Stepmothers: Keeping It Together with Your Husband and His Kids

As the future stepmother of an 8 year-old boy who sees me as a threat to his relationship with custodial dad, I did not need a book telling me to smile and be nice to the boy, and everything would be all right. I needed a book of true-life accounts of women who have walked in my shoes, dealing with the challenges of dealing with a resentful child, a difficult ex-wife, and a husband who doesn't fully understand what his wife is going through. I felt like I was in group therapy with women dealing with, or who dealt with challenging children, lax discipline by guilt-ridden bio-parents, jealous ex-wives, husbands who don't seem to fully understand the plight of stepmom, the prospect of writing a will, and other issues I'm experiencing. In addition, the book deals with issues I don't have such as blending a family with stepmom's kids + husband's kids, the dynamics of seeing the stepkids every other weekend, and hostile adult stepchildren. I found the book therapeutic not only by all the "aha's" of finding women who have had similar experiences, but by studying how the stepmothers and their husbands handled the situations. Some folks handled the situations with impressive common sense and maturity, while others were at the opposite end of the maturity spectrum, like the stepmother who refused to even meet her stepchildren and resented the time her husband spent with his own kids. I was able to learn from the mistakes and triumphs of others to help improve the relationship with my partner and future stepson. Also, I shared the experiences of some of the husbands in the book with my partner, pointing out how they helped or hindered the relationship with between stepmom and stepchild. For example, there were husbands in the book who totally ignore their wives when the child is around or who gave their wives no authority in the discipline of the children, yet expected things to go smoothly when they left the child alone with stepmom. Now he's more conscious of not ignoring me in the presence of his son, and allowing me some disciplinary authority, and family dynamics have improved considerably.Another helpful feature of the book is that at the end of each chapter dealing with stepparenting issues: expectations, legal issues, coparenting, etc., is a list of advice pointers from stepmothers. I found the advice compassionate, and full of common sense, striking a realistic balance of being true to oneself and a good parent and partner. I highly recommend this book to future, novice, and experienced stepmoms.