A few weeks back I wrapped up a group coaching program I ran, where I worked with 10 stepmoms over the course of four weeks.
Even though every stepmom had a unique stepfamily situation, one of the most common trends in our conversations was GUILT.
These stepmoms felt guilty for feeling the way they were feeling about their stepmom life, their stepkids, the ex, their dynamic and the way their family has turned out.
They felt guilty for secretly wishing they were in a first family and didn’t have life dictated by reminders of partners first marriage.
Guilty for wondering what life would feel like if they weren’t a stepmom.
Guilty for wishing their stepkids were their own
Guilty for wondering what it would be like if they didn’t marry a man with kids
Guilty for secretly enjoying the time when kids were at their mom.
Guilty for not feeling the way they thought they should feel about their stepkids and blended family life
I could go on but for the sake of time, I’ll just say, they all felt guilty.
This isn’t just a common trend for the stepmoms in this particular coaching group. In The Exclusive Stepmom Community I talk to hundreds of stepmoms every week – all of these emotions are common. Everyone has felt this way at some point in time.
If you find yourself feeling this way too,
Cut yourself some slack
You’re human
This is hard
it’s natural to dream of an easier way
Be kind to yourself
ALLOW yourself to have those feelings
hang out in that place for a bit
If you want to stop feeling so guilty, you need to acknowledge and process everything that is causing the guilt.
That is the goal.
When you stop feeling guilty and (not so) simply accept the experience you’re having, it gets easier. In fact, you end up having less of the feelings that you USED to feel guilty about.
To start, please know it’s common. It’s universal. You’re not a bad stepmom. You’re not a bad wife. You’re not a bad person.
If it weren’t for the stigma that stepmoms still have to deal with, all the stepmoms would be talking about it.
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