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Saw Counsellor - great advice re our relationship!

IslandGal's picture

Submitted by IslandGal on Wed, 01/22/2014 - 8:47pm

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DH and I have been going to see a Counsellor to try and deal with our situation. Counsellor specialises in step families and has over 17 years experience.

She was fantastic! Gave us great advice and clarified some issues for us.

The best advice she gave was this:

Relationships are pretty much like an onion - with many, layers. The core of the onion can ONLY FIT 2 PEOPLE. That is the two that are in the relationship. The layers signify all the others e.g. 2nd layer are kids, 3rd layer are immediate family i.e. parents, aunts, uncles etc and the 4th layer friends, 5th layer, acquaintances etc. If the core of the onion is rotten, the entire onion has to be thrown out (yes, I know some people still use the onion - but lets just go with this scenario for now).

The inner core: DH and I
1st layer: all the kids
2nd layer: Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles etc
3rd layer: Friends
4th layer: Family

Each layer has their own boundaries and shouldn't be allowed to cross over to other layers.

When a child insists on being in the core with the Father, this is when trouble starts.

DH really took this to heart. We spoke later and he told me that he knew that early in our relationship, there was DH and SD in the core. He allowed her to push me out (by insisting on having her birthday party at BM's house with DH there to entertain them all). DH allowed her to push me out and he let her in - this is where all our problems started.

He is now determined to allow nobody into our inner core - they will all know their boundary and we will do everything we can to make sure everyone sticks to their own boundary.

I also stuffed up by allowing the problems of my elder child to consume me. I didn't involve DH as much as I should have - which is wrong as he is my partner.

We won't allow SD13's attitude to affect us any longer. We won't allow anyone to try and dictate how our relationship should be - that is for me and Dh to decide only.

I think this Counselor ROCKS and would recommend her to anyone involved with steps in Aussie.

Hang in there guys! Tell your DH that only YOU AND HIM/HER are the core of your relatinship (nobody else can be in the core), and once they get it, hopefully, things will start to look up for everyone.

IslandGal's picture

Submitted by IslandGal on Wed, 01/22/2014 - 8:48pm

Woops! Apologies..

3rd layer: FAMILY
4th layer: FRIENDS
5th layer: ACQUAINTANCES..

IslandGal's picture

Submitted by IslandGal on Wed, 01/22/2014 - 8:54pm

..and one more thing.. if DH insists on catering to the child's WANTS and not the child's NEEDS - he/she is actually keeping their kid in the inner core of their relationship and this pushes out the partners (which is why we feel so damned neglected!).

They are not focusing on their partners, but the kids - this 'causes friction and a lot of problems with step families.

In intact marriages - this is never a problem because everyone knows their place. This isn't the case in step families, which is why boundaries are so very important.

Rags's picture

Submitted by Rags on Thu, 01/23/2014 - 8:15am

Sounds to me that this counselor is a keeper and one of the rare pseudo science therapy "professionals" with half a brain cell. Good ones are rare.

In my experience most of them are idiots. When you get a good one, hang on to them. Kind of like family law attorneys.

Calypso1977's picture

Submitted by Calypso1977 on Thu, 01/23/2014 - 10:57am

I finally broke down and scheduled a counselor for fiancé and I. we have our first session next week.

I hope its successful. I asked fiancé if he was fully on board or if he was just going to appease me (knowing if it was to appease me it would never be a success). he said he genuinely wanted to go. I also asked if he'd really listen and follow the counselor's advice. he said he would.

I don't want to marry him until we have some of the parenting issues with regard to SD worked out. I made that concrete decision after reading so much on here. I already feel like a failure over my first marriage failing (thankfully with no children involved) and I refuse to be one of the 80% of second marriage failures. I am both terrified and excited about the possibility of SD being with us 50-50. terrified if fiancé cant follow sound parenting advice and be brave about being the one in charge rather than SD and excited because if he steps up we potentially can turn this kids behavior and life around.