Communication
Nov 4th, 2007 by Kathy
When trying to run childrens’ lives from two separate addresses, good communication makes all the difference. During the period of time when we were working out our boundary issues, communication was at an all time low and it was hellacious. Bits of logistics were exchanged between me and the kid’s dad in terse terms when we couldn’t successfully avoid each other at school functions. Monosyllabic emails were lobbed across the virtual fence like little grenades.
Here are my first five tips on how to achieve decent communication between you and the other household:
1) The key thing to starting good communication is to try to dump the stereotypes as soon as possible. Don’t call your “ex” your “ex” (or anything worse). Call him by his name. And don’t call his girlfriend/wife “my ex’s girlfriend or wife” (or worse). She also has a name. Calling them their “human” names rather than their labels is a good start.
2) What’s not said is often as important as what’s said. Try to NOT always talk about logistics when you get together. We have a rule — once spoken, now kind of tacitly understood — that social functions should not be excuses to pull out the daytimers and figure out your next summer’s vacation schedules. If you need a logistics conversation, schedule it. Don’t make everything into how you’re divvying up the kids, or time, or money, or other such highly emotional subjects.
3) You once liked this guy. And he once liked you. Try to find the one or two things you still really appreciate him, and don’t forget that underneath all the baggage, he’s still got some good qualities. Similarly, he is invariably going to like some aspects of his girlfriend/wife for the same reason he liked you. Which means — guess what? — by definition you and the step mom are almost certainly going to have some things, somewhere, in common with each other.
She’s quite possibly someone you would like if you ran into her at Starbucks over a latte. Try doing that sometimes… again avoiding issues that are fraught with emotional content. Hang out a little. Dish movie stars or make goo goo eyes at the barista. The more you dilute the situation with good old fashioned girltalk, the better your bond will be able to withstand the inherant discomforts of your roles in each other lives.
4) Try to start fresh every time you meet and don’t bring the garbage pile into every room with you. Let it go.
5) We have a very tightly interwoven schedule. So the kids are always moving from one house to the other. The DHX has become our conveyance mechanism to get information across the border to the other house. It works when you’re not so friendly with each other. And it works when you are. It keeps all the little bureaucratic minutia more or less in one place. Put it in a backpack, make eye contact when you get the child to promise to deliver it faithfully, and — if the promise is made good– voila, a built in courier service.
There’s lots more to say about communication. More later.
You might be interested in “Making Adult Stepfamilies Work,” by Grace Gabe, M.D., and Jean Lipman-Blumen, Ph.D., St. Martins Press, 2005. The book deals with stepfamilies that were formed by the usually late-in-life marriage of two people, one or both of whom have adult children living away from home. These newlyweds think they are home free because all their kids are grown. Guess again!
I can’t help but think that your relationship with Jill is an idealistic fantasy that just isn’t attainable for many other moms-stepmoms out there. At least it doesn’t seem attainable for me.
I’m not proud of this fact, but I was the other woman for the last month of their marriage. I could give a list of excuses and the story behind it, but it makes no difference. The situation now is that four years have passed since then…bio-mom is still bitter and hates my guts (I understand that and think she has every right to feel that way). Things are very ugly between us. There is little to no communication between our houses…and the little communication there is tends to be cold and negative. My husband can’t even stand the sound of her voice and refuses to speak to her on the phone, much less in person, unless is absolutely necessary. She refuses to speak to me on any matter regarding her child.
All I want is to make things easier for my stepdaughter. She is so caught in the middle of this. While the idea of being friends with her mother turns my stomach, I would do it for my stepdaughter’s sake. It just seems like a lost cause given her mother’s feelings about me.
(Side note: we live 2,000 miles away because my husband is in the military, which makes it even easier to just write her off. We have a standard every-other-year holiday & summer visitation arrangement.)
I really appreciate your honesty in posting this. I, too, was “the other woman” in a couple of relationships since my divorce and I do understand how totally ugly that whole situation feels. (Those relationships never progressed further after the other marriages broke up, so I was never entirely in your shoes.)
That being said, I have a couple of thoughts. It seems like there’s much healing that needs to be done, for all of you. There’s lots of pain and anger and bitterness all around. I do understand that this is frequently the case (my parents were married 8 times between the two of them, so I’ve seen it first hand.) I also feel very blessed that Jill and I (now) get along so well. It wasn’t always the case, and I do agree with you that it could be the exception rather than the rule. But I don’t believe ithat greater harmony than what you’re describing is impossible. I really don’t.
You can’t change the past and you can’t change the relationship between your husband and his ex-wife. All you can do it work on yourself and your own healing and being the best person you can be for your step-daughter. Personally, I’m big into meditation these days, so that’d be my vehicle of choice. If that’s too woo-woo for you, I’d just suggest doing what you can to keep feelings of compassion and softness and empathy going, for all four of you.
Relationships are MESSY, that’s just the reality of it. And they also change over time. Take care of yourself, be kind and gentle with yourself, extend that to your husband and step-daughter, and my guess is that things will evolve to a different place as the bitterness works it way out of the system.
(Maybe she’ll get a boyfriend and get laid… that works too!)
Thanks Kathy! I’ll keep your advice in mind. I know that I can’t change the past, and it’s hard to create a civil relationship with bio-mom since she seems to be permanently lodged in the past. I really hope that if I just improve what I can within myself that things will change eventually.
I love this blog and really admire how you and Jill are sharing all of this in the hopes of improving other blended families!
Sounds like you’re on exactly the right track. And the best thing you can do for everyone… is to do the best you can by your step-child. If a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach (yeah, RIGHT!!! we all know the real organ) then maybe the way to a mom’s heart is through her children.