Making step-parent relationships work with Tracy Poizner

00:00 In this episode of the Team Super Dad podcast, I talk step parenting and making a blended family work with super stepmom Tracy Poizner. Role theme. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever. More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Hey dads, welcome, welcome. It is the Team Super Dad podcast. As you know, that's here. You've clicked play, so you know where you are. We're here twice a week. This one, the one we do in midweek, is the sort of serious one.

00:42 We're having a conversation about dads making their lives successful, effective. Dads who are businessmen, dads who are dads. What a ridiculous thing to say. I need to get focused here. But anyway, we are dads creating our best lives ever, working in the F5 of focus, fitness, finance, family, and fun. And, you know, too many dads are just fed up, fed up with going through the motions, imagining the life that they would really like to lead or the life we used to live when we were younger. Fit and healthy, maybe, seeing our friends all the time, living with housemates, dating, falling in love, going on holidays, adventures, doing stupid things like life.

01:25 Life was full of fun. And then it's not that our goals and visions and ambitions change. It's just that life catches up with us. So here at Team Super Dad, we're all about blowing the doors off and having a whole load more fun and success. So this episode, Tracy Poizner. Oh, by the way, if you're listening for the first time, then subscribe, definitely. If you're watching, you can watch at our YouTube channel, Team Superdad, or over at the Facebook group. In fact, come and join the Facebook group. We are a whole lot of dads there hanging out, asking questions, solving problems, sharing silly pictures, you know, all the stuff, as if we're in the pub, basically. But yeah, come over, join the group, subscribe to this podcast. Well, I'm giving you a whole load of things to do, aren't I?

02:12 I really am not concentrating here. But we're going to keep rolling. TeamSuperdad.com forward slash network. That is the best place to go, in fact. Teamsuperdad.com forward slash network. That is going to sign you up to our power list. It's going to get you into the Facebook group and send you a link to the podcast. So Tracy Poizner was on a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about communicating with your partner, with your children and with your ex if you've got one, like effective communication. Because she's all about families working, you know, mainly working with stepmoms and dads who have remarried. I've got a new partner. But it boiled down in our first conversation to communication and communicating effectively so that life works.

02:57 And you can go back and get that. I think it's episode 10. I'll put a link in the show notes. But we got on to blended family step parents and there just wasn't enough time. So the podcast went live and then I had loads of feedback and probably more feedback for her episodes than they've had for anything else. She's got such a lovely soft voice, a really amazing woman, totally on my same wavelength, a real like-minded soul around relationships, around new relationships, around how we look after our children and how we be a great step parent. So this episode is absolutely phenomenal. We get into every element of being a step parent, of being having a new partner, of communicating with our ex about our new partner, having it work out with our kids.

03:45 Like you do not want to be in a war situation. You do not want your new partner to try and take on the role of mum because that's not going to work. You want to create a situation where your kids like your new partner, where you can have fun together. It's more like when you get to the end, you'll hear us summarize that it's a bit more like a loving aunt or an older sister. It's that kind of relationship. So I hope you enjoy it. It's the usual length. You know, we don't do short podcasts. We stick it on at the gym, stick it on in the car, and I hope you're going to learn an absolute avalanche of information here and transform your blended family situation.

04:28 You know, the stats on second marriages ending in divorce are worse than first marriages, which is kind of horrific to consider. But like, we're here to make it work. So without further ado, I will see you on the other side. Enjoy, Tracy Poizner. Hey, welcome. Team Super Dad. Friends, family, members around the world. It's great to have you here on the podcast. We are live. For those people watching, for those people listening, then it's great to have you here also. also. Tonight, I've never had a guest back for a second visit, but two things happened.

05:06 Two things happened. One, we realized when we spoke just last week, actually. So, you might have listened to the first episode we did. The first, I hate calling them interviews because that just sounds a bit serious. But Tracy and I had a wonderful conversation. Tracy Poizner and I from Essential Stepmums and I had a wonderful conversation. And I got amazing feedback. Loads of people commented and told me what a great conversation that was. So that was all about men, dads, communicating with their ex-wives, their wives, and their partners.

05:43 Sorry, and their children. And tonight, because Tracy's real focus, I suppose, if that's fair to say, is on managing the blended family. So being that stepmom in a blended family and what a uniquely challenging role that is, but also rewarding. And so, whilst last episode, we ended up talking a lot about the dads in that blended family role. I didn't want to squeeze the stepmom bit in at the end. And so we did, we had an encore. We got her back again. So I'm going to play the intro and then we'll see Tracy on the other side. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever.

06:27 More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Tracy, how are you doing? Good to see you. Good to see you too. We're like old pals. Your husband's going to get going to be thinking there's something going on if we keep talking every other day. Yeah, this is too fun. We recorded for my podcast as well this week. We did. That was brilliant. I absolutely love that conversation. Where can people get your podcast? What's it called? What's it called? Essential Stepmom. It's the Essential Stepmom podcast. It's on all the platforms.

07:05 Brilliant. And obviously, I wasn't talking about being a stepmom, but I was talking about my experiences of being a step kid, then a stepdad, having a step. My dad and my stepmom, they broke up. So I had that experience as well. So we spoke about all of that. And we talked about some of the shared values we've got and ideas about, you know, different societal attitudes towards breakups and adults behaving like adults when it comes to sharing children and staying at least amicable, if not friends. So that was really great to have that conversation together. Thank you. I enjoyed it very much.

07:47 And I've been reading your blog and I just, I love your, I love all the content that you have. Like we're so on the same wavelength. I really appreciate that. No, seriously, like I often interview people in this space or I have conversations with them on my podcast. And it happens once in a while that somebody says something that's actually really at odds with what I think. But often there's just, you know, just a little bit of a different approach or that I, you know, I appreciate that somebody is really good at what they do, but like it's a totally different

08:28 approach or philosophy or something. And I feel like everything that you talk about, I just want to go, yeah, yes, yes. That's brilliant. Well, it's a movement in many ways, isn't it? That's so it's it's exciting to meet like my people. Well, today, oh, by the way, if you're listening, great to have you here. Please like and review and do all the things that you do with podcasts that you enjoy. If you're watching on the live or you're watching the replay, you can see Tracy and I looking as beautiful as ever, both of us. And but yeah, you can interact with us, you can comment, you can ask a question, you can fully get involved with the live and even the replay, share a question and we'll endeavor to get that answered for you.

09:12 What else? Yeah, we're all over at teamsuperdad.com. So these this show and the show notes, of course, you can actually ask your smart speaker, hey, name of smart speaker that we share not say, play the Team Superdad with Johnny Jensen podcast and you can get the podcast on your smart speaker there as well. So we are, we're dads. We're a community of dads and we're working on creating our best lives ever in the areas of focus, focus, focus, finance, fitness, family and fun. There are five areas. And relationships inside of that family part, whether it's maintaining a current relationship, whether it's it's leaving a relationship that doesn't work in a positive fashion.

09:59 And of course, the end part of that is creating a new relationship and most likely ending up in a blended family of some description, which is Tracy's real area of expertise. People throw the word passion around, but I feel like compassion is a really powerful word here. You've got the utmost compassion for that challenge, that unique challenge of blended families. And tell us about your specific focus in that regard. Well, I have to say, I do have a passion for it. You know, I actually, I'm happy to say that I get out of bed in the morning excited to do this work that I'm doing.

10:40 I'm connecting with a lot of the stepmoms, the women who are. Sorry, there's a lot of construction happening in my house today. So I'm sorry for the extra noises. I'm connecting with a lot of these women and I'm giving them a space where it feels safe to talk about this stuff very much in the same way that you do for the dads. It's so important on social media, like the spaces are not safe. A lot of people are looking to have this kind of community and the spaces don't feel safe.

11:19 The women attack each other in a really awful way. That is just, it's symptomatic of everything about social media. There's something about the anonymity that people have on social media, Facebook, Instagram, that it allows people to be not their best selves, you know, that you wouldn't, you really probably wouldn't ever say things in person to somebody the way that you say them online. And so so often, you know, women want to have a place to air their

11:58 grievances and talk about how they're feeling. And all they get back is awful comments about the child, you know, well, if that was my kid, I'd wash his mouth out with soap or you should just tell his dad that he's not allowed to come over anymore until he gets his, you know, like the, they just say the most awful things or, you know, I'd be leaving that guy right away. You shouldn't stay with him, you know, after like reading a few sentences on. Yeah, so I felt really, really committed to creating and maintaining a really, really safe place to have those discussions.

12:35 And I have over a thousand women in the group now. And I was worried when it got that big that it wouldn't keep the same flavor. But I'm really, really committed to that. I'm careful about it. And I mean, I'm just on it every single day. So I just have a zero tolerance for any, you know, any kind of rudeness in the posting or the comments. And so people know that it's a place where they can be honest and be vulnerable and have these conversations.

13:11 And also to know that they're not alone. You know, everybody thinks that like I must be the only person in the world who this is happening to because it feels so specific and personal. You don't, there's no way that you could know that this is such a common problem. Whatever the problem is that you're having, there are other people who are experiencing it. And it just helps so much to know that. Yes, that's the silent killer in the room is no one else is going through this. No one else understands. I'm on my own. I shared with the listeners would have heard me share about the book that I was part of recently called Being Fine.

13:51 18 short stories from, well, not short on purpose. They're just designed to be quick reads. But men sharing their experiences of hitting rock bottom and bouncing back. And there's alcoholism, suicide, loss of business, bankruptcy, marriage breakdowns, children committing suicide. The thing is, the experiences of the men, pretty much no matter what the story, was the same. Lonely, rejection, guilt, despair. And you're like, oh my gosh. So he felt that completely different situation, but he felt the same as I did.

14:33 And he bounced back. Oh, maybe I can bounce back. And that's the power of community, of shared experiences, the realization that we're not alone, the ideas, the knowledge that we can use to pull ourselves back from the doesn't always have to be from the brink, but that's that's the power of positive communities. It sure is. And, you know, it's the power of all the 12-step programs and even, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous that used to be alcoholism was a, you know, just an incurable and mostly fatal disease.

15:12 And community to and, you know, accountability and support of other people who were going through it turns out to be really the key to being able to come out of that. And I think it's true of this too. It's just we're using the power of, you know, the connectedness of the internet so that people can get together from all over the world because it's not always easy to find people right in your community or in your neighborhood who are the right match for you in terms of you know having your that's one of the beautiful things of the internet isn't it if you look at one-armed albano you know

15:55 panda bears you know like 10 of them in the world and now they're all together on a no when i when i started my facebook group um you know back like almost four years ago uh i remember where can people find your facebook group let's get that oh yeah so the facebook group i i do need to streamline this it doesn't have the same name as the podcast it's called the spectacular stepmom the spectacular stepmom and then i have a a facebook business page called essential stepmom okay cool uh that's that is linked to the group so either place you'll find me but when i started out with that i i took a course on learning how to do this like how to build a facebook group intentionally and um

16:40 and there were other people in that course who had such specific audiences i remember there was like a one for a um dyslexic female entrepreneurs and um you know someone else was doing a yoga online yoga for diabetics and you just you realize that that the it's almost infinite how much you can narrow down and still find a lot of people who share your thing whatever your thing happens to be so um so that was really positive for me and my my podcast now the statistics that i get on i podcast through anchor.fm and they they have statistics available i mean people are listening in 74 countries wow i didn't know there i don't know if i could name 74 countries

17:35 i can't find the when when i'm chatting you search up the group on facebook and put it in the uh comments and oh yeah you can't find it i i'm going spectacular essential stepmom no the spectacular stepmom all right she's a spectacular and essential i'm like not not both they're even stronger do you know what's funny though just doing this search like this is this is classic uh loads of uh step parent groups none as good as yours of of course but um a whole bunch that are that are in there and i've never looked before for a stepmom group obviously i'm not a mum and i'm not anymore and i did the same when i was a uh in my marriage really really struggling going through um

18:21 through quite a lot of challenges where a group such as as team superdad like i've created would have been perfect for me i never looked it up i was just like i'm on my own i can't i've got to get my head down i've got to keep working i've got to get through this and i never actually looked enough for the kind of help that would have that would have helped me ironically enough you know i hear it at least once a week in my group that somebody says i wish i would have found this years ago yeah and there are still women joining my group who because i ask them questions when they join you know i don't know you've probably joined a group where you have to ask some you have to answer a few questions to be admitted into the group and

19:01 i i always ask people what they would most like to learn um inside the group and there are women introducing themselves who've been stepmoms for 15 years who are just now joining a stepmom group you would think come on like you don't have it all figured out by the time you know but different stuff happens and the kids get to be different ages and everything goes along swimmingly for 12 years and then it all blows up and you can't believe it oh well i imagine just when you think it's all calmed down a grandchild comes along yeah and the same territorial battles are back exactly

19:44 Who gets to be grandma? Exactly. There's a wonderful story in one of the great books. I'm thinking it's a book called Step Monster, which is one of the classic books of the stepmom literature by Wednesday Martin, Step Monster. It's a great one. And she relates a story from one of the interviews that she does in the book of a woman who had been married to her husband for 25 years. And the mom had passed away. And so she basically raised this boy from the time he was eight or 10 years old. And so, you know, now we're many years later, and he's in his, you know, late 30s or early 40s and having kids.

20:25 And she can't understand why there's, you know, this incredible chill has come into their relationship that she wasn't expecting and she can't explain. And she says, you know, a few times a year, I send gifts to his kids, you know, on behalf of my husband and myself, because that's what moms do. They're usually the ones who are in charge of, you know, that sort of thing. And she would always say, you know, with love from granddad and Granny Florence or whatever her name was. And it eventually came out after some years of misunderstanding between them that the boy, the young man, the man, he's not even young, he's a middle-aged guy, who says to her finally, Can't you understand that my children have a

21:13 grandmother and she's dead? Oh, grandma is my mother. And he was fine with her until he became a dad, which sort of reactivated the wounds of losing his own mother at an early age. Which I, you know, you can maybe relate to that because I know that you have a similar story. You know, when you get to have kids, and suddenly the loss of your own mother becomes real for you all over again. And she had no idea, but it was such a sensitive point for him. So, yes, like even after 25 years, you're exactly right. Something can happen that you don't understand

21:57 in the dynamic. And this conversation we're having today is great because you've got dads who are going into a new relationship or choosing to be making that relationship a committed relationship, choosing to get married, even. And so we're talking about the different stages of that. And I'm blind, we could talk for hours about that. We've just been jumped to grandmother stage as well. But let's maybe start a little bit at the beginning. What are some of the things that a dad needs to consider, you know, as

22:37 he's in a relationship that's going pretty well? Obviously, they're getting to the point where they're going to think to move in or something. So I guess that's when someone really starts to become a stepmom. What are some of the things that they need to look out for? Or what are some of the three or four important things that come right up at the front? Like if we're going to lay the foundation for someone, what might they be? Well, I can't stress enough how important it is to have conversations about your expectations. Yeah. Because, like, and those are hard things to do. You know, it's a bit like saying, okay, here's the moment where we have to, you know, talk about a pre-nuptial agreement or something. And it's so icky because you're

23:26 it's like around a specific piece of mistrust or something in the relationship. Like you don't want to go there. And in this particular case, I think you have to talk about your expectations of your of the you know your partner's role in your family and how that's going to look. And I think a lot of dads are looking forward to restoring some kind of normal feeling of normalcy in their family because when you get divorced, right, you feel like you have this like amputated family and everybody can see that you're not, you're not whole, you're a single

24:07 dad with kids. And like, let's not even go there. I don't know if we talked about the archetypes last time, but you know, like single dad is like the loser of the four archetypes for sure. Single dad and stepmom anyway are, you know, the somehow the bad guys in this story as far as everyone else is concerned. Yeah, totally. And people should jump back and listen to the other podcast with Tracy to in full there. But yeah, we were just highlighting in cliché ways, and we hope that it's drifting out. out now but still the dad was the ass that left the stepmom was the bitch that swooped in and

24:47 then the poor old um um single single mom in the world to bring up her kids on her own she's a saint yeah doesn't don't they know what i've been through and that's that's that's fine for people that are in that boat and then stepdad gets to be a hero because he's clearly raising someone else's children yeah and you know it sucks and i what i love so much about your message that we talked about about changing changing this like changing the societal behaviors and norms so that it's not okay to for friends to support like really bad behavior in their in their circle of you know guys who bad talk their ex or you know women who are bad mouthing their ex

25:35 you know like are the the the community around them like you said all the people who are at your wedding who are supposed to be supporting your your marriage have to support you also in being a good person yeah on the other side of that godparents there's one yeah exactly the average god parent will gladly come to the christening and do the thing but then when it comes to actually stepping in and says what needs to be said they often don't or they don't it's really hard you know at one point in my work i was but it was just before covet i was looking at models of how i could reach out to um to

26:14 pastors who are counseling families because there's no there's no support for you know that all of the support is around keeping the couple together and after it's gone like when they're when they're done normally the pastor loses contact with one of those people because they're not going to keep going to the same church community after they're divorced they normally don't yeah and that pastor just loses contact with one of them and the next place who comes along that guy doesn't know all the woman you know they don't know all the all the history and all the details and everything that's happened and so they generally don't even know that

26:54 that there's a single dad or a single mom joining their their their community and how to support them there's a lot of really really bad advice that well-meaning pastoral counselors give out because they don't understand how different a blended family is well and you can be in a church and be hearing all the sermon about family family family and the the the layer of of guilt and you're about and just can keep getting keep getting applied so it's easy to sorry i was just going to say it's easy for both on both sides for the

27:37 someone who's gaining a new partner a divorced person who's getting a new partner to want their new family to be family family family yeah like a cookie cutter kind of request yeah and and it's really it's a bitter pill to understand that it doesn't work like that you're not going to be a mom and a dad who share the parenting of these kids yeah uh you're going to be a dad with kids who now has a partner that can do a ton of practical things to help you to be a good dad but their job is to help you be a good dad it's not to mimic the role of the mom

28:16 yeah that's a nice analogy actually a nice picture in my mind of rather than being a a front player like a like front front of house like mom dad front of you turn into a supporting role yeah so i i have this little image that i often share which way am i going to do it um this is like a log or a board or something that you're you know two people are holding on to the ends of and their kids are sitting in the middle here and um when when mom and dad get divorced they don't this doesn't break into two logs and they each you know hold the kids for part of the time like you are forever holding up your end of the parenting log and

29:05 it let's say that this is dad um when a new partner comes along a stepmom comes along she doesn't help you to hold up your end your end belongs to you to hold up she's there to bring a chair for you to sit on she can hold the umbrella she can bring over some sandwiches she can sit and talk to you and tell you stories she can bring you a beer she can you know she's a shoulder for you to cry on she can do a lot of dishes and laundry laundry, but she is not helping you hold up this end. And she's certainly not holding it while you go off to play football or to the pub or whatever, right?

29:45 And I think there's a lot of feeling that, you know, oh, I finally have someone to help me, you know, carry the load because parenting is so hard. Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't work that way. And it doesn't work that way because like nature has designed this whole process. And what we're doing now is we're sort of being pioneers of a new phase of human development because this kind of family has never existed before in all of human history. There were like the stepmom of yesteryear was the kind that you experienced in your family where the parent passes away, let's say, and there's a new mom or dad who comes into the family.

30:30 But there has never been in any culture of the world like 50% of children who are going back and forth between two homes. This is a brand new phenomenon. And we're in the very first years of it. It's maybe 40, not 50 years old, that this social dynamic. Yeah, totally true. Because when we were kids, there might have been one or two kids in our class who were divorced. And yeah, now it's like you say, 50%. Yeah. And when we were kids, and I mean, you're a lot younger than I am, but when, you know, when I was a kid, if there was someone whose parents were divorced, typically the kids stayed with mom, and dad

31:18 was like, maybe not completely out of the picture. Dad was either visiting or not visiting with the kids. But there was no other household with another mom and dad in it where you spent time. Like that didn't exist. And now it's almost the norm. Like 50% of children under the age of 18 are having some experience of living with, you know, part-time with their, with a step parent. Yeah. So it's really important that a couple that are embarking on this are conscientious enough to realize

31:58 it's not going to be a stroll in the park. We are going to need to have some awareness of the highs, the lows, the good bits, the bad bits. And we're going to need to make some kind of Augustus, of course, we talked a minute ago about the need for a plan, but also when things go wrong, like making sure that they don't end up arguing about stuff. Because it'd be so easy for the challenges of a blended family to impact on a relationship. And then you're back to square one. They do. And I mean, you've talked to Laurie and David Sims on their podcast, and they're a family. They do the Nacho Kids podcast and the Nacho Kids method. I think they're wonderful.

32:40 I really like them. They're very funny people. But like, nobody could have been more prepared than they were. Like, they went to counseling. They read every book they could find. They had all the conversations. And even still, there was an unspoken expectation that they didn't understand was wrong. That both of them expected that she was going to be a mother figure for his kids. And it lasted for, but it worked for the first year. And then the kids started rebelling because they didn't want another mother. They had a mother. Yeah. And he couldn't figure out what was wrong because, as far as he was concerned, like she was the woman of the house and they ought to listen to her.

33:25 And, you know, the more he tried to put his foot down, the more it didn't work. And she was just trying to work harder and harder at getting them under control and at being respected. And it was just kind of the opposite of what needed to happen. Like they, they didn't understand that all the rules in the house needed to be dad's rules. Very clearly that this is your dad and he makes the rules and he's not here right now. My job is to remind you of the rules. And that dad has to,

34:04 you know, when dad comes home, he has to let them know that he's not very happy that they weren't respecting his rules while he wasn't here because they thought he wouldn't know or something. And that's it, it's such a delicate point, but it makes such a big difference. Yeah. It makes a difference to them because I say this all the time, you know, every therapist in the whole world is talking to people about their relationships. relationship with their mother or their father. Nobody goes to a therapist in middle age to talk about their relationship with their third-grade teacher or with their football coach, you know. Yeah, the only thing that matters is how you were or were not able to please your parents in a way that allowed them to show you that you were good enough, right?

34:50 That's the central conflict of everybody's, you know, that's going on in your psyche. And that means that they don't care about someone else's rules. The game of childhood is to test the rules and boundaries of your parents. And, you know, you don't like the crossing guard is in charge of what you do when you cross the street. The crossing guard doesn't come to your house and tell you to brush your teeth. You know what I mean? The school teacher doesn't come around your house and say, don't you talk to your mother that way? You know, it's sort of crossing a weird boundary and it doesn't feel like it because you live in their house with them. And it feels like you should be able to

35:37 have that vibe, that mom vibe in the house. And of course, it does, it does work for some people. And then, and the problem with that is that we look at those houses and say, okay, what aren't I doing that she's getting right? Like, how come it works for her and it doesn't work for me? And unrealistic pedestal kind of thing, yeah. It's not something that you can copy because that's the one-off. That's not the way it's supposed to be. That's the unicorn that those people are lucky. And maybe at the moment, maybe they went through a, you know, maybe they've been through a certain phase and come out to where that's working for them.

36:18 Or maybe they just haven't got there yet. Where the kids are saying, I've decided I don't have to listen to you. Or maybe it like, you know, that some years down the road when their mom starts to pressure them to disrespect the dad and his partner. Yeah, yeah. Well, you can imagine that in young kids being quite happy to just and have a picnic and go to the park and bedtime. And then they suddenly hit puberty and early teens and into teens. And then it's like, because my son's the same now. I know he adores me and I adore him. He barks at me about everything. Why? I don't mean why are you asking me that? I'm not like, hang on a minute.

37:03 I'm asking you to brush your teeth. I'm like, that's it. So, in a step parent situation, and I've experienced that myself, you know, could you, could you wash up? No, or they'll do half and then leave half of it. I know, I remember one argument, my stepson, I took it really personally that he'd left the end of the washing up. And yeah, and that I'm just having flashbacks to it now. Yeah, so it's it I can see in that situation is that it's important that a pet, the non-primary parent realizes that role.

37:47 And when they see it coming up, when they see themselves being drawn into a situation where they are taking on primary parent actions, what's that? Is it like rules, discipline, requests, requests, so any kind of request, basically? Yeah. And like, and I have to tell you, Johnny, I'm the one who leaves the last bit of the washing up in my house. Like, I am so guilty of that. And it helps me, it helps me to know those things. Like, okay, we have this funny thing going on in our house right now. I have a very bad habit of leaving my shoes at the very bottom of the steps.

38:29 Like when I put my boots on to go outside, I live in Canada. And so, you know, we have to change footwear just to step out the door. And I have these, you know, slip-on house shoes that I wear and I leave them at the very bottom of the stairs where when my husband comes down the stairs, he's going to trip on them. It's a terrible booby trap and I leave it there all the time. And he's asked me a hundred times not to do it. And I can't remember. And so he has taken to hiding my shoes. Like when he finds them there, he hides them so that I can't find them when I come back. And they're in a different place every time I come in the door. So it's a good reminder for me that, as you just said, you take it personally, but 99.9% of the time, it has nothing to do with you because I'm the one who leaves the last cup and spoon and whatever in the sink.

39:19 And I'm sure, like, it's one of those things that my husband just rolls his eyes and goes, like, why can't you wash wash the? the last three things that are there? And I don't know what it is. It's an old habit. But yes, like the discipline, the rules, the consequences, the requests. Like, you just have to not be the person who has some expectation of raising this child so that they become a good adult. You know, like, if I don't ask this person to clean up, you know, this child, like, who's going to ask them to do it?

40:03 How are they going to turn out? Like, I feel responsible for them. And that's where you have to let go and say, this child has a father who lives in this house and possibly a mother who lives somewhere else. And that's, that's all they get. They get to see me cleaning up and I'm modeling cleaning up. And I'm not, you are not enabling bad behavior. Like, it is completely on the dad or in this situation, because I'm talking about being a, you know, a stepmom and a biological dad. It's on the dad to say, I expect you to do this. I want you to do this. In fact, I want Tracy to remind you to do this. He can say that if he wants to, but otherwise.

40:48 It's on the biological parent. Yeah. Completely. And the assumed norm would be, oh, this is family. I'm here as a parent. I should be telling them off. If they don't do their homework, that's a reflection on me. If she's wearing too much makeup, that's a reflection on me. Yeah. He has a bad boyfriend. I'm somehow responsible for that. So there's too many roles that a step parent could inadvertently, slash accidentally, slash quite without realizing it was not the best thing to do, take on responsibilities that actually, far from being the right or positive thing to do, will undermine, will cause friction, will lead to problems.

41:32 And when we become aware of this, we can actually then create a situation with the biological parent, our partner, and even discuss it with the kids. This is who I am in this house. This is how I'll be. This is kind of what we expect of you towards me. But I'm not going to do this and I'm not going to do that. Your dad will step in and do that or whoever the parent is. And that seems quite a grown-up. There's two things there, isn't it? There's the self-awareness and the grown-up approach of the adults to do that in the first place. And then there's the willingness to have that conversation with the children at an age-appropriate level.

42:12 But there's a conversation to be had, whatever age they're at. Oh, absolutely. And to continue having conversations because the development of children is progressing all the time. And I heard from somebody just the other day who I can't remember what she was commenting on, but she said, you know, the little boy that I used to, you know, my stepson who I used to give a bath and read bedtime stories, you know, he's becoming a, you know, he's 12 now and he's turning into an adolescent boy. And she said, I really

42:50 miss the little boy that I used to play games with. And I'm not quite sure how to have this, you know, how to change my relationship with him. But great that she noticed that like things are changing. And yeah, it's going to change a lot. And I don't know, there are so many, there are so many moments. I just counseled a family who had had primary custody of the husband's three children for 15 years. And they've just now gone to live with their mom. And they went for a holiday and then COVID came and they didn't come back because suddenly, like the other, the family on the other side sort of warned them so strongly against traveling.

43:38 It's not good to go. You don't want to go there or whatever. And little by little, they've like actually lost contact with these kids who they've they raised, you know, since they were little we and now they're 19 and 21 or something. And they're just flabbergasted at how that could happen. But like I said, it's, you know, the landscape is changing all the time. Yeah. Well, I know that with, I mean, any parent will know that. I say any parent, if this is news to you and you're listening, then good. I hope it makes an impact. But it's certainly myself. When they're babies, we're like, what's happening?

44:18 He's throwing up. He's got a. fever. He's so. And then you find out he's a tooth. And of course, there's 20 more teeth, and the next thing is, oh, he's having another tooth. Okay, we've got that. And just this last year, with my children both hitting puberty bizarrely at the same time, because they're a boy and a girl and they're two years apart. I'm like, I had to keep catching myself feeling frustrated with them and be like, stop doing that. Why are you being like? And you go, why are you being like this? Oh, you're being like this because you're changing into another human being. I'm like, okay. There's a TV show in the UK called Doctor Who. And each time the doctor dies, it turns into a new kind of form. He's got a completely different character, a completely different gender now. And

45:02 you're like, ah, so actually, rather than try and tell you off for not being who you used to be, I've got to relearn you and be a better parent, be a new parent myself. Yeah. And I think there the whole, like when I was talking about the expectations, like there's, there's two things there. Sometimes where the biological parent is a dad, the previous family might have been a situation where the mom, the biological mom, is the person who is more suited by her personality to do the disciplining.

45:45 You know, there's always one of the parents who, you know, that it comes easier to them. It comes more naturally to say no or to hold limits, to make consequences, you know. Good cop, good cop, bad cop. And so if the if the wife was the bad cop and now dad is a single dad, it's not only that he's, you know, all the natural guilt about the divorce and all of that is real. And I would not advise anybody to try to just pretend that it's not there, you know, and we have to work through that. And it's real. You actually are entitled to feel guilty about this.

46:28 It's real. You know, you have participated in something that disrupted the, in a very significant way, the lives of your kids. But on top of that, you know, when he gets into another relationship, he is secretly hoping sometimes that his new partner will take over this role that he never liked doing and isn't very good at. Yeah. And in the case where the biological parent is the mom and you, as a single guy, are hooking up with somebody who has kids, the same thing could be true, especially if she's got teenage boys, let's say, that at some point they're, you know, they're big and

47:09 strong and full of testosterone, and they are crying out for a male figure to kind of talk to them on the level that they can understand. And she's really hoping that her new partner is going to be some kind of disciplinarian who can bring some order to her family. And again, it's like you're kind of, I don't know, it's difficult. And I think maybe sometimes it does work better with

47:49 a guy who can relate maybe in a not an authoritarian way, but an authoritative way with the kids. It sometimes could work a little bit better, but it just does not ever work. It doesn't work for the moms, for the stepmoms to be the one who is nagging about stuff. I get that. Instantly, you become the like Snow White, you become the wicked witch. Yeah. And I call that throwing yourself under the bus, actually. Yeah. And what can, I mean, this is a good actually little area to dig into.

48:30 If a stepmom finds herself, because that's who you work with, right? Stepmums, right? Stepmums and biological dads. But this is important for dads because the dads are committed to their new relationship. They think it's a new dawn. It's all going to be great. And now they've got this problem where the kids are not relating to the stepmom and she's the wicked witch of the West and all this. Well, this is going to be kind of a sort of a summary of a lot of things that we've spoken about already. So I'm okay with that, right? But in terms of what the couple can do to start to build that relationship up, because you can't wake up one morning and say, okay, you're.

49:15 you're going to love her. She's here to stay, like it or not. That's not going to work. I think the again from Wednesday Martin's book, Step Monster, there's a great quote that is from somebody else, I think, and I can't remember who she's quoting, but it's a great script to have in your back pocket. What she says is that dad can say to his kids, you don't have to like Mary Susan Joanne, whatever her name is. You don't have to like her, but you do have to respect her. And she's not a piece of furniture. You have to say hello when you come into the room, like normal people do.

49:59 You don't have to like her. You don't have to like her, but you have to be respectful and courteous. And, you know, she's here to stay. She's my friend. She's an important person to me. And, you know, I don't. Sorry, Tracy. I don't know. That's okay. They're hanging drying in the gone. No problem. So sometimes that's all it takes, you know, for the dad to acknowledge that, like, I see that you don't like her, and that's okay with me.

50:36 You don't have to like her, but I can't let you be disrespectful because I'm your dad and I'm responsible for turning you into a good person. And you're going to have to deal with a lot of people you don't like. They're going to be teachers you don't like. You're going to have bosses you don't like or colleagues or customers and clients you don't like that you have to learn how to be nice to or you won't be successful. You're going to have in-laws that you don't like. And you need to learn this skill of how to be courteous and respectful anyway. Yeah. And that combined with so the stepmom's going to stop trying to be the mom and enforce rules.

51:18 And she's going to get herself out of the way as much as possible because the thing that makes you like an evil stepmom, I mean, that is an archetype. And it's not only from, you know, a lot of people slam Disney for, you know, Disney just takes what's out there in the, you know, in the human psyche and puts it on the screen. It's a real fear that your mother could die and the next woman who comes along has another agenda than your welfare because

51:55 your two parents, you're hardwired to believe, even when horribly sometimes it's not true, but we're hardwired to believe that our own parents have nothing but our own welfare as their agenda. So this other woman comes along and she definitely has another agenda. First of all, she can be having kids with your dad who can overtake you in importance. And certainly Shakespeare made hay with that, right? Long before Disney came along. And she could potentially have other children that she's bringing into the family that she might treat better than she treats you.

52:41 So there is an archetype already kind of in our minds of why we could be afraid of that. And so the point is that if you are standing in between your husband and his kids energetically, you're in between, like you are blocking them from getting what they need from their dad. And they need to suck dad almost dry in the 50% of the time that he's with them because they arrive to see you already missing you because they haven't seen you for a while. And they need to first of all fill up that emptiness and then they need to store up to get through the next week.

53:26 And if she's in the way of your attention or your love or physically sitting next to you on the sofa so that they can't get in, she's blocking your kids from getting what they need from you. And the way to become more appreciated or more loved or more part of the family is to get out of the way, to be invisible almost. The more you cannot be there, the closer you're going to get to those kids. It seems like the opposite road, but it's going to take them years to stop being afraid that you're in the way.

54:06 And when that fear is gone, they're going to be so. so appreciative of all that you do to help them to get more time and attention and love from their dad. Like, you know, I have to tell you, like, that's where I am right now. And I'm 15 years in. And my husband's daughter just can't stop talking about how appreciative she is of everything that I do for her. And it's something new. But like, she's just arrived there where she's just feels comfortable and easy about it. And that's the long game. I told you. It sure is. The dads about this in my coaching with dads is

54:45 in the moment, the box that we're in, the sides are pretty close up, and we're like, the pain is all the struggle, whatever we're trying to strive for is right in the day or in the week. But when we can look a bit at the long game, we can be like, ah, well, I didn't need to react to that because it's not that big a deal in the long game. I looked at your blog about, it's the one about how to stop shouting at your children, which I loved. Thank you. And one of the things that you said was that you have to decide what matters and let the rest go. And I think that that's another conversation that people can be having together to talk about what matters to you.

55:29 Like what really matters? Like what are your most important values? What are you trying to leave with your kids as a legacy of yourself? Like what's the most important thing about you that you want them to take away? The most important two or three things. Because sometimes, you know, you have goals for your kids and you just know that you want them to get there, but you haven't really articulated why it's important to you. And I think when you know that and you can say it out loud, it makes it really easy to focus on that and let go of the stuff that doesn't matter.

56:11 You know, when you talk about picking your battles or something, you have to know what's important and what's not. And those are really good conversations to have. And it's not, we don't sit around saying, what's important to you? You know, like, I mean, it sounds sappy, but I just heard somebody on a podcast last night talking to Brene Brown, who's a great, you know, interviewer and researcher. And he was saying that one of the most difficult but most important things that he had ever done with his wife was to go to one of the, you know, they've gone a few times to those couples weekends where you, you know, learn communication techniques for couples or whatever.

56:51 He said, it's excruciating. It's awful. It, it feels like ridiculous and stupid while you're doing it. But he said, it's the most important work that we've done, learning how to talk to each other about important things and to have even learning how to use conversation with each other to uncover the important things that we have inside. And instead of talking about what's on television or what's on the news or gossiping about the neighbors or whatever, you know, we have to learn to talk with our most important life partner about important stuff. Yeah. Time, schedule it. This is our

57:34 get-together conversation. It's not our chit-chat conversation. It's, is there anything I do that doesn't really work for you? Is there anything I could do more of that you really appreciate? You know, it's another great tool that I heard about from somebody who I interviewed. This comes from Jeffrey Hoffman, who runs something called visibleman.org. Okay. And he told me that his partner in the early days of their dating, she started to make him do this exercise where they both had to write on a piece of paper a number from one to 10 that represented where they thought their relationship was at. Like how, how well is it going? How fulfilled do you feel?

58:19 How optimistic are you for our future together? Whatever, like a number between one and 10, you know, and he said, and then we have to flip them over at the same time and talk about it, like that she's at a nine and I'm at a six. It's like, okay, like we have different ideas of how our relationship is progressing and we need to talk about that. And he said, it's so uncomfortable. But he said, like he said, I give her full credit because I'm sure that's why we're still together. Like we, we have these moments where like she makes us do that,

58:59 have those conversations about, or like I'm at a nine and she's at a five and I didn't know. that she was at a five. I think we're doing fine, and and so it's like that's a moment where I have to realize that I'm not paying attention to some cues that she's probably giving me that she's not feeling very good about our relationship right now. And so, you know, if we weren't having this moment of doing that little exercise with the numbers, like where would that end up? You know, like I'm going to keep not paying attention to what she's trying to tell me until the shit hits the fan.

59:41 Yeah. And then there's blame and resentment and all that. Yeah. And I guess, especially in a blended family, but equally in a standard family as well, asking our kids that kind of stuff is really important as well. Not putting them on the spot and making it a real intense thing, but just casually, how's things going at the moment? Anything I could do for you to make things easier? Anything I do that you don't really like? Anything, you know, that you know what else? Sorry, I'm interrupting you again. That's so rude. No, fine, carry on. I was just going to say that I love the concept of having family meetings. Yeah. And they don't have to be like, I think you have to do it often so that it's not something that sort of gets the hair to stand on end.

1:00:24 You know, family meeting. Yeah. And it's something that you, there's a way to do it that it's always around, you know, cookies or ice cream or something fun, you know, or it's always a precursor to something fun. And that you start off, you start the ball rolling with several meetings that are only about fun things so that the idea of it gets integrated that it's we're all going to sit around and everybody's going to talk about one really nice thing that happened to them this week or one difficult thing. You know, you can do the rose thorn bud system where everyone says, you know, a good thing, a bad thing, and what I'm looking forward to or whatever, or something I was great at this week, you know, something I feel really good about.

1:01:09 You're going to talk to them about scheduling things, what's coming up. We want to make sure that you know about this. You're going to hand out little awards or prizes for, you know, here's a prize. You did such good washing up last week or whatever. You start off really gentle. And eventually you introduce a kind of agenda that stays on the refrigerator door where people can write down little peeves that they have, like, you know, my stepbrother took my Legos and I was really mad and, you know, whatever. And so that you make a regular time to have conversations about things that, you know, that you add into this nice atmosphere, that the little things that people want to talk about.

1:01:54 And you make sure that kids get to talk without being interrupted. Yeah. And you make sure that you arrive at consensus solutions instead of compromise solutions. Because I never thought about this until I read it. I am not making this up. I read about it somewhere, but compromise leaves everyone feeling a little bit off, like everybody gave up something. And consensus is where everyone leaves the table feeling okay about the decision. It has to be win-win. So it takes a bit of practice to come to those things.

1:02:31 But what this person said is that compromise is a good way of arriving at a decision, like a short-term gain. Like a decision has to be made quickly and it's important that it happens now. And it's something of a short-term solution or whatever. But that when you were just talking about what's the most important, and I think you would probably agree that the relationships are really the most important thing. And when long-term relationships are the goal, you have to work for consensus because that's where you're headed.

1:03:12 Like the really important, the really important decision or, you know, solution to the problem is the one that's going to point you in the direction of good long-term relationships. So that's where you're really making sure that everyone feels heard and everyone comes away from the table happy with the decision. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, that's a lovely, I think, end to today's conversation because we've spoken about the need for the step parent, the stepmom, or the stepdad in the relationship to not put themselves in between them, the biological parent and the children.

1:03:53 We've spoken about the step parent not trying to enforce their rules and their ways on the family. family. And then we've ended with the importance of communication and creating consensus and win-win. And I really see that that's a stepping stones, a pathway for families. I called today's session how to create a happy blended family. And I really hope that anyone listening, there's always the gold at the end of a podcast conversation. This has been powerful and insightful. And I know what I take from this as well. This isn't some complicated thing you've got to work out. It's just doing the basics really well.

1:04:37 Yeah. Yeah. That's a really, that's a really great way of saying it. I love that. I'm probably going to quote you. Very true. Very true. There are basics. And even though you feel like your situation is completely unique, that's been, you know, that's been my work of the last three or four years is just mining for those nuggets of basic things that can work for everybody. Yeah. And not looking to, not looking around you and seeing what everyone else is doing without understanding what's special about that situation that allows that to work.

1:05:19 That wouldn't work for me, you know, to tell everybody what joins you, you know, instead of what distinguishes you from other families, what which parts are the same? And what can you get right in the, like you said, the very foundational pieces? Yeah. Beautiful. Tracy, it's been lovely having you on. This second part of the conversation was so vital because it really was both ends. I'm so honored that you invited me for a second time, really. The feedback everyone's been saying I loved your conversation. What was that lady about about the communication, talking with the family? What was Tracy?

1:05:59 That was Tracy. So yeah, they enjoyed every part of it. So that's brilliant. I'm sure we'll get the same feedback off this. Just briefly, remind us again where people can come and connect with you and join your community. My website is essentialstepmom.com. And you can find me on Facebook at Essential Stepmom. And I have a Facebook community called The Spectacular Stepmom. And the podcast is called Essential Stepmom. Oh, I really need to fix all that up. But anyway. I'll tell you how you can fix that when we finish. I'll see you on the other side.