Episode 52: False Allegations and Fragile Bonds

For stepmum support, tools, workshops and coaching, visit: https://stepmumspace.com

In this episode, Katie is joined by Nicholle, whose story reflects one of the hardest and least-spoken-about realities in stepfamily life: the impact of false allegations and the emotional fallout that follows.

Nicholle opens up about the moment everything changed, how the accusations affected her relationship with her stepchildren, and the heavy mix of love, resentment and fear she had to navigate in the aftermath.

Together, Katie and Nicholle explore:

• What it feels like when you’re accused of something you didn’t do
• How false allegations damage trust, connection and family stability
• The emotional whiplash of loving children who hurt you
• How to rebuild your sense of safety and identity
• What resilience looks like when the situation feels profoundly unfair

This conversation will resonate with any stepmum who’s felt misunderstood, misrepresented, or caught in the crossfire of blended-family tension. Nicholle’s courage is a powerful reminder that you’re not alone — and that healing is possible even when the damage runs deep.

If you’ve got a story to share, Katie would love to hear from you. Connect on Instagram @stepmumspace or visit https://stepmumspace.com
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Keywords (SEO)

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Transcript

Katie: 0:04

Hello, I'm Katie, and this is Stepmom Space, the judgment-free zone where we talk candidly about the fairy tales and scary tales of Stepmom Life. So whether you've been a stepmom for years, you're just starting out, or you want to understand the stepmom in your life a little bit better, this is the place for you. My guest today is Nicole, a woman whose story echoes a painful pattern I've heard far too often. A stepmum facing false allegations. In our conversation, Nicole opens up about what happened, how she navigated the emotional fallout, and the complex mix of love and resentment she felt towards her stepchildren at the time. She shares how those allegations reshaped her relationships with them and what it's taking to rebuild trust and stability in the aftermath. Nicole is deeply compassionate, and I'm so grateful for the honesty and vulnerability she brought to this chat. Let's dive in. So, Nicole, welcome today to Stepmom Space. I'm so happy to have you all the way from the USA. Whereabouts are you today? I'm actually in St. Louis, Missouri. So right in the middle of the US. Wow. And it's very early in the morning for you. So thank you ever so much for getting up extra early to talk to me.

Nicholle: 1:22

Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Katie: 1:25

So look, why don't you tell us a little bit about your story?

Nicholle: 1:29

Sure. So I actually met my husband back in 2016. And he was actually living um about five hours away at the time when I met him. He's in the military and was finishing up some stuff. And uh so we were just seeing each other kind of on the weekends. And then about, I don't know, maybe three months or so after we started dating, uh, he introduced me to his three kids. They were pretty young at the time. Uh so met them uh very early on and uh had a really good relationship from the beginning. Um, we just kind of connected very well. And so yeah, just you know, dating a man with three kids was a new experience for me. Uh, I didn't have any kids of my own. So it was kind of you know thrusted into a family.

Katie: 2:11

How long had he been separated from their mom at the time? He had been separated for about a year and a half from their mom. And you say the kids took to you really well?

Nicholle: 2:22

They did. Um, I was really nervous about how that might work out because obviously, you know, they had a mom, they had a dad. So here's this new person in their life. Um, but it kind of started out as like just a like a friendship. They built that relationship with me and I tried my best to, you know, be just an extra person in their life, like an extra person just to love them, uh, to look after them, take care of them. And it was a really good bonding experience.

Katie: 2:47

And at that point, your partner was still in the military and you were X hundred miles away.

Nicholle: 2:55

Well, at this point, he had actually moved back. So when I met him, he was finishing up a couple of months of work in the military. Um, but then at this point, whenever you know our relationship got more serious, whenever I met the kids, he was still doing military work, but locally here in St. Louis, not um several hours away.

Katie: 3:13

Okay, okay. And the kids were with their mom a fair bit, I guess.

Nicholle: 3:17

Yeah, so he was with uh they were with my husband about 58% of the time and their mom 50% of the time. So uh it was a very uh messy schedule when I first met my husband. Um, they were being shuffled back and forth uh quite a bit during a given week, uh, which was challenging. But they were eventually able to kind of modify that schedule to where the kids were, you know, with my husband for a full week and then with their mom for a full week. So about halfway through 2017, um, I actually moved in with my husband, which was a different set of challenges because now I'm not this, you know, fun person that that dad's dating. Um, actually, you know, more involved. And I had a bigger role when I moved in because my husband was going to an academy here locally for fire school training. Um, he was also working uh a part-time job at the time. So I started playing a bigger role, you know, helping the kids get ready for school, sometimes, you know, taking them to drive them off to school or to preschool if they were, you know, not in school yet. And so that was, you know, a different set of feelings and challenges.

Katie: 4:23

And so how old were they then? They were six, four, and two at that time. Wow. And to go from not having any children to what, like maybe a year and a half later. Yeah. How how did you find it?

Nicholle: 4:40

Yeah. Um, I mean, I, you know, it was it was challenging. Um, but I think the rewards really outweighed the challenges. The kids were so sweet, um, so loving, it had so much love to give. They had already been through, you know, having your parents divorced is is traumatic for a kid. Um, so they had gone through that, but you know, I didn't ever really see much from that. Like they they definitely, you know, they say kids are resilient. Kids rebound very quickly. And and I got to, you know, kind of reap the benefit of that. They were, you know, fun to be around. We always found fun things to do, we're always laughing and having a good time. So I unf you know, fortunately didn't really have to kind of overcome that set of challenges that some step parents have to overcome.

Katie: 5:26

And so when your husband was away quite a bit working or training, you have responsibility for the kids. Were you kind of empowered to do whatever needed doing, or did you have to seek any permissions? How did that all work?

Nicholle: 5:40

You know, I kind of took care of the little stuff, I would call it. You know, like I said, getting them ready for school, you know, helping them with their homework, getting them to whatever sports they had going on. Um, but anything bigger than that, you know, if it was like a doctor's appointment or a decision that needed to be made for like a medical reason, anything like that, um, definitely, you know, deferred to my husband to let him and uh the kid's mom make that decision.

Katie: 6:04

It's something that we come across quite a lot is people saying, you know, I have to do all the kind of day-to-day, but I don't actually have a say in in what goes on.

Nicholle: 6:13

Yeah, that's that's a very real statement. Um, and it's it's hard because, you know, you're in a situation where you're taking care of somebody and you love somebody and you want to be part of that decision making, but a lot of times you don't get to be. And that was really kind of a hard pill for me to swallow. I wasn't I wasn't expecting that. Uh I wasn't ready for that. But at the same time, I think I I think I maybe had a better understanding of that than than some people do because I was a step kid myself. Uh, my parents divorced and remarried when I was three years old. So I understood where the kids were coming from. A lot of times I would tell myself, like, I don't tell my husband, like, I don't agree with you, and I don't agree with their mom. And this is where I'm at because I have that perspective and it's different. And, you know, sometimes I think that was a benefit to the situation.

Katie: 7:02

Yeah, that external viewpoint can always be really helpful. And what was the relationship like between you and their mom?

Nicholle: 7:10

So for the first uh maybe six months or so, um, she was very nice to me, you know, not overly nice, but nice enough to, you know, be amicable and and get along. Um, and then there was a day uh that stands out in my mind. The the youngest child, the daughter, was sick and she needed to go to the doctor. My cousin was working, their mom was working, and I was the only one available. And so I said, I'll take her. I'll I'll make sure she gets taken care of. So I took her to the doctor's office, got her seen by the doctor, they gave us some medications, and that evening was when she was supposed to go back to her mom's house. That was the custody arrangement. So I reached out to their mom to see, you know, where she would like me to take her, if she was going to be there to get her from me. And then after that was all taken care of, uh, she was dropped off. Later that evening, I received a text message from their mom saying that in the future, the only people that are permitted to take her or any of the other two kids to the doctor's office was a biological parent and that I really had no business doing that. And it was really frustrating to me. I I didn't understand, you know, why it mattered who took her to the doctor. Like at the end of the day, the kid just needs to see a doctor, the kid needs some medication. And I was trying to do that. And so that was really kind of the breaking point for me, Katie. I said, you know what, if this is how it's gonna be, then I don't, I don't want to communicate with you. I don't, I don't have to communicate with you. I don't want to communicate with you if that's how you're gonna treat me. And so I pretty much just cut off all communication at that point, which is hard because, you know, there's times where, you know, there was so much going on that my husband would need help, or, you know, the kids would need something that they left at their mom's house and my husband was working. And so it was challenging to make that decision, but I felt like I had to make that decision because it was the best decision for me, uh, from like a mental capacity. Like I just I couldn't handle, you know, any sort of like ups and downs when it came to the way I was being treated by somebody.

Katie: 9:17

Yeah, I think there'd be a lot of people who can relate to that. And it's that ability of another person to just totally derail your day with a text. Yes. So did you, I mean, did you literally sort of block her?

Nicholle: 9:33

Yeah, I actually I sent her a message uh back and I just said, you know, at the end of the day, all I want is what's best for the kids. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to just be an extra person to love them. I said, but if this is how I'm going to be treated by you, if it's going to be, you know, nice to me one day and immune to me the next, I said, I can't handle something like that in my life and I don't have to. And from now on, you can communicate solely with the children's father because I have nothing else to say to you. And did you block before you got a response, or did you get a response? I did not get a response, which is fine with me. I don't know that I necessarily needed a response, but I just I had to end that because it was not, it was not uh beneficial whatsoever.

Katie: 10:18

Interesting that you kind of noticed that so quickly and made that decision so quickly. Because I think a lot of us get to such a point where we're so broken down or we're so used to being attacked that we kind of feel like we have no, it almost feels like a a negative choice that we have to make rather than a sort of positive choice in the beginning to say, hang on, I'm not gonna be talked to like that.

Nicholle: 10:43

Yeah, it it did help me. Um, and I guess this is a good point to kind of to give a little bit more of a background. I knew that she had struggled to manage relationships pretty much her whole life. My husband actually went to school with her. They grew up together. Um, so he knew her from a very young stage. And she had struggled with uh relationships with her parents, uh, with friends, with spouses. She actually very quickly remarried after my husband and her got divorced. She was with that guy for about two years and then is now remarried again since then. So it it kind of reassured me that this is not a a me problem. This is a the role that I'm in kind of problem. And I and I knew that, you know, relationships were a challenge for her. So it helped me not take it so personally.

Katie: 11:30

Yeah. You know, I say to a lot of the women who I work with, you could be anybody. It's not you. You know, whether it's a problem with the child or a problem with the biological mother, it it's the role. The role is so challenging. And I think even more so when you're coming from a place where you don't have biological children at that point and and you're just, you know, going in it with all the positive intentions, and then it's kind of like, okay, so I'm looking after someone else's kid, I'm taking them to the doctor while they're at work. You know, if it was a friend of hers who took her kid to the doctor, she'd probably be really grateful. But it's because you're in that role. Um exactly. And that's so that's so tough. So after you'd um blocked biomum, what happened? How did it pan out? Did your did your partner manage to communicate effectively with her? Yeah, so some some interesting things happened after that point.

Nicholle: 12:21

I somehow, and I've never really kind of pinpointed how this happened or put too much energy into trying to figure it out, but I became this target of hers after I decided I wasn't going to communicate. It was it was awful and it was exhausting. So after after that decision was made by me, the kids would come home to our house and say, you know, mommy said that you're a bad person. Mommy said that you are not a parent and we don't need to love you and we don't need to listen to you. She would send text messages to my husband complaining about me, you know, signing off of a reading log for a kid for homework where we had to say that they did it, or uh taking a kid to a soccer game. Anything and everything that I did uh was a complaint of hers if it involved the children.

Katie: 13:13

It was it was exhausting. Yeah, I can imagine. And again, it's like, you know, listening to the kids read, doing all the things that need to be done, you're doing a positive thing. And whilst you can understand that might feel hard for biomum to think actually somebody else is with my kids when I'm not, but you have to overcome that feeling as a biomum yourself. You know, I say this a lot to people. You you gotta work on your own shit because the minute you start saying things to your kids like, well, you don't have to love her, you don't have to like her, she's not really a parent. You're just totally destabilizing their home life experience. And and what mother would want that for their child? Yeah, it was really hard.

Nicholle: 13:57

Um, I felt for the kids. I I continue to feel for the kids because this has not stopped, you know, since then. And I just felt like, you know, they were being put in the middle of a situation that a kid should never have to be put in the middle of. Yeah. And, you know, trying to, you know, you could see it happening, you know, every day, like them, you know, wanting to like me and wanting to love me, but then hearing this voice in the back of their head saying that they shouldn't.

Katie: 14:21

Yeah. The research shows that the kids who really, really like the stepmom find it even harder because they feel so guilty because they feel like they're betraying their mom. So that can only have been a much, much harder thing for them. Did your partner ever try and have a conversation with her about what she was saying to them?

Nicholle: 14:39

Yeah. Um, he had to try to have a conversation with her about uh, you know, what what she was saying to them and also trying to understand like why, you know, why his his now wife, me, is being targeted. And, you know, she just said that nobody should be able to uh do any of those things or help with any of those things that isn't a parent. And, you know, she was she was remarried at the time. And so my husband said, Well, isn't your husband helping with stuff? Like, aren't we in the same situation here together? And and he wasn't. I don't know, you know, much about that relationship as far as you know why that was the case. But at the end of the day, again, it was just, it was just more people to love the children. Like, you know, there were grandparents involved and aunts and uncles involved who would do the same thing. So, so why is it okay for everybody in this situation to be loving the kids and helping the kids except for the stepmom?

Katie: 15:33

And what did you do then? And like practically speaking, did you carry on signing the reading book or did you because I the reading book thing reminded me of a situation I remember with my husband when we were dating in the early days, and I would sometimes listen to his kids read, but I would always say to him, Oh, can you just write in the book? And I think that was because I at the time was sharing my child with my ex, and he didn't have another partner, but I remember thinking, you know, like one day somebody else is gonna be listening to him read, and that feels like so personal, but also something that you would really want somebody to be doing. Well, how did you handle that?

Nicholle: 16:11

Yeah, I mean, I continued to do everything I was doing because again, for me, like it wasn't it wasn't about anybody, it wasn't about me, it wasn't about my husband, it wasn't about their mom. Like it was about making sure the kid got what they needed. And so I just continued. And of course, you know, she continued to to complain about it. And I guess, you know, maybe I would have uh had a little bit more understanding of of her perspective, you know, if the things were getting done at her house. But the kids would come home to our house and no reading blogs were signed off for the entire week that they were with her. They would miss at you know sporting activities when they were with her. And so, you know, in my perspective, she didn't care enough to be able to take care of those things. And so my mentality was like, well, someone has to do it.

Katie: 17:00

So so I'm gonna make sure it gets done. 100%. I think when the biological mom isn't stepping up, it almost is you'd think it would be more of a relief for them when the stepmom steps in. But was she struggling to cope? Or what was making things kind of not happen on her watch?

Nicholle: 17:20

Yeah, I think she was struggling to cope. She was uh at this particular time, she was pregnant with another child through her second husband. Um, and that relationship was still fairly new with our second husband. So I think there was a lot going on there. And I think there was just, you know, overall a lot of changes happening. You know, she just unfortunately wasn't always putting the kids first in those changes and those decisions. So I think it was just a bunch of struggling going on kind of across the board. And unfortunately, you know, the kids were in the middle of that.

Katie: 17:50

Yeah. And did their reactions and relationships towards you change as their mom was trying to change their perception of you? Yeah, yeah.

Nicholle: 17:59

You know, for for a time period, you know, there was, like I kind of mentioned earlier, you know, constant, you know, trying to have a conversation with them, which was hard because they're still so young at this point, but trying to help them understand, you know, what's going on and help them understand that, you know, that I'm I'm not trying to replace their mom. Um, not trying to, you know, pretend like I'm their mom. I'm just trying to love them. And so I think we were fortunate, you know, um our kids are really smart and you know, they they fell to that uh belief for for a short period of time, but it didn't take them long to kind of come out on the other side of that and realize that it doesn't matter if it's a stepmom or a stepdad or a teacher or whoever it is, like we're all just there to to have their best interest and and to make sure they're taken care of.

Katie: 18:44

It takes a village, but not if that village includes a stepmom. Correct. You know, we laugh, but it's so sad that it's true, right? So difficult. So so your relationship continued to grow with the stepchildren. Yeah.

Nicholle: 19:00

So several years went by. Um, relationship continued to grow. Uh, you know, I was really close to all three of them for quite a while. And then, you know, I'm gonna fast forward a couple of years. Throughout those those years that we fast forward there, I still continued to get targeted by their mom. But I kind of just got used to it, which which sounds awful, but I was, I guess, the point where I could kind of just brush it off my shoulder and say, you know, like, oh, I'm not surprised that that's happening, but I'm not gonna let it bother me.

Katie: 19:28

In what ways were you targeted?

Nicholle: 19:30

Uh it's the same, same thing has continued to happen, you know. Uh, talking about me, there there was a time where I I remember I showed up to a parent teacher conference with my husband only because the one of the children asked me to be there, uh, because I helped them so much with their school work. So they said, I want you to come. And uh, I remember showing up to that parent teacher conference and and she walked up to me and said, You're not welcome here. You're not a parent, you need to leave. And I thought, like, well, I'm not leaving because I'm not here for you, I'm here for the kid. But it was just, it was just petty things like that that just I never could make sense of. And it just continued year after year, month after month, day after day. Like it just it never ended. Um, but I think my husband and I both got really good at just kind of, you know, deflecting it and and brushing it off our shoulders and just kind of ignoring it, if you will.

Katie: 20:20

Yeah. If it wasn't affecting your relationship with the children, it's probably easier to isolate it. Yes.

Nicholle: 20:25

Yeah. Uh so yeah. So several years, you know, went by of of experiencing that and just kind of figuring out how to live with it. But there was a a big uh event, a big moment, just about, let's see, seven, six, seven months ago at this point. I was at home. Uh, it was a weekend, and my husband was working. Uh, and he works, you know, about 48 hours at a time because he's a firefighter. Wow. And I was at home with the kids, and we were actually going to go uh shopping because school was starting in a couple of months. This was the last summer at this point. The oldest child who was 12 at the time, he said, I'm not, I'm not going close shopping. And I said, Well, we're all going close shopping, like I need you to come with us. And he said, Well, I'm not going. And so I called my husband and I said, I need help. Like, I don't know what to do. He's he's refusing to go. And so my husband tried talking with him, and he just said, No, I don't, I don't have to listen anymore to Nicole, and and I don't want to go. So I'm not going. It resulted in him actually leaving our house and I'm gonna say running away, but you have to understand that his mom lives like less than a mile from our house. But he just left, walked out of front door, and went to his mom's house. And that was really hard for me. I felt like a failure. I felt like I, you know, couldn't parent anymore. I couldn't, I couldn't do anything right anymore. I mean, the the kid who, you know, I've known now for it was six years at that point, like just essentially walked out the door and said and said, I don't love you anymore. I'm leaving. Um so that was that was really difficult. Um my husband got out of work the next morning, uh, went over to his mom's house to get him to bring him back home. And the kid said, No, I'm not going. And his mom didn't make him come. Um his mom said it's, you know, he's 12 years old, which was mind-boggling to me, but he's 12 years old, he can make his own decisions. So uh my husband spent about an hour sitting in front of their house trying to get him to come home. He refused.

Katie: 22:39

What was he saying were his reasons? Because you know, I've I've had a 12-year-old son. I know he would hate to go close shopping, especially for school uniform, but it sounds like there was more going on than just you were trying to make him go and get some school uniform.

Nicholle: 22:52

Yeah, yeah. So so there was a time period uh that kind of led up to this event in the summer where he started uh blaming me for a lot of things. And it was kind of silly stuff. Like he would uh blame me for making his bathroom dirty. Like he says, I dirty this bathroom, it wasn't him. There was a time where he needed to find his baseball stuff to go to a baseball game and he couldn't find it. And he said, I must have stolen it. So there were some pretty bizarre claims coming out from him, which didn't make sense. But I I suddenly, you know, kind of moved from being this target of their mom to being a target of him. And I didn't, I didn't know how to process that because up until this point, we had had a really good relationship. But it was almost like a light switch flipped on or a coin flipped over. It was just kind of a completely different treatment from him. And so, you know, we were trying to work through this, obviously, you know, talking with my husband about, you know, what's going on, um, and trying to figure out, you know, why this is happening, you know, where his head is, kind of just what's going on. And so, you know, we tried for a while to kind of, you know, talk to him and try to figure this out, but we weren't making any progress. It was just kind of continuing to get worse, unfortunately.

Katie: 24:09

And what what was he saying to you when, you know, your husband or you were kind of trying to understand why he is being like this? What's going on? What's changed? Is he okay? What's making him feel like this? Yeah. Yeah.

Nicholle: 24:22

I mean, we obviously had big concerns. And he would just say things like, oh, well, Nicole must have done it because who else could have done it? Or, you know, my mom told me that Nicole did this to her one time. So now I believe that she's doing this to me as well. It was just, it was things like that that that didn't really make sense, didn't have any kind of context to support it. Um, there was nothing really deeper that he would say other than surface level, if that makes sense. Um, so we were never able to figure out, you know, what what event or what conversation or what thought kind of caused this to start happening.

Katie: 25:00

So then his stepson said he's not coming back to your home. His dad has tried to talk him around. That's not working. Where were the other two kids at this point? So they were with us.

Nicholle: 25:14

They were still, you know, with my husband and I, because this was a uh Friday when this happened, and they weren't set to go back to their mom's house until Sunday. So, so after my husband since spent about an hour trying to get him to come home, he came back home. My husband did, and the the child that had ran away actually had a baseball game later that morning. And so we decided that the four of us, my husband, I, and the two other kids, would try to go to the baseball game and then try to get him to come home with us after the baseball game. So that's what we did. We uh packed up, went to the baseball game, watched the game, and then at the end, my husband walked over and was like, All right, Chase, you know, let's get your stuff and we're gonna go home. And he said, No, I'm not doing it. So my husband was like, Why? Why aren't you coming home? Like, what's you know, what's going on? Like, I need to understand this because I can't help you if, you know, if we don't have this conversation. And he said, Well, I've just been, I've talked to my mom, you know, the past, I don't know, maybe 12 hours at that point that he had been at her house since he kind of ran away from our house. And she said, you know, that she will always be there to take care of me, but you always leave for work, so you're not there to take care of me. And I'm left with Nicole, who's not a parent. So it's not in my best interest to be with somebody who's not a parent. And I just think it would be better if I if I lived with my mom from now on.

Katie: 26:37

That doesn't sound like how 12-year-olds speak.

Nicholle: 26:40

No, no, no, it's it's not how 12-year-olds speak. It was very clear when you could tell that he was uh just stating words that he had been told, unfortunately.

Katie: 26:50

It's so sad. I've seen that happen with children. It's it's it's heart-wrenching to see them using language which you know isn't theirs. Yeah. But in the context of them actually now believing something or thinking they should believe something that you know isn't true. Yeah. And so what's happened with them since then?

Nicholle: 27:15

Yeah, so uh a couple of days later, um, that Sunday, I'll never forget it, it was Sunday morning. Uh, I was getting ready to take one of the children to a birthday party, and my husband was at a softball game with the other child. Uh, I got a knock on my door, and it was DFS, which is uh Division of Family Services. Uh Division of Family Services let me know that a report had been made against me. Um, they're not able to share at the time who made the report, but that a report had been made against me that I was physically abusing and hurting the children, all three children. And my heart dropped. You know, I was in a situation where I was there with one child. Um, my husband was not there at the time. Of course, he was with the other child at the softball game. And I just thought to myself, like, you have got to be kidding me. I I cannot believe that somebody would make this up about me when for the past, you know, six, seven years at this point, like I've done nothing but take care of them and be the best person that I can be for them. So, you know, she was there uh with the report, and her job is to, you know, interview all parties involved to try to figure out what actually happened. So she interviewed me. There and then, like there and then right there on my front porch. Yeah. Wow. Um, so nothing like being put on the spot for something that you didn't do. And I guess your stepchild was in earshot. Yeah, yeah. I actually had to bring him uh downstairs to the main level of our house and have him interviewed. Mind you, we're we're literally walking at the door in 10 minutes to go to this birthday party for his best friend. So he is now suddenly having to sit at our kitchen table and talk with a stranger that he's never met before and answer these questions like Has your stepmom ever hurt you? Has your stepmom ever put you in a situation where you didn't feel safe? Has your stepmom ever taken you somewhere that you didn't feel safe? Um all of these questions that can you I mean, for uh he was he was 10 years old at the time, like for a 10-year-old, like to all of a sudden have to be answering these large questions about these really difficult topics.

Katie: 29:33

And were you in the room at this time?

Nicholle: 29:35

No, I wasn't allowed to be in the room.

Katie: 29:37

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so obviously they told you afterwards. Sure. I have so many things I want to say about this. So I think like in the UK, we have social services, which is probably the same same type of thing, and it is right and correct and proper that obviously they need to investigate things. So I kind of don't hold any judgment on them because they have to follow up on reports. And you know, we've had some horrible, horrible stories in the UK where things have happened to children that social services were aware of and hadn't you know followed up to the correct extent. My huge issue is with whoever made the report, unless they really, really, really, really thought that there was a problem. And I'm gonna throw my guess out there that it was biomum who made the report, and genuinely she didn't think you were harming the children.

Nicholle: 30:41

You are 100% correct, Katie. Yeah. So she she did make the report, um, which I was able to find out afterwards. The the the worker did have to interview, you know, my husband, the daughter, and then obviously the the son who ran away. All claims were found to be false because it didn't happen. How long did that go on for, that whole process? Um, it was about two weeks um before we received the the phone call back from the worker uh letting us know that the false was claimed, found to be claimed.

Katie: 31:13

And then is there any comeback on the person who reported it because they've made a false claim? There is not.

Nicholle: 31:21

Um, in the state of Missouri, there has to be 15 false claims within a 30-day period for there to be any action taken against the person who makes the false claim. Wow.

Katie: 31:34

And I guess there's a difference between making a false claim and say somebody, I don't know, I'm hypothesizing a teacher being concerned about a pupil and calling DFS and then saying, Is it DFS? Yes. Yeah, that's a furniture store here, so it sounded weird when I said it. Um, and yeah, so I guess I've totally lost my train of threat thread now. Yeah, I guess it's really different from if you've got a genuine concern about a child that turns out to not be, you know, that you're that what you didn't need to have your concern, everything's okay. That's that's different to knowingly making a false claim. Like I you'd have to be all kinds of crazy to do that. Like what and if there's no comeback on her, did you and your husband have any communication back with her about it? Or did anything happen with the children? Like, I'm I mean, I'm I feel really enraged on your behalf, like actually like bubbling because those type of things and those types of accusations can have such such terrible implications. And even for yourself to have to go through that because you know what the truth is, but you don't know what somebody else is gonna think the truth is.

Nicholle: 32:54

And yeah, that was my biggest concern. You know, I had seen over the past several years that their mom was able to convince anybody of anything, and that was my biggest fear that, you know, there was going to be belief that I did something that I didn't do. So, you know, it was a sigh of relief, obviously, when the claim came back to be false. But during that time frame, I guess it was about a month, you know, about two weeks for that process to go through. But then for about a month, the oldest child did not come back to our house. Uh, he stayed with his mom the entire time, uh, despite, you know, my husband's efforts to, you know, try to talk to him. My husband went to his school to try to have lunch with him a couple of times, um, went to some of his baseball games to try to talk to him, try to call him on the phone, and and the child just refused to communicate, uh, stating that, you know, my husband and I both were were terrible people and that he didn't want anything to do with us.

Katie: 35:00

Whilst he was in that place, and it must have been incredibly difficult for you and your husband, what was the impact on yours and your husband's relationship, if any, at that time of your stepson not coming?

Nicholle: 35:11

Yeah, um, it was it was hard. You know, we we stayed strong um together throughout the process, but I can't sit here and say that, you know, all days were sunshine and butterflies because they weren't. I think my husband, you know, we both kind of felt differently about it. My husband was feeling like, you know, his his oldest child, his first child, uh, was just kind of ripped out of his hands for no good reason, uh, no reason that, you know, was ever explained to to he and I. And that, you know, there was nothing that he could he could do. You know, he he made a report that the the biological mom was in contempt of their their parenting agreement, but I don't know how much you know about family court, but it takes forever for anything to happen. So he made a report and you know, that went in a file, but nothing ever got done about it. It just stayed in a file. Uh, so he was helpless as far as you know, trying to make anything happen. And then on the other hand, you know, I was feeling kind of like I mentioned earlier, like a failure. I felt like for whatever reason, I, according to him, kind of kind of torn everything apart. We were no longer this family of five that was having a good time and going to a theme park or going to see a movie or whatever. And we now have this kind of hole in our family. And I I kind of felt responsible for that, even though I I didn't do anything to to make that happen.

Katie: 36:37

It takes a long time to wrap your head around that and to accept actually it's not you as a person, it's somebody else's response to you. And I think it's really easy for the stepmom to blame themselves when the child decides to not visit. And I, you know, this happens to many, many, many stepmoms, but you just have to look at the fact that, well, the other children are still coming. So if you were that bad, they wouldn't be coming. Yeah, exactly.

Nicholle: 37:06

So so he eventually came home. It was hard for me at that time when he did come home because I didn't know what to say to him. I guess you feel in that situation a bit like the trust's broken. Yeah. Yeah, very much broken. I didn't know what to say to him. You know, I felt bad for him because I don't, you know, still to this day, like I don't think it was truly him that was saying that he felt this way or saying the things that he said. I think that there was a lot of beliefs put into his head. But we spent, you know, a couple of months kind of just surviving. We didn't know what we were gonna get kind of day to day. So we just tried to make the best of it, but we had this kind of awful situation.

Katie: 37:50

Did it change the dynamic with the other two children there?

Nicholle: 37:54

Yeah. Um, it was it was hard because I felt like the other two children were kind of pushed to the back burner a little bit because we were having to spend, you know, a lot of time to try to make this repair and to figure out, you know, even what we were repairing because we were kind of really blind going into the situation. So I recall, you know, a lot of uh a lot of times that we typically would have been doing other things with the other two children or even all together, like they just they just stopped happening because we had an emergency on our hands that we had to start focusing on. Did you feel any resentment towards him? I did. Yeah, I was I was really frustrated with him for a while. And you know, I felt like I felt like I kind of felt like, you know, I've done all of this stuff over the past six years to to to love you and to take care of you and to just be your biggest fan, be your biggest supporter. And I kind of thought, like, how dare you? Like it just it it made me feel like I was just tossed so quickly, tossed in the trash or tossed aside. Like I just didn't matter anymore.

Katie: 39:02

And that was really, it was really difficult to swallow that. And I guess then when you have those sort of confronting thoughts, which are really understandable, but because not very many people talk about them and talk about those things, and you're supposed to be so thrilled that he's back all the time and you're back to being one big happy family. Like probably deep inside you, you you couldn't maybe share those feelings with anybody. Which I guess then exacerbates your own personal guilt.

Nicholle: 39:30

Yeah. Um, yeah. So I I mean, it was hard. Like, I, you know, I was glad he was back in a sense of like, okay, I'm happy that, you know, we're all five together and I'm happy for my husband. But if I'm being honest with you, like I it was just hard. Like I wanted him back, but at the same time, like I didn't want him back because it was just this kind of like toxicity that was, you know, living in our house every other week, and and I didn't know how to handle it.

Katie: 40:03

So yeah, I I hear you. How did you handle it? What happened next?

Nicholle: 40:09

Well, I uh I didn't have much time to handle it shortly after the claim was given back to be false by the DFS worker. My husband and I were actually at our lake condo, uh a couple hours from our home on a weekend, and uh, we have a uh video security system outside of our house. And I'll never forget uh we were getting ready to go out on our boat, and our doorbells had rang at our house. And uh my husband answered it, and it was two police officers at our front door, and uh my husband said, you know, what's going on? His first thought was like something's going on with the children, and they said, uh, we're here to serve an order of protection against Nicole on behalf of all three of your children. And my heart dropped. Um it felt like a really hard attack against me, almost like you know, she tried to file this claim with children's protective services or DFS. Um, that didn't work for her. So now she is filing an order of protection against me because she just she wants me gone. I I was convinced at that point that she wanted me gone because she thought if I was gone, then my husband wouldn't have anybody to help her take care of the kids, and that he would have to give her more custody with the children was how I was feeling. So for two full days, because we ended up staying at the lake, we didn't come home. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to have to deal with it. Two full days, you know, of a time that we were supposed to be having fun together. I remember sitting in the bathroom floor of our condo just crying because it was there. I mean, there were so many emotions. I thought, you know, like, how how dare somebody do this? Like, let's let's be adults and let's have a conversation. Um and then, you know, I had I've never been in trouble in my entire life. And now I have this order of protection filed against me. So that was another piece of this. And the order of protection stated, you know, that I I couldn't be within 500 feet of the children. Um, I couldn't see them, I couldn't talk to them, I couldn't tell anybody to tell them anything I said. I suddenly had the kids that I had been, you know, helping raise for six years, like just completely taken out of my life. And then on top of that, you know, since my husband has custody every other week, then every other week until, you know, whenever this was going to be over, like we had to figure figure it out. Like I had to go live other places. My husband uh took the kids to go live with his mom for a while. Like we were just suddenly in this situation of just total crap.

Katie: 43:08

Is the best way I can explain it. I'm so so sorry you had to go through that. Yeah. It was it's by far the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my entire life. And how how long did it take to investigate?

Nicholle: 43:28

So it was never truly investigated. So my husband immediately hired uh an attorney when this happened. So seven and a half weeks went by before uh my attorney was able to convince her and her attorney to modify the order to where I could be around the children as long as my husband was around. That brought me back into our house, uh, you know, when the children were here, which I remember my husband was getting off of work one morning and I had already come back to the house because the kids are with their mom. My husband picked up the kids and and brought them to our house. And the oldest child, who, you know, this all started with, walked right past me, walked downstairs to the basement, didn't say a word, which is what I expected. The other two children came to me immediately and we sat in our kitchen and cried for a good five to ten minutes. They had been leaving me things throughout that time, which was, you know, fine. They were able to do that. I remember they went trick-or-treating and they left me a pile of my favorite candy on the kitchen counter for me to come home to. They colored some pictures and mailed them to me uh in one of the places I was staying for a while. And so they were still able to communicate with me. I mean, I wasn't able to communicate with them, but they were able to communicate with me, which helped me get through that. But the reunification of us, it was hard. It was it was heartbreaking.

Katie: 45:02

And during the time when you weren't allowed to see the children and you're going off every other weekend, or your husband's going off every other weekend, the two youngest children had obviously wanted to maintain that relationship. So, how much did they know about what was going on and why you weren't there?

Nicholle: 45:20

Yeah, so so they didn't know um until my husband picked them up after she had filed the restraining order. Uh, he picked them up to begin his week. And they both said, like, oh, you know, what's what's Nicole doing at home? We're excited to see her. And my husband said, Nicole's not at home. And I said, What do you mean? And so he had explained to them, you know, what happened, which they were really frustrated about because she in the paperwork for the order protection, she had stated that the two kids uh said these things about me. And they didn't even know they they never said it. They didn't know that their names were tied to any of this. How old were they then? Let's see, they were nine and eleven.

Katie: 46:07

So, like you've got an 11-year-old and a nine-year-old whose mother is saying things that they have said that they know that they haven't said, and the impact that that's had is somebody that they love has been taken away from them. Like, I I have no idea on what planet their mum ever thought this was firstly an acceptable idea, but also like a good idea, because surely you're just showing your own children that you're lying. Forget the whole bit about, you know, you're doing an entirely immoral, horrible, horrible thing. But you I don't even see how she thought it would help her reach her goal.

Nicholle: 46:47

Unfortunately, I don't think that she really thought about anybody in this situation besides herself. I think for her, it was a means to an end to get what she thought would happen to happen and didn't take any of the kids into consideration. The only thing it did was was damage. It just it damaged the relationship between the kids and their mom. And it damaged, I mean, I I can't say it damaged our relationship because it didn't damage our relationship. It probably it probably strengthened our relationship. Um, but it definitely caused pain and hurt for everybody involved.

Katie: 47:26

And where are you now in your sort of reunification journey? Yeah.

Nicholle: 47:32

When the agreement was made to allow me, you know, back around the children, as long as my husband was around, I'll never understand it. I'll never understand the legal system, but apparently because there are children involved in an active court case, because the day before she had filed the restraining order against me, she had also filed a motion to modify the parenting agreement between my husband and her. So now, because there's this case open with my husband and her and the three kids, and there's also this order of protection, whenever we were able to get me back into the house, the language that states that I can be around as long as I am not around without my husband was also tied to their parenting agreement. So right now, that's still the case. I can be here, but if my husband isn't here, the kids can't be here. And that's going to be something that's in place until their mediation or their changes to the parenting agreement are made. And we're five months into that right now, and there's been no headway. So yeah, it'll be that way until there's a new parenting agreement of this.

Katie: 48:42

So does that mean that the kids are with you guys less now? Yeah.

Nicholle: 48:46

So when my husband goes to work, the kids leave and go to their mom's house. And it's it's even down to something as simple as like, you know, if we're making dinner and we've forgotten something, either my husband and all three kids have to leave to go to the grocery store or I have to leave to go to the grocery store. Like there's no middle ground on anything, which which is hard because, you know, I feel like there needs to be some repairing done. Like I would really appreciate some one-on-one time, especially with the two younger kids, to help kind of rebuild what their mom has unfortunately tried to tear apart. Um, but I can't do that right now. So I'm just trying to figure out, you know, ways that that I can accomplish that around our house and kind of make the best of it. One of the kids really likes to bake. So I've been, you know, baking some things with her, you know, on our own, but obviously still in our house. And the other kid has this game that he likes to play a lot. So I've been trying to play with him one-on-one to try to figure out, you know, how I can accomplish that goal, but staying inside of our house to do so.

Katie: 49:47

And I can see from how you're talking and that it's had a massive, massive impact on you personally. Yeah.

Nicholle: 49:57

Um I've I've never been in a situation where I, you know, felt like I needed counseling or needed therapy, but I had to hire a therapist uh that I still talk to this day, because it's not over to try to get through this. Because I was, you know, I was feeling a lot of feelings. I was I was feeling guilty, even though I I didn't I didn't do anything. I was feeling obviously very sad. Uh it was it was a very traumatic event. Like I just, you know, had everybody that I love just completely, you know, ripped out of my hands. And I was I was frustrated because I felt like you know, how can how can somebody make up anybody about anything? And then it's just it's just put into place. Like there's no investigation, there's no proof of anything that's required. Like you can just say something and apparently it's you know, apparently it's true. So I had to get some some pretty serious help to try to try to get through that. And thank god. I mean, I I I felt ashamed, I felt embarrassed. But I I found a really good therapist that uh I'm so fortunate for her, so lucky to have her. Um, because I don't know, you know, where I would be right now if it wasn't for her.

Katie: 51:19

What about your husband? How's he doing?

Nicholle: 51:22

Um you know, we're still facing these challenges with the oldest child. It's interestingly enough, kind of it moved away from me onto him. So now he's kind of dealing with, you know, he didn't have a restraining water crowd against him or anything like that, but he's dealing with really similar emotions right now that I was going through. He he's the kind of person that says, like, I'm fine, it's fine, you know, everything will be fine. Um, but you can see it in his eyes that it's not okay. He's just he's feeling like he has no voice, I think. You know, I think there's a stigma sometimes. It's really unfortunate that you know, the mom has to be right, or the mom is the one that loves the kids the most and takes cares, takes care of the kids the most. And I think he's up against that battle right now. Like he's just he's trying to show I I love the kids, I've always loved the kids, I have their best interests, and I'm I'm up against this kind of monster, unfortunately.

Katie: 52:23

And we haven't talked about grandparents or uh extended family members. Have you had support from them? Yeah. Um sorry, we just need to take a moment to appreciate your mug. So you won't be able to feel you won't be able to see this because it's audio. But Nicole's holding up a mug which says stepmom strong. Yes, yes. I got this on Mother's Day a few years ago, and and I really love it. I love it, I love it.

Nicholle: 52:53

Uh yeah, um, so my husband's family, um, most of them are not local, but his parents are local, and his parents have been phenomenal. Um, my parents are also not too far away. They've been phenomenal, just trying to, you know, make sure that we're taken care of. You know, there's been some times we've had really hard days, and you know, his mom has made dinner and brought it over. His mom is really good about calling me just to check in on me because she knows that. I mean, you know, obviously she knew his his ex-wife and and the kid's mom. So she knows the kind of uh situations that we're dealing with. And then um, my parents, they every month or every other month have sent the youngest children like little care packages, uh, which I thought was really sweet and little cute ideas because you know, they know that we're we're not in a good spot. And it's kind of like um like Groundhog's Day, that movie Groundhog's Day, like every day is just kind of the same. Like we're just trying to get through it because we don't know what to expect. And so we're just trying to exist right now, which is which is hard.

Katie: 53:58

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think you speak for so many women when you're saying like you've just always had the kids at the center, you've just been trying to do what's best for the kids. You don't want to be their mum, you just want to be an extra person in their home. And I think if you know, more biological mums could just remind themselves of that and look at it as you would if your best friend stepped in to do something or your sister stepped in to do something. And you don't have to become best friends with the stepmom, but I think it's so important that as you have done, everybody kind of understands. Well, everyone's got a role to play here, and I'm just I'm I'm obviously like furious on your behalf, and just I just really grateful to you for being so vulnerable and sharing what you've been going through. And I'm sure that it will help a lot of people who have or are going through similar. So, yeah, thank you so much.

Nicholle: 54:58

Yeah, thank you for having me. You know, I as I was going through this most recent set of challenges, I really kind of thought to myself, you know, there's there's so much value and so much uh enjoyment in having step kids and and being in a step parent role. And I just, you know, if my message today or in the future, you know, it helps just one person. Like I'm glad to tell that story because I want people to realize that they're not alone and that, you know, other people are going through this exact same thing.

Katie: 55:24

Yeah, and that's exactly why I'm always so grateful to everybody who gets in touch to share their story because you know, one person's story can be the next person's survival guide. Absolutely. We're on this together. We are anywhere in the globe. Like that's the thing. These problems are not, you know, country or continent specific. You can speak to any stepmum anywhere in the world, and we have the same problems. Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, wishing you all the best, and I'd love to, you know, hear how you get on and do get in touch again, and hopefully we'll be able to have good news about where things have got to in the future.

Nicholle: 56:00

Yeah, absolutely. I have to do the same. Thank you. Thanks, Katie.

Katie: 56:06

Oh, Nicole, what a heartbreaking situation for such a kind, courageous woman to endure. And yet she's meeting it with the resilience and grace that so many of you show every single day. Not a wicked stepmum in sight. Nicole, thank you again for trusting me with your story. I truly hope things begin to ease, and I know your honesty will have brought comfort and solidarity to so many listening. If you've got a story to share, and let's be honest, most of us have, I would love to hear from you. You can find me on social media at stepmum space or get in touch via stepmumspace.com. We'll be back next week with another new episode. Until then, take care. Lots of love.