"Pre-emptive disengagement" - a reasonable way to begin?
I've spent quite some time over the past several days educating myself about disengagement. The most informative accounts are not from psychology articles or e-books on stepparenting or websites on blended families: they're here. Your personal stories of why you chose to disengage, how you maintained disengagement, and who exactly benefits from disengagement have been very eye-opening. Reading all this makes me realize that without having a term for it, I have been disengaged from the start. Call it "pre-emptive disengagement."
Here's why it appears to be working for me, my husband, and his daughter. I am disengaged. My husband is free from being micromanaged. His daughter isn't confused that I'm some kind of replacement mother. And I'm free to put my energy into my work and into creating a happy home for the three of us. Without the distraction of my husband's former wife, without the tension created when a stepparent disciplines a child, without the heartache that comes when a stepmother steps in and engages only to discover that she's been used.
From what I can tell, many of you chose to disengage after months or even years of working very hard and trying very sincerely to secure a positive parental role in your stepchildren's lives. At some point, you realized that your husbands were shirking their duties as fathers. Your husbands' former wives were threatened by you and therefore came unglued. And your stepchildren went from loving to manipulative to worse, hateful even. This is an awful situation, one that none of us deserves. Most of you had candid talks with your husbands and sometimes your stepchildren to explain that you were disengaging yourself from parental involvement. It seems that disengagement works for some families and not for others.
I myself had no such conversation with my husband. I think my actions (or lack thereof) speak for themselves. He intuits that I don't care to be involved in parenting his daughter. Not to say I'm not pleasant. Not to say I don't make the child a nice dinner every night she's here or ask her about her day. We enjoy walks together, the three of us, we take in a movie now and again, we go swimming and play tennis, we traveled quite a bit together this summer. But making doctor's appointments and attending school functions and arranging schedules and buying clothes and school supplies ... those are things that parents do. I honestly have no idea why anyone would expect me to do those things for my husband's daughter. She has a father. She has a mother. She is not my child.
Now many of you may counter that you do those things not to parent your stepchildren but to support your husband. I can see how beneficial that might be for him. But it's a slippery slope for you, as far as I can tell. It's a slippery slope I'd rather not find myself on. So we'll see how this works for me. It's still early days yet and things will surely change as we move forward together. But I must say that if the day ever comes when I feel the urge to do those parental "motherly" things for my husband's daughter, I will take a big step back. I will really observe the situation. I will face my own motivation. I will consider the potential impact of my actions. Because I believe that I could do more harm than good.
Maybe that's my motto as a woman married to a man with a child: do no harm.
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Perhaps this is your motto: I
Perhaps this is your motto: I no longer want to be in the freak show.
You speak about your lack of authority. To me, this is key. It seems that many people on this forum talk about affection. Whether it's there or not. Where it comes from or what takes it away. But I believe that in our situation, authority is more important than affection. I am an adult therefore I have authority over my husband's daughter. And as you say, I have a responsibility to her as a human being, to make sure she's not hungry or cold or in pain. One can enforce authority. One cannot create affection. I throw my lot in with the former.
I have been thinking I was
I have been thinking I was disengaged, I didnt do most of the things you didnt do, but i would step in and correct SD all the time, and I am embarassed to admit I was getting pretty bitchy towards her and DH when they werent' doing it how "i" would have done it. Now I see I need to back off that part also. I have my own child to focus on, and to focus on myself and my job more. I'm not used to having girls in the house either, so there's that too.
I do miss not having DH to myself like I did. I am sometimes jealous of the time he devotes to SD, then i think about all the time I get for me and for my child (although he's almost 18) and its not so bad. She will be into her friends and other things soon enough, I PRAY, and then it will get more normal again. At least I hope so.
I can understand pushing the
I can understand pushing the people in your home to do things your way. And I can understand feeling bitchy for it. I suppose I want to avoid that by not really requiring much of my husband and his daughter beyond basic human kindness and respecting one another's boundaries. I think the danger in my situation is that my husband and his daughter will think I don't care. Or perhaps they'll keep doing things their own way and I'll always feel that I'm on the outside.
I wish I understood this in
I wish I understood this in the beginning! I tried to go into with this attitude but I was also very naive and I wanted to help SO. I didn't realize how big of a mistake I was making until I looked at my life and realized I had been guilted into single handedly raising a horrible kid who hates me. I grew up in the picture perfect home and I never really learned to say no or set boundaries or stick up for myself.
Well I may look back in
Well I may look back in several years and think I'm making a mistake. Who can tell? I know that for right now, my position feels safe. I am protected by my lack of involvement. There are days when I wish my husband would handle his former wife with more direct firmness, but I don't want to go there. She has done nothing that truly impacts our home, so I will leave her to him. As for his daughter, I never imagined we'd be anything more than friendly strangers. The only thing we have in common is that we both love my husband. Perhaps that's enough for now. Perhaps someday it will be what drives us apart. Who can tell? I'd rather be here in my cozy corner reading my book than sticking my neck out. That's an easy way to get slaughtered.
I just wished I really
I just wished I really understood the situation I was getting into, and really undersold your point of view from jump street. I kept thinking, what will it really hurt to help out. You posed an interesting question to someone else, are they emotionally connected to skids. To my full time SD11, I would not care one whit about ever seeing her again. I hate being left to parent her, but usually we are the only ones here... I have no emotional commitment or attachment to her whatsoever. When SO is actually here I leave EVERYTHING concerning her up to him. Asfar as my younger SS5 and SD3 I really do love them. Their mom and I are friends, I support her and help her but never try to take any liberties or responsibilities I shouldn't. She gives them permission to love and respect me. I am faced with never seeing them again, it makes me sad but not enough that it would change anything. I love then dearly and wish them the best, but they are no different to me than a dear friends children whom I've spent a lot of time with. Coming into this relationship I was a wide eyed, naive, trusting girl. I think I've gained a lot of wisdom and experience, I would hope that I would not make the same mistake twice. It's sounds like you came into you situation very logical and mentally prepared for the situation.
I guess I as well started
I guess I as well started with pre emptive non parenting. I raise my own my SO's kids are way younger than mine and he learns to parent by my example with mine as well as his own expectations. I only discipline when I have to else it's on him. I don't want to "raise" his kids that's what he and his ex are for I support him and am firm on the house rules which is the only time we have issues I will NOT change house rules they existed before him and will continue regardless of who's kids it pertains to. Course BM thinks I want to raise them she crazily thinks I even have time. I got my own I don't need extra. That's why I got fixed.
Are you emotionally connected
Are you emotionally connected to your stepchildren?
Like you, I never engaged.
Like you, I never engaged. Never cared whether the kid liked me or not. Never tried too hard to blend. It has been more than 6 years and it works for us. I support my dh. I cook for her. I am here to let her in if she gets home from school before my dh gets home from work (which is actually rare). She joins us when we do things as a family. Dh spends time with just her sometimes.
I think the key to a smoothe (not perfect) step life is having a dh who understands that his kid has a mother regardless of how much he might think she sucks. And who has a strong sense of boundaries with both his ex and his kids. I am not particularly fond of my skid, but it is fine because she has two parents. She doesn't need me and I don't need her. We simply share a person. I respect her role and despite her lack of enthusiasm about it, dh insists she respect my role.
I didn't bring this point up
I didn't bring this point up until way too late. I'm sorry SO that you think BM doesn't do a good job but I never chose to have a child 11 years ago. You can't MAKE me her mother, she has mother, you should have to deal with her shortcomings, not me. He loves how I parent my daughter, but I can't take a 10 year old and turn her into my child nor do I wish to!!
I used to be emotionally
I used to be emotionally invested in ss14. He was only 2 when we met. My dh took very much to my 2 small children whose father was deceased. I felt I needed to reciprocate- but as many others I eventually ended up being the only one who parented this kid. Now. I have no emotional invest- not only would I not care to ever see him again- i sincerely hope I dont.
I do think it would be wise to start at a place of disengagement. Get to know the kid better without any sort of pressure to parent or be responsible for her. It may blossom with time into a more emotionally connected relationship or maybe not.
We all disengage because it
We all disengage because it is either that or divorce. I wasn't prepared to do it, until I started to hear from people here and a friend who had done it. Now, life is much better. I love my SS14, but not the way I love my BS17. It is not possible. Never will be, but I can be a kind of nice person in his life. Do somethings for him. He will never know that I feel this way....
As for you, it is all roses now and hopefully stays that way. But, honestly I doubt it. Your SD has not hit the teen years. My SD14 was fine until I moved in, she was 13 and was precocious. By 14 she was a full blown nightmare, playing one household against the other. If you want to see a decline in relationship start reading my blogs from 2 years ago....
I think you are all rose colored glasses here, that you have figured out something early to the rest of us that didn't until our lives were such hell....
Hope it works for you, but unfortunately we have seen countless ones like you that have had to come over to the dark side of SM land because of BM or SK's ruling our lives....
Have you read anything I've
Have you read anything I've written beyond my blog titles? I'm very aware of how difficult things are for so many of you. I've read your posts. I'm not claiming to have any answers. I'm disengaged precisely because I anticipate the kinds of issues you predict for me. Hence the word "pre-emptive." As in "pre-emptive strike."
I have always been pretty
I have always been pretty neutral. SD21 was 5 when I started dating her father. I was nice to her but did not gush over her. I didn't try to impress her, win her over, or try to prove anything to her. Basically, I was just me. I didn't really care if she liked me or not, she did not hold the key to her father's heart and I didn't need her approval.
I tried to be a good role model for her and be there for her but I did not actually parent her or become emotionally attached to her.
I want her to have a good life but her problems do not keep me awake at night.
Exactly. "She did not hold
Exactly. "She did not hold the key to her father's heart." This is key, isn't it? In so many ways our approach is made possible by our husbands. If mine weren't so involved as a father and so comfortable with my limited involvement, if he didn't manage his former wife the way he does, my situation would be very different.