Why You Can Love Your Stepchildren Differently — Without Failing as a Stepmum

You can love all the children in your stepfamily and still have completely different relationships with each of them.
That doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a stepmum — but it can leave you overthinking, adjusting yourself, and quietly carrying far more than anyone realises.

Join: BACK IN CONTROL A group workshop for stepmums who are tired of walking on eggshells, overthinking and not being able ot be themselves.

Book your free CLARITY CALL if you're interested in finding out more about the programme, or private coaching with Katie.

Listen to Lauren's 2022 stepmum story first- Two Stepchildren, Two Different Bonds: Stepmum Role Confusion & Unequal Relationships at Home

One of the most difficult and least understood parts of stepfamily life is this: love and fairness do not always go together.

You can care deeply for all the children in your home and still have very different bonds with each of them. One may feel easy and close. Another may bring loyalty binds, guilt, distance or constant second-guessing. When that happens, many stepmums turn it back on themselves — assuming they’re doing something wrong, trying harder, overthinking more, carrying more.

In this conversation, Katie speaks to Lauren (who first came on the podcast in 2022) about how stepmotherhood evolves over time within a real blended family. They explore unequal bonds, the complexity of being “mum” in different ways, and the emotional impact of loving a child while knowing their first loyalty may sit elsewhere.

This episode also speaks directly to Chronic Adjustment — the exhausting habit of constantly monitoring and reshaping yourself to keep things steady. It looks at the cost of that, but also the strengths it creates: insight, intuition and the ability to read what’s happening beneath the surface.

If you’ve ever felt confused by your different relationships with different children, or quietly ashamed that it doesn’t all feel equal, this episode will likely put language to something you’ve felt for years.

What You’ll Learn

•  why different bonds with stepchildren are normal 
•  how loyalty binds shape closeness and behaviour 
•  why many struggles come from the system, not you 
•  how Chronic Adjustment leads to overthinking and walking on eggshells 
•  how unequal relationships can still coexist with real love 

This episode is for you if you:

•  have a close bond with one child but a more difficult one with another 
•  feel guilty that relationships don’t feel equal 
•  are navigating loyalty binds or tension at home 
•  feel like you’re constantly adjusting to keep the peace 
•  overthink your role and feel unsure of your place

If you’ve been listening to this + recognising your own situation, but not seeing things change, this is exactly the kind of work I do inside my programme, Back in Control. It’s for stepmums who feel like they’re overthinking, adjusting, or walking on eggshells, and want things to feel calmer + more stable. The next round starts April 17th. More details in the link above, or DM me “CONTROL” on Instagram to talk it through.

Transcript

 One of the hardest things about stepfamily life is that love and fairness do not always go together. You can pull care, time, energy, and love into a child and still not get that first loyalty back. You can build a real bond and still find yourself navigating different names, different roles, different rules, and completely different emotional realities all under one roof.

In today's episode, we are talking about what that actually looks like over time, not in theory, but inside a real family and why some of the most painful parts of step motherhood are also the least understood. Hello, I'm Katie South, 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 are just starting out, or you want to understand the stepmom in your life a bit better, this is the place for you.

My guest today is Lauren. Lauren was back on the show in one of the early episodes in 2022. Link the episode in the show notes and would recommend you go back and listen to that one first before coming onto this one. Before we start today's episode, I want to let you know that miscarriage and domestic abuse are mentioned briefly in this conversation.

Please take care while listening. Let's hear from Lauren.

So I have been really looking forward to this conversation today. I'm talking with Lauren, and Lauren was on the podcast back in 2022. We worked out nearly four years to the exact day. So anybody who is listening to this conversation, I would urge you to go back and listen to Lauren's previous episode. I will link it in the show notes.

It's called Two Stepchildren. Two different bonds, stepmom, role confusion, and unequal relationships at home. So without wishing to deliver any spoilers, Lauren, how are things now? I can't believe how much this happened in those four years, Katie. I mean, we've kept in touch a little bit, haven't we? Which has been really nice.

Yeah. But this is gonna be so great 'cause I'm gonna be able to talk to you a lot more about some of the details of what's happened. So yes, I had at that point, I. I'd been married about a year. There was my two stepchildren. They were 11 and 14. I had a tough time, if you remember. So at the time we spoke, had recently lost a baby.

Yeah. Uh, and we'd just come to the end of the third round of family court proceedings that my husband had been through. He'd had seven years of it in total to him being the victim of domestic abuse at the end of his marriage. Um. So yet that was where we were at that point. And now spoiler alert, we are a family of five.

So I might now have my 18-year-old daughter. I have a 15-year-old stepson and I have a little girl who turned three about two weeks ago. Oh, congratulations. Can we spoke in March and then, yeah, I got pregnant with her in June. Gosh, and I, I remember you writing to me and telling me that she was coming. It was one of the things I love most about this podcast actually, is keeping in touch with everyone's stories and hearing everyone's ups and downs and inbetweens along the way.

So congratulations. I think we've said that already. And just for people listening so it's clear. And again, I think we talked in our first conversation together about. The complexities of language. So when you talk about your 18-year-old daughter and your 16-year-old stepson, those two are biological siblings from your husband's first marriage.

Yes, that's right. Yes. I call her my daughter. That's what she is to me. And that's even more so now, which I'm sure we'll talk about more. But my stepson is very much my stepson. He still sees his biological mother, and then we have our ours baby who Yeah, is just an absolute bundle of absolute joy to us.

And it was really interesting actually because they both wanted a child of their own gender before she came along. We didn't know what we were having, so we wanted it to be a surprise. And my stepson wanted a boy, and my daughter wanted a girl, and they obviously weren't with us. We were, yeah. And before we called to say what we'd had, I was like, oh, he's gonna be so disappointed.

He so wanted a boy, but actually. He very quickly just loved having a little sister. There's no steps in our family. It's just his sister and it's absolutely amazing with her. She has brought us together as a total unit, and I know you've spoken a little about bit about this with yours as well, so we are all biologically connected to her.

Yeah, and she has brought us all completely together. We're all biologically connected to her, and that has been. Rooney, the incredible highlight of the last book here. Oh, bless you. I'm so thrilled for you that it's worked out like that. When we last spoke, I remember you saying you'd had a miscarriage and then you were hoping to have a baby, and you were working out how you were gonna navigate being in a house where some people called you mom and some people didn't.

Yeah, and now I'm still navigating that in exactly the way that I thought because now my. Our eldest, my daughter, she calls me Lauren, but refers to me when she introduced me to her friends at university. 'cause she's gone off to university now as her mom. And then there's my stepson who calls me Lauren.

But I'm very much stepmom. Everything is stepmom. And then there's my little girl who I am Mommy. And so this weekend just passed. I had three cards. With three very different ways of, you know, exploring that. So I had a mommy card from our little list. I had a mum card from my eldest, but it said, mommy Lauren, even though she's 18.

It was Mommy Lauren. And then my stepson's card actually was hilarious. So it basically made reference to the fact that, I'm sorry you're having to go through the teenage years with me, but thank goodness you didn't have to go through childbirth. And just was a joke around the whole stepmom element of it.

And he was, you know, determined to seek out something that suited our relationship. There's a lot of humor in our relationship as he's become a teenager. I take it as a real privilege that he teases me a lot and I tease him a lot, and that's. That's where we're at. Um, I really think you have to have some comfort and security in a relationship to be able to tease in a friendly way.

You know, no one gets offended. You're just bantering. There's no question of love. So it sounds like your relationship's going quite well. It is. But there has been some more bumps in the road. We talked on the original podcast that I call him my boy. I still do occasionally, but he's huge. He's enormous.

He's bigger than me, bigger feet than me. Stronger than me. So that doesn't suit so much now, but it's still, you know, you right. Lovely. Pop it. You know, I, I, I use very emotional language, caring, endearing language around messages I sent him or speaking to him in the house, but he can't really be called my boy anymore in the way that he, when we last spoke.

There's been continued complexity around conflicts of loyalty, which were there when we originally spoke. So originally when you, when we spoke before your eldest daughter was with you a hundred percent of the time, she'd made the choice not to see her biological mother post the separation, but your boy was still going to his biological mom's every other weekend.

That's right. So every other weekend and a and an intervening Wednesday and then about half the holidays and that pattern has more or less continued with some little specific situations that occurred that meant it was slightly different, but that's generally the pattern. And so yeah, my eldest originally there was still indirect contact from her biological mother who would write, we would write updates or husband should I say, wrote updates.

And that continued for about five or six months, and then slowly the gaps became longer, and then eventually her biological mother stopped writing to her. My husband continued to write updates, but without getting anything back. And then eventually, when she was about 17 and a half, he wrote, said, I'm not even sure you are getting these.

I'm not sure that you're getting anything from them. If you still want them, let me know. There was no response. So. We stopped at that point, and there's been something about her turning 18 when that happened. It's not something weird about the fact that meant that her biological mother's parental responsibility had actually disappeared.

There was no responsibility there anymore. She's their own person and she's an adult that freed up something really interesting in our relationship. And there was always more of a easiness and freedom to our relationship anyway, because she wasn't seeing her biological mother. But that moment I have, I just felt a lightening in her, a lightening in me and how we are, because it's absolutely fine now for us to be mother and daughter and there's nothing that can stop that and that's who we are.

And much as we had continued to try and encourage her to write back, she did for a while. She wrote Christmas cards. Thank you cards for things that a biological mother has sent. When the letters stopped coming, she just, that was it. She felt there was no more reason to feel any differently about me and that was that.

And did she find that difficult? Because I can imagine having your mother suddenly stop any sort of contact with you may have been really painful. She maintains that she would rather it that way. That actually she didn't want that relationship. She hadn't wanted it since she was seven, and that the letters and the cards stopping coming wasn't a problem for her.

I know her quite well. I think probably it does feel more of a rejection than she is willing to let on, and I've continued to say, if you ever want to explore. Making contact with her. You've got her address, you've got her telephone number, she's got all of that anytime she wants to. It's completely fine by me.

It's, you know, very encouraged by her dad, but she's out there living her life. She's at university Fresh start for her as she sees it, beginning with a new friendship group that don't know any of her past. And so that means that she can make a kind of clean break. I wouldn't be surprised if she revisits it.

I am ready and waiting to support that when that happens. I think it's likely to happen probably when she has children of her own, which I'm hoping is a well off yet, but I wouldn't be surprised. I think that'll, she'll have questions. There'll be a sense in perhaps you make, might want to make some kind of confrontation in some way.

Demands some answers. I will be a hundred percent there to support that I am comfortable in our relationship. That wouldn't make any difference. And if she had an ongoing relationship with her biological mother from that point, that would be absolutely fine by me because it wouldn't take away from what we've heard and what we've got.

So yes, she's amazing. And if anything, since she's gone off to university, I hear from her more than her dad. She asked me questions about her studies. We talk about boys dramas, friendship dramas, and her dad's been a bit like, I haven't heard from her very much, or. Have you heard from her? What's up? And I'm like, oh yeah, we've messaged, she's said about this, or she's called, or we've FaceTimed, or, um, I think it's, I think it's really interesting as they get older, because when my stepdaughter's coming to us, I'm really looking forward to seeing her.

And I know my husband's really looking forward to seeing her as well, but it's sort of different. It's a different looking forward to, because that's his daughter, it's his baby. He wants to see her and hug her and connect with her. And I partly want all those things, but also I just really like her. Like I want to find out what's been going on in her world.

I'm so proud of her when she does well in her studies and our environment and in our home shifts when she's here, because she's got a lovely different energy and she brings a lovely shift in. Yeah. I love that and I love it when she comes back. So she, although she's moved out of home, she's at university 20, 25 minutes drive from where we are.

So she's not far. So she can pop home and she does, and I love that for the dynamic between her and our littlest, uh, because I love seeing them together. Which is interesting actually because when our littlest came along, she was the one who had the first wobble about three or four months after we had had her.

Yeah, it was a really interesting wobble where she worried, did dad love the new baby girl more because our relationship was a healthier one and was a more loving relationship and was one that was, you know, a positive relationship and the relationship that she had been born into with her dad was not, and was obviously.

A difficult one because of abuse and that she felt that therefore he'd love her more. And she also worried that I had a biological daughter of my own. Now would that make a difference? And that took a real sit down talk between the three of us, and just reassuring her that we loved her for her dad loved her, for her.

He didn't love her because of. Any other relationship. Their relationship was something that was just between the two of them, and that he'd felt that from the moment that she was born and he did not make that connection and me reassuring her that she was still my first girl and that I wouldn't love her any less because of that.

And ever since, she's been just amazing with our little list, and I love seeing the two of them together. I think you've touched on something really important there, which is that when. Stepchildren have the wobble about the new sibling. Actually, a lot of the time there's another house almost fueling that wobble.

And what so many women find so difficult is the, well, it's not your real sister, that's your half sister. You know, in some ways there's that real difference between her being, not biologically your daughter and your biological daughter being your daughter, but also. At least she's in that house the whole time.

So you guys can reassure her. You can show her in your every word, in your every deed that she is just as much a daughter. Whereas I know there'll be people listening here who are like, if only my stepchild is with us full time, because they go back somewhere else. And that sort of half narrative is fueled and suddenly enough that did happen with our boy.

And there was one odd face that he went through. In the early months, a bit later than that, it was a bit further down the line than our daughter having her wobble where he started coming back from contact weekends and calling our littlest the baby. The baby. The baby kept me awake, the baby this the baby, and I knew that that had come from elsewhere.

And it was hard to challenge him on that and say, you never refer to the littlest as that as the baby. And where has that come from? And she doesn't keep you awake. Actually. I know, because I can see you've slept through. Believe me, I've been pacing that corridor. And I knew you were asleep, but it didn't last long, thankfully.

And I genuinely believe that our littlest has been the making of him. In so many ways. The first time she had her first bath, he was worried about how tiny she was in this big bath. We had one of the smaller little plasticky baths you put in, but he was worried that it, she was so tiny, the bath was so big.

So he stripped out his pants and got in with her. And you know what? He 15 and still does that occasionally in his pants or very, you know, cupboards. But two nights ago maybe he did it. Stripped down to his pants, got him with her to play in the bath with her. He still does it now four years down, and it's just wonderful.

How he is with her is just incredible what it's brought out in him in terms of nurturing and caring, and also how he leans into her in relation to when he comes back from contact. And maybe I'm picking up on a sense. Of it not having been a great weekend and that she will lift him and he will go to her and they will play and he will create ridiculous games and build massive dens and out blankets and cushions and or sit and cuddle up and watch Bluey with her.

And it's just lovely me and it seems to be fair. Bluey is quite the show. It is because so much of the subtext of it been just incredible to see that relationship that's formed between them. And whatever perhaps has been articulated since in the other home has not worked. Their relationship is really strong and I'm so pleased that that's happened.

So for your stepson, quite complicated for him to navigate having a relationship with his biological mother while his sister doesn't. Can you talk through how that's played out the last time we spoke? There had been a lot of kind of conflicts and tension between the two of them, and actually it kind of came to a crescendo around about that time and, and actually hasn't then continued.

There seemed to be a big blowout about it around that time. And then they both have settled into respecting each other's positions and she doesn't go. He does. That's the way it is. He seems to be reasonably accepting of the fact that I'm mom. To her. I worry sometimes about the fact that that therefore sets up the two in the house, the littlest of the biggest girl who are I'm mom to, and then he is then the outsider and I worry about that.

I think that does occasionally play out. I think sometimes in his behavior. We have recently, there's been a couple of instances where. He's clearly been jealous over my attention to the youngest, and then it's created a little bit of tension, but he's admitted it and actually articulated it. I've had to sit him down and say, I love you.

She is my biological daughter, but I love you and I parent you just the same, and I love you just the same, and it won't stop me doing all those things with you. And then it's a case of going, right, what can I do with him? That's just the two of us that can make sure that we have that. Opportunity to have some time, just me and him to reestablish that relationship and for me to do things, simple things to show him that I care about him.

So we watch movies a lot. That's I, that's me and his thing. I have watched a lot of superhero, so over the last six and a half years, um, uh, and I'll just book a cinema at just me and him. We'll stop off. We'll get snacks. You know, the car ride there and the car ride back is an opportunity to talk. I'll find other things that I know that I can do to spend time with him.

Little gestures usually around football. Um, amazing how much you know about football. Do you think he feels any sort of guilt or almost reverse loyalty bind that he goes off to his mom's and that you are not the only mom for him? It is really funny. You should say that it never happened before and then probably it was about this time last year.

He'd gone away for a contact weekend. He has a little enterprise that he does in terms of washing cars and he had washed his biological mother's car and he was away at the weekend and came back and mentioned this and that she paid him for doing it. And I said, oh, that, that's great. So that's more to add to your little bank account.

Well done. Awesome kind of thing. And then he was in the house and he thought back to all weird and I couldn't work out what was going on and I was busy doing other things, you know, dishwasher, various other things. And he suddenly said, don't come out to the front of the house. I was like, okay, fair enough.

I said, what's going on? I was like, no, come on, stay in the back bit of the house and see. And then eventually he was like, right, you're allowed to come out now. And he'd wash my car and he said that this one's on me. Oh. And it was so clear, like you say that he had this weird reverse loyalty. Because he'd done it for her and then come back and mentioned it.

He then felt guilty and had to do it for me, and I'd never had that before where the loyalty had gone the opposite direction. It had always been that he felt disloyal to her if he'd done something with me, and that was clearly a conflict in him. That was the first time it had flipped the other way, and it was so strange.

I do hear that quite a bit. It's obviously not as common as the standard loyalty bind between mom and the children, but you do see it the other way, particularly when you know families where the stepmom and dad have majority custody like yours. Yeah. My son's just turned 16, so there's, but there's something about teenage boys doing meaningful gestures that just gets me like I could cry.

It is, it's love when he does do things like that. Like simple stuff, like when I've been nagging him for ages about making sure he opens his blinds and makes his bed and brings his water bottle downstairs and he hasn't done it and I've nagged about it. And then as a way of showing me, he'll go through a stage where he does it every day for a week and you're like, oh my God.

And you know what a big deal that is when they're 15, that they've done it, and then it'll slip again because he's back to feeling comfortable with me in a way, actually, when he does those kinds of things, I'm more worried. Because it means that he feels like he's having to show me he loves me for some reason, rather than it just being unconditional and us just being settled into just being parent and child.

If he's doing those gestures, it all, is everything okay? Are you worried he trying too hard? Is he worried about something? So yeah, there's a bigger context to a lot of the stuff that's happened with his biological mother during that period. So, as I say, eldest, brilliant, thick, wonderful relationship between the three of them.

But that has been. Complicated. I think it was in the run up to Christmas 2023. So I'd had our youngest, so she would've been eight, nine months old. He always goes on Boxing Day for a week with his mother. And in the run up to that, over the sort of probably about five or six weeks beforehand, he, his behavior had changed and I really noticed it.

He was very anxious. He was needing either me or his dad to go in bed with him at night. Sometimes if he woke in the night, he was being sick quite a lot in the mornings, but not through any kind of actual illness, and it was clearly anxiety. He was really anxious and he'd be, this was happening coming back from weekends.

I just felt that something wasn't right. I was picking up on something and I have now learned since to really trust my gut on him because he went off on Boxing Day and 24 hours later we got a phone call from his biological mother, which is incredibly rare because that's not supposed to happen. It only has to be in emergencies for her to call.

And she was hysterical on the phone and said that there'd been an altercation between her and her new partner who she'd been with for about five years at that point, and that she was gonna need to leave the house with our boy and that we had to go and get him. And it was pitch black, half faced at night.

I had a baby, so my husband had to drive and get him. Full of all the fear and concern about the fact that this might be history repeating itself. And it turned out that they had broken up many months beforehand, but we hadn't been told. He hadn't told us whether that was coming from him or whether he had been told.

I don't know, but he articulated it is if you'd have known you wouldn't have let me go to visit my biological mother on her weekends, that wouldn't have been the case. We would've come to some kind of arrangement, but it had all come to a huge head and he didn't want to go back. She couldn't move out for a while because they continued to live together even though they were separated.

So we continued to facilitate daytime contacts on her weekends and made sure that he saw her and spend time with her and kept in touch. And we did that for about three or four months, uh, until she had found her own new place to live and had moved out. But he has been very different since then. I think the other thing that that really, as I said, I felt like I really knew him.

I knew something wasn't right and I trust my gut, and that feeling of knowing him so well is really interesting because I sometimes feel like I am this incredible amateur child psychologist and mind reader because whenever. There is a shift in his behavior whenever there's a change in atmosphere or how he is towards me.

I read it so acutely now. You talk a lot about that idea of stepmom's being incredibly observant and kind of scrutinizing of behavior and constantly being vigilant that kind of, you know, feeling all the time and it can be really painful and hard and tiring, and I totally get that. But the flip side to that, it is my stepmom's superpower that in many ways I feel, I oddly know him sometimes better than his dad.

Yeah. Because I scrutinize everything so much and because I'm constantly have this acute radar for shifts in his behavior and how he is, which yes, is tiring and yes is exhausting, but it means that I can read things so much quicker with him. I know him so well. And I've kind of tried to change the narrative on that for me, for that reason.

Yeah. So whenever it is tiring, exhausting, I think. Yes. But think about what that gives you in terms of you knowing him that well and using that to my advantage for our family unit and going, Nope, there's been a shift, right? Something's happened. Okay, let's see what I can do about that. Let's see what I can do to support him.

Because if I've picked up on something. And if I've got a sense of what it is, I'm usually right. I love that. I love that. I love the confidence in that. We know, don't we? We just know. It is so strange. So when I listen to your incredible other stepmom's, and I totally get it, I totally get it, but it is our stepmom superpower, and I really want to emphasize that is an incredible thing that we can have and to try and see that as a positive.

Yeah, I think being observant and seeing the shifts in the child and all of those things is incredibly powerful. I think the moment it becomes. More difficult for stepmom's is when you find that you are walking on eggshells on your own behavior. You can't say what you want. You are, oh, should I speak up?

Should I not? Oh, I want to say this, but maybe that'll be reported back on. You know, I can't behave as I want in my home. And that hyper vigilance and chronic adjustment I call it, where you're, you know, should I do this, should I do that? And almost molding yourself to be acceptable. That's when it becomes a real.

Problem for women on my program at the moment, back in control. That's what we're really working on and helping women step out of that and understand how you actually can operate in a world where you can be authentic to yourself. And really feel a lot more comfortable in your own home because walking on eggshells is not fun for anyone.

But observing and being able to detect shifts in the children, absolutely brilliant. Yeah. And it's not like I don't understand the other side of that. I do. Yeah. Because I do do that as well. Yeah. And I still do. So I still now have those moments where I think, particularly around this concern that he's had more recently about.

Whether I love our littlest our daughter more and kind of slight jealousy that I'm noticing around that I find therefore I'm scru scrutinizing how I'm behaving and am I making sure that I'm not making him feel that way. And if I feel like I have to tell him off the kiss, he has this habit of just poking at her a lot, and most of the time it's coming from a place where he wants her attention.

And it particularly happens when he's come back from a weekend away, and she will often understandably, because she's three, he's been away for a few nights and then he's come back and she takes a little bit of time to readjust to him being back in the house. Sometimes I feel like as three year olds can do, she punishes him for having gone away.

She'd do it to me and her dad if we go away for work, which occasionally we have done, and she does it to her brother and he feels it. And so his way of dealing with that is sometimes just to poke at her. Because he wants her attention, he wants that back again. But it's not the right way of going about it.

But if I tell him off for poking at her and saying, oh, you come on. You know, stop. Stop. You know, trying to stand in front of the TV while she's watching what she wants. Stop taking away her toys to try and get her attention. That's his version of poking. Um. He will then get upset because he thinks that I'm trying to, I'm taking her side over his.

Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Because a lot of it would just be older sibling, younger, sibling dynamic, and if it was same mom, same dad in the same family, you're not gonna overthink it to the level that you are in. Even when you have been in their lives to the length of time you have, and you've got the close relationship, you're still like, is this gonna affect him?

How's he feeling about the arrival of her? Whereas in a first family, it, it is just different. Yeah, and I wouldn't think anything of him poking at her. Like you say, it's just siblings and with the older two, they used to poke at each other all the time. Of course they did, and I never used to think anything of it, and I wouldn't feel bad about taking sides about who I felt was in the wrong or whatever.

Whereas I, I definitely do with them. I think what I generally do in those moments is I move myself back and I speak to my husband and I say, O on this occasion, it needs to be you. That steps in that says to him to stop. Trying to irritate her and stop trying to get her attention in that negative way.

Because if I say it, I know that his response to it is gonna be different from yours. Mm-hmm. And most of the time my husband absolutely steps up. I mean, he totally gets it. Um, and, and absolutely would around the rest of our crazy lives that we have of, you know, two full-time jobs and three children, that he will usually step up and go, yep, you're right.

It needs to be me. That says it. I understand why you need to take a step back so that I'm not. Trying to negotiate it and say it in the right way or worry about worrying about what I'm saying and whether it's gonna have that negative impact on him. Yeah. It's just easy to come in and say, stop winding them up.

Yeah, that's it. Simple. I'm interested to understand a little bit more about how it's felt for you being the one, doing the vast majority of the mothering of your boy, but having him go somewhere else, and whether that's brought up any feelings in you. All of the feelings, I think is the answer to that.

All of feelings. It's so hard sometimes when you feel, uh, you know, I love the three of them so much and I absolutely know, and I think I said this in the original podcast, that that is not a given. But I love my three so much. I love the three of them differently because they're three different children, but I love them so much.

And I find it so difficult to continue to be the stable, supportive, loving one to make sure I am his rock, that he knows he can always rely on me, that I will always be loving and caring, and there I do all of the practical stuff. And to feel this responsibility that he worries that I don't love him as much as the other two.

And therefore I feel like I. I have to make sure that I show that all the time. But at the same time, he is loyal to his mother. He's loyal to his mom, and that therefore, it feels like it doesn't cut both ways. So I'm expected to love him so much, which I do, but expected to not show those distinctions, expected to be there and be supportive and be stable and be the mom.

But on Mother's Day, I didn't see him. I did actually get a text message this year, first time ever because in previous years, if he's been with her for the day, I won't even have had a text message. It was clearly so painful to even message that loyalty was so strong. This year I got a Happy Mother's Day and that felt amazing, but I was expecting not to get it.

Yeah. I wanna ask you a bit more about, about that feeling. I think a lot of what. Stepmom's experience is that sort of it not cutting both ways. And most of the time we're able to say, I'm a grownup. I'm gonna handle it. I'm gonna act in a certain way. But it doesn't stop you feeling how you feel about it.

And I think that's where a lot of women find it really hard to actually vocalize how it really feels. And I wonder if you would mind sharing a bit about how it's felt for you. It feels unfair, grossly, spectacularly unfair that I am pouring this love and emotion and care into this child and being there and stepping up and filling a lot of gaps that should have been filled by a particular kind of mother, but haven't been.

I'm pouring all of that in, but that I ultimately will never have that back. In terms of that first loyalty. The first loyalty is always to her and that, yeah, it just feels unfair. It's the only word I can think of really. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, talking about it. I've had counseling about it.

Where I went to see her initially for an eight to 10 week period just to deal with how difficult I was finding it post him having been with us for a very long period of time where he was only seeing her in the daytime, so not going overnight, where we went direct period and post that period was really tough because he pulled really far back the other way.

He'd really leaned into me and needed me during those three or four months, and then he, as soon as he started going back again, he completely pulled away and I found it really difficult. So I went and got some help and I specifically said, right, eight to 10 weeks counseling about this specific issue that I'm feeling right now, and then I'll be fine.

And over a year later, I was still seeing her, but what was amazing is what she asked me, really clear question where she said. If further down the line, whether it's in two years or 20 years, or on your deathbed, he has never ever chosen you. He has always remained loyalty to her. Would you go back and would you change any of what you are doing now?

And I said, no, I wouldn't change it. 'cause ultimately it's all for him. I'm not doing it to make him turn around and. Go, oh, well really? You've been my mom all this time, haven't you? I'm doing it 'cause I love him and I know it's what he needs. And as soon as I felt that acceptance, that question was so clever because I went, yeah, yeah, it is unfair.

That's how I feel about it. But I wouldn't actually change it. And the moment that I accepted it, and it's a weird feeling of like, every time I get it, feel it coming, I go, but remember that no matter what, you wouldn't change it. And that weird feeling of acceptance sometimes gives me calm. Yeah, and you're so right.

And it is in those moments when you know, I'll ask a client a question and you'll see a shift. You see it flash through the eyes and you see that shift and you know that something that they can come back to that they can hold onto. Because what I do, and obviously what your counselor is able to do. Is to see what's going on for you and actually help you understand it yourself, rather than telling you what's going on.

You know, it's about you actually making the choices for you and what you are gonna do. So the brilliance of. An incredible coaching question or an incredible counseling question is it allows you to see everything really, really clearly, and it gives you an anchor. So when you are in that situation, like you said, you've got something to come back to.

That acceptance is so important, so I'm so pleased that you found somebody to work with who worked for you. Yeah, yeah. We worked on lots and lots of different things during the time we were together, but that's the question I remember really vividly about that. Yeah. That moment of clarity. And so I will continue to, to keep doing what I'm doing for him because it won't make any difference.

I think the other thing it does as well is it lets you lead. So it's almost like you are not being done to by the family, then you are making the choice, well this is how I'm gonna show up. And it's not for anything apart from the fact that this is how I want to show up. Yeah. And you're aware that you might not get anything back.

It's kind of easier, you get less disappointed. Yeah. So I just keep, yeah, I just keep momming in the way that I'm mum. I'm mum in three different ways to three different kids. I just keep that going. It doesn't matter how chaotic the contact is, it doesn't matter what happens in relation to that. I just keep telling myself that you wouldn't change it, and he, he needs it.

And if he needs it, then that's what I'm going to be. And for somebody who's at. An earlier point in this journey of being a majority stepmom and facing some of the challenges that you faced, what advice would you give to them? Oh dear. What advice? Definitely have a good, honest conversation with your partner or a husband.

Lean together rather than leaning apart. Those conversations are so important. Communication between the two of you is so important. Find somebody who you can trust to talk to, but who's willing to be honest with you. That might be a coach, it might be a counselor. It might be a really good best friend who also is a stepmom and is somewhere on the journey.

Alongside you, but you need to have that village. It's really interesting, isn't it? We say it takes a village to bring up a chance. It takes a village to help a stepmom because I think you need that support network around you. I'm really lucky to have amazing in-laws as well. My husband's parents are fantastic and are really supportive of me in terms of what I've brought to the family and what I'm trying to do and what absolutely have my back in terms of.

The children and my decisions about the children and you know, mine and my husband's decisions together about parenting them. So I think yeah, having that support network around you is absolutely critical. But you need to be brave enough to go and ask about help, I think, and ask those questions. And also it's gonna very much help you organize your thoughts with some external perspective.

'cause what I've seen so many of the women I work with is they bring their. Story, we all do it. We create a story about something that's happened and what it means, and a lot of the time you need somebody to prod that a bit and kind of ask the uncomfortable questions. Well, how true is that? What does that mean about you?

It's so difficult to open up in that way to your partner because there's always the risk with everyone that it comes across as, I don't like your kids, and I've never seen that. It's always just a really, really difficult situation. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, definitely having someone to talk to, but having someone who just will ask those difficult questions.

Like you say you don't wanna a yes man or woman, you want someone who will challenge you occasionally or say, are you sure that that's the right approach? Or if you'd have tried something different, would it have had a different response? Why don't you try this next time? Or you need that. I think, um, we're so good at convincing ourselves that.

Things are facts when they're not always facts, you know, and I do with a lot of clients to, to unpick what is true about a situation, about a person, about a relationship. And sometimes you need to see it from a different perspective. And that's quite hard to do when you are stuck in the spiral that a lot of women are in overthinking everything.

Yeah, absolutely. I think the other advice I'd give is obviously to listen to stepmom's face on a regular basis. I mean, seriously, whenever I'm in one of those really difficult places, I just go, right? Is there an episode that I haven't listened to for a while or is there a new one out? Take the dog out for a walk dick in the headphones, and listen and nod along, cry along, laugh along.

Just to reassure you that this, so much of what you are thinking and you are feeling is normal. Mm. There are so many different stories that you have told on the podcast where people who've told their stories to you, and all of us have slightly different setups and dynamics, whether, like you say they're a full-time stepparent or an every other weekend stepparent, whether they had childrens of their own that they brought to it or had one later, or maybe they're child by choice.

All these different elements. But there will always be something in one of the podcasts where you're like, yep, yep. Yeah, that, that's me. I've done that, or I've felt that. Um, and that feeling that you are not alone is so important. Mm-hmm. Because not everybody has other step moms in their friendship circle.

I'm lucky I do. I have a couple of them around me, but even then, their situations are so distinct from mine. And obviously I've told them all to listen. You know, I send links to latest episodes and go, this one you've definitely gotta listen to. Um, and I know how much they value that as well. So, yeah, having that, because there are so few places to go, there's so little research, there's so few forums.

Well, firstly, thank you for spreading the word about stepmom space because it is something which. I feel so passionate about because that feeling of being alone with all these feelings and because of the historic pathologizing of stepmom's feeling like you are the worst person in the world is horrible.

And I laugh because most of the messages I get start with, oh my God, I thought I was the only person who felt this way. And I think creating that community is so important. Whatever program or workshop I run, one of the biggest things that women get out of it is that connection and that ongoing support and ongoing friendship, and you can almost feel the shoulders drop in the room as people share their experiences.

And there's always one person who's. The brave one who will say the uncomfortable thing first, and then suddenly it's almost like there's permission to say the unsayable, and that is such an incredible thing to be part of because. It gives people the space to just be, to not perform, to just be who you are.

So I'm very much looking forward to the next workshop, which starts on the 17th of April, and there are still a couple of spaces available just that. Connection for people. It matters more than you will ever know. You get NCT for new moms or baby group or playgroup and, and when you become a stepmom, it's just not the same.

So there are many things on my to-do list around this, but yeah, I'm really pleased that it's been a useful resource and I'm really grateful to you for telling your story. Not just once but twice. I'm gonna ask you a question, Lauren, if you could. Tell yourself four years ago something, what would you tell her?

What would I tell myself

that there is going to be so much love and joy and laughter. And it may feel at the moment like you have a curse and that everything is going wrong, but that it will be worth it every single moment of it was worth it for the three absolutely stunning children that I have. And now I just focus on that incredible bond that there is between my three children.

Whether biological or non-biological, whether they call me mom or call me Lauren or call me Mommy Lauren, or whatever it is they call me. The bond that the three of them have is spectacular and being, having the privilege of witnessing that and being there to share in that sibling bond is just the best possible thing to experience.

And it was worth it. Everything was worth it. So yeah, that's what I probably reassured myself and that'll be reassuring to a lot of people to to hear it as well. 'cause when you are in the trenches, it is tough. So I wanna say a massive thank you to you for coming back. I think the first time we spoke, I remember getting shivers, goosebumps when you talked about.

Being able to imagine what it was like seeing your eldest on her wedding day and just when you were talking about the sibling bond, then I got shippers again. So it is such a pleasure to talk to you, and I'm really grateful to you for coming back, sharing your story, and I'm so delighted that it's working out so well.

Not withstanding the obvious challenges, it's no problem at all. And thank you for what you do for us. Keep going. Keep. Letting all these amazing stepmom's tell their stories. We will keep listening. We thank you. Oh, I love having previous guests back to hear how their families have changed over the years, and I think one of the most important things in that conversation is this.

In a family with more than one stepchild, you can care about all the children and still have completely different relationships with each of them. And that doesn't necessarily mean something's gone wrong with you, but where this tends to get difficult is when you start questioning yourself, overthinking it, trying to get it right, trying to change things, adjusting how you show up just to try and improve the situation for everybody else.

Sometimes you, but often everybody else. And that's usually the point when it starts to take up far more space than you want it to. If you've recognized yourself in that, especially the overthinking, the eggshells, the constant adjusting, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm working on with women inside back in control at the moment.

Not changing the whole system, but changing how you experience and respond to it so it doesn't keep pulling you. We start in April and there are just a few spots remaining. So if you've been listening and thinking This is me, this is the point to do something about it. You can find the details in the show notes or just message me and we can talk it through.

Otherwise, I'll be back soon with another new episode. Make sure you're following the podcast so you don't miss it.