Part II: The Stepmom’s Self-Deception
Stuck in the Muck
Nearly a year ago, I realized that in my remarried equation and my life as a stepmom, I’m the only variable. That’s the nice way of telling myself, “Peggy, you’re the problem.”
Kristi, our Bonus Mom for June realized the same thing when she stated, “I am the creator of my own drama.”
And a close sister stepmom friend has also came to the conclusion about how powerful her self-deception has been.
It’s so tough to come to grips that yes, you are the problem. And because this is so hard to accept, we justify our thoughts, actions and behaviors, we get other people to buy into our story, and then we blame the other person for our problem.
…another spoonful of medicine…
As a sisterhood of stepmoms, we’re all in cahoots with each other! If you don’t believe me, go back and read one of your posts in the forum you most frequent for stepmom support. Go ahead…I’ll wait.
How many of you feel stuck or have felt stuck as a stepmom?
I think I just saw 13 million hands go up…me, too. Even now, there are days I feel deeply stuck…like I’m up to my eyeballs in stepmom crap.
Ladies, gather round. Depending on your time zone, pour yourself a cup of coffee or a martini and listen carefully. I’m going to tell you a secret that the Arbinger Institute told me. You are stuck in your remarried life and in your role as a stepmom because,
You have a problem that you don’t think you have. A problem you can’t see. You can see matters only from your own closed perspective and you are deeply resistant to ANY suggestion that the truth is otherwise. So, you are [stuck in the muck]…cut off, closed up, and blind.”
Let me give you an example – a simple scenario that raises the hackles of nearly every stepmom I know, including myself:
The Schedule
Do any of these statements sound familiar?
“She never lets my husband see his kids.”
“She’s always late for drop-off”
“She’s never on time”
“She’s always changing the damn schedule. I have a life, too”
“My husband never objects to last minute schedule changes. He has no balls when it comes to his ex-wife and what she wants.”
“I never know when his kids are coming over. I hate not having a reliable schedule. I hate the constant intrusion. I hate having to always be the flexible one. I hate his ex-wife, I don’t like his kids, and I’m beginning to resent the man I love.”
If you see yourself in one, two, or even all of these scenarios, let me ask you a few questions.
How do you see yourself in the scheduling drama?
Who do you blame?
–the kids?
–your husband?
–the dreaded ex-wife?
As the schedule drama plays out ad nauseum in your life, do you feel justified in how you feel about the other players in your scheduling sandbox?
Tomorrow I am going to share with you examples of self-betrayal and how self-betrayal plays into the self-deception that keeps us stuck in the muck.
If you haven’t checked out the Arbinger Institute, I encourage you to do so. And if you don’t have a copy of Leadership and Self-Deception
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Thanks, Peggy.
It’s such a great exercise, I think, to practice identifying what is my responsibility in the muck. For instance, that on some ungenerous level I prefer it when communication is a bit stymied between my partner and his ex! It’s good to be prompted to face up to these truths, especially when they’re the kind of things we might tend to leave in the shadows.
Oh Peggy, to answer; “Who do you blame?” is a painful one.
I soooo wanted to blame the ex for everything AND I so wanted to tell the kids how stupid he was doing with their visiting rights, because he was the care giver and could call the shots.
I soo wanted them on my side so they could see how stupid he was doing and what he was doing to me via them.
AND thanks goodness I did not, most of the time.
The times I did mention their dad’s behavior they shut up like a clam. That taught me to be careful and to respect their difficult position. THAT kept me quiet and had me take all his nonsense; it was about their wellfare and their position.
But it was hard. I’ll tell you.
It took some time to see it was his game and the more I reacted the more I was losing and the more difficult I made it for my new partner as well.
The less upset I was, the less judging I was, the less mud I threw, the less impact it had on everybody else, that was what I learned.
Hi Wilma!
I remember how difficult it was for me to be quiet when my ex said things to my girls that sucked them into his game. I, too, learned what a difficult position my girls were in because my ex was saying horrible things about me and I’d retaliate. I saw what it was doing to my girls – and just like your girls, mine clamed up and stopped talking.
And then one day I simply chose to stop saying bad, hurtful things about their dad. I stopped playing the game. I even asked my girls to say something if I traveled down the bad mouthing road.
And once I let go of my last grudge against my ex, once I reached a place of peace and poise in my mind, we were all better off.