Carolyn Hax: After visits to their mom's, stepkids unleash on their stepmom

Washington Post

2 days ago

Adapted from an online discussion.
Dear Carolyn: My stepkids don't like me. I suspect it's due to alienation from their mother. My husband has full custody, and they see their high-conflict mother every other weekend. Every time they come back, they are different — hostile and nasty to me, despite my caring for them and providing for their needs.
I'm thinking of pulling back and letting their father lead. As of right now, I do a lot of the house managing, cooking and making sure chores get done. My husband is resentful and thinks it'll reinforce their negative opinions about me. How do I do this delicately?
— Loving, Caring Stepmom
Loving, Caring Stepmom: I think you're jumping to the most negative conclusion (they 'don't like me') when the same facts also support a different one.
That they dump on you after they've been to their mom's suggests their hostility is about her, not you.
Maybe they're coming home full of nasty things she said about you — the obvious interpretation.
Or, they are stressed in her home, and they come home wrecked. And the home you made with their dad feels safe, so that's where they let out the ugly stuff.
If this is true, then of course that would feel awful for you — like punishment for your good deeds. (That should be parenting's tagline.)
Nor is it good that they do this. I'm not excusing it.
Soon, as adults, they will bear full responsibility for behaving civilly and doing their emotional work.
But kids are still emotional works in progress and can't be expected to do graceful things — yet — with some seriously complex feelings. Especially with so many adults so publicly making a mess of it. They may, for example, feel intense guilt for preferring their stepmother's care to their mother's.
I'm not saying this is true — it's a for-instance. I'm just suggesting they may trust you and count on you in ways you don't understand, or have reasons they come home angry that you aren't privy to.
What I propose is a visualization that can help all of you regardless of who resents whom and why: Imagine you're a giant rock on a shoreline. The stepkids are the sea. You are there, doing what you do, being who you are, no matter how the waters roil and crash around you. 'That hurts,' you might say, but no punishing back.
It's the long game, and it is powerful.
As for your husband — he is resentful, why? If it's about your washing your hands of everyone and letting him deal with it, then, okay. I imagine you both entered marriage and full custody as a team commitment.
If he resents that you expect him to get more involved than he feels like being, though, then I'll start to suspect a more problematic backstory than just a problematic ex and their problematically acting-out kids.
A reader's thought:
· When I brought my now-spouse into my kids' lives after divorce, I spoke to each kid separately and said, 'You don't have to like X, but you do have to treat them with the same respect everyone is due.' My kids were free to reject every overture to do something with X, but only with 'No, thank you.' And when they crossed the line, I made them apologize. Also, it was my job to do this, not X's, and I thanked X repeatedly for their patience. Each kid softened in their own time. I felt I had to honor how little agency my kids had in the shifting family dynamics but also teach them there are right and wrong ways to treat people.