Being a stepmother is hard, and often, thankless work. While some stepmothers are able to establish close and comfortable relationships, many struggle with the role. In addition, children are typically more tolerant and accepting of stepfathers than stepmothers. Here are some important reasons why stepmothering can be such a struggle:
- Loyalty Factor: Children often have intense feelings of loyalty to their mothers after divorce. Professor Linda Nielsen, author of an excellent book titled, Embracing Your Father: How to Build the Relationship with Your Dad that You Always Wanted conducted a 15-year study of daughters in college. She found that most college-educated daughters discriminate against Dad when it comes to giving him the same chance they give their Moms to get to know one another, to talk about personal matters, to have meaningful conversations or to allow him to express sadness or grief. Dad is still more likely than Mom to be treated as a critical judge and a banking machine. These feelings of loyalty to Mom can directly interfere with a stepchild’s desire or ability to bond with the stepmother.
- High Expectations of Self: For better or worse, women come into marriage with the expectation that they should be loving, nurturing, and supportive. Unfortunately, parenting, like marriage, takes two to tango. A stepmother who tries to be close to a stepchild who is uninterested or unwilling may walk away feeling resentful, and rejected. One of the largest, best-controlled studies of divorce (Hetherington, 2002) found that one-fourth of grown stepdaughters carried intense feelings of negativity about their stepmothers and only one-fourth described their relationship as close as adults.
- High Expectations from Husband: Men are likely to hold their wives to the same standard that women hold themselves to. That is, they often believe that their new wives or girlfriends should be able and eager to step into the mothering role. This is both unrealistic and unreasonable.
What to do?
A) Be a friend, not a mom, to your stepkids unless it’s completely clear that mothering is what they really want from you.
B ) Let your husband do the disciplining, not you.
C) Be assertive when you need to be. Your stepchildren may test your limits. While you can’t assume that they’re going to want to be close to you, you can hold them to the same standard of respect that you’d expect from anyone else. Therefore, they can’t call you names, they can’t take your stuff without asking, and they can’t boss you around.
D) Take the long-term perspective: Your partner chose you, not his children, so it may take them quite a while to adjust to being divorced and accept that dad’s primary love interest is no longer their mother, and for some children-them. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a good (or tolerable) relationship with stepchildren. Typically, it takes years, so try not to get too discouraged by the inevitable ups and downs.
2 Comments
I adopted my husband’s two little daughters in 1993. I have had nothing but pain, humiliation, rejection. The youngest girl now in her 20′s changed when she was like 15 yrs old. She lied about me, she leaves me out of her life without no kind of feelings. I have given her the best I could. I’m bitter with both of my adoptive daughters they could careless if I live or die. I have had a lot of problems with her because she did so many things to me and in back of me she would lie to people saying I abused her, I left her without no food etc., Me her adoptive mom was so happy to be part of their lives and be a family but instead I got sick, depressed and she never cared about me at all. My oldest adopted daughter was very close to me as well until June when she started saying she wanted to make her life she was my “Care Giver,” she got paid to take care of me and she never really did. I had emotional distress and got sicker and I’m disabled with much disabilities and do you think they care if I live or die or eat? No. I sacrificed almost 20 years of my life to them for them to leave me in a hole without nothing. This was the first year my oldest adopted daughter didn’t even bother to say Happy Birthday this was very detrimental to me all I did was cry and get deeper into depression. Now, they both live together I’m alone they don’t call or care if I am okay. I try calling then or my youngest but to no avail she doesn’t call me back or nothing. I feel so betrayed and mentally drained all I do is cry and wonder why have I got to go thru this I don’t deserve this from them at all and legally I don’t know what to do because their abuse towards me is really depriving me from moving forward in life. I love them so much if it was for a few years okay but almost all my life for this. It’s very sad that an adoptive mother like me who is very good have gone through such an atrocious life with them and my husband never put me in the place I belonged either. Legally I wish I could divorce then all and sue them but I don’t know or think I can. It’s almost Christmas and I am alone with no one it’s very sad I really need advice because the saddest part of my story is that I am very sick and the more depress I get I find myself not wanting to do anything at all. Please anyone has an advice or suggestion? Thanks
Thank you for your article “Stepmothering: What You Need to Know”. It really helped me! I got married last year (2009) for the first time at age 50 and my husband has 3 grown children. Somehow I concluded that there was some kind of loyaty to their mom (at least for the 2 girls..there are no problems with the 1 son) that was the hindrance to any kind of relationship being developed. I continued to feel rejected even though I wasn’t trying to force anything between us. I did an internet search to find some advise on being a stepmother and discovered your site. Thank you for your contribution to society and offering helpful advise to those of us who didn’t have a clue what they were getting themselves into. Thanks for making a difference!