My Stepchildren Still Won’t See Me: Parental Alienation & Loving From a Distance

If your stepchildren have pulled away — and you don’t know how to reach them — this episode will land deeply.
When rejection becomes long-term and you’re painted as the problem, how do you survive as a stepmum?

This episode is a continuation of Lucy’s story.
If you haven’t listened to the first part from 2022 — When Your Stepchildren Reject You: Feeling Powerless, Undermined & Unsafe in Bio Mum Conflict — you can search the title wherever you listen or hear it here, free: Part 1 - Lucy's story 

In that episode, Lucy was in the thick of stepmum rejection. In this one, she shares what happened next.

Lucy returns to Stepmum Space to talk about the reality many stepmums fear but few speak openly about: what happens when rejection doesn’t resolve — and your stepchildren stop coming altogether.

Over the past 18 months, Lucy has not seen her stepdaughter at all. Her stepson will only see his dad outside the family home. The siblings who once lived together now hug only at grandparents’ houses. Phones, group chats and subtle triangulation have played a powerful role in deepening divides.

This conversation explores parental alienation, high-conflict co-parenting, and the psychological toll of living under constant scrutiny. From secret photos being sent back to their mum, to hundreds of denigrating messages discovered on a phone, Lucy describes what it feels like to be portrayed as unsafe in your own home.

We talk about stepfamily dynamics, loyalty binds, smartphone triangulation, and the impossible position stepmums are often placed in — expected to absorb hostility while holding everything together.

But we also explore what happens after breaking point. What it means to let go. How to love from a distance. And how to rebuild your nervous system when the crisis stage passes but the grief remains.

If you’re navigating stepmum struggles where rejection hasn’t softened, this episode offers clarity, validation and emotional steadiness.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How triangulation and “phone access” can intensify stepfamily conflict
• Why children’s insecurities can be weaponised in blended family challenges
• The psychological impact of long-term rejection on stepmums
• What loving from a distance can look like in high-conflict co-parenting
• How to stop operating from fear and reclaim emotional steadiness
• Why letting go doesn’t mean giving up on your stepchildren

This episode is for you if you’re a stepmum who:

• Feels rejected, ignored or pushed out of your stepchildren’s lives
• Is dealing with high-conflict co-parenting or suspected parental alienation
• Lives under constant scrutiny or feels misrepresented in the other household
• Is exhausted from trying to prove you are loving and safe
• Feels powerless watching stepfamily dynamics spiral
• Is trying to protect your marriage while holding grief for your stepchildren

Stepmum life can be profoundly complex. When loyalty binds, insecurity and conflict collide, it can leave even the most grounded woman questioning herself.

If this episode helped you feel understood, you can follow or subscribe so future conversations reach you when you need them.

And if you know another stepmum navigating rejection or alienation in a blended family, sharing this episode might help her feel less alone.

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

Head to stepmumspace.com to book your free clarity call

Transcript

Katie South 0:02

Hello, I'm Katie, and this is Stepmum Space, the judgment free zone where we talk candidly about the fairy tales and scary tales of stepmum life. So whether you've been a stepmum for years, you're just starting out, or you want to understand the stepmum in your life a bit better, this is the place for you. Today's episode is a follow-up and it's a hard one. Four years ago, Lucy came on the podcast when things were just difficult. Two stepchildren, a toddler, a baby, rising tensions, and behaviour that felt confusing but manageable. Today, the family has really changed. It's fractured. She doesn't see her stepkids, and her husband hasn't seen his daughter for 18 months. Before you continue, I really recommend you listen to part one, which I've linked in the show notes. In this conversation, we talk about parental alienation, triangulation, how smartphones can become weapons in stepfamily conflict, and what it's like when harm isn't explosive, but it's slow and relentless. This is a story that isn't a redemption arc, it's about loss. And it's about who you choose to be when the narrative about you isn't true. If you're someone who's walking on eggshells in your own home, please be gentle with yourself as you listen. Welcome back. Thank you. Thanks for having me back again. I'm really happy you got in touch because I know some people listen and they'll message me and say, What happened? What happened with that woman? And I think your story was so vulnerable back then. You were quite in the thick of it. You had a toddler and a baby and two stepchildren. So for those people who haven't listened to the episode with Lucy previously, please go back and do so. But can you just give us a little bit of a synopsis of your family and how it's gone?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So I've got four kids, so two stepkids and two of my own kids. My husband and I met about eight years ago, roughly, and we got together quite quickly. I got pregnant quite quickly. It was all a bit of a whirlwind, and we moved in together basically within about 18 months of meeting. And initially, there was a lot going on because I had a newborn baby. We'd all just moved in together, and then COVID hit probably about five or six months after my baby was born. And so it was thrown into homeschooling. I was a new mum. We were all figuring out how to live together and you know, at the very start of establishing your family.

Katie South 2:40

Yeah, and for COVID to come along then, I mean, it was hard for everybody, but for you guys, with all those news in there as well. And then you've got the new of being so intensely on top of each other.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Yeah, we were a bit, but my stepdaughter actually managed amazingly during COVID. She she really loved it. She seemed to love being at home. My husband did a lot of the homeschooling, I did a little bit. My stepson found it much harder, much, much harder. And typically for a boy didn't really know how to talk about it. He was really little at the time. He must have been just turned seven. So it was all really, it was just a lot. You know, it was a lot for kids at that time, wasn't it? And for everyone. And then we got married in 2022, and I would say the lead up to us getting married was where things started to go a bit wrong or started to get quite tense and difficult, particularly with my stepson. His behaviour changed a bit. He's always been really close with my husband. They're thick thieves, they're so bonded and have such a lovely relationship. And I've always had a really nice relationship with my stepdaughter as well. Really enjoyed spending time with her, and we like lots of the same things, and she's really fun-loving and silly and jokey and really kind-hearted. Yeah, she's a really kind-hearted girl. And my stepson and I historically have always had a hot, slightly harder relationship. I've always felt like he kept me on, but I just really chucked myself in, really, and probably rushed a bit ahead. You know, looking back, I think I rushed the relationships a bit too much because I was so desperate for us to be a happy family that I think I was, yeah, a bit too full on, I reckon, really wanting to get involved with things like bedtime and bathtime and to be like, yes, I'm part of this family. When actually you just have to take your time, I think. And let the almost let the kids. I wish I'd let the kids lead. That's yeah, that's definitely something that I think I've learned over the years.

Katie South 4:42

And at that time, 2022, when you got married, your stepson must have been about nine and your stepdaughter. She must have been ten. Yeah, she was ten. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

And they, yeah, I'm not really sure what happened, but my husband would say that really small little grievances were turned into massive issues and massive problems. And I was listening back to one of your episodes you did the other day on triangulation, and that was definitely happening in our household. And I think as a stepmom, sometimes you can see things happening before. You're like the sort of canary in the coal mine. You can see what is happening, but you feel like you can't do anything about it, or you don't know what to do about it. And I could see that there was something that wasn't right that I couldn't put my finger on what it was.

Katie South 5:32

And when you talk about the little grievances being turned into big issues, what sort of things were coming up and how were they becoming big issues?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

My husband's ex would send us messages, uh, emails about with lists of things that we'd done or got wrong. So it might be something like the kids don't like you having table manners. They don't like you making them eat at the table, or they don't like it that you've got rules around phone use. That's been a huge issue in our house, which I can come on to later, and how they've been used as a weapon in our household. So it yeah, it would be really little things, or like something that my elderly dad had said that used language in the wrong way to describe his relationship with my stepdaughter to my confused niece at a party. You know, my niece would say, Who is who's who is she to you, grandpa? And I think he said in front of my stepdaughter, oh, she's like a really good friend, and didn't describe her as my step-granddaughter. And I knew that would upset my stepdaughter. I can't remember if I addressed it with her or not to try and reassure her. But that got turned into my husband's ex telling us that my stepkids feel like they're not welcome in my family, which couldn't be further from the truth. And I feel like she has used existing insecurities that the children would ordinarily have in any split family. Am I loved? Do I belong? Does daddy still love me? Does he love my new siblings more than he loves me? All of those are normal insecurities that we would seek to reassure. I feel like my husband's ex has jumped on those insecurities and made them into wounds. Huge wounds that they now believe that we don't love them. They believe that we're not trustworthy, they believe that we're not safe, and that she is the only safe parent.

Katie South 7:34

I don't know if that makes sense, but it it completely does. And the way you talk about it, it's so powerful because I know a lot of people experience it. And, you know, to your point, a lot of the emotions that children have in step families are quite normal emotions in step families. Actually, will I be loved when a new sibling comes along is an emotion that a child in a first family would have. And of course, of course, they're different in step families, but it's that, and it all depends on the intention of the biological mum. Because when you talk about the story of your stepdaughter and your own father, if that would have happened in my world or lots of women's worlds, they would have said he probably just didn't really know how to describe it, and he wanted to know that he really cared for you. Yeah. But if you've got a mother in the picture who doesn't want to reassure their child of the bond in the other house, it's a really easy in. Yeah, it's such an easy way.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

And I think no one is perfect. We're all just trying our best. And we all mess up. And I think what we have not been afforded in our family is grace and to have be given the benefit of the doubt, to be able to make mistakes and not be punished for them. Every tiny little mistake we've made, and we've made tons because we're human, has been held on to and has been turned into resentment. And we are never allowed to forget it. We're never allowed to forget our mistakes. And I think to not reassure your child that their father and stepmother love them and adore them and that they belong, they will always belong in both households, is the cruelest thing you can do to a child is to make them choose who loves them more. So we want to give them the choice to choose where they want to be, but to know that they're always welcome.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Yeah, have those open arms and say, you can come whenever you want, and it's up to you whether you want to or not. I'm not gonna make you, I'm not gonna force you, but I'm here. And I think that is something that so go circling back to before we got married, I think my husband would say that his ex gave my stepkids the choice to not come to our house. The seed was planted. You don't really have to go to daddy's house if you don't want to. You don't have to do that. And um, we were so confused at the time because my stepson's behaviour was just really odd, which has carried on through both children, ignoring me, not looking at me, not saying hello to me, not saying goodbye, running out of rooms while I walk into them. I go upstairs, they go downstairs, I'm downstairs, they go upstairs, secret photographs taken of our home and sent back to their mum, from things of artwork on our walls and bitching about them to a photograph of my little boy's shoes being sent back to the mum, and the mum saying, Oh, he's got all the gear and no idea. You know, he was two, I think, at the time. It's all really unnecessary. And I think that sort of behaviour we found really hurtful from the children, but we can also see that they haven't had a choice. They've had to feed mummy something in order to satisfy her, to satisfy her hatred or her insecurity. Because if they hate us, then they get mummy's love.

Katie South 11:16

People listening won't be able to see my face and my utter kind of head being thrown back around the photographs of the house or the little comments about your home or how you live or what your children have. It's honestly it's pathetic because they're your stepkid's siblings that she's going for. And who does that? Who does that? Who does it really? It's horrible. And for you, that sense of photographs going back, people making comments. It's like those things you always see them on social media, and it's like, your life is your canvas, edit it ruthlessly, and you think, well, yeah, yeah, until you're a stepmum and you can't kind of say, Well, that person is not coming in my house if they're treating me like that. That person is not doing that. No, you're not having a mobile phone if you can't use it apart from to basically be a bitchy, nasty bully. Like, you know, it's hard for you.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Really hard, really hard. And I think for us, really everything changed when my stepkids got phones because suddenly there was a constant connection with mummy in our house. And we had some basic rules, but I don't think we were firm enough. How old were they at this point? My stepdaughter, I think, got a phone when she was probably nine smartphone, and my stepson was probably the same age, maybe nine or ten. But we were not consulted over it, they were given it, and they turned up to our house with one. And this was a few years ago, and I think now the story around children and smartphones is you know, there's a whole conversation around it. But I think at the time we thought, oh, well, there's nothing we can do, and this is what kids get before they go to secondary school, and we'll just monitor it. It was like opening a Pandora's box, and it was like playing whack-a-mole and constantly, you know, things that we were trying to address. We just had two really basic rules, which were no phones at the table when we're eating, and you can't have your phone in your room overnight.

Katie South 13:24

And that was it, but we should have clamped down a lot a lot. The thing is, when you're in that situation, you know that anything that you put in place is gonna create a massive fallout. Yeah. And you've already got your partner who's going through some tricky times with his older son, and you've got this dialogue going back through mum's house. So, of course, you guys are on hypervigilance, don't want to rock the boat, want the kids to come, want the kids to be happy, but it stops you using all your instincts of no, no, no, a nine-year-old doesn't need a phone, because then you'll be seen as the bad person. And not only will you be seen as the bad person, mum's not gonna go. Well, do you know what is it's up to them what they do in their home, and you're gonna have to respect that. I mean, I I feel for you a lot on this one. So, what happened?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I think steadily since sort of 2022. 2023 was okay, and then 24, that was really where the shit hit the fan. So my stepson was actually doing okay, and our relationship was alright at that time. But my stepdaughter, having gone from having a really close relationship, I mean, we really enjoyed spending time together, she really clammed up. And I could just tell that something was going on for her, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Katie South 14:45

And at this point, your little ones were like five and three. Your stepdaughter was twelve, so there's quite a lot of hormones undoubtedly going around there. Talk to me a bit about what unfolded with her.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

I still feel quite confused about it, to be honest. It's because we're still kind of in it a bit. It's difficult to untangle what's happened. But basically, her behaviour really just changed and she really clammed up, would spend tons of time in her bedroom. Things that are ordinarily normal for a teenager to do. It was just over-the-topness, you know. Um, she wouldn't really share anything with us, whereas historically she had done about her feelings about things. And a few kind of arguments came up about where we lived. We live about 20 minutes away from where her mum lives, and that we could be living on the moon, really, you know, but we only live 20 minutes away. I don't think that's that far, but for them it felt like a massive deal. And was that because she couldn't walk to friends' houses or what was the reason? I think there was a little bit of that, but it had always been a problem and had been carried on as a resentment that we didn't live in the same town as their mum. There's just a resentment that they just I think their mum was never able to let go of and carried on feeding. So we do things like say, you know, what you have some friends around, it's fine, we can go and collect them and bring them back. You don't have to be here on your own if you want to because we noticed that when you get to being a teenager, you want to spend more time with your friends. And we really wanted to facilitate that and help that to happen. And that offer of having her friends over was taken back to her mum and turned into a it was turned into another grievance. Um so the mum would say, she said she doesn't want to have friends over to your house because it's too far away, and you keep offering it, and she's really upset about that that you keep offering for her to have friends over. It's such mind gains. Um, yeah, real mind games. So we were just like, but we're why is that a problem?

Katie South 17:20

And and as somebody who deals a lot in narratives and different narratives and what people say, I can't think of anything and unless you or your husband had said, no, you're not going over to a friend's house, you can only have them here, which I'm very confident.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, we absolutely hadn't said we're really happy for them for her to spend time with her friends, and we wanted to facilitate it. It within reason, given that them four children living at home and busy schedules and stuff like that. But we did really want to facilitate it. But yeah, that was just turned into another grievance to add to the long list of things that we've got wrong. And during this time in 2024, my husband was checking my stepkids' phones because we knew something was up and we wanted to figure out what was happening. And we thought maybe she's having a hard time with some friends andor being bullied, or so we're checking her phone to see if there are any messages that we need to be on top of to kind of see what's going on because she wasn't sharing with us. And we didn't find anything from friends, but we did find a lot of messages from her mum and stepdad about us and about basically denigrating us, ridiculing us, bad mouthing us, bitching about us, and I mean hundreds of messages going backwards and forwards between and then a little sort of like group chat or one-to-one. And that was absolutely devastating because I think he and I just felt so attacked, and I'm just really upset. It's really difficult to kind of separate the kid's behaviour from what is fueling it, and I think you can easily get cross with the kids' behavior and say this is unacceptable, you can't do that. But if they're doing it because they're trying to get the love of their biological mum, then they're being manipulated.

Katie South 19:17

It's not their fault. But it still must have felt like a big betrayal to us.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah, a huge, yeah, it felt like a huge betrayal. And I and I kind of wish I hadn't seen those messages because my husband shared them with me, and I was like, okay, this isn't great. I felt I just couldn't trust my stepkids anymore. I just couldn't because I any normal happy activity was turned into something that was awful and terrible, and we'd had an awful time and it isn't she such a bitch kind of thing. What sort of things did they say? Well, there'd be things like my my son's school primary school allocation, for example, came up. And it's not even my husband's ex's it's not none of her business. But I wasn't totally happy about which primary school he'd been allocated to. I'd really hoped he'd get into one of the other ones. And you know, it is what it is, and it's fine, and he's really happy now. But I was a bit disappointed at the time. I wasn't devastated, but I was a bit disappointed. And my stepdaughter knew that his school allocation was coming up. I'd been very open about the fact I wanted him to go to a particular school. And my husband was at a football match for my stepson with his ex, and she asked him, Oh, has your little boy's school allocation come up? And he said yes, and this is what it is. And then later on that same evening, when my husband got home with my stepson, and my stepdaughter was at home and he was looking at my stepdaughter's phone, there was a message from my mum to my stepdaughter saying, Is she devastated about the school allocation? And we saw that and were like, that is my stepdaughter had also asked me about the school allocation, said, Oh, how do you feel about it? So I just knew that they'd been talking about it and bitching about it and celebrating the fact that I was upset. It just is so unnecessary. And also none of her business, whatever. It's that level of intrusion into our personal lives where my husband's ex has no place to be prying. Like, why does she care so much?

Katie South 21:29

It's that sense of everything being reported back on. I think we talked about it in one of the recent listener questions and how it really affects your ability to be yourself because you're censoring everything you think and say out loud at home. Because it's so subtle, Katie.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I find it quite difficult to put my finger on stuff even now. But it would be real subtle messages like, um, I don't know, we got a bouncy cultural for my son's birthday party and spent 100 quid on it or something. And there would be messages about, oh gosh, gosh, Dan spends a lot of money on your little brother's birthdays. Why doesn't he spend that much money on you? Gosh, he's really, really wants to spend lots of money on them and not on you. Or it's like this subtle undermining.

Katie South 22:21

I also really hate that from a woman's point of view to another woman, knowing how hard it is for women to earn equal money. And knowing how many of the women who come on this podcast who I work with in coaching, who are independent career women, who earn their own income, who spend on their own kids, as well as their stepkids a lot of the time. But that whole, oh, daddy paid for this, daddy paid for that, you know, actually.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Actually, it's not daddy.

Katie South 22:51

And especially to say that to your daughter when you want to be raising your daughter to think, you know, I can go out and earn my own living and be independent. And I know that's not the point of this podcast, but that attitude of the stepmum being the one who sits around and sponges off the dad bothers me. Yeah. That is annoying, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yeah, there'll be other things like grievances about us going on holiday without my stepkids. That's been a massive issue, apparently, that they feel really rejected, that we went away without them. There's no mention of the fact that she went on holiday for multiple years in a row with her near boyfriend and did not take her children with them. The countless Christmases my stepdaughter wanted to spend with her mother and asked, and her mum said, no, it's not going to happen.

Katie South 23:33

It it is kind of heartbreaking. I think it's absolutely fine for families to holiday in all their different formats, in all their different guises.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

But yeah, that was ultimately, according to my husband's ex-wife, is a hugely rejecting thing to do. But yeah, again, no responsibility on her part taken for how she's done exactly the same thing, but for longer periods and over multiple years.

Katie South 23:58

I'm interested because obviously it sounds like a deliberate attempt of alienation, but it but the thing that surprised me that you said just then was she often holidayed without them. She did, yeah. I don't really know her that well, but I know her behaviour very well.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

I think she's really insecure. But I think she's turned that into manipulative behaviour. She was controlling when my husband was married to her, and she's using the same tactics on her own children now.

Katie South 24:23

And that's really sad because then she's going to have really insecure children. She's not doing her kids any favors.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

She's teaching them, in my opinion, not to be able to trust themselves, not to trust their own instincts, and that mummy is the ultimate authority. She is the only person they can trust. She is the only person they can go to. That does not set your children up for success. It means that they're not learning to trust other people and to experiment and try and learn for themselves. You know, their critical thinking skills are all over the place. They don't have any, I don't think, now, because she has set herself up as a demigod and said, I'm safe one. I mean, she's called herself, I am my stepson's designated safe parent. So that's what she says about herself. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don't think the kids are really safe with her, but they don't have a choice.

Katie South 25:18

And also they won't know. So that whole creation of that unhealthy attachment to the mother doesn't serve the child well in the end. And the and I've seen this, I know what will happen. The children will end up with attachment issues, and dad will be blamed for not being there. Not mum for alienating them, dad will be blamed. Oh, you should have been a better father. And in no way will mum ever reflect and be like, I alienated my own child from their family.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

No. She no, she went, she has never once taken responsibility for anything that she's ever done. And I talked about denigrating messages and ridiculing us and birdmouthing us. That wasn't just when the kids had phones. That has been going on for years. And if the child repeatedly hears from one parent that the other parent is shit, they absorb that. But also that they've been set up basically as a trap. They have been set up to choose so that they can only choose one parent. That's what I think has happened. And I just think it is the ultimate cruelty. Those kids, they are good kids, they're kind kids, they're loving, they're doing their best, they are trying to survive. And I think what's heartbreaking now is because what's happened is that 18 months ago we had a family holiday. We went away, and my stepdaughter's behavior just was, it was had just got to breaking point for me. And I'd be like the canary in the mine, shouting from the rooftops to my husband, I cannot cope with this behavior in my home. I we need to do something about it. I can't, on my breaking point. You know, I was in weekly counselling, crying my eyes out every week, going, I just don't know what to do. I can't live in my house. I didn't feel like I could parent, because we've got four kids together. I wanted them all to be parented in the same way. I did not want there to be a division, but there was beginning to be a division. I was stepping back from my stepkids because I just couldn't really, you know, they weren't looking at me. They were just ignoring me in my own home, which sounds so trivial, but when you're living with it, it's like being bullied in your own home and there's no escape because they're kids and you're the grown-up. It's really difficult to know how to manage it. And I don't think my husband was really stepping up because at the time he was terrified of losing them and them not wanting to come to our house. But to be honest, it was happening anyway. So I think looking back, I'd say, look, if it's happening anyway, you might as well stand on what you believe in and stand up for what you believe in rather than kowtowing. So yeah, we went on a salmon holiday, and my stepdaughter's behavior just it she just withdrew and withdrew. And we had one evening while we were all sitting down for dinner, and I'd made special dinner that I knew that she loved to try and kind of convince her that I was nice. I'm quite, you know, just try so many different things to convince them that you're a lovely family and aren't we having a nice time and being like performing monkeys, really. Anyway, I'd made this lovely dinner, and the kids came and sat down, and there was this whole tussle over where everyone was going to sit. It suddenly dawned on me that nobody wanted to sit next to me. My little ones are in bed, so it was just the four of us, and I was like, I can't believe this is happening. I just can't believe that they nobody wants to sit next to me, how ridiculous. Anyway, we sat down, we tried in silence. It was so tense. My husband and I were sort of chat, chat, chatting, trying to make it light, and it just wasn't light. It was awful, just really tense. And then my husband just kind of was like, Well, I'm just gonna go and eat by myself if you're gonna be like this, you know, to the children because nobody was talking. There were lots of glances at each other, and it was just a very tense atmosphere. Anyway, we finished dinner. I can't remember what happened, but I think my stepdaughter just disappeared off upstairs. And I said to my husband in the kitchen, if you don't do something about this, we won't survive. Our marriage is not going to survive this. I can't carry on. This had been months of this kind of treatment, the silent treatment, but also knowing the messages that were going backwards and forward and the grievances coming from the triangulation, the biological mum would tell us stuff, we would try to address it with the children, they would clam up, so we would have no choice but to go back to the mum. There wasn't the ability to be direct with the children and to resolve things directly. It had to involve the mum, and it still does have to involve the mum, which again I think is not a great thing to teach your kids that you can't resolve things yourself, that you can only have her as their sort of backup person who can speak for them, their mouthpiece. You want to give your kids a voice so you don't want to take it away from them.

Katie South 30:11

And to have the courage to speak up in situations like where neither of their parents are there. So in a difficult situation with a friend or a boss when you're older, or all these things, to teach your child how to raise things that are hard is important. Yeah. One of the things that I say to my daughter, who's eight now, on repeat, I would say at least every other day, is you can do hard things.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yeah.

Katie South 30:39

Because I want her to know that life isn't all easy and sometimes you you're gonna go through difficult stuff, but you can do hard things. And it's really important for me that she knows how to speak up in an appropriate way in situations that aren't comfortable for her. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

You want your children to do you want to try and teach them resilience, perseverance? These are all character traits that are always learnt the hard way. Those are the things that shape us and can make us into bigger, more generous, more loving people.

Katie South 31:11

Yeah. The mum could have said, Look, I know it's a difficult conversation for you to have with dad and Lucy, but they really love you and they really care for you. So even if you start by saying, I'm a bit nervous, but there's something I want to talk to you about, guys, and let me know how it goes when you come home. But all of those things to encourage the child when you know the other parent is safe, which ultimately she does, or they wouldn't have been going there. My heart literally breaks for you sitting at that table realizing that nobody wants to sit next to you. I mean, it's pathetic really, but it's just a tiny little kind of example of what have been going on for months. And I don't think it is pathetic because it's in those moments, those specific moments, when you feel it and you're like, This is my life. And sometimes it's those small moments that you can play out what's going forward. You feel it in your body, you know what's going on for you. And for you to say to your husband that night, we're not gonna survive if something doesn't change. What was his reaction?

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Well, his reaction was to go up and he was like, Okay, I've got to do something about this then. So he went up and well, we had tried to talk to her before directly, but she locked herself in the bathroom with her phone. He went and sat outside the bathroom and said, Yeah, I really tried to get her to talk. We just wanted to know what was going on with her, why she was behaving the way that she was, so that we could address it and reassure her and live in peace with each other. But she just refused. And he just sat outside the door, was like, I'm always here, I'm always here. I love you so much. We can talk about anything, you can tell me anything, nothing's too difficult. But if you don't talk, we can't resolve anything.

Katie South 33:02

If you don't say, we can't deal with it. And she's probably in there thinking, I can't tell you because I'm not going to grass up my mum because she's the only person.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Or even, yeah, it felt like she was waiting for they call it in parental alienation circles, which I do think is what has happened in our family, that they call it the pounce, which is where something quite small is the never to get out and never come back, which is what's happened. And I think she was also on her phone to her mum, probably the whole way through that as well, being coached about what to do or what not to do. Anyway, he was up there for probably about an hour trying to kind of get her to come out and talk, and she didn't. Everybody went to bed, and my husband and I spent a by the way, my little children were involved in this as well. My son heard all of this, he was in his bed, he heard what was going on because he was right next to the bathroom, and he was probably really confused about what was happening. He was so little at the time, and that night we all went to sleep, but I basically didn't sleep the whole night. Um, and just was I was just in turmoil, just not knowing what to do. What was happening to our family? It felt like we were falling apart. We were breaking apart, which is devastating really because I always wanted to have a big family and loved the fact that I had four kids and that we were trying our best. I was looking forward to building love and building trust and building a family. Anyway, I had a sleepless night and I've said to my husband probably at about four in the morning, I'm afraid the kids are gonna go back to their mum. We can't, I can't, I don't know what we're gonna do, how we're gonna resolve this. I tried a couple of days previously, I'd said to my stepdaughter, you know, I really love you, and I can see you're struggling, but I love you and it's gonna be okay. And she just gave me this cold look when I said that to her, as if as if I was bullshitting somehow, or that I was I was lying to her, basically, was the look that I understood from her. And we just really tried to reassure her of my love and care, and it just fell on deaf ears. She didn't want to believe it, I don't think. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, the next day we sent them back to their mum early, and I think I don't regret that. What I do regret on reflection is not explaining to the children why they were going back early. I think we were so confused and exhausted and didn't really know what was happening that we weren't able to be the grown-ups that we were, we are. And so on reflection, I think we probably should have said, your behaviour is unacceptable. We've tried to talk to you about it and you won't talk about it. We cannot go on like this as a family, and so therefore, we're gonna send you back home early to your mum because the atmosphere in our house is not okay. We're on holiday at the time. So they went back a couple of days early, but that was the break in our family, and that was 18 months ago, and I haven't seen my stepkids since. They haven't been back to our house since my stepdaughter's blocked me on her phone. My husband hasn't seen her for 18 months either. My stepson slightly easier. My husband gets to see him every other weekend for a couple of hours. It has to be outside of our house because he won't look at me. We had one situation in November, a few months after they had left, and my husband had gone to pick him up, and he was gonna take my stepson and my two little ones so they could see their sibling out to the pub. It was November, it was freezing cold, but he we knew that he wouldn't be in the house. And I thought, here's an opportunity as they drive up to the house that I'm just gonna test the water and say hello. At the door, getting my little ones ready. My stepson's in the car, my husband's got out, and uh my stepson's getting out of the car, and I go, Hi, call his name, no response. I think, oh, maybe he hasn't heard me. So I say, hi again, hi, hiya. Try to be upbeat, no response. I call his name again and I say, come on, just say hello. He turns his back to me and walks away. And this is in front of my little ones who see all of this, who are just so excited to see their brother calling his name, saying, Hi, hi, hi. My husband says, Come on, just say hello, just say hello, and then we can go. And he doesn't respond. He just stands there with his back to me. I was so upset. My kids were upset about that as well. And um, you know, they've been badly affected by that too. Because they were confused. Like, why isn't my brother saying hello to mummy? They were hurt, particularly my son was really hurt. What did you say to him about why? I said, Well, they've they've been so confused about why why are our brother and sister not coming back? And we've just said they're really cross and their mommy won't let them come back. But one day they will and they love you so much, because I know they do, they all love each other. We want to try and preserve and keep that door open to that relationship. Um, but you know, my kids have now, I think, got used to not having their brother and sister around, but it is a pain. They occasionally get to see my stepson. If I'm out of the house, he will come to our home as long as there's no crossover of saying hello, we can't really do that. And my in-laws amazingly over Christmas time had all six of their grandchildren together. So my nieces, my stepkids, and our kids. That's the first time my son and daughter has seen their sister in 18 months. Just bear in mind my son is six and my daughter's four. And apparently there was a huge hug between my son and my stepdaughter, and when he was leaving, he was blowing her kisses, saying, I love you, I love you, I love you, blowing her kisses, which is actually really upsetting because they love each other so much. And to do this to your children is so cruel. It's so cruel. And I know that that's my own pain, but to see my own children suffer in it as well. Well, then we're doing our best to try and keep our home happy. Um but yeah, it breaks my heart because they love each other, but they're not allowed to be together. And that's not our choice. That's not something that we have imposed on them, except my husband's ex will say that it is all of our fault.

Katie South 39:54

And it's that thing about the power of the parent they're with the most, who they are conditioned to trust the most, will give them the narrative that suits her the best. Of course. And that's the painful thing for you guys because you know that the narrative that your stepchildren hear isn't the truth.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

It's not true. I mean, nothing could be further from the truth, but you can't force people to believe things that they don't want to believe. And I suppose our sort of stance now is just is to focus on what we have got and on our marriage and on our kids. And my husband writes to his kids every week, little letters with pictures. We don't know if they get them, or if they even open them or read them, and maybe they get burnt, we don't know. But he does that every single week without fail. He writes to them, and he also waits for his daughter in a car near where their mom lives. So, you know, he's said, I'll be here at this time for this long on this date. And he does that on a regular basis and just sits there and waits for her. And in the hope that one day she'll come and knock on the window and say hello. If that is not love, I don't know what is offering. I know I just think it's such a powerful thing to do. I think we're focusing on the things that we can do, and those are the things that we can do. Because she's also blocked my husband on the phone as well, so he can't directly contact her. Yeah, my and my stepson's not doing well at all, he's not going to school, he's depressed, he's not in good shape, and I think we just don't know how to we don't know how to help him because he we have to go through his mum, and she's not trustworthy. You can't really write it, you know.

Katie South 41:49

I can't really believe that this has happened to our family, but it has. You talked about how you were in weekly counselling in the run-up to your holiday and when things were really difficult and obviously your mental health was not in good shape. And I recognize the deep, deep, deep sadness that still sits within you about this. Yeah. But how are you doing? I would say we're actually doing okay, weirdly.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

It's like you live with this sort of pain, but it doesn't overwhelm us. I think it really helps to focus on the things that you can do. And I've got a faith, a Christian faith, and not a very strong one, but a bit of a one. I sort of cherry pick a bit. There's a quote in the Bible about about what love is. You know, love is patient, love is kind, it doesn't deny an evil but rejoices in the truth. It's always forgiving, love never fails. It's one of those ones that people have read at a wedding. You hear it enough times and it doesn't mean anything. I've heard it so many times that it hasn't meant anything to me in the past, but now I really hold on to those words because I think that is how I want to be, and that is what I believe in. I believe that love is patient and it never fails. And so that's what I'm holding on to, really, is that sort of kind of faith and hope. It might not ever be resolved, but I can be here and have open arms for the kids and to have an open heart towards them in spite of the pain and the sense of betrayal, I think. You know, they're good kids, they don't have a choice at the moment, and I don't blame them. I think trying to have grace for them, you know, have a sense of how difficult it must be for them.

Katie South 43:43

They will be in so much pain, those kids. And that's what I think so many of us find so hard, is because you end up in a really helpless position where all you can do is support your partner to be as much of the parent that they want to be, but that is really on them, but it's still you who picks up all the blame. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

And that's horrid knowing that I'm sort of living in the knowledge that somebody who lives not that far away from me, who's part of my extended family, absolutely hates my guts. That's quite difficult to live with. I'm talking about my husband's ex here. I don't really think my stepkids hate me. I think they're just in a really difficult position. And, you know, I love them. You know, I want our family to be together, but it isn't. So answering your question about how I'm doing now is that. I think we're actually doing okay. We try and keep contact with his ex to an absolute minimum if we can and do what we can to kind of reach out to the kids and it's just reminding them, you know, we're here. And at the end of the day it's their choice. And that's quite difficult to live with knowing that you're not in control of somebody. I mean, I don't want to control them. So I want them to choose freely. And at the moment they're exercising that choice. We're not included in that. But I do, yeah, I do come back to that. That, you know, what love is, that that does really help me.

Katie South 45:07

And I think sometimes you can love from a distance with kindness and patience and an acceptance that the person who is sort of on the receiving end of that isn't ready to accept that, isn't ready to say that's how they feel about me. It's much easier to say they don't like me, they weren't nice to me, they put their other child first, all those sorts of things. And a lot of that will have been drummed in by mum, as you say, a minor little insecurity from a child, and mum swoops in, and it's horrible for your stepchildren and your children, but ultimately in that situation, there wasn't anything more that you could have done. And yes, you made some mistakes. As you say, people always make mistakes. Everyone's made millions, and anyone who hasn't is lying. But you can forgive yourself for the mistakes that you made.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think my husband and I look back at what happened in the lead up to my stepkids leaving, and we think, what could we have done? And yeah, the few things we might have done slightly differently, but I think I do still stand on how we were, on how we lived. Yeah, of course, really. I think we did the best that we could in a very, very difficult situation. It would be lovely to know how you would get around triangulation, but I think it was so deep-seated by the time we realized what was happening that it was very difficult to be able to do anything about it. I wish it was a more sort of hopeful story. I mean, I think it is hopeful in a way, because I think the attitude of openness is just inherently hopeful.

unknown 46:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

And hopefully it's living with knowing that things aren't okay, but maybe one day they will be, but also holding attention that maybe they won't be.

Katie South 46:57

And so, therefore, what are we going to do with now? And that's the thing, isn't it? Because as much as you would love to all be one big happy family together, the fact is you're not now. So there's a choice there, right? What do you do? Well, you get on. You give your other two children the best life you can give them. You give them the love. And it's hard because it's your stepchildren that are missing out, but you do have to go forward and almost not stop trying, but give your nervous system a break from being on constant hyper-vigilance and be able to be yourself in your home.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Yeah, and there was, I remember having a session with my counsellor on the holiday just before my stepkids left. And I remember very clearly in that session saying, I think I've just got to let go. I'm trying to hold on to the family and keep everybody together and hold on and try and convince everybody is my sort of inherent goodness, and it's not working. I think I've just got to let go. I've got to let go of them and of me and of trying and of this kind of miss of this happy family that is at the moment isn't happy. And maybe that's partly what led us to saying, okay, you've got to go back to your mum early because we can't do this anymore, can't live like this anymore. It's not good for anybody. When letting goes really hard though, isn't it?

Katie South 48:14

It's all easy to say and incredibly difficult to do. I think by the time you get to the point where you are like my stepkids need to go home from this holiday early because I can't cope anymore, you are at breaking point.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

I was at breaking point, yeah, I really was. And at the couple of months after they left, I was really tense, hyper-vigilant still, even though the kids weren't with us. I went on a like a somatic therapy course, one of those body things, which really helped. But I suddenly developed an intolerance for alcohol, wasn't able to drink anything, which is fine, that's not so a bad thing. But it's like my body went into shock, I think, for the couple of months afterwards. And we weren't really sure what was going to happen with the kids. I know there was still sort of discussion about the change in the lay down of whether the kids would be at our house or not. And we thought, after what's happened, they're never going to want to come back. Why would they want to spend time with us? They've made it quite clear that they don't. I probably should have said my husband did go through mediation as well with his ex-wife. He'd never once kind of said anything about the bitching messages or the denigration. And that's where he raised it for the very first time, was to challenge her with it and say, This has affected the children in a negative way. What are you going to do about it? And she turned it back on him and said, Well, you you drove me to it. I'm not sure how you can drive somebody to to to consistently bitch about you for years. It's not a one-time thing. This was over years that she was sending these messages. And anyway, what can you do?

Katie South 49:52

What can you do? And I know at the beginning of our conversation before we started recording, you said you'd rather not talk about what's coming for the future. So for anybody who's listening, that's why we're not going there. And we hope that you know you'll come back and tell us how you're getting on in the future. But I think for now, it's just really important to recognise that you do what you can with what you have.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Yeah.

Katie South 50:18

You do your best, and sometimes it doesn't work out how you want. So you you go again in a different way, but you can only keep trying in the same way so many times.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Yeah. And then you have to think again. I do think it's really key that you you know, the relationship that you have with your partners and my relationship with my husband, and we talk a lot about what's happened and what is happening, but we're not arguing anymore. We were arguing a lot about how to manage things because he wanted to keep the kids than I wanted us to be firmer about the boundaries in our own home. And it are they operating from a place of fear. I can understand why, but it doesn't serve anyone. It really doesn't. I wonder whether that also partly led to the breakdown in our relationship with the kids. Maybe if we'd been firmer about various things, then it would have been better the kids would have known where they stood. But my husband argues then they would have gone sooner. We might have lost them earlier. We were lucky in some ways to get the years that we have had with them. Well, that's what my in-laws would say, because that they know my husband's ex extremely well. They know what she's like and the tactics that she uses. On the outside, seems very reasonable and lovely, but underneath it is not a very nice person.

Katie South 51:33

The worst kind is when they'll bleed to the world as much as they can. I've done everything I can to try and make them have a happy relationship with dad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

And victim and being a vulnerable person, and you know, it's not true vulnerability, it's victimhood. I've done everything I could, and it's it's awful that their father's rejected them in this way. And oh gosh, I just I can't believe it.

Katie South 51:57

I don't know whether people like that actually believe that's true or know how duplicitous and downright evil they're being. I don't know. It'd be fascinating to find out. It's in some ways worse than the mum who goes, I'm not gonna let you see the kids. Yeah. You know, because you're really fucking playing with your own children's emotions. And who does that? But she wants people to like her and love her.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

And if that is your incentive, then you're not gonna be straight, are you? You're not gonna be direct because that's too exposing, and suddenly everybody sees what you're about. But if you're underhand about it, people might still like you and be on your side. It's mind games, is mind games, it's a massive head fuck.

Katie South 52:42

Well, look, thank you so much for talking to me today. And thank you. It was really lovely to see you and hear a bit more about the journey that you've been on. And I know there will be people listening who are battling with some of this now or battling with being on the outside and not seeing their stepchildren. I know this will have given other people some comfort, so thank you.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Well, I hope so, yeah.

Katie South 53:04

It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. I want to say a massive thank you to Lucy for her courage and honesty and for being vulnerable enough to share some of those difficult truths. Her story won't be everyone's stepfamily story, but triangulation, fear-based parenting, the silent treatment, and phone access becoming surveillance are dynamics that are more common than people admit. So if you feel like the villain in someone else's version of events, if you're trying to hold your marriage steady while contact unravels, if you're exhausted from hypervigilance in your own home, you are not alone. If this episode gave you language for something you're living, please share it with someone else who needs it. And if you need structured support on boundaries, alignment, or a karma nervous system, you'll find workshops, tools, and coaching at stepmumspace.com where you can also subscribe to be kept up to date with everything going on at Stepmum Space. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.