Modern
Day Samaritan Woman
What
is a Step Mother?
This
is a difficult question to answer. The internet is full of cute quotes
attempting to define her… or pin her down; but I haven’t found anything that has resonated
with me as “that’s it”…”that’s me”…”I can relate to this”
Being
a step mother was and remains such an alien concept to me that I never fully
comprehend what it would entail and how many “land mines” I would inadvertently
activate while attempting to build the foundation of my home and marriage…
I
never realized at the onset how much I would have to depend on my husband to
circumvent the landmines and to back me up when the hostility towards me set in…and
I never once expected him to abandon me to my fate…
The
Merriam Webster Dictionary defines her as
“a woman that your father marries after
his marriage to or relationship with your mother has ended”
The Cambridge Dictionary defines her as
“the woman who is married to
someone's father but
who is not their real mother” (Emphasis my own)
Technically, the above statements are clinically correct,
but they hardly describe who a step mother actually is or even closely describe
the role that she is supposed to play. As the woman of the house she is
automatically assigned the role of mother and expected to perform all the
mother related tasks…
I can be defined as a “failed” step mother.
Does this mean that my adult step children “failed” as well?
After all a relationship requires two people…
Why is the step
mother always automatically blamed for failure?
And more importantly why
does she and society naturally assume that she is to blame for the
break down?
I believe that when a woman gives birth, she sheds
her status as free agent and steps into the skin of a mother. Once she has done
this there is no stepping back to that free agent status. Her heart is now on
her sleeve and she operates as a mother from then on, even in the absence of
her children.
Like a caterpillar metamorphosis’s into a butterfly
and can’t go back to being a caterpillar, so too does a woman transform into
mother…
I wore my mom skin for so many years that I effortlessly
put on the step mother skin fully confident and believing that I would be a
successful step mother. I didn’t expect my step children to do anything other than to merely respect that I have married their father and am therefore
legally entitled to move into the home and make it my own.
I didn’t expect them
to like me and I certainly did not expect them to automatically love me…I knew
that this would have to be earned.
I intended to learn to love my new family, guard
over them and nurture them just as I had my previous one.
I built my home on mutual respect and personal
discipline and just as my own biological children were expected to comply to
the general house rules, so too did I expect my step children to.
After all, at the age of fifty I am quite
established in my housewifery. I know what works and what doesn’t. I know how
to run my home efficiently, to the benefit of the entire family.
Yet, little more than a year later, I am a failed
step mother…and having morphed into a step-mom skin, I simply don’t know how to
morph back to just being a mom again.
Reflecting on what went wrong I have found the
following things to have played a role in the break down that we as a blended
family experienced.
I, as the step mother
should have defined my personal boundaries
from the onset and maintained them.
I, as the step mother
should have insisted that the house
rules be adhered to,
and not been so flexible, because well….
“These are my
step children so we are adjusting…” In bending my own house rules I
inadvertently created a situation where the house rules would eventually be
discarded altogether by my step children, creating undue friction between my
husband and I.
I, as the step mother
should never have permitted my husband to push me into the
role of enforcer of the rules…Being the outsider, I neither had the
authority or the responsibility to enforce discipline within the home.
I, as the step mother
should have commanded more respect.
Being the step mother, third wife didn’t make me an inferior woman and wife.
Somehow, the lines became blurred at some point and it became “ok” to treat me
as inferior…
Reflecting on how things changed so drastically and
what I could or should have done differently, I started to realize that the
hostility I experienced prior to moving out of the home was not something I had
generated from within, or even deserved. The hostility I encountered was a
result of my step children’s own thoughts, feelings and animosity that were
being reflected onto me, as if I were the one that had those thoughts and
feelings.
I couldn’t understand why I was being accused of
these things when most of the accusations were unwarranted. I had wanted to
save my marriage and my relationship with my step children, so I closely
guarded my own thoughts and focused on the incorrect behaviour versus breaking
down the character of my step children.
With hindsight I realized that had I known that
what I was experiencing were their thoughts, projected as mine, while still in
the home perhaps my reaction to the hostility might have been handled
differently.
Sadly, my relationship with my husband was broken
as a result of this. He naturally felt the need to side with his biological
children, regardless of their behaviour towards me, and I could not permit the
behaviour to continue. We had reached an impasse.
Becoming a step mother was a gradual process, as I
got to know the family, dated their father, visited, eventually married and
moved into the home,
BUT, the end of my
step mothering was brutally abrupt.
One day I was a step mother and the next I was a
childless step mother…
But, a step mother none the less…I had now morphed
into the skin of step mother, I didn’t know how to morph back and with time I
have come to realise that I didn’t really want to morph back.
Step mothering for me was an honour…Almost a do
over, a gift from God above, after my own children had grown up and left my
“nest”.
Despite the problems I encountered, I did grow to
love my step children and I did have high hopes of growing our family into a
successful blended family.
Like any mother and step mother, I miss my step
children, I worry about them, I am concerned for their safety and their
futures… I simply don’t know where the
“off” switch is….
So, I turn instead to prayer and pray for my step
family…
I trust my Father in Heaven to work a miracle, although I am at a loss to explain what
this miracle would or should entail. In this respect I rely heavily on
precious Holy Spirit in knowing the desires of my heart, that I am unable to
articulate into words… and interceding on my behalf, as I intercede on their
behalf…
Have you experienced a similar situation in your
blended family? How did you manage the endless landmines?
*Hugs* till next time.
Ariéte
