Facing Reality

Mar 15, 2011 by Peggy Nolan

Claudette Chenevert, Coaching Steps LLC Life Coach and Certified Stepfamily Foundation Coach is our next guest blogger and her article is brilliant! This also marks the end of my much needed vacation with the love of my life. And I promise to share parts of our story with you later this month!

Facing Reality

There is nothing more difficult than waking up one morning to realize that the honeymoon is over. Was there ever a honeymoon period? Was I only dreaming? Getting married to the man of one’s dreams is what every woman wants in her life but more and more often, these knights in shining armor come with a package and previous baggage.

It’s easy to think that this marriage will be different. I’m not like his ex-wife. I’ll make him and his kids so happy that they will forget all about “HER.” However, that fateful morning comes when the kids help you come back down to earth with these words, “You are not my mother. You can’t tell me what to do!” Whack! That sentiment really hurts. It’s worse than getting ice water in the face.

What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I make this a perfect marriage and be married happily ever after? After all, Cinderella did it. She got rid of her stepmother and her stepsisters by marrying Prince Charming, right? They forgot to tell the rest of the story. Stepfamilies don’t just disappear. Life continues. You need to make your own happiness. It doesn’t all depend on one person. It’s also part of how you look at things.

When I married my husband, he had two daughters. They were about the same age as my son. I was sure that this time, marriage and family life would be different and that I could make everyone very happy and that we would all be having fun and singing songs all the time. Julie Andrews did it so well in “The Sound of Music” and she had a lot more kids that I did.

I wanted to be the perfect mother. I wanted to be the kind of mom that the kids would come home to, hug and give a kiss, and say, “Thank you mommy for the wonderful cookies you baked for us today. They taste great.” Instead I got, “My mom makes the other kind that I like better.” What’s wrong with me? Why am I not getting it? How come no one is happy in our home? What am I doing wrong?

I cook and clean for everyone. I do all the things a mother and a wife is supposed to do. I drive them everywhere and don’t even get recognition for it. How come I can’t even get a title for what I do? It’s not fair. I’m not the mean old stepmother in Cinderella’s story. I’m more like the mom in the Brady Bunch but it is not working. The girls look at me as if I am in the middle of something like preventing their parents from coming back together maybe. Their parents have been divorce for a while now. Don’t they get it that I am here to stay?

Time moves on. I adjust. I come to realize that the problem is not really me but the situation. I decide to put on a different pair of glasses to look at my life. I’m not the regular mom but a stepmom, someone who came into the lives of these little girls because their family was broken because of a divorce. They are hurting very much. It’s not my fault. I can now see this more clearly. They want to be with both mom and dad at the same time but somehow they know it’s not going to happen. I’m the only person they can afford to get mad at. I haven’t been around as long as their parents so it’s easier to get mad at me.

They are learning to trust me as I am learning more about them. I ask them questions about their day at school, their friends. I even ask them how it went at their mother’s house. They slowly open up. Trust is building with time. It’s not easy to trust another adult when the people who are suppose to be there for you forever just aren’t there all the time anymore. What’s going on it their little heads? Are they afraid that I, too, will leave them just as they start to love me and trust me? Can I guarantee them that I will always be there? No, I can’t. I’m not a fortune teller. Life is very unpredictable.

The best thing I can do is be very patient and loving. I continue to bake them cookies even if their mommy makes them other kinds they like. I know one day, they will tell me how much they appreciated those cookies and may even want the recipe.

We are building our family one day at a time, making sure that the foundation is really solid and strong. We started out on shaky grounds. The past hurts were still very present when I said “I do.” I know that I cannot erase those hurts but I can add more joy to help ease those pains. I now know that it’s not me that they kids are angry at but at the situation, the loss of a dream of a “whole” family. Instead they have an extended family where more people love them. It’s not easy finding the time to love all these people. It really is disheartening to have to move from one house to another and never feel like you fully belong. I’m sure they are really tired of taking their things from one house to another to stay for a few days or weeks. I’m sure they would rather have just one home and be like their friends.

It takes time and patience to build a stepfamily. It requires a lot of dedication. I chose this family. They were not born to me. I came into this relationship knowing full well that my husband had a past and two beautiful daughters. I am to blame if I thought things were going to go smoothly and we would adjust in no time at all. How can a total stranger come into a family and expect to know all the ins and outs of everyone’s routines and preferences? How am I supposed to know who likes what the best, what are the unspoken rules of the house? How do I know what favorite book the girls like, or what their favorite color is? How do I deal with the feelings when the girls talk about times when I wasn’t even around?

The best day of my life came when my oldest stepdaughter came to me and said thank you for being there. I was taken aback. I never expected this. We had had a major fall out between each other. She had vowed to never come back to our house. She was going to live with her mother and that was it. But we never gave up. We continued to communicate with her, to respect her decision to go and live with her mom. Slowly, the respect for each other grew again and are relationship changed. I had more of a mentor relationship with my stepdaughter. It was very powerful. We had conversations about all kinds of things. I even asked her about her mom and how she was doing. For the first time, she opened up about finding it hard at times. She would never betray her mother but felt she could actually trust me with her feelings.

I am proud to say that my relationship with my two stepdaughters is very close and loving. We really enjoy being together and sharing life’s pleasures. Both of my stepdaughters got married this year. It was a joy to be a part of their very special day. I was treated as an equal with their mom. There was no competition, just an acknowledgment that we both have been an important part of their lives, in our own way.

We know that our journey was not full of song and dance, but whatever lessons we encountered made us stronger and more caring. There is always sunshine after a storm. Hope is what carried us through the tough times. Never giving up is key to creating the family that we wanted. Facing reality made our family work.

Claudette Chenevert of Coaching Steps works with stepfamilies who are struggling to create a cohesive family life. Claudette, a Stepfamily Relationship coach provides the structure, energy and focus that enables families to achieve their goals within a specific timeframe, often surpassing expectations. Unlike therapists, her approach is to support and encourage the individual to find their own answers, thereby maximizing the long term impact of the coaching series. For more information of programs and services, go to http://www.coachingsteps.com