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Part 2:

Over time, SD completely disrespected me and her father. We would travel 2 hours away to pick SD up for visitation and no one would be home. SD made it perfectly clear to her father, gave him an ultimatum, that unless he comes to see her alone, then she won’t be in his life anymore. The authorities cannot enforce visitation, since it is a civil matter. And the judge never gave the ex-wife a punishment for not complying. Eventually, we just gave up.
The ex-wife blames me {the stepmother} for the reason that SD19 doesn’t have a relationship with my husband. Which I was at every court date, I would even draft my husband’s court papers, in attempts to enforce the visits. My husband did not feel it fair to exclude our other children from activities and from time spent with their sister.
I feel bad for my SD. The ex-wife is at fault because of her own insecurities and immaturity. My husband and I even went to counseling to help address SD’s transition into our family. Nothing worked. SD was made to believe that her father was disloyal to her for moving on in his life. I had never been so disrespected in my entire life either. I was the object of name calling in the court papers. I was told by the ex that “in God’s eye’s you are not his wife. I still am.” SD would try to convince my husband to come back to her mother. This was after we were married and had our first child. Even the ex told my husband that she would be a good step-mother to our baby, she asked him to divorce me and come back to her. They had been divorced a year before we met. My husband left his ex because she had “emotional outbursts” and a violent temper. I was also stalked by the ex-wife. I believe the success of a stepmother is in direct correlation to the ex-wife’s mental status. The courts ordered the ex-wife to a mental competency test, yet never enforced it. The judge said this was a classic case of PAS & that the ex was jealous of my husband’s new wife. Yet, the court system let my stepdaughter live in an unhealthy environment and stay with her mother. Her mother has Borderline Personality Disorder.
I am a family counselor myself and my husband and I did everything we could for my SD. There are always two sides to a story, which I assume for every evil stepmom there is an unstable ex-wife involved.

Part 2:

Over time, SD completely disrespected me and her father. We would travel 2 hours away to pick SD up for visitation and no one would be home. SD made it perfectly clear to her father, gave him an ultimatum, that unless he comes to see her alone, then she won’t be in his life anymore. The authorities cannot enforce visitation, since it is a civil matter. And the judge never gave the ex-wife a punishment for not complying. Eventually, we just gave up.
The ex-wife blames me {the stepmother} for the reason that SD19 doesn’t have a relationship with my husband. Which I was at every court date, I would even draft my husband’s court papers, in attempts to enforce the visits. My husband did not feel it fair to exclude our other children from activities and from time spent with their sister.
I feel bad for my SD. The ex-wife is at fault because of her own insecurities and immaturity. My husband and I even went to counseling to help address SD’s transition into our family. Nothing worked. SD was made to believe that her father was disloyal to her for moving on in his life. I had never been so disrespected in my entire life either. I was the object of name calling in the court papers. I was told by the ex that “in God’s eye’s you are not his wife. I still am.” SD would try to convince my husband to come back to her mother. This was after we were married and had our first child. Even the ex told my husband that she would be a good step-mother to our baby, she asked him to divorce me and come back to her. They had been divorced a year before we met. My husband left his ex because she had “emotional outbursts” and a violent temper. I was also stalked by the ex-wife. I believe the success of a stepmother is in direct correlation to the ex-wife’s mental status. The courts ordered the ex-wife to a mental competency test, yet never enforced it. The judge said this was a classic case of PAS & that the ex was jealous of my husband’s new wife. Yet, the court system let my stepdaughter live in an unhealthy environment and stay with her mother. Her mother has Borderline Personality Disorder.
I am a family counselor myself and my husband and I did everything we could for my SD. There are always two sides to a story, which I assume for every evil stepmom there is an unstable ex-wife involved.

Part 1:

I have been a stepmother for 7 years. My stepdaughter {now 19} has now been estranged from my husband for 3 years now. I brought my own daughter {now 15} into the marriage and my darling husband and I have two daughters together {5 & 3}. I had great hope we could become a blended family, but very soon after our marriage I realized this could never be true. My step-daughter has done everything in her power to manipulate her father, with hopes of destroying our marriage. I believe the relationship between a stepmother and her stepchildren greatly depends on the ex-wife’s ability to accept the fact her own marriage failed and the ex’s ability to move on with her own life.
My husband was the targeted parent in PAS {Parental Alienation Syndrome}. My SD resisted all of our efforts to become a blended family. My SD felt guilty when she had a good time on visitations. She felt she was being disloyal to her mother. When DH & I had our first daughter, he telephoned SD & SD{then 14} threw a complete tantrum, crying on the phone saying “I’ve been replaced.” These illogical thoughts stemmed from things drilled into her by the ex wife. Since my own BD{then 10} had no feelings of being “replaced” by the new baby.
I cannot tell you how many times DH & I had been to court to enforce the visitation schedule. SD wanted DH to have EOWeekend visits, to pick her up alone & entertain her for 8 hours. Of course the judge did not agree to this, as it is unhealthy to exclude the rest of the children & allow SD to live in the fantasy that DH doesn’t have other children. When the judge told the ex-wife that SD must come to our home {as he stated this at every hearing}…the ex said once “Does the unrelated female have to be there?” The ex did not want to accept the fact I am a stepmom nor accept I am “related”.
I could relate so well to the previous poster who talked about just asking “could you set the table please.” When SD was at our home, I, along with my bio-daughter were expected to do everything & cater to SD’s every need. I never got one thank you. The situation was so sad. One day I wanted to paint terra cotta pots & plant flowers in them…I was hoping to include SD in the project. I thought it would be a nice gift for her mother & maybe help mend things. SD said if she took the flowers home that her mother would break the pot because it was my idea.

Women tend fall into the role of family caretaker. When conflict arises within a family unit with a stepmother, she is the outsider. I think that can make it easy to cast her as the wrongdoer since she might not be on the same page as the rest of the family members. The stresses from those conflicts can also make it more likely that she'll respond in a way that might escalate the situation, which makes it easy for others to legitimize the idea that she's in the wrong. If you add to the stresses of a recent divorce, it takes a very special person to be a stepparent (especially a stepmother) who is able to blend their family.

Strange how all the fairytales feature wicked step*mothers* but so many actual news stories are about abusive step*fathers*. (Not that biological parents can't be as bad, but my point stands.)

I so agree with Helene. I've been a stepmother for 10 years also. My steps are 18, 23 and 25. The 25 year old has not been in our house since Christmas. She refused to attend our vow renewal after we specifically made it a day she could participate (she was away at college) instead of the day we wanted it. I've been told I sacrificed nothing (besides working full time while maintaining a house and basically catering to her needs while she was in our home). It's my fault she doesn't have a relationship with her father. My biggest sin? Wanting her to have a safe environment, to learn self care (cooking, cleaning, laundry, basic hygiene, etc). She still lives with her mother, left college 2 years ago without a degree, does not have a job or driving license. Last 3 times she came to our house, she smelled bad since she had not showered in a few days and her hair looked like she had just rolled out of bed.

Of course, I was a bad mother because I let my daughter stay out until 1 am on weekends, dye her hair blue, green, purple, etc and allowed her to make choices about her friends and clothes. My DD is now going to college, working full time and lives on her own. She talks to my exH a couple times a week (not her bio father) and talks to me almost every day. Guess I wasn't so bad after all.

Show me a bad stepmother and at least half the time you'll find a stepkid (and bio mother) that destroyed all that was good in the stepmother.

I have been a stepmom for 10 years to kids who have done everything from blame me for the divorce of their parents (a divorce, I'd like to add, that was 9 years before I met my husband AND their mother moved her boyfriend in immediately after my husband left her) to their father refusing to pay for them to go to college because of their terrible high school grades (less than a 2.0 for both girls). I've been excluded from wedding planning, but my wallet was certainly welcome. I've spent thousands of dollars on their birthday, but never gotten so much as a birthday card back. I've bought gifts for them, but never gotten a thank you. I've bent over backward to not be that evil stepmom that everyone hears about and guess what-- I'm still the evil stepmom. When my stepkids, 21 and 23 at the time, told me they wanted me to stay out of their lives, I gave them that. Now I am a hateful, cold person who doesn't do anything for them. Before that, I was trying too hard.

There is no one kind of stepmom out there. I had a couple of bad stepmoms, but most of them were nice women doing the best they could do with me and my siblings and our mothers and the social stigma of being second. Now I'm a stepmom, I can understand why one of my stepmoms said that she could never win when it came to us kids. I and a lot of other stepmoms have to deal with kids who take their anger about their parents' divorce out on us, because they can. Most of us are trying hard to make two families into one, whether we have children of our own or not, and most of us are met with hostility. I wouldn't wish this life on anyone-- even my own stepdaughters, who see their father only when they want something.

We aren't all evil, but maybe someone should write a book about stepkids who are doing their best to destroy their parents' second marriages.

As from the comments on here, I think the stepmom is the lightening rod for the issues between kids and their own parents. Easier to target stepmom than own mom or dad, and blame being a child of divorce for all of their issues.

"there is a fundamental flaw..." rather

It's so interesting how the bulk of the show was spent on supporting stepmothers with the presumption of their innocence and their victimization by "myths" yet the bulk of the comments reflect stepkids with terrible experiences with their stepmothers. I'll stand by my comment in the call: it seems like their is a fundamental flaw in the very construct of stepmotherhood and very possibly stepparenthood.

Funny how a child born to the step-parent can change other people's relationships. My stepfather was strict but fair too my sister and me for the first couple of years, but that changed after our (half-)brother was born.

Our brother could do no wrong. If something he did go wrong, someone had to get punished for it for "letting" him do it. While it's fine that we were expected to help take care of him, it was a bit much when my sister was expected to dress, bathe, feed, and generally entertain him while I had to do her homework so she didn't fall behind.

Not all stepmoms are created equal, which is why I am glad to hear about this book. I don't have firsthand experience, although my husband does. His parents divorced when he was in his late teens, and his dad was remarried to a woman who is the antithesis of the 'stepmonster'. (She herself had firsthand experience, when her widowed father remarried a woman who was, unfortunately, the stepmother we have come to know and loathe.)

DH always commented on how good his stepmom was to him -- in fact, her generosity was a bit overwhelming (it took some getting used to, and he realized she wasn't doing it to 'buy' anyone's love or attentions) -- and being more of a peer (10 years his senior) made it a slightly different, but good, relationship.

Even though my father in law is deceased (10 years this month), my 'other mother in law" (as I like to call her) and I are very close, even more so than my 'real' mother in law. She is also a loving "Nanny" to her stepsons' children and we couldn't imagine not having her in our lives. Guess we are lucky!

what is to be expected of the step parents families? I was always expected to call her family "aunt" "uncle" "grandma" "grandpa" from the very beginning.

As a loving and intuitive stepchild,
i actually had 2 horrific step-moms.
not every step-mom fear the myth of the bad step-mom.
losing a mother as a toddler was almost nothing compared to the woman my dad married when i was 10. and then he married another "winner" at 16.
thank goodness the first one left when i stood up for myself and i had to leave the 2nd when i turned legal age. too bad that has been a hard journey even into my late 40's.
i wish i had a step-mom who "got' me and was sensitive, sweet, open & loving...
i'm sure there are legions of great step-moms.
too bad that it didn't happen for me.

Very interesting conversation. After having six children, my parents divorced and remarried much more "suitable" spouses, and their second marriages were much happier. As the song goes, life is funny that way.

Thank you for this show. I have had a tumultuous relationship with my stepmom (with some compassion and recognition, things are better now). But because of this, I never wanted to become a stepmom as I always saw it as a no-win situation. Either the kids are mad at you for taking away dad's attention or you feel neglected because of your partner's attention on the kids. It's a really a hard balance and I think that insecurity is the cause of much of the hurt and anger that occurs between stepmom's and children.

I'm sorry your guest seems quite one sided and biased as of now. Perhaps I'm not giving enough time, but I don't think she can talk about a totality, of course there are some good and some bad. Your guess seems way to completely positive about stepmothers. I'm disappointed that you couldn't also have a psychologist on as well to take the other side.

In my experience the biggest problem with Stepmothers come when they have children of their own with the Father.

I'm on my third "mother". My first died when I was 3 the second when I was 8 and unfortunately the third is still around. She brought two children into the marriage and had two more with my father and has ALWAYS treated me like the outsider. To the point that she waled out of my wedding when her favorite daughter (the both of them complete narcissist) stormed out. I've been expected to excuse the both of them and to actually agree with my step mothers actions because "she was worried about HER daughter". She has been my step mother for 20 years. Am I not her daughter at this point too?

I am a stepmother to two young adults, ages 17 and 20. I've known them for a few years now but this year after their Dad and I got married, we all started living together (part time for his daughter, nearly full time with his son).

I do not feel it is appropriate for me to "parent" them (they are young adults AND they have a mother) but it is important for people who live together to agree on household roles, responsibilities, etc. My husband is hesitant to do so because, as I have witnessed throughout the years, part time parents are hesitant to create the "less preferred" environment. It's almost a competition between the households to be the easiest, most fun, etc. This results in almost no responsibility, respect, etc.

My choice is to do everything, accept a one way relationship where I give but do not receive (even the consideration) and grow resentful. If I express myself directly (something as simple as "would you mind setting the table?", it is not well received. If I prompt my husband to say something and it is not well received, my husband seems to imply that I am driving a wedge between him and his children. It's not that my husband and I have different values on responsibility or respect, it's just that he won't assert them and so any changes in the household are my FAULT. So, I guess I will have to live with a surfboard in my formal living room.

UGH!

Sadly, my stepmother and I have never gotten along. I wouldn't characterize her as the wicked stepmother, but she would routinely criticize me, saying I was sneaky, cheating, lazy, smelled bad, ugly, arrogant, stupid, etc., until I was in tears She is clearly uncomfortable around anyone except her siblings, her own children, and my father.

My father would plead with me on visits to not to do anything to upset her, but it seemed to be impossible. I'm sure that I could have been a better child, but I don't think I ever could have been a good enough child.

I'd be interested for the guest to speak on the issue of stepmothers with children from a previous marriage pitting their own children against their husbands children.

At a very tender age, having heard too many fairy tales, in a disagreement with my mother I said "You're not like a real mother, you're more like a stepmother".

I don't know if I had my mouth washed out with soap and sent to bed or if my mother collapsed in laughter, but this has since entered family myth status.

While I'm sure the guest is right that a lot of stepmothers try extra hard to not be an evil stepmother, I grew up with a stepmother who didn't want to be a stepmother, and didn't hide it. So there is, at least in my case, and in many cases of friends who have stepmothers, some truth to the myth. She was a legitimately bad parental figure, and I resent that my own real experiences are being talked about as if they are necessarily mythical. My own mother died when I was young and mothers day is pretty painful for me, and I think maybe this wasn't the best day for this topic.

My step mother was great till she had her own kids and then everything changed...her REAL kids have always been treated differently from college being paid for to touring colleges with them...

im 28 y/o, and i have dreams about my stepmother still - maybe 2x / week. she thought she was an awesome step-mom (i lived with my father & step-mom full time).

I haven't spoken to her in almost 2 yrs, although my sister is much closer to her.

i think the problem is, when you start out with a bad person to begin with, you get a bad step mom.

I came from a very dysfunctional biological family and had a fantastic step-mother. She happened to be my junior high English teacher as well. Her teacher 'persona' was somewhat 'wicked' - though definitively warm - and this seems to be what worked in our relationship at home. I respected her first and eventually we became dear friends and confidants (still are even though she and my dad divorced). I would even say that she 'saved my life' from the stress and anguish of my family situation.

I think the word mother-in-law is more fear inducing than stepmother!

A friend of mine almost became a stepmother, and she became the one solid adult figure in her ex-fiance's children's lives. Unfortunately I think the parents are often the people who create a negative atmosphere for the step parent.

Thanks to my borderline stepmother, who has two types of relationships: Adoring and absolute hatred, my father didn't come to two of his own children's weddings.Cinderella could have been written about her.