We Both Left Our Husbands for Each Other — and Then Had to Build a Stepfamily

A same-sex couple on love, two divorces, and what actually makes a blended family work. 

They met at the school gates, both happily married to men. Two years later they'd left their husbands, come out, and were trying to build a blended family of six from scratch.
This conversation is one of the most honest accounts of stepfamily life I've ever had. 

Katy and Amy fell in love during the school run. Both married to men. Both, as they describe it, very happily so. What followed was two divorces, a coming out, a year sleeping in a sister's converted garage, five years of an ex refusing to sign divorce papers, and the slow, difficult, joyful work of building a blended family of six.

In this conversation, they talk about all of it. The shame around how their relationship started. The near-breaking points that came not from how they felt about each other, but from the sheer difficulty of merging two families with different children, different bedtimes, and two women who both knew exactly what was right for their own kids.

They talk about the two living rooms solution that finally made it work — the idea that a blended family doesn't have to be one fully merged unit to be a real family. They talk about what they'd do differently. About the guilt of putting more into stepparenting than biological parenting. About the arguments that nearly ended things. And about how they got through them.

What comes through most is this: they didn't make it work by finding it easy. They made it work by being willing to have the prickly conversations, over and over, until something shifted.

If you're in the messy middle of blending a family and wondering whether it's ever going to feel settled — this one's for you.

WHAT YOU'LL HEAR IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why moving in together too quickly is the most common mistake blended families make — and what to do instead
• How two women with strong maternal instincts navigated parenting each other's children without it destroying the relationship
• The two living rooms solution: how giving a blended family permission to be a three or a six changed everything
• Why arguing on behalf of your own child almost never ends well, and how they learned to step back
• What happens when your stepchildren hear negative things from the other parent — and why Katy and Amy didn't have that problem
• The specific thing that made the children feel emotionally free to love their new family without guilt
• Why having more patience for your stepchildren than your own is more common than anyone admits

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU:

• If you're a stepmum who wonders whether it's ever going to feel less chaotic and more like a real family
• If you and your partner keep arguing about the children and it's starting to feel like the relationship can't hold it
• If you feel guilty about how your relationship started and you've never heard anyone talk about it honestly
• If you're putting enormous effort into your stepchildren and quietly wondering whether you're neglecting your own
• If you're trying to figure out how much authority you should have over children who aren't yours
• If you're in a same-sex stepcouple and feel like almost no content speaks to your specific situation

TIMESTAMPS:

[00:00] How Katy and Amy met — and why neither of them saw it coming
 [12:00] Two divorces at the same time: what that actually looked like
 [24:00] Coming out to the children, and how the dads responded
 [36:00] The bedtime wars and the prickly conversations that nearly broke them
 [48:00] The two living rooms solution — and what they'd do differently

If this conversation stayed with you, share it with someone who's in the thick of it right now. And if the Stepmum Space podcast helps, a review on Apple Podcasts makes a real difference to who finds it. You can explore everything at stepmumspace.com.

Transcript

**Katie South:** You moved in together and suddenly you're standing in a living room that's half yours, watching four kids argue over what to watch on TV. Again. And you're thinking, how on earth did I end up here? But you're all in, and nobody told you what that would actually look like on a Tuesday evening when you're tired and you just want everyone to go to bed.
 
 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. 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 I'm joined by Katie and Amy, a same-sex couple who fell in love at the school gates, left decade-long marriages, and built a blended family of six from scratch — with four children, two living rooms eventually, and more honesty than most couples manage in a lifetime. Let's get into it.
 
 I'm so delighted to be joined by Katie and Amy, who got in touch with me via Instagram to share a little bit about their experience as a same-sex couple navigating step-parenting together. So firstly, thank you so much for getting in touch with me, because we love exploring all elements of step-parenting on the show. I really appreciate you reaching out, and I'm so looking forward to hearing your story.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Thank you so much for having us on. We're really excited to be here. Aren't we?
 
 **Amy:** Yeah, thank you so much.
 
 **Katie South:** So where shall we start? Do you want to share a little bit about how you first met?
 
 **Katy (guest):** So we're going back a couple of years now, to the school run — where of course you drop your children off in the morning and you have that waiting-for-school-to-start at 9am amongst all the other mums. Amy's child was going into the same class as one of mine.
 
 **Amy:** Yeah, so my son was having a bit of a difficult time, and Katie reached out to make sure he was okay and to say her son would look after him, which was amazing.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I could see in her face, mum to mum, just how much she was struggling to get her child into school. And I really felt for her.
 
 **Amy:** I was really grateful to have that. I hadn't really made any friends so far — it was a really tiny school, a tiny village school. We started messaging each other and just became very close very quickly. We seemed to share so much in common, and it felt like we knew each other so well without hardly knowing each other at all. I was doing 10,000 steps a day, so every day I'd do a walk after the school run. Katie started work a bit later, so she had a bit of time, and she'd come walk with me.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah, way to have another little chat in the morning — like the school run's not long enough, let's go for a walk after.
 
 **Amy:** And it turned out the walk and the school run weren't long enough either. So over a period of time we really started falling for each other.
 
 **Katie South:** And at this point, were you two both single?
 
 **Katy (guest):** No — both of us were married to men for ten years, the fathers of our children, and we were both very happily married. I'd just bought a property with my husband, which was going to be the forever dream home. I was absolutely ecstatic about that.
 
 **Amy:** And I ran a business with my ex-husband. We had a really close family and a really lovely marriage. There was definitely nothing wrong — in either of our family lives at all.
 
 **Katy (guest):** So we started going for the walks, the conversation was just always flowing, and it felt like talking to somebody I'd known forever. Looking back, the chemistry was so electric. It felt exciting. I woke up every morning feeling like I'd won the lottery. In terms of having a friend — I'd had friends before, but I was just so excited to speak to Amy and see Amy every day. The school run became my life — I revolved around it. I was excited for 9am and excited for 3:30pm. Everything in between was fine, but it had come down a level, if you will.
 
 **Amy:** Yeah, it was like experiencing something neither of us had experienced before. When Katie talks about the chemistry, it was really hard to identify what exactly that was at the time, but we both felt it. We used to say, "What is this? Why are we lasting so much?"
 
 **Katy (guest):** Neither of us knew what it was. It was like having adrenaline inside your stomach — a little ball of energy. It tickled, it was nice, it was fun, and it gave us energy.
 
 **Amy:** Yeah, it was exciting, and it made us feel incredibly... addictive isn't the right word, but it definitely felt that way. It also made us feel like we both had a drive for things again. One of our friends at school said to us, "It's like there's been a fire lit inside you" — this was before anything had even been said, even to each other. She said we both just seemed so alive.
 
 **Katy (guest):** And I was painting again in the evenings — something I'd definitely put on the back burner since having the children.
 
 **Amy:** And I was singing again. I hadn't sung in a long time, but I started wanting to. I was recording songs and sending them to Katie. I was feeling really driven and ambitious again.
 
 **Katy (guest):** We were looking after our health.
 
 **Amy:** Yeah.
 
 **Katie South:** We were just in a really great place. And when did you think, okay, my new friendship's amazing, but there's something more?
 
 **Katy (guest):** There were a couple of times when we'd be messaging, and I know we both felt — I'll speak on behalf of both of us, but do interrupt — like we were pulling away from each other a little bit. That's when the conversations got into a different area. For me, I definitely felt: I've crossed a line here, or she's crossed a line here. I feel uncomfortable. I'm married, I'm happily married, I'm in this house, and everything is absolutely perfect. I don't want to ruin this. She's my friend. We'd pull away from each other, and that would cause a bit of a disconnect, because the other person would feel like, why are you being different?
 
 **Amy:** Where's my playmate gone? Exactly. But it was always quite temporary. We'd always ask each other what was going on. The friendship lasted as just a friendship for about four or five months. Then eventually we both did that pullback thing, and in the couple of weeks leading up to it, I think we'd noticed within ourselves that we were maybe a bit flirty. It definitely felt like, this isn't appropriate.
 
 **Katy (guest):** My focus certainly wasn't on my home anymore. My children, absolutely — but in terms of family life, my home was a project house I needed to do up, and I could not, for the life of me, begin to contemplate doing anything to that house. My focus was completely on Amy.
 
 **Katie South:** That sounds like falling wildly in love, but at the time you hadn't quite named it.
 
 **Amy:** We hadn't named it. By the time we actually said how we felt, we were in love. It wasn't a case of "I think I might have some feelings for you" — it was very much, I'm in love with you.
 
 **Katie South:** Can I just say, you two — just to look at, I cannot stop smiling. We'll get into how difficult it must have been, and maybe continues to be, but at the heart of it — what an amazing love story.
 
 **Amy:** Thank you. That's really lovely to say.
 
 **Katie South:** So you realise you've got these feelings for each other. How do you move from a decade of marriage each — homes, families, also married to men — to building your life together? It sounds hugely complex.
 
 **Amy:** It's the most complex thing I could possibly think of. Actually way more than we realised it would be.
 
 **Katy (guest):** There was no time to consider just how difficult it would be, because everything came from a reactive place. We had to be reactive.
 
 **Amy:** It was like running — you had to start running. We had to make really fast decisions all the time, some of which weren't the right decisions, particularly around step-parenting, or living together or not. But there were a lot of decisions that just had to happen at that time. We always did our best.
 
 **Katy (guest):** We definitely did our best, and we put the children before ourselves, always.
 
 **Katie South:** But it was difficult — an extremely painful time. There are a lot of women who listen to this podcast who became stepmums because their relationship started out as an affair. There's no other way to put it. It's incredibly common, nobody talks about it, it's shrouded in shame, for all the reasons we understand. The fact is, these things happen — and the more we talk about them, the more we help people understand they're not a bad person because their relationship didn't start the way people deem most desirable. So do you mind me asking — how did you tell your husbands? Did it come out, or did you sit them down?
 
 **Katy (guest):** I actually told my husband that I really liked girls, because I knew how I felt about Amy — I felt so alive, so 100% comfortable within myself for the first time ever — that even before I'd imagined me and her being together, I knew I wanted to come out. How I felt with a woman versus how I felt with a man was very different. So I told him I liked women, and that in itself is devastating enough to be told in one evening.
 
 **Amy:** With my husband — he knew I was really close with Katie, and he also knew I was bisexual, because I'd had relationships with women in my younger years. I told him that me and Katie had moved into something more than friends. And I agree with everything you said about an affair — it was a really big decision even to make an account on Instagram and talk about it, because it is shrouded in shame. It was a very short period of time — three weeks — where it crossed from friends into something else. During that time, we spent most of it trying to work out how to tell our husbands, and also whether we could not feel the way we did. Could we stay in the marriage? Could we get rid of the feelings? Could we just stay friends? That's what the majority of that period was.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah — there was a lot of crying. A lot of mistakes.
 
 **Katie South:** And the way you talk about it — on one side, there's this part of you that's "oh my god, this amazing chemistry, this amazing love, this is incredible," and the other part is "what does this mean for my whole life?" Because you don't choose the feelings you have, do you?
 
 **Katy (guest):** No, you don't. For me, I didn't even think about my whole life in that moment. All I knew was I couldn't continue having this affair, and I couldn't keep waking up every day knowing I was living a life I wasn't meant for. It was like clarity, all of a sudden. It probably looks really naive — how did you not know you were gay? But it's not that simple. That's a whole other topic. It wasn't an easy thing. I definitely loved my husband.
 
 **Amy:** For me, I'd lived my life being bisexual, married to a man, with relationships with women too. But what I felt with Katie, and what I feel now, is a version of myself — even in the roles we have in the relationship — I feel like me. And that doesn't take away from the amazing marriages we had, and the time we had together. It's really desperately sad, because in order to be together, we had to end a chapter that was an amazing chapter of our lives.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah.
 
 **Amy:** But once we'd experienced how we felt with each other — which crossed over into a sexuality thing, a coming-out thing — it wasn't possible to go back and feel like the person we were before, because we aren't that person anymore.
 
 **Katie South:** How courageous of you.
 
 **Amy:** Thanks. Doesn't always feel like that, but thank you.
 
 **Katy (guest):** We always want to whisper "thank you" when somebody says that, because it doesn't feel deserved.
 
 **Katie South:** But it's like you said — a really hard decision, to be your true self while knowing the knock-on impact for other people might be painful. It's really hard. And I think one of the reasons I love what you're doing so much is because it will help so many other people in the same situation. So you're in the middle of this hugely exciting phase of life, but also a really painful one. Can you share a bit about how you uncoupled from your husbands, and then came together to build your new family?
 
 **Katy (guest):** It happened slightly differently for both of us. My separation happened very fast — from telling him, to getting a rental in place, to moving out and being in a house on my own with the two children.
 
 **Katie South:** How old were your kids at that time?
 
 **Katy (guest):** Six and eight. It happened quickly, and I don't think I slept properly, I don't think I ate properly.
 
 **Amy:** She was very unwell.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Very unwell — I got pleurisy, ended up in hospital. And the lack of support around me — I didn't have any. Amy, of course, but throughout periods of that time, me and her weren't really in contact. I was just managing to get up every day and do the school run, but no longer because I wanted to see Amy — life had changed completely. I was just trying to keep everything normal for the children. And luckily, it was normal for them. Me and my husband managed to pull ourselves together and parent the children exactly the way we would've before. We had those difficult conversations, but it was done well, I'm glad to say.
 
 **Katie South:** And your kids at that point are aware mummy and daddy have split up, but you're getting on, on the surface, and co-parenting well?
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah. My ex-husband worked incredibly long hours, I was the primary carer, and we just kept everything normal — daddy came home, had tea, up to bed. Keeping everything as normal as possible. They feed off me — as long as mum's okay, they're okay. So I knew I had to make sure I had a smile on my face, and they'd read off that.
 
 **Katie South:** And once you moved out, you still kept the routine of when they saw dad?
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah, that was from the word go, definitely.
 
 **Katie South:** And when you both came out, were you already thinking about what this meant for your children?
 
 **Amy:** Do you mean coming out as gay, or coming out to be with each other?
 
 **Katie South:** Both.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I didn't think about what it would mean for them. I just knew they'd be okay — they'd be with me, it'd be okay. But it was done in such a reactive state, so fast, that I can't really remember it, if I'm honest. It takes a lot to think back, and it feels incredibly uncomfortable to. It's just so desperately sad — going from one life to this really messy middle bit. I've always likened it to throwing a bomb at your life, watching it explode, then waiting for the dust and rubble to settle, and having to clean it up. That clean-up process took way longer than we thought. It's like exploding yourself in with the bomb, and having to put yourself back together — but also having to parent. Getting up every day, Saturdays, birthday parties, Christmas, Easter, all of it, with a smile on your face. Going to work and doing everything else.
 
 **Amy:** I think work was my saviour, in all honesty.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah — that's what's uncomfortable to think back on, because it was just uncomfortable.
 
 **Katie South:** And at that point, Katie, you'd moved into your own rental. Amy, what happened with you before you moved in together?
 
 **Amy:** The split with my husband took longer. We tried for a bit longer to stay together — there were lots of periods where, at this point, everything was transparent, so he knew how I felt about Katie. We had really honest, regular conversations about it. Lots of times where Katie and I tried not to feel the way we did. This went on for quite a while. We had to live together because of our circumstances financially, and it's really hard to be stuck where you are. Eventually it wasn't sustainable anymore, and we officially split up, but were still living together. We did a bit of what's called bird-nesting — I had a family member down the road, so sometimes I'd stay there with him and go once the boys had gone to sleep, then come back in the morning.
 
 **Katie South:** How old were your kids at this time?
 
 **Amy:** Mine were five and seven.
 
 **Katie South:** Oh my gosh.
 
 **Amy:** It was a very full-on time. Funnily enough, we don't talk about this particular time as much now, and I feel really emotional talking about it.
 
 **Katie South:** It's okay.
 
 **Amy:** It's like going back to — this was the worst time. If somebody had told us then how bad it was going to be, and how long it would go on for, I wouldn't have believed them. It wouldn't have changed my decision, because it didn't even feel like a decision anyway, to be honest. It was definitely way bigger, more traumatic, more painful than we expected. And for me — I know Katie feels the same — my boys were the saviour in it all. They were the constant, whatever happened, whether I was staying down the road, or at Katie's, or wherever.
 
 **Katy (guest):** They were the only bit of normality. It was such a joy — going through the worst thing of your life you could imagine, and then your child says, "Mummy, do you want to play the PlayStation with me?" or "Mummy, look at this picture," or "can we go for a bike ride?" It really brings you back into the moment.
 
 **Katie South:** That's brilliant. Children are incredible, aren't they?
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah, they are. They've been the saviour.
 
 **Katie South:** You have to get up, put one foot in front of the other, and show up. I'd say the same — anything I've been through that's been difficult, it's always: you've got to show up, you've got to be a mum, you've got to get on with it, and someone else is more important than you ultimately. So you put the face on and get on with it. At this time you'd gone through the most difficult period of your life, but also fallen in love with somebody who'd become the biggest love of your life. Between you, you had four kids — five, six, seven, and eight. Did you know each other's kids before? Did you have a relationship with them at school?
 
 **Katy (guest):** My daughter and your eldest son were best friends — they're only a year apart. We'd do play dates, Amy would pick up my daughter from school, take her home for a couple of hours, feed her dinner, and I'd have your son too. It was such a small school it was impossible not to know everybody.
 
 **Amy:** Everybody knows everybody. We did play dates, and I think when we look back, during that time when we were friends, I think subconsciously we were wondering if they were getting on with each other. We didn't plan anything, genuinely, but looking back, I think both of us were noticing they were getting on really well — that's how the bonds between them initially formed.
 
 **Katie South:** And after both of your marriages had ended and you'd lived separately for a while, how did your children find out you were in a relationship with each other?
 
 **Katy (guest):** Before I told my children about Amy, I told them I was gay. That's always been important to me — to distinguish the two. I haven't just come out because of Amy, I'm a lesbian. I had such an emotional conversation with my son — he's just so brilliant. At the time, there was a thing at school where boys weren't allowed to play netball, and he really wanted to.
 
 **Katie South:** Sorry, can I just have a moment — what the fuck? Why?
 
 **Katy (guest):** I know, I can't understand it either. He's eight, remember. And I remember at school I always wanted to play football but wasn't allowed to, because I was a girl. So I had a chat with him and said, "Mummy's not with daddy anymore, and the reason is a little bit like you really wanting to play netball but not being allowed to. Mummy kind of wanted to be with girls, but felt like she wasn't allowed to. But you know you're allowed to play netball if you want to, don't you?" He said yeah. And I said, "Okay — I guess what I'm trying to say is, mummy's gay." He just looked at me, then gave me such a big hug, and it was such a beautiful moment. He never cared again, genuinely. I think it makes a lot more sense to him now, me as a lesbian, than it ever did, me as a straight mum.
 
 **Katie South:** Interesting, isn't it — for him, it's not such a massive part of who you are, the way it might be for other people.
 
 **Amy:** Yeah. I don't think children care who you're with, as long as you're happy and healthy, and your relationship with them is great. We've had so many people ask how the children took it, and we haven't got a very interesting answer — genuinely, the answer is: nothing.
 
 **Katy (guest):** That side of it really is nothing. Homophobia is learned, and it's something none of our children were ever taught. So it just doesn't exist in their bodies.
 
 **Amy:** And we do have really open, honest conversations all the time, because what we're preparing them for — and what they've already been subject to — is other children making comments. We have to prepare them for what to say back, or how it might make them feel. My youngest son, and your daughter — the two we call "the babies," they've just turned eight and nine — they've had people say things at school. My son in particular felt really sad about it, and was very defensive of me. It was something as simple as "your mum's gay" — but it's the way it's said, like it's a really awful thing. So we talk a lot about how there's nothing wrong with being gay, and we normalise it constantly — we share things with them about sexuality, about coming out. We haven't taken them to Pride or anything like that yet, but we might this year, or next.
 
 **Katie South:** A lot of the women I work with, or who come on the podcast, have an amazing dynamic in their home together, but there's an ex on the scene who isn't so supportive of that relationship. What was the narrative your children were hearing from their dads about the new setup, and how did that impact you?
 
 **Amy:** We've been really lucky, genuinely — we don't have anything negative to say. Both of them have been so open-minded about it, and I don't think either has said anything negative about either of us to their children.
 
 **Katy (guest):** They just wouldn't. They're grown men — really mature, loving, kind. That's never been something we even had to ask of them beforehand.
 
 **Katie South:** And doing that obviously gave your children emotional permission to like the other person without feeling guilty.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Definitely. I can imagine how difficult it would've been for them to come home and talk about their new step-siblings otherwise. But honestly, it's been really great.
 
 **Katie South:** And I know now you're set up slightly differently — you've got your own home together. Do you want to share how that works practically?
 
 **Amy:** Yeah, of course. We've lived in lots of different situations — together in Katie's rental, where the boys shared a room, then back to living separately for a while, depending on where the children were at in terms of the bonds and relationships forming, trying things out.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah.
 
 **Amy:** Eventually we had this idea — we'd tried living together, tried living separately, and we couldn't live apart. When we lived separately, the kids wanted to be back together. We were constantly trying to move heaven and earth to make sure they were happy, and then they wanted to be together again. So we sat down one evening — this was about a year and a half ago — and said, what we need is a house with two living rooms, where they've all got their own bedrooms, but we can have time as our own families too, and they can dip in and out of the blended family dynamic if they want.
 
 **Katy (guest):** We can be a three, or we can be a six.
 
 **Katie South:** This sounds so smart. How on earth did you find the house, and how did you decide who got which living room?
 
 **Katy (guest):** That bit was actually easy — we were just looking online, and it was just there.
 
 **Amy:** It was straight after the conversation — I think it was actually the next day. We went to look at it, walked around with our mouths agape, thinking, is there a god?
 
 **Katie South:** This house is so perfect. You know how sometimes you're talking about something, then your social feeds have got it?
 
 **Katy (guest):** That happened in real life, with the house. I was listening to that.
 
 **Amy:** We have two living rooms, and we've actually swapped them a couple of times — we're really lucky with this house, it's in the middle of nowhere and fantastic, and it's also got a third reception room we used as a playroom, but we've swapped around because of the layout and what works for the children.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Children change and grow with the seasons. What's worked fantastically for six months needs to adjust. That doesn't mean we just listen to the children and move heaven and earth for them every time, but if it's something we can accommodate, and it works well for everybody, then of course we want to do that. If it's going to keep the house happy, let's do it.
 
 **Katie South:** And I guess because they're similar ages, they'll go through the phases together — playroom, gaming den. My older kids are asking if we can turn the garage into a gym now.
 
 **Amy:** Definitely — they've already planned it. This room at the moment is a bit of a dumping ground, needs some love, and they've asked for it to be a games room. We'll see what happens. I think the setup we've got now works the best we've ever had. Would you agree?
 
 **Katy (guest):** It really does work the best it ever has. The main thing we struggled with most — of course me and Amy would love to live in a normal-sized house, normal rent, one living room decorated together — but what we could never get right was the TV situation. We had such different ages — five up to eight — and TV shows change so fast at that age. What one child wanted to watch at eight wasn't appropriate for a five-year-old, and vice versa, and we couldn't keep everybody happy. We're just really lucky to have this two-living-room situation, where they can free-float in and out and be, like I said, this three or this six. They've each got their own bedroom too, which we're so lucky to have. I'm so proud of what we've managed to achieve.
 
 **Katie South:** And with the two living rooms, what happens when one child wants to go into the room that's not technically theirs? How do you manage that boundary?
 
 **Katy (guest):** They mostly go in and out of each other's living rooms all the time. They're also really vocal if they don't want the other children in. One thing we've taught them is, you can let us know — you can say really politely to that person, "I don't want to hang out right now," or "I'm just having some chill time." What we don't want is "get out." We have had that, and it hurts. Everything can be done with kindness, and that's something we want to teach them regardless. We've had to navigate it — one of the biggest things last year was them telling each other to get out of the room. It's about control.
 
 **Amy:** Yes.
 
 **Katy (guest):** These children have taught us so much about themselves, and it all makes sense when you look at it from their point of view.
 
 **Katie South:** Can we talk about something slightly different — you've both come into this as stepmums now. Do you have similar parenting styles?
 
 **Amy:** No, not really.
 
 **Katy (guest):** No.
 
 **Amy:** We've got similar values — the core values are the same — but there are differences.
 
 **Katy (guest):** And we've changed and evolved ourselves over time.
 
 **Amy:** When I look back to when we were first together, our parenting probably looked very different — chalk and cheese. Now it feels a bit more similar. We've each learned things from the other.
 
 **Katie South:** How did you get there? Because a lot of what happens in step families — and this is mostly male-female step couples I speak to — is that one partner's more permissive, usually the dad, and one's more boundaried and strict, and there's some merging, but not as much understanding as you've got. How have you both managed that?
 
 **Katy (guest):** Through trial and error, for a start, and through very prickly conversations with each other constantly — having to be incredibly honest, even when it's almost vile to have to say it. For a start, our children had different bedtimes — really different, at the beginning.
 
 **Amy:** It's more even now, but it was very different.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I was living in the rental, and you'd just moved in and wanted your children up to bed at their normal time, which I completely understood.
 
 **Amy:** Which — I didn't have a set time as such, it was more reading their body, but I was very aware, especially with my little one, that you're going to feel really rubbish the next day if you don't get to sleep. I really wanted to keep in place — I'm not a very routine mum, and the one thing I'd say we both are is very child-led, but I did a lot of gentle parenting in the earlier years. The one routine thing I've always kept consistent is the bedtime evening routine — bath, story, now a snack plate, whatever it is, evolving with their ages. That was the one thing I could really hold onto, because I didn't have much control myself, having moved into someone else's house, and another woman's house at that, which was hard.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah.
 
 **Amy:** Really hard. So that was the one thing I could keep consistent. Whereas Katie's children, it was a lot more relaxed.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I'd been living just with my children for a month or two by then, and I was honestly feeling so comfortable and in control of the situation. I could see my children getting on really well. It was also getting into summer, evenings were lighter, and my son was older — he just wasn't ready for bed yet, outside playing football, or on the PlayStation, or music somewhere in the house. When you've got two other children gone up to bed, you're having to quiet things down without letting your own child know why, because he's going to feel a way about it. You want your children to go to sleep, so you're thinking, can mine please just be quiet — but at the same time, I don't want to tell my children to be quiet in their own home. What are we doing here? Can all the children go to bed at the same time? No, they can't. We tried. It doesn't work. Like Amy, I've been a mum for a huge period of my life — I know exactly what works best for my children, and there's no amount of "I think this" or "you should do that" that's going to change that.
 
 **Katie South:** And how did you navigate it between yourselves, given it got prickly?
 
 **Katy (guest):** We've always tried to come together and compromise, but there are some things we're just not willing to compromise on.
 
 **Amy:** Or if we did compromise, we'd end up feeling something internally that could build into resentment. "The dog brushed the wrong way" — that's the term Katie uses a lot, and it's a really good description. I think every step-parent will understand what we mean. Just feeling like something's not quite right, uncomfortable, against your core values. It's really difficult to have those conversations. Sometimes they'd go well, and we'd really hear each other out and come to some kind of conclusion — not necessarily a compromise, but something respectful on both sides. Sometimes it was just, "I'm feeling this because of this." But sometimes it would just be an argument, and it wouldn't go well. It was a really intensely stressful period, with a lot of conflict in it.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah.
 
 **Amy:** Which caused us, a lot of the time, to feel like, I don't even want to be in this relationship. It was never about how we felt about each other — it just wasn't working. It was too difficult with the children.
 
 **Katy (guest):** But once we got those things in place — one of the things we had to say was, what are you willing to change, and what are you not willing to change? Laid out honestly in front of us. If we don't like it, then this isn't going to work.
 
 **Amy:** Yeah.
 
 **Katy (guest):** Because these are our children, and we want them to be happy.
 
 **Amy:** We haven't had conversations like that for a really long time now. We're settled into this now.
 
 **Katie South:** I think it's important to talk about, because a lot of people will be in that situation — things are great as a couple, but when you argue, it's about the kids, about how you parent. I'm curious — because you're both stepmums, do you think that makes it easier, because you both understand what the other's going through?
 
 **Amy:** I think it makes it harder, actually. We often talk about this — if it was a step-dad and a stepmum, I think, without wanting to generalise, in a heteronormative dynamic, the mum as the "lioness" is more likely to essentially win most of the arguments or discussions around parenting. When you've got two mums together —
 
 **Katy (guest):** It's not a case of wanting to win. It's "this is what needs to happen for me and my children."
 
 **Amy:** You've got such a deep feeling as a mum to your own children, you can't really disregard it.
 
 **Katy (guest):** You're in charge of two little humans each, and we don't want to do them a disservice. We know how hard this has been for them, how much change has been involved. Can I keep your bedtime routine right? Can I make sure you're getting what you like for dinner? Yeah, I can make sure that's happening — it's such a small part of day-to-day life, but it just so happened to be one of the most difficult things for us to navigate.
 
 **Amy:** I don't know if this will sound controversial or different to a lot of step families, but we don't parent the other person's children.
 
 **Katy (guest):** No.
 
 **Amy:** Although we call each other stepmums, throw it around a lot in the house, it's not a massive thing — but we are, essentially, that's what we are. We don't parent them.
 
 **Katie South:** I was going to ask about that — whether there's ever been disagreements about how one of you handles the other's children, because there must be times when there's only one adult in the house, responsible for all four.
 
 **Katy (guest):** When there's only one adult in the house, you have a responsibility to make sure everybody's safe. There have been occasions where I've looked after all four, and your two have been having a boys' play fight that's got out of hand — I'll come in and say, "We're done with this game now, guys, your mum will be home in a minute." Because I, as a human being, don't want to be responsible for that — they're not my children, and I know you feel exactly the same. A really great way I've found to handle being a step-parent is to dissociate a bit from anything going on with Amy's children specifically. That doesn't mean I don't care — I care so much, I absolutely adore them — but if it's something in Amy's domain, unless she's asked me to step in, I'm there if you've asked. If you haven't, I'm sorry, soldier, but it looks like you're having a rough time over there.
 
 **Katie South:** I hear all the time from stepmums who are essentially expected to look after the children in the holidays while dad's at work, but aren't allowed to discipline — and you can't sustain that for too long. But it sounds like in your setup, you've got it working pretty well.
 
 **Katy (guest):** We've learned what works for the children — each one's different, and one will handle being disciplined a lot more easily than another, and that takes time to work out.
 
 **Katie South:** So in your family, do you have a broad set of rules the children all follow, or is it Amy's children follow one set and Katie's another?
 
 **Amy:** Neither of us are massive rule people. I feel like it's a little bit of both, maybe?
 
 **Katy (guest):** Yeah, I do. The children are at a stage now where — if there's a word being thrown around we don't want to hear, even a silly, annoying word, all four of them end up saying it.
 
 **Amy:** So we'll say, "we're not saying that anymore." We've got things we collectively say to them together, but sometimes we deliver it to them separately — I'll tell my guys, Katie tells hers, but it's still the same end result.
 
 **Katie South:** It sounds very positive, and I know there will have been times the step-family stuff got hard. How do you make sure it doesn't come between you as a couple?
 
 **Amy:** It used to come between us on a weekly basis. One of the things we don't do is get involved in the children's arguments with each other — if they argue, we let it pan out, as long as it doesn't cross a line, and if we need to step in and call it off, we do. It doesn't happen much anymore, touch wood. But we did have to do a lot of that. Instead of arguing with each other on behalf of our own children, we now just don't. It's as simple as that — because it was such a waste of energy. Who's actually going to win, when you're trying to win on behalf of a child over a stapler? It's ridiculous.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I really don't care who took the stapler or had it first. I still love you, and I still love these children. So shall we just let them sort it out? If my daughter says it's annoying, I'll say, "I understand that's annoying, mummy will make sure that doesn't happen again," but I'm not taking it up with her son about the stapler — that would be terrifying. We'll just buy two staplers.
 
 **Amy:** But we're only able to say all this now because we've lived through it, done it differently, and learned from it. We've tried it the other way and realised it does not work. Too prickly.
 
 **Katie South:** Because you're both wired to stick up for your own children.
 
 **Katy (guest):** It really does, definitely. It doesn't matter if my son's fully in the wrong and her son's crying his eyes out — he's my son. I can say something about my son. Nobody else can — only me and his dad. It's the same for Amy. It's hard to learn, but it's human nature, who we are. It's built into us, I believe.
 
 **Katie South:** And that's so important, because for so many people, that dynamic — wanting to go into bat for your own child, feeling it viscerally, like a lioness — to manage to separate that from the relationship is so important. Otherwise you carry it straight into the relationship and end up fighting with each other.
 
 **Katy (guest):** We just know the children will be over it so much quicker than we would be if we got involved.
 
 **Amy:** Literally. We'd carry something on with each other and it'd get really intense, and they couldn't even remember the stapler.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I think once they see mums are in control, not losing their heads, and certainly not arguing — why would they?
 
 **Katie South:** If you could go back to the very beginning of all of it — the coming out, bringing your families together, becoming step-parents to each other's kids — what, if anything, would you do differently?
 
 **Amy:** I'd say not moving in together so quickly. I'd definitely advise anybody to take as long as they possibly can to make sure the relationships form properly — with you and the stepchildren, between the step-siblings, with each other. Lots of days out, family holidays, sleepovers, all of that.
 
 **Katy (guest):** And to give yourself time as a single mum too, before becoming part of a bigger unit.
 
 **Amy:** That's a really good point — we'd been a family of four, then essentially became a family of six. We realised we needed the two threes somewhere in the middle of that, and to really solidify that first.
 
 **Katie South:** I don't know about you, but as a stepmum I was really conscious of wanting the "new" children — my partner's children — to feel welcome and loved. In some cases I put more energy into them than my own child, and that can be really tricky, because you're trying to make sure there's enough love for everyone — which of course there is — but it's hard. I've definitely felt that, and then ended up feeling guilty I wasn't doing enough for my own children.
 
 **Amy:** It wasn't so much about doing it because I wanted them to feel welcome — of course I wanted that — but more that I wanted to get it right so badly, and sometimes ended up getting it wrong because I was trying so hard.
 
 **Katie South:** And sometimes trying to get it right means you put so much pressure on yourself. I've definitely put more pressure on myself as a stepmum than as a biological mum — I've been guided by intuition as a biological mum, whatever feels right to my child, I'll do. With a stepchild, I'd read the internet and research everything.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I can understand that. My son will sometimes say, "why are you in a bad mood," and then I'll walk into the living room and go, "hello guys!" and he'll say, "why are you being so nice to them, you just had a go at me." And I'm like, I can't have a go at them. I just can't. That's just the way it is.
 
 **Amy:** Sometimes you end up with more patience for the children who aren't your biological ones. We've had situations where one of our own children is upset about something, and it's really starting to grate and agitate the mum, who can see it — whereas the other mum, the stepmum, is able to comfort them and be patient about it, at a completely different level.
 
 **Katy (guest):** I think it's seeing things with a fresh set of eyes. We'll say to each other, "I really can't right now with him or her, please can you take over, I need five minutes" — and she does the same with me. Often.
 
 **Katie South:** And it just works. I know me and my husband have that too — I'll hear him doing bath time, and I'll think, he could really use a hand. "Babe, do you want to swap, I'll do bath time?" And you get the grateful eyes — "yes, thank you." It's good when you can be a team.
 
 Look, thank you so much for talking to me today. It's been such a joy to speak to you both, and I'll pop all your details in the show notes — anybody who wants to can go and follow you for a daily dose of joy, and some of the realities of what you've been through. Thank you so much.
 
 **Amy:** Thank you for having us. We really enjoyed it.
 
 **Katie South:** Love that chat. Katie and Amy were honest about something that doesn't get said enough — that even when the relationship is solid, even when you're both trying really hard, building a step family can bring you to the point where you think, this is just too hard. And then you find a way through it.
 
 If you're somewhere in that messy middle bit right now, come and find me at stepmumspace.com. There's coaching, group programmes, and resources to download. And if this podcast helps, please do rate and review on Apple and Spotify — it helps other women find us and makes a real difference.
 
 I'll be back next week with another new episode. Till then, take care.