"The Ex Was Being Deliberately Difficult" — Six Years In, Here's What I Know Now

Most stepmums have thought it. The texts, the flat nos, the requests that somehow only ever go one way. Ellie thought the ex was being deliberately difficult — and she wasn't wrong to think it. What changed wasn't the ex. It was how Ellie understood the dynamic, what she stopped taking responsibility for, and what she asked her husband to do instead. Three years on from her first episode, she's back — honest about what's better, what's the same, and what she wishes she'd known at the start. If you're still in the hard part, this one is worth your time. 

WHAT WE COVER

• Why "she's being deliberately difficult" might be accurate — and why it still keeps you stuck
• The moment Ellie handed all communication to her husband and what happened to her anxiety when she did
• Why stepdads get praised for giving a child a lift while stepmums are held to an entirely different standard — and why that's not an accident
• "I love my stepkids but I don't always love being a stepmum" — why those two things are completely separate and why you're allowed to say so
• What it actually took for her husband to understand why she needed support — and why "just crack on" is what partners say before they get it
• Six years in: what's genuinely better, what you learn to let go of, and why the long game is real

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Ellie's first episode — "My Mental Health Was at an All-Time Low": Had I Made a Mistake Being a Stepmum?

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Transcript

"The Ex Was Being Deliberately Difficult" — Six Years In, Here's What I Know Now

Transcript — Katie South with Ellie

Katie South: 00:03

You said yes to the relationship knowing he had kids. What you didn't know was what that actually meant. The contact schedule anxiety, the texts that land like a grenade, the slow realisation that you're in something nobody prepared you for. And the question underneath it all — am I allowed to find this hard?

Hello, I'm Katie South and this is Stepmum Space, the judgment-free zone where we talk candidly about the fairy tales and scary tales of stepmum life. 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.

Ellie joined me three years ago when she was in the thick of it. She's back now, a lot wiser and very honest about the road in between. You're going to love this chat.

I'm really happy this afternoon to be chatting to Ellie. Ellie has been on the show before, so I'm going to link her episode in the show notes — before you listen to this, maybe go back and have a little listen to it first. Ellie, we last spoke over three years ago now. I'm really looking forward to this catch-up and hearing more from you. But before we go into it, do you want to share a little bit about how you became a stepmum and what the early years were like? I know it was bumpy — just for people who haven't had a chance to listen to your first episode.

Ellie: 01:42

Yeah, sure. Thank you for having me back on — it's lovely to be back. I can't believe it's been three years. That has flown by.

Katie South: 01:48

When I looked back, I couldn't believe it either.

Ellie: 01:50

Because I was like, I think we spoke a year ago, maybe. But yeah, no, it's just gone so quickly.

So, a bit of my backstory. I met my husband during COVID, like quite a few people who listen to your podcast. We met online and it was very quick — from meeting to married was about a year, year and a half, I think, actually. And then I met his kids fairly soon, because the second lockdown was going to happen and we didn't know if we'd be apart for months and months. So we ran it by their mum, she was fine, and they were four and nine when I first met them. I met them fairly quickly — it was July to November, so I met them in November.

Katie South: 02:26

And prior to that, you had made a decision that you didn't want children of your own, hadn't you?

Ellie: 02:32

Yes. Until about 30, I kind of always thought I'd have a family, but life took over. I had a very London lifestyle, I was very independent, I had my own place, and I just think it fell away as I got a bit older. And when my siblings had children, it took the pressure off in terms of the grandparents' situation with my parents. So I was just left to get on with it, which was great.

Katie South: 02:52

I thought you were going to say, "And when my siblings had children, I thought, yes, I definitely don't want my own."

Ellie: 02:57

Oh no — it was lovely because I had children in my life, which was brilliant, but I could give them back. So I could go and live my life. That's fine.

But yes, I did make that decision. And then when I started dating again, I very much was like, "That is one of my deal breakers. I don't want to be with somebody who has children." I'm not massively maternal. So yeah, that was one of my non-negotiables — until I met my husband.

And I don't even know what happened, because it was right there on his profile that he had kids. They were his world. Every photo had them in. And for some reason, when you find the right person, you just make it work, don't you? And I had zero clue what I was letting myself in for. So I think, like a lot of women you've spoken to, I was like, "We'll be fine, we'll all just run along and do it together and it'll be friendly." And no. That was not the case.

So I found myself both in therapy and stepfamily coaching about 12 to 18 months in, when I decided I just needed that extra help. I had no idea that there was social media support out there. I didn't even think to look there because, in my head, why would I? Why would a stepmum need support? And then when something came across my algorithm, I was like, "Oh. Why does anyone need these?" And then I did a bit of a deep dive and I was like, "What on earth is going on?" And then I started listening to episodes and talking to other stepmums, and it was just incredible — what opened up and what people are going through just by meeting a man who has children and helping to raise them with him. It's mind-blowing.

You just feel like grown-ups have their stuff together. If you break up with somebody, you move on, you get rid of your own demons, you keep it away from the kids and just do the right thing. But the sad truth is that happens in so few situations. I do know a couple of people who have that, and it's lovely because everything's very easy, there's no tension and anxiety and transition day stress. So it can be done, when you have grown-ups in the situation genuinely putting the kids first. But more often than not, it's not the case. And that's where I ended up seeking help.

Katie South: 05:22

I remember you having a really good relationship with the boys. The bio mum was a little tricky.

Ellie: 05:28

Yeah. I think I listened to your most recent episode, actually, and it was said in there that no woman goes into having kids thinking she's going to be sharing them with someone else — and that must be really hard. I can't relate, obviously, because I don't have my own children. But I can imagine that must be a really difficult thing — to not only see them less, but also to have another woman you don't know taking part in raising them or having an influence on them.

And the ironic thing is, when we very first met, things were fine. Even right up until my husband proposed, it was fine. And it was after that, I think, that reality kicked in and things took a nosedive.

And I'll say before going on — this is just my experience. This is not me wishing to say anything horrible. This is just how I've lived it and how it's impacted me.

At the very beginning, my experience of her was that they had a flexible arrangement — they didn't want to go to court, didn't want to go through all that horrible, expensive process. So they kept it flexible. But that flexibility only ever worked one way. And it always has.

Whereas we always bent over backwards — once the schedule is set, we do it once a year. We say, "Right, next year, it's every other weekend, half the school holidays." And it's settled into the same times each year. But if flexibility is needed during the year — asking for a weekend swap, asking to bring them back early or return them late, whatever — it was just met with a whole host of nastiness and saying horrible things about us to the kids. And there was never a yes.

The biggest thing at the beginning was when we wanted our honeymoon. We wanted to go away for two weeks. And that was the thing that made me go, "I need to change. I need to change how I receive all that's going on." Because every time the phone rang, it was like a knotted stomach. Every time she texted, it was, "Oh, now what?" I was very involved in the communication at the beginning — I'd help think about replies, I wouldn't reply to anything myself, but we'd talk about it and I'd be involved.

And for our honeymoon, it was just an outright no. Then it was, "Oh, dad would rather take Ellie on holiday than you."

Katie South: 07:37

So for your honeymoon, you wanted a two-week holiday, which meant the kids would miss a weekend with dad — but you'd swap it. There would be nearly a four-week gap for that period, but you'd take one of her weekends elsewhere in the year to compensate?

Ellie: 07:48

Exactly. But it was very much a no. And then we said, "Well, we're going, so it's happening." And then I remember — even up until two weeks before we left — we got a text saying, "Just checking you're having them as normal in September." When we'd made it completely clear we were going to be away.

Katie South: 08:07

And it was those kinds of things. So in that situation, did you arrange someone else to look after the children — your family or his family — or did you just go ahead?

Ellie: 08:21

We just said, "We can't. We literally don't have any other form of childcare, unfortunately." My family are too far away, and his family — for various reasons — we can't leave them with them. So we just said, "This is it. It's happening. I'm sorry, we can't change it."

Katie South: 08:30

It's so funny, because people who listen to the podcast a lot will know that I share my oldest son with my first husband. And I can't ever think of a time when he said, "I'm going away with my partner, can you have the child for extra time?" when I haven't been thrilled that it's going to be a bit of extra time with him. And the thing that's strange is — even if you don't really like your ex, and even if she didn't massively want to do you and your husband a favour — it's still extra time with your kids. So why wouldn't you want it? Which is when it becomes really difficult, because it does feel deliberately difficult. If somebody says, "I can't do that because I've got a business trip" or "I'm going to a wedding" — those things you can understand and work around. But just a flat no is hard.

Ellie: 09:26

It is. And I don't know where it was coming from. I know she wasn't particularly happy with him and the way their relationship ended. And I think because of the way we have them, she had them a lot more of the time because we live quite far away. So she does have a harder job, and she was single at the time. And honestly, as a mum to the kids, she is amazing. She has fought for them. Our oldest has ADHD, and she fought to get him his EHCP to get into the right school. She is a tiger mum. But all I got the impression of was that sometimes it was too much. She said quite frequently, "I need a break." And I get that, I fully get that — and that's exactly what their dad's there for.

But I think it was more the way it was done. It's like — if we'd all just had nice, calm conversations and said, "We're not losing a weekend, we're moving a weekend" — sometimes it just felt like it was deliberate to inconvenience us. And sometimes that might not have been the case. That's just how it felt coming across. And I fully appreciate that she needed support — she had them 70-odd percent of the time. We tried to bend over backwards to help when we could, but unfortunately, because of where both our families are, we couldn't live closer.

I think there might have been a bit of resentment when someone new comes on the scene. Had I been from that area, we would have lived closer. But there was a bit of resentment that a different choice was made. But again, that's just how it came across to me.

Katie South: 10:56

What I love is that you're recognising really clearly — here's my experience of the situation, but that might not be her intention. And you can really tell when someone's been through coaching.

Ellie: 11:07

Yes, exactly. And I think at the beginning, pre-coaching, I was very much just angry. I was like, "What's her problem? Why is she doing this?" Post-coaching, when you learn that empathy piece and you actually take yourself out of your own situation for a second and think about what's going on over there — it helps change the way you cope and deal with what happens. And I think that was one of the massive game-changers for coaching for me. It was learning about what I could control, what was my experience, what was in my home, and then separating it from over there and letting my husband take on all communication. That was a massive thing. I was like, "You know what? I don't want to be involved. Unless it directly impacts my time or me, discuss it with me then. But other than that, you go and manage it." Because that has been a weight off. He can come home and if she's been a bit difficult, as she is sometimes, he can just tell me. I said, "Feel free to get it off your chest." But now I just sort of laugh — whereas before I'd have been up in arms.

Katie South: 12:04

I think sometimes you can — I've said to my husband, if something's happened that he hasn't been thrilled with, "Have you thought that maybe this is what's going on?" And he doesn't always like it. And I'm like, "I'm not trying to be on someone else's side." But we're all very good at assuming what somebody else's motivation is. I've talked about it before — hostile attribution bias. If you have a negative perception of somebody, you will automatically assume that what they're doing is for a negative reason.

Anyway — I'm interested in when the honeymoon situation happened, was your husband very much on board with "okay, we'll go for two weeks"? Or was he the one saying "I can't miss that contact, we need to go for a shorter time"?

Ellie: 13:02

I think in the early days he was fine with it, because he knew he wasn't losing that time — it meant that somewhere else in the year we'd have them three weekends running. So he was fine with that. He doesn't like it if it means we actually lose time, so we try to avoid that wherever possible. And if she asks us to take them for extra time, we try to do it, because he gets extra time with them. That's always the focus — the children.

And I think it took us a couple of years to grow together into that. He did come to one of my coaching sessions to understand why I needed it, because I think in the beginning there was a lot of, "Why do you need to speak to someone about this? Surely we just crack on and parent." And I was like, "Let me welcome you to my world."

Katie South: 13:48

A — they don't understand how complicated the role is and how difficult some of the feelings are, because they're their own children and they're not your children. Really complicated feelings. And also, men in general don't want to confront things that are going to be difficult. It's much easier to go, "Just give it time, it'll be fine, don't worry."

Ellie: 14:10

Exactly. And I think we are very lucky in that we've always been really good at communicating with each other. I've always felt it's a very safe space to talk about how I'm honestly feeling, and I've done that from the word go. And he has been an incredible support once he got it. Because as much as he doesn't understand what it's like to be a stepmum, I don't understand what it's like to be a biological parent. So we talk a lot.

And even before the coaching, he would say to me, "You're very independent, you need to keep that. Keep going away with your girlfriends for weekends and on holidays — that's not stopping. You don't need to be here every time the kids are here." In the beginning, I disengaged quite a lot. And there's a big difference between disengaging and dissociating — they're very different things. But once he understood why I needed to disengage, he encouraged it, and then I needed to do it less. I do it way less now because I feel more confident and comfortable in my role, and I know he's got my back.

And I think — listening to a few episodes of the podcast recently — I feel like most of the time when there's an issue, it's normally with the partner rather than the bio mum or the kids. Because there's that disconnect in the way the stepmum and the dad are getting on to the same page about things like discipline and boundaries. And if that's not there, nothing else really works. I think I'm very lucky in that my husband is just hugely supportive, and we're on the same page about how we'd parent anyway.

Katie South: 15:39

And what you say is right — a lot of the time it is a relationship problem. I see it all the time in the couples I work with. It's usually one or two repeating arguments, and the argument will start from something about biscuits or screen time, but underneath it all there's usually something about identity, belonging, psychological safety — who's important in this family, who isn't, who matters, where am I in the ranking? All of those big things. And if you don't get comfortable in your relationship, not only talking about them but listening to the other person, you will struggle. It's hard enough parenting as two biological parents. Going in as one step-parent and one biological parent is really tough. And honestly, it's no wonder the stats are so unfriendly towards stepfamilies and second marriages — so many people get stuck in those cycles.

Ellie: 16:43

Yeah, and it's a really odd dynamic, isn't it? Even comparing stepmums and stepdads — you get treated so differently. We've got a new colleague who started on our team, and she said to me, "You're a stepmum — do you guys get all that praise and heroic fanfare about being a stepmum?" And I was like, "Sit down. Let me talk to you for a second." And she was like, "No, I didn't think so." She said her stepdad got — for want of a better phrase — smoke blown up his backside all the time for being the man who stepped in and took on someone else's kids.

Katie South: 17:14

Yeah, no, it's definitely the sort of last acceptable target of misogyny — stepmums. It feels like that a lot of the time. The more women I talk to, the more I see women giving so much of their resources — personal energy, financial, time — to these children, and it goes entirely unrecognised. But a stepdad rocks up and, oh my god, he's parent of the year for just giving them a lift somewhere.

Ellie: 17:45

Yeah, 100%. Actually — she's met someone new. The kids' mum has met someone new. We're not quite sure how long they've been together. We found out through the children. But it seems they love him, they think he's great, he gets on really well with our oldest. I think our youngest, like with me, took some time to warm up — because having another father figure, he was quite cautious. Our oldest is older and understands the dynamic. But I think our youngest felt a lot of guilt towards my husband, and he would be very clingy for the first few weekends and kept saying "I love you" all the time.

When we finally worked out why — because we found out she'd met someone new — my husband just had a chat with him and said, "It's okay to like him. It's okay to love him eventually." I think he just felt pressured to accept and love this person right now. And it takes time. It took our youngest — I remember a FaceTime memory popped up the other day for the first time that he told me he loved me, and it was about three years into our relationship. So you have to let them come to you slowly. And it has got better — they do like him. And I think that male influence being there all the time is really good, especially as they're getting older and heading into their teenage years.

Katie South: 19:04

I guess if their mum hasn't had a serious partner for five or six years, then suddenly to have someone there is quite a big change for them.

The stepdad thing is interesting, because I think about it quite a lot in my own family. My eldest son, 16, absolutely adores my husband and they get on so well. They'll chat about things I don't really know about, they just click and the relationship is easy. And I sometimes wonder whether it's because as women we feel more pressure to create something — we're not being fake, but we're trying harder. Whereas for men it just seems like, "Oh, it'll happen if it happens." And whether sometimes we're victims of our own efforts.

Ellie: 19:53

Yeah, it's true. And I think from that maternal viewpoint, in a "normal" family the mum probably naturally does more. So I think that's probably where the expectation lands on the stepmum — to fulfil that role. And I think at the very beginning, my husband sort of just thought I'd slot in and carry on.

But then as time went on and we talked and he understood more about the role and what it means — this whole "you should have known what you were getting into" situation came up. We had a very serious conversation early on, when the children were coming to us upset and sad. He really wanted to talk about moving nearer to them. We talked about it for a while. How far away do you live from the kids? We're about an hour and 45 minutes. Our limit was two hours when we were choosing our house. But the frustrating thing is they're on this side of the country, my family and friends are all on this side, I work in London — so we had to find somewhere in between, otherwise I would be isolated miles and miles from my family, and the commute would have been really difficult. So it was that compromise.

That caused quite a lot of upsetting conversations, because I didn't want to move so far away from all my family for what would only be five or six years before the kids were old enough that they probably wouldn't be living at home. But we had all those conversations. And then he said to me — and he won't mind me saying this — "You were really naive to come into this thinking I might not have them come and live with me one day." And I was like, "Probably." I didn't know that, because when he told me it was 70/30 or whatever it was, naively I thought that was just how it always was. I didn't understand that things change.

So attitudes between the two of us have changed a lot, and we've grown closer because of it. I think we're better partners now than we've ever been. But I think there's value in holding your own feelings and sticking with them. I said to him, "I want to be happy too. I'm a part of this, and I deserve to be happy in my life, and a lot of this is making me unhappy." And it wasn't the kids.

There was a phrase — I think it was in one of your episodes — that when my husband heard it, he said, "You can't say that." And it was something like, "You can love your stepkids but not always love being a stepmum." And the two things are so different. I was like, "Sometimes I don't like being a stepmum." It's nothing to do with the children. I'd jump in front of a bus for both of them. I love them to death. But the elements that make me not enjoy it are elsewhere. And that's okay. You can love your job but not always love being employed. So I think breaking down some of those really important distinctions — and him understanding that it didn't come from a place of disliking the kids, it comes from me navigating a new and established situation — that was huge. But the communication piece and the coaching have been the things that turned it all around.

Things have changed a lot from three years ago. In some ways. Some ways they're still the same. But I've just learned that you pick your battles. You hang your hat on the things that matter. And the things that are just annoying you — you move on.

Katie South: 23:16

It has taken a long time to get to that stage. One of the things I really like that you talked about there was: "I can love my stepkids but not always love being a stepmum." And so many of those paradoxes come up all the time.

Most women I see in my coaching practice will say at some point they feel resentment towards something about their situation. All the women who come into my coaching practice are lovely people. There's this view that if you feel resentment towards your situation, you shouldn't be in it. But I guarantee that there are a lot of biological mums who'd say, "Actually, I'm a bit resentful that my career took a nosedive after I had a baby." That's allowed. You can be a mum and love your kids and not always love being a mum.

Ellie: 24:03

Exactly. And I think you find that stepmums put so much work into their roles — whether it's coaching, seeking support from other stepmums, whatever that might be. We put so much energy into making it a good place for us. And actually, I don't think we should have to do that. It's consumed — not necessarily in a bad way — the last six years of my life. Just learning more about myself, growing, changing, ditching the things that don't serve me. Moving off certain social media pages — some of them are just toxic. I only follow the pages I know are productive and positive and helpful.

I think people need to be careful when finding their spaces for support. A lot of social media pages can fire people up and make things more difficult. They make stepmums more aggressive because everyone's egging each other on. Stepmums can be high-conflict too — it's not just bio mums. And I think there are a few stepmums out there who don't do themselves any favours. And that's where I moved away from that. I was like, "That's not helping me. That's just a great place to vent. I don't need the anger firing up. I need someone to give me skills and coping techniques and different ways to think about things." So ultimately, reframing the way I receive what's going on has been how I changed the whole situation for myself.

I think I'm in quite a unique position — or maybe it's not so unique — but I've actually never met their mum. It was going to happen maybe a year and a half ago, but for some reason it never went ahead.

Katie South: 25:39

Like, literally never crossed paths, never seen each other in person, never?

Ellie: 25:45

Yeah. I've not met her because I don't do any of the transition days or handovers, that kind of thing. So there's not been a need. Everything is dealt with between my husband and her, and I don't feel like I need to be involved. If a time came where it did need to happen, then fine. But I think just for my own mental health, the way things are now is good. It works as it is.

Katie South: 26:10

So with the boys now being 15 and 10, and with potential joint occasions on the horizon — school events, sports days — I take it you haven't done many of those?

Ellie: 26:24

I think it would be fine. I'm more than happy and would absolutely not miss important occasions. I think all of us would be there — including the kids' mum's new partner, who my husband has met recently. So I think everyone will be civil for the kids. There's no reason it wouldn't be. Yeah, it just wouldn't be the most comfortable of places for me. But I would do it — there's no question about that.

Katie South: 26:46

And have you made a deliberate choice not to attend sports things or school things, or has it just been that they haven't fallen on your time?

Ellie: 26:58

No, not at all — it's not been deliberate. I was actually going to our oldest's sports day this coming Monday, but then something came up at work that only I could deal with, so I had to cancel. So no, it's absolutely not a deliberate decision. It's usually just because things fall on weekdays when I can't move work commitments. And nothing's really come up at weekends. If it was on a weekend, I'd be there in a heartbeat. So no — I'd love to be there to support whenever I can.

Katie South: 27:26

I also don't think there's anything wrong with women who decide not to go to those things simply because they don't want to. I feel like there's so much pressure — you should go to this thing, you shouldn't be at that thing. I remember at the very beginning, my little stepdaughter — who was four or five at the time — wanting me to go to her birthday party. And I said to my partner at the time, "Can you chat to your ex? Because I don't want to show up somewhere where it's going to feel uncomfortable for her." It was really early days. I was finding it hard sharing my own child, so I knew she was probably finding it hard sharing hers.

Ellie: 28:07

I think a good example is when my husband met her new partner recently. It was fine — they had a perfectly pleasant conversation. But when he got back, I was a bit quiet, and he knew something was wrong. And I just said, "Look, honestly, this is going to sound so ridiculous. But I feel like it makes me look bad — there have been six years when I haven't met their mum, and now you've met him in two seconds. If you can meet him, why can't I meet her?"

And I said, "But he's come into this at a very different point. This is nothing like it was six years ago. He hasn't gone through the — for want of a better word — trauma that I went through at the beginning." But I feel a bit like an outsider now, if I'm honest. Like those three have all kind of met, and I'm here going, "No, I don't want to." But I'm doing the right thing in terms of protecting myself. I'm not going to guilt myself into doing it just so that I've met her. It's nothing to do with her — this is all about me. This isn't something I'm ready for. And there might be a day when I am, and that's fine. But it did make me feel like I was being really petty. Like I should be pushing to do it. And yeah, so that was a strange conversation to have. It was a bit of a curveball — I didn't expect to feel like that.

Katie South: 29:31

But it's interesting — and I love that you can recognise that, acknowledge it, work through that feeling, and talk to your partner about it. And I'm sure that's partly because you've had coaching. But the thing that's a bit different is that in that situation, this stepdad is with your partner's children a lot — so there's more of a reason why Seb would want to know who's around his kids. Whereas on your side, it would more naturally come from her if she wanted to make that happen.

For example, I never felt any particular desire to meet my stepkids' mum — not for any bad reason, just, "Why would I particularly want to meet my husband's ex?" I went for coffee with her once because the kids wanted it — absolutely fine, happy to. And my ex-husband's partner I already knew through a mutual friend. So I didn't feel the need. But I don't think there should ever be pressure on a stepmum to meet a bio mum. I can see why a bio mum might want to meet a stepmum — just to see who's with her kids. But you've got to be able to do what you feel comfortable with.

Ellie: 30:51

Yeah, 100%. And I think there was talk of it a while back — she'd actually initiated it because she'd been grateful for something I'd spotted in our youngest. But the thing is, the relationship between their mum and my husband ebbs and flows. You can have months of perfectly civil messages, and then one thing brings it back to how it was. I think things have definitely improved overall. As the kids grow, they see things for themselves. We've never, ever spoken badly about her in front of them — that was always a very firm rule. If they come back and share things, it's always, "Do you want to talk about it? Are you okay? Do you need us to do anything? Do you want us to speak to your mum?" If they don't, we move past it and get on with our time together.

I think it's a long game. You have to just trust that you do what you do. Your actions speak louder than anyone else's words. You look after those kids, you raise them, you show them the values you want to pass on, you make them independent and good people — and ultimately, as they grow up, they see it for themselves. They work out how they feel.

Things have definitely improved. We now do the same schedule times every year, because setting dates used to be horrendous. I'd be anxious from April to October when they were being set — "It's coming, it's coming." And then from October onwards I'd be like, "Yes, another whole year before we have to think about it." But now it's just tweaking for when half terms or Easter fall. And she's started leading it, which is good — she comes to us with, "Right, here's next year," and we go through what works, rather than us proposing things and it opening up weeks of difficult back-and-forth messages. So things have definitely settled a lot.

I think the communication between me and my husband has definitely helped. And talking to the kids — we can have much more grown-up conversations with our oldest now. It's terrifying how suddenly he's gone from a boy to a man — from 13 to 15, it's like talking to an adult. But he's a great kid. He's such a good boy. He's one of my favourite people, along with his brother. And I think it's just not gone the way I feared it would. And it's nice.

There are still things that haven't changed. We've just got to a point where we've accepted that we're never going to be able to go away for longer than ten days until there are no more childcare arrangements. And that's okay. Is it really a big problem that you can't go away for 14 nights? Not really. We'll just do it afterwards. I've learned to just go with the changes, roll with the punches, deal with every day as it comes, and not panic too much about what might happen in the future — because 90% of what you panic about never happens.

Katie South: 33:54

And you spend so much time being anxious. It's interesting when you talk about things changing over time, because when you're deep in it, you think it's always going to be like that. You think you're always going to feel like that, and the ex is always going to react like that. And things do change. They do move on.

So, six years in — there are a lot of women who find this podcast much earlier than that. And I always want to ask the women who've learned things along the way what advice they wish they'd had at the beginning.

Ellie: 34:26

The advice I'd give to anybody before getting too deep into a relationship where kids are involved is: don't just run. I think a lot of people joke and say, "Run away, don't do it." But my advice would be — find out early what the relationship is like with the ex, with the mum. Find out what the situation is, what the custody arrangements look like. Find out honestly if there's been conflict, so that you're prepared for what you're walking into. Because if it turns out to be a bit of a mess, you're allowed to walk away and not put yourself through it. You are allowed to say, "I'm okay, thank you," and go and find someone else.

But if it's okay — give it a go. Just find out first. That's what I would have done. Find out more, look into other stepmums' experiences, so you have some idea of what you might be getting into. I wish I'd done more of that and asked more about the ex before I came into it. I don't know if it would have changed my mind, because if I'm honest, I think he'd been my person from that very first message on the dating app. But at least I would have been better prepared, and I might not have taken so long to seek the help I needed.

Katie South: 35:36

And what you say is important because it helps women almost anticipate some of the things that might come up. If you're going through adoption or having a biological baby, there are a lot of conversations to prepare you for what might happen. There's really not that equivalent for stepmums. So that's something that can help — working out, "If I find myself in that situation, what am I going to do? What might we want to do as a couple if this comes up?" And like you say, that communication piece is so important.

So thank you so much for coming back. I love catching up with people again, and I really just always love chatting with you.

Ellie: 36:05

You're welcome. It's been lovely to be back. Thank you so much.

Katie South: 36:09

Oh, it was so good to catch up with Ellie. And you might have noticed how she talked about that moment she realised she had to separate what was happening over in the other house from what was actually hers to do something about — and how much lighter things got once she did that.

If you're still trying to work out where that line is, I've got something for you that can help. The Influence Gap™ is a free tool for stepmums who keep carrying things that were never theirs to carry. It's at stepmumspace.com/influencegap — and I'll pop the link in the show notes. There's also coaching, group programmes, and other resources there, both free and paid, for wherever you are right now.

I'll be back next week with another new episode. Till then, take care.

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