Life Minus Expectations Equal Happiness – Part One

Aug 27, 2009 by Peggy Nolan

Integrity.  Commitment to Excellence.  Stubbornly Optimistic!

 

In my life outside of being a stepmom, I am a systems project manager for a major financial company.  As a PM, I understand all too well that poorly defined and / or ever changing requirements lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, double the work in development, constant re-testing and all too often, the end result and the client’s expectations are farther apart than the next nearest galaxy.  The customer is disappointed (or has cancelled any remaining business with us) and the project team is in analysis paralysis trying to figure out what went wrong.

Sound familiar?  I bet you’ve seen this scenario or something similar play out in your work place.  If you think something like this only happens at work, you’re wrong.  It happens inside your home, too.  Yes, that’s right.  It happens right under your own roof.

In my line of work, a requirement is nothing more than a need or a problem that needs to be fixed or solved.  As women married to men with kids from a prior relationship, we stepmoms have needs, issues, and problems that need to be addressed.  Only they don’t get addressed for the very same reason that project requirements don’t get addressed. 

I’ve worked on projects where team members will discuss among themselves a poorly defined requirement.  They’ll come up with all kinds of ideas, prototypes, options, and sometimes they’ll just commiserate with each other because they need to let off steam because, gosh darn it, how are they supposed to solve a problem that they’re missing parts of the puzzle to?  Did it ever occur to someone on the project team to pick up the phone and call the client to get clarification?  That’s almost too easy.

Ladies – we do the same thing. 

The most common problem I’ve experienced and see with my sister stepmoms is that we have poorly defined needs, issues and problems that we try to solve amongst ourselves and we wonder “why don’t our husbands just ‘get it?’”

Whether it’s in the workplace or your home, it boils down to expectations.  And as stepmoms we have some magical expectations…at least I know I started out with them!

For example, when I married my husband and his four kids, I had pie-in-the-sky expectations that everything was going to be wonderful.  I already got along with his ex-wife and her entire family. I loved his kids, I loved my kids, I loved him – life was good.

 Until…

 I got that phone call from his ex-wife the day we returned from our honeymoon, “Hey Mr. and Mrs. Nolan…come get the boy.”  Huh?

Months into my blissful marriage, the schedule for Junior changed yet again and again, “Can you take Junior this week…next weekend…three Thursdays from now?”  The cherry on top came the day Junior called at 11:30 on Christmas morning, “Christmas with mom is over, you need to come get me.”  What?

The day my husband and I returned home from our first anniversary trip.  His cell phone rang three times in less than 30 minutes.  Each time it was his ex-wife.  Each time she was calling about Junior.  Can’t she just make one phone call?

It wasn’t until my husband’s ex-wife called him and asked him to pay her the money my stepdaughters owed her that I came unhinged.  I realized that I had to stop biting my tongue and expecting him to read my mind that these issues bothered the living day lights out of me.  

Grab your martini and gather round

Here’s the deal – your husband can’t read your mind and if you have not communicated your stepmom needs, issues and problems to your husband in a manner that he understands, you will continue to experience disappointments that cut through your heart because your expectations are out of sync with reality.  

© Peggy Nolan, 2009

Just like I don’t know what I don’t know, my husband doesn’t know what he doesn’t know (and neither does yours)!  Stay tuned for Part II, which will appear Friday morning for your weekend reading enjoyment!  

_______

A very special thank you to all my new subscribers!  I can’t wait to pick the first lucky stepmom winner of the Toolbox Care Package on August 31!

PS – If this article and Part II receive 30 or more comments, I will select one lucky commenter for a Toolbox Care Package, too!