through the first years of the challenge tend to find themselves with a secure and loving bond.

Marty Babits, LCSW, BCD
Author of 'The Power of the Middle Ground: A Couple's Guide to Renewing Your Relationship'
hhtp://www.powerofthemiddleground.com

As always Wednesday, a thought-provoking article. Conflicts and differences require skill to negotiate and resolve. The conflicts generated by step-parenting can be extremely corrosive to a relationship as you cogently argue. Why is it that differences pose such a severe threat to partners who had generated enough good feelings between themselves to become a couple in the first place? Perhaps because our abilities (as individuals and as a culture) to modulate our emotions, regulate our responses to stress, negotiate rather than go to war over our differences – all this sorely needs development. Then pile on the step-child tensions and things, as the statistics indicate, can get out of hand. The hopeful note, and you sound it, is that if a couple that gets through the first years of the challenge tend to find themselves with a secure and loving bond.

Marty Babits, LCSW, BCD
Author of 'The Power of the Middle Ground: A Couple's Guide to Renewing Your Relationship'
hhtp://www.powerofthemiddleground.com

Elizabeth may have it right! Marriage, whether it is our first or our third, is fraught with challenges. As for the presence of stepchildren, this is a big DUH. The expectations, the set ups and the myths all cause suffering. Think how these marriages with stepchildren could be if we let go of all these things, and mainly, our EGOS. The kids are always a hot topic in my work with couples in remarriage. And each parent is HYPERSENSENSITIVE about their own children. This is human nature. But if couples could drop the expectations of one another to love their children, become blended, etc., there would be a lot less divorces. It really can be that simple. The only thing required is to have good manners when we are around each other's children. Nothing more and nothing less. If there ends up being more, fine. But it doesn't really matter. The goal is to get these kids out on their own and into the world successfully so as adults, we can enjoy our marriages and our adult relationships. Another great article Wednesday.