“I Was a Disney Dad”: Partner Undermining, Loyalty Binds & Stepfamily Repair

For stepmum support, tools, workshops and coaching, visit: https://stepmumspace.com

Yes… Katie finally let a man on the podcast! And what a conversation it is.
 If you’ve ever wished your partner understood your experience better — or wondered why he parents the way he does — this episode will give you powerful insight from the other side of the stepfamily dynamic.

In this episode, Katie talks to Tim, who brings a rare double perspective: he grew up with a stepmum, and he is now the parent of a daughter with a stepmum of her own. Tim is frank, funny and refreshingly honest about the emotional rollercoaster of trying to be a good dad, a good partner, and a good man inside a complicated family setup.

Tim opens up about:

• Realising he was a “Disney Dad” — and what it cost his family
• The moments that forced him to face uncomfortable truths about his parenting
• Trying to balance loyalty to his daughter with loyalty to his partner
• What it’s like to love two people who sometimes need different things from you
• How being a widower added layers of complexity he never expected
• The work he and his (now) wife have done to rebuild trust, teamwork and unity
• What he wishes stepmums knew — and what he wants men in this situation to understand

This is a warm, vulnerable, and eye-opening episode — one that will help stepmums feel seen, partners feel understood, and couples feel more like a team.

In This Episode We Explore:

• What being a “Disney Dad” looks like from the inside
• The emotional bind dads feel between their partner and their child
• How widower dynamics affect stepfamily relationships
• Why stepping up isn’t the same as stepping back from your kids
• What helps when partners aren’t on the same page
• How stepfamilies can rebuild connection after conflict
• What real accountability looks like for dads in blended homes

If You Need Support
Book a free introductory coaching call: https://www.stepmumspace.com/booking

Learn more about Katie’s work: https://www.stepmumspace.com

Keywords:
Disney Dad, dad perspective stepfamily, widower stepfamily, stepmum feeling unsupported, stepfamily dynamics, blended family parenting, stepdad insight, stepmum podcast, co-parenting challenges, stepmum support

Helpful Links:
Stepmum Space website: https://stepmumspace.com

Instagram: @stepmumspace
1:1 Coaching & Couples Coaching: https://stepmumspace.com

You’re not alone — and you don’t have to figure out stepfamily dynamics without support.

Ready for structured support?

If you’re living with anticipatory anxiety before contact, walking on eggshells at home, or constantly replaying conversations long after they’ve happened, Back in Control is my structured programme for stepmums navigating complex stepfamily dynamics.

It’s designed to help you move out of chronic vigilance and into steadiness inside your own home.

Learn more:
 www.stepmumspace.com/back-in-control

Transcript

Katie South 0:06

Hello, I'm Katie and this is Stepmum Space, where each week we'll 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 little bit better, this is the place for you. Now my guest today is Tim. Yes, I have allowed a man on the show. When Tim got in touch with me, I was really impressed by his openness and his willingness to self-reflect. He told me pretty much straight off the bat that he was a recovering Disney dad. So I thought you'd like to hear what he had to say. I hope you enjoy the conversation. So, Tim, thank you so much for joining me today. I was like so happy when you got in touch with me because I do know that there's a lot of women out there who listen with their partners or whose partners also listen and get a really interesting insight to kind of life as a stepmum. And I think sometimes there are things that we want to talk about with our partners, but when it's your own family, it can be so emotionally triggering. So I was really happy when you got in touch and said, Hey, I'm I'm a dad, I'm married to a stepmum. You also had a stepmum growing up. So a really interesting um side to things. So why don't you just start by telling us a little bit about your family when you were younger and how you how you came to have a stepmum?

Tim the Disney Dad! 1:32

Yeah, sure. Hi. It feels a long time ago. So I'm one of three. I've got an older sister and a younger brother. And about the age of 12, my parents separated. And as normally happens, like the kids stayed with my mum. And that that was you kind of just, yeah, okay, yeah, you go along with it. It is what it is. And then probably after about a year, I can look back now as an adult and probably articulate it better than I could as a 12, 13-year-old boy. But I just got a sense of like, you know what, I think it'd be better if I went to live with my dad. And what was my stepmum? What is my stepmum? She still is. They've been happily married for many, many, many years.

Katie South 2:08

And would your parents break up fairly amicable?

Tim the Disney Dad! 2:12

Yeah, I mean, I think again, it's that thing, isn't it? You know, as a as a 12-year-old and as a kid, you're not really looking too much at the bigger picture of things. What what is presented to you, you you take as truth a little bit, and you're like, okay, yeah, this, yeah, that seems fair. That seems like a good plan. That's good. I think it was, you know, obviously, my mum was uh exceptionally hurt, and I think my dad sought to walk it well and kind of make sure that we as kids were okay, that my mum was set up okay. But obviously, there was hurt being processed, and there was bewilderment, a little bit of like, oh, how did we get here? Like it probably happened quite quickly, and so you know, you ended school term in one setup and ended the end of the summer holidays in a different setup. So we're like, okay, yeah, I wasn't really expecting that change.

Katie South 3:00

Massive life change for you. Absolutely. Yeah, and so it was so it was your dad who left your mum.

Tim the Disney Dad! 3:05

Yeah, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah. I moved to be with them, and that's where my as a 13-year-old, my world was kind of opened up to the world of stepmum hood, or however you want it, stepmum mumming.

Katie South 3:17

I really liked how you said that with real power, like step-mum hood, like you know, we're superheroes.

Tim the Disney Dad! 3:23

You know, I I haven't been I haven't been bribed by my wife to say nice things, but I do want to big up the the stepmums. I think as a kid, you don't sit there and imagine, oh, when I when I'm older, I really want to be a stepmum. For a lot of people, it's not always the kind of the original plan. Um, I always make a point in my current context and say, no, you're not you're not plan B, you're the new plan A. But yeah, so at the age of 13, I went to live with my dad and my stepmum. And to be honest, it was exactly what I needed. I needed to be parented by more than one as a guy. I probably needed to be parented by a dad a little bit, and that's that's not to say in any way that a mum can't parent a guy. I'm not saying that. It's just I know where I was at and I know what I needed, and I think I needed a kind of my dad's and something else. And actually, that that was a step-momp it's that kind of uh, well, if you can't have two, like you maybe you could have like one plus something, and actually, maybe I got like 1.9. I love my stepmum to bits, I love my mum to bits. On my wedding days, I've sought to always honour both of them on my recent marriage. My mum, my step-mum, and my my wife's mum all signed the the registry marriage certificate because we wanted to be like, you know, like this is these are the women who have impacted our lives. Because when I, you know, when I subsequently got married, again, I wanted to be clear at that point. It's like, you know, stepmums are are to be held in this kind of high regardless thing. So yeah, like amazing.

Katie South 4:48

Made me feel quite emotional when you were talking about them all signing the register, then.

Tim the Disney Dad! 4:52

I think it's I think sometimes it's just being deliberate about making a statement that says, no, this is this is what we want to do. I think sometimes stepmums sometimes just by nature end up graciously taking a bit of a backseat and going, okay, all right. And I think but sometimes I think where appropriate is about pushing forward to being like, no, no, let's recognise, let's go, you're worthy of praise here. Like you should be recognized and thanked. And so that was just one little thing we did in our wedding of saying, like, you know, you've been a big part of my life, I want to recognise this.

Katie South 5:22

And I think a lot of the child's, and in your case, obviously adult's relationship with a stepmum is kind of defined by how the mum views the stepmum and the explicit or implicit permission that the mum gives the child to form a relationship with a stepmum. So when you decided to move in with your dad, how did your mum take that and how was your relationship with her kind of subsequently?

Tim the Disney Dad! 5:48

I think it's one of those things that when I when I talked about it with my dad and kind of in later years, he reflected back and kind of said, Well, actually, your mum was like, Oh, well, I thought that might happen. Not in a kind of like, oh, well, obviously he's gonna go with you, but just a kind of like, yeah, I think that might be best. As a as a parent now, I'm very I often say, you know what, this is the first time I've ever parented a 13-year-old girl, and so I'm not gonna get it all right. And so I look back now and can be like, that was the first time she'd ever parented a 13-year-old boy. Let's give her a bit of grace. And actually, there was so much going on in her world. Obviously, she had just separated from her husband and she'd just started a new job, which uh as a primary school teacher, which kind of threw all of her life into that. So I think, you know, as a parent, you want what's best for your kids, and sometimes, and I think she had to, I think she would accept in this moment, it's like actually the best thing for me in that moment was to go and live with my dad and my stepmum. It's what I needed in that moment. And so as a 13-year-old boy, I was probably a little bit selfish about it, and I was like, well, it's about me, isn't it? Like, I've got to look after me, and I think, you know, maybe I didn't walk it so well as a kid, and kind of I didn't really consider at the time the impact it had on my mum. I think now I do, and and in a weird way, it's since I've been remarried that actually my relationship with my mum has grown even greater, and I think that's been a real blessing to kind of see that grow again and stuff. So, yeah, at the time I think she was very gracious, she was very understanding, and I think could see that it was good and right for me, but it can't have been easy for her to kind of see her one of her kids kind of move out, kind of only a couple of years after her husband had moved out and stuff here.

Katie South 7:30

And your dad was already living with your stepmum. So, did he form a relationship with her quite soon after separating?

Tim the Disney Dad! 7:38

Uh my stepmum was the reason for the separation as such, and so it's yeah, soon after they kind of they were in a relationship and then married and so hats off to your mum because it would have been really easy for her in that situation.

Katie South 7:50

Possibly she did feel angry and hurt and upset and all those things, but it's amazing that she didn't pass that on to you.

Tim the Disney Dad! 7:56

Yeah, absolutely, and I and I, you know, and I respect her hugely for that. I think you know, there would have been a lot of internal hurt, especially on my dad's part, you know, betrayal of her. But at the same point, she'd always want to recognise the fact that you're like, Yeah, but you know, he is he is your dad. I don't want to tarnish your relationship with him, and equally, you know, you've you've got to do what you can and build what you can relationship-wise. So, yeah, she was very gracious in that, yeah.

Katie South 8:24

And so you were 13, and then you mentioned you had two siblings who stayed with your mum.

Tim the Disney Dad! 8:29

Yeah, yeah. Did you go between houses for kind of weekend visits and things, yeah. I think I had friends obviously down where I used to live, so I'd go back and see them occasionally and go back and see my brother, my sister, my mum. I think my bedroom eventually became an office, which is like, yeah, fair enough. Like, why wouldn't you?

Katie South 8:44

Um see, that's interesting that you say that because I think there's a lot, and I I speak to a lot of women who kind of like the bedroom setup is quite the big deal. And obviously, it sends quite a message to a child when they do have a bedroom and suddenly they don't have a bedroom. And hearing you kind of just saying, then, oh yeah, why wouldn't you? You know, it makes me wonder as step mums and dads, do we overanalyse it a little bit too much about how the kids are going to feel about the bedroom situation? Or actually, is it as much of a massive deal? I mean, I guess it depends on the child and the situation.

Tim the Disney Dad! 9:20

Yeah, I think I think it's a I think it is a child. I'll see at the time I was like 13, 14, I think. And I guess because a lot of the decision to move to my dad's was mine, I I kind of had to own it and be like, naturally, look, my my life is there, my my I imagine if I was a lot younger and it was spending time in different places and that a little bit being torn between, I'd want a safe place at both. And I think you know, when you're 13 and 14 as a guy, you're not keeping your bedroom the tidiest anyway. So if you've only got one bedroom a tidy, great.

Katie South 9:52

Like results, yeah, exactly.

Tim the Disney Dad! 9:56

I didn't need a shrine to me kept.

Katie South 9:58

And did you manage to maintain a good relationship with your siblings, even though you weren't living with them?

Tim the Disney Dad! 10:55

Yeah, I think I would I would observe they have a closer bond with themselves. Like so, my brother and my sister are closer than I probably independently am with either of them, but then you know, as things have as life has gone through different seasons and things, and obviously they've moved out and have their own lives and own worlds, you know, you you grow new relationships in those ways. The the flip side of it is that I I have the closest relationships with my three stepsisters who are they're probably like a bit older, so I think my youngest stepsister's probably 50, so like seven or eight years older than me. Um, I have more relationship with that side and with their kids and my some of my daughter's friends, with like you know, you can get really called is it a step cousin or is it like I don't know, we talk about that.

Katie South 11:42

I just call them cousins because I'm like I can't coach.

Tim the Disney Dad! 11:45

It's like it's a cousin when it gets to that point, it's like no, you've you've got 50 cousins, just own it. What they technically are, and that works well. And so yeah, it it did affect my relationship with my brother and sister, and you know, in hindsight, I look back and go, well, if I'd known that then would I have done it? And I th I still maintain that actually what I needed for me was to go and live with my dad and my stepmum because that that gave me the security and kind of foundations to do teenage and then you know GCSEs and things from.

Katie South 12:18

So and you mentioned that you had three stepsisters. So when you moved in with your dad and stepmum, were they also living in the house at the time?

Tim the Disney Dad! 12:26

No, they'd all they'd all moved out by then, so there was never any weird dynamic of that. They were as because they're a little bit older. So I think my closest stepsister in age, she had moved out. It was almost as if she moved out and a room became available, and I'm like, oh, well uh, I'll give that this. There was no crossover. We see each other, but even even then, it's weird, like you know, as a as a 13-year-old boy, you don't really know how to relate to kind of 20-year-old plus women, like it's come uh it's a strange world, isn't it? So you don't they weren't really sisters at that point, they were just kind of almost I don't want to say aunties, but just kind of older family women, let's say.

Katie South 13:07

We call them a cousin, let's call everyone a cousin.

Tim the Disney Dad! 13:10

Throw them in, throw them in. So I had three older cousins, who now I'll call my sisters, like yeah.

Katie South 13:16

So I'm sure there's a documentary about that sort of stuff.

Tim the Disney Dad! 13:20

Oh, exactly. Yeah, for sure.

Katie South 13:22

Um, it's interesting because when I talk to women about those different age gaps, and you think, well, will we grow up close? Well, we won't, and so little of it seems to be defined by genders or age gaps. It's just whether you click and whether I think the parents facilitate that relationship. So I know with my first son, he's nearly 13, and the children that I had in my second marriage are six and five. And I never really thought the two boys would necessarily be that close. And now they're sort of six and twelve, and they go and play football in the garden for hours. Like, you know, they love it, and yeah, yeah, sort of watch it and just think, Oh, I'm so lucky because that was always my worry that my older one would be like, Oh, who are these little jokers? And I'm sure he does feel like that sometimes as well, but also there is that closeness, so yeah, it's really nice.

Tim the Disney Dad! 14:14

And I think it I think it comes down to values. I think it's what do you and it might just be as simple as you know, as a 12-year-old, six-year-old boy, you value playing football in the garden, and actually it's like, oh, me too. And it's like, great. So we we do that, and that that's what you do. I think for me, with like one of my stepsisters, you know, our values of how we want to do life and how we parent and what we believe are very similar, and so actually our relationship is now built on that, and so we hang out, and it's like, yeah, I get it, I understand it, and it it is always weird, chat. It's like I'll say, Oh, my daddy and your mum, and she'll be like, Yeah, my mum and your dad. And it's like, but yeah, it it's what you value that brings you together, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katie South 14:55

I look at the relationship that my youngest stepdaughter and my eldest son have, and obviously they're not biologically related at all, but my son's told me independently she's really cool, like most guys are really annoying, but she's actually really cool, and I know she kind of gets on with him well, so that's it's really nice to see because you never know. And I think you know, we've had our fair share of challenges in our relationship, but our kids have always got on well, which has made it so much easier. Um, so I'm interested in obviously when you moved in with your dad and step-mum, your step-mum's kids had flown the nest. People always say to stepmums, and God, it makes us want to stab the person in front of us. That's a joke, by the way. You knew what you were getting into. So your stepmum obviously knew she was getting into a relationship with a guy with three kids. She possibly didn't expect one of them to end up living there full time when her kids have already flown the nest. So, how was she with that when you moved in?

Tim the Disney Dad! 15:51

Firstly, yeah, I think that's nonsense that you know what you're getting into, even if you have some premonition of what it might be like, from what I've learned and experienced and what I'm living now, it's completely different. It's it is a different world, it is a different mindset. It is a it's like you've been juggling balls and now you've got to juggle a pineapple as well. And it's it's it's it's different. And suddenly something can catch you and be like, I wasn't expecting it to be like that. Well uh she was extremely gracious. I think one of the things I've always commented is that her compassion and empathy shown towards me was unsurpassed. It was she had parented her three girls, she knew how to parent and parent well, and you know, this was the first time she had had to parent a 13-year-old boy that that wasn't hers. I probably smelt a bit and was a bit like wasn't fun to have around, but she was just extremely gracious and loving. You know, I imagine because you know, the cur you peer behind the curtain when you're a grown-up, don't you? Then behind the scenes, she would probably be going to her dad, just can you just just just give him a slap? And occasionally I'd probably received a slap, not knowing it it was kind of via my dad from her. That's good, that's fine. Like that that's how life works. I think she was you know extremely gracious. We had essentially moved into her house. If she was annoyed and frustrated with me, she hid it really well.

Katie South 17:17

That's amazing. I mean, I I definitely don't hide it well when I'm annoyed with my biological children. So um good for her. There's only so many times that you can smile when your kids go megs when they kick a football through your uh honestly. Anything like we don't have footballs in the house, but anything that they can find that's will roll or whatever. If I'm kicking dinner, the two of them will like watch me and they'll be like, Yes, do it, do it, Megs, and like the first few times it's funny, and then I'm like, darlings, can you stop this, please? It's all good fun now, eh?

Speaker 17:54

Love it, love it.

Katie South 17:55

So amazing that you had that experience growing up, and I think you know, brilliant that your mum was able to encourage that relationship and give you permission to have that. And I think the fact that you had them both there on your wedding doing such an important job speaks volumes for them both and you and your dad. So obviously, that shaped your view of stepmothers growing up. Tell us a little bit about how you came to be in a situation where your child had a stepmum.

Tim the Disney Dad! 18:24

Yeah, for sure. So I was previously married, so was married to my first wife uh for about 15 years. Uh, sadly, she died after uh cancer in early 2020. She'd had she'd been ill for about three years. And so I had my my my daughter with her, and so my first wife died in 2020, and that was obviously in a season there where you really have to step up in that as a as a dad and kind of be like, right, okay, I need to lead the family through this and kind of like okay, be there for be there for my wife, be there for my daughter and I. I read a horrible statistic early on when my first wife got ill that basically said something like 90% of men whose wives get a terminal diagnosis, the the husbands leave within two years. And I was like, I okay, well, I don't want that to be me, but equally I'm not arrogant enough to say that it couldn't be because I don't know what life's about to throw at me. And so I I threw myself into counselling and said, look, you know, I've got to make sure I'm okay. I've got to make sure that I'm I'm not about to unravel and hurt my my my first wife and hurt my daughter. So I threw myself into counselling and threw myself into just kind of making sure that I had kind of I referred to it in this time as as reading the next chapter before we got there. So when my first wife was ill, I wanted to know what might happen next, what what could happen next. And you know, as it progressed and as she kind of moved closer to death, I'd you know, I'd read up on lots of things about okay, well, what what actually happens when someone dies and all these things, and you know, read lots of things so that when we got there, it wasn't kind of like oh crap, what's happening? I'm like, okay, we're here, we're there. And I think what that had meant is that actually I had um I had done a lot of my grieving and processing kind of in parallel to things working through. And so when when my first wife died, um you know, I remember saying to my daughter that that morning, it was that kind of for for a few months we'd been holding our breath, kind of going, and then we kind of went uh not with any sense of relief, but just with a sense of like, okay, we can we can we can take deep breaths now and kind of just calm down and like face what's in front of us. And even whilst my first wife was still with us, I remember driving in the car with my daughter once and her casually saying, Dad, do you think that when mommy dies you'll get remarried? And I'm like, uh, probably, like I imagine. I I I quite like being married, I think it'd be a good idea, but you know, maybe one day move forward a few months. Quite soon, quite uh quickly after my my first wife died, I I met somebody started in the middle of a pandemic, started chatting to somebody who I knew through family friends, a conversation kind of started up, and then we we started talking more and more, and things moved on and things developed, and we we got married, uh, which was uh incredible and a massive uh blessing to me. And uh I we we watched a really cheesy film recently with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum called The Lost City or something, and there's a re there's a really cheesy quote at the end of it where that she says something in Latin that basically says something is sweeter after suffering. It I might have misquoted that a little bit, but it kind of says something is sweeter after suffering. For me, it was like, yeah, I I feel I'm I feel like my my current wife gets in some ways a better version of me than my first wife ever got because I I've learned stuff and I've walked stuff and I've I've been through things, but I think also there's a case of having been through a season of suffering. I'm now in a season of being massively blessed, and uh it is it tastes that much sweeter and it tastes that much better. But yeah, so I have a daughter, I have a wife, and so yeah, I have a stepmum in my life again. I have two stepmums in my life now.

Katie South 22:30

How old was your daughter when her mother passed away? 10. And then you remarried fairly soon after. So you've got a 10-year-old daughter who's um just lost her mum, yeah, obviously has known that this is coming, and it sounds like you know, you did an amazing job of stepping up and supporting her through that. Interesting that she asked you the question. So it's obviously something that was like ticking through her little brain. How did she respond? Firstly, when you said, Yeah, I'd like to do that, and then secondly, when you started dating your wife.

Tim the Disney Dad! 23:02

In in lots of ways, as the relationship developed, she was our biggest fan. She commented to others that she could see that my wife, well, what at the time, my yeah, it it it always felt quite strange as a 40 something to her, my girlfriend. I but that was the language you'd that would be the language you'd use as a kid. It's like, you know, that my my to-be wife, my daughter could see that she made me exceptionally happy. My daughter could see that actually I was in a better place because of it. And I think she could see that I think quite early on she was running the maths in her head and going, so uh is uh is she uh are you gonna get married? Is this uh is this how this is gonna work? And and you you you kind of wanna I always said with my daughter throughout all of the like illness with her mum, it's like I'll always tell you the truth, but I'll give you the headlines, but I'm not gonna give you the whole article necessarily. And so I'd never ruled anything out, and I never I said, you know, I said, yeah, there's a chance we could get married, but you know, you'll you'll be the the second person to know. Like I mean you won't you won't be the first person to know, you'll be the second person to know because that's kind of the way it needs to be. And so she was always a big fan. I think quite early on, she we as much as I can use language at the time to say, you know, we're never gonna your mum dying is obviously gonna leave a huge, massive hole that we're never gonna fill. I would say we're gonna grow other things around it that will help to support you, but we'll never fill that gap. I think there's always a there's always gonna be a thing in my daughter's brain that was like, yeah, but you know, maybe like a stepmom could maybe fill a big gap of that. And I think probably quite early on put my my wife on a bit of a a pedestal to say, okay, well, this is this is how it's gonna be, and she's gonna do this and this and this and this. And as a kind of 12, 11, 12, 13-year-old girl who's lost their mum, and suddenly there's a new parent, motherly figure on the it's easy to kind of join up some dots and be like, oh, well, maybe this could be this and this could be this.

Katie South 24:57

And did your I guess girlfriend at the time, although I agree with you, it does make us teenagers, did she have children of her own?

Tim the Disney Dad! 25:07

No, she didn't. No, so the whole kind of parenting thing was a new a new thing. I don't think at any point did she sit around as a kid going, Oh, yeah, I think my life plan will be actually uh what I'll do is again, I'll uh when I grow up, I want to be a stepmum. Um you know, it's the the the Barbie stepmum hasn't kind of come out yet, as far as I see it.

Katie South 25:25

Oh, you've given me a really good business idea though. I'm already halfway through writing my uh pantomime about the wonderful stepmother.

Tim the Disney Dad! 25:32

Oh mate, I'll be there. If you need if you need a dame to play that role, like I'm I'm I'm there. But I don't know what I've signed off for doing that, but yeah. So yeah, I you know, so there was no my wife was extremely gracious. I mean, she was like, you know, actually, I I married you and I wanted to be with you. I think for her as well, it was just it was a there's certain power dynamics that are sometimes need to be broken and sometimes need to be established differently. I think I was always very clear when my my first wife had died, and when it was dad and daughter and girlfriend, I I was having to say, like, you know, at the moment my daughter is my priority because we might not happen, we might not get married. So my my daughter has to be my priority. And you know, that that's quite a weird thing to like build a build a relationship on. But I was very adamant and clear in saying that, you know, at the point we get married, you are my priority. This might sound old-fashioned, but I think you know, kids in a way are often they're the fruit that you have, whether you're married or whether you're not you have kids, they're the fruit that you have, they're not like they're something that you produce, then they don't then become your, I don't believe they become your main focus, but for me, like my my focus has to be my wife and priorities, it has to be my wife. And so as the relationship grew, it is weird because in some ways my daughter was my priority, but I said, no, no, no, at the moment we are married, you are my priority, and at that moment, there is a there's a weird power play happened because I'm having to be deliberate and saying, no, no, look, you're my priority, but also in saying to my daughter, I still love you to bits, and you, you know, your place in my heart hasn't changed, and you need to trust me that you know, me being married and me being with my wife and putting her as priority will do you good, and we will be able to together parent you better if I put us as number one and you know, you as number two.

Katie South 27:31

That does sound like it makes sense, but it sounds like quite a sudden shift. So for your wife to kind of be thinking, okay, well, I I'm gonna be engaged to this guy, he's telling me it's gonna be like this, but I don't know that. And then for your daughter, things kind of changing perhaps quite a bit when you guys got married. You mentioned that she was your sort of biggest fan in the early days. Did that continue after you guys got married?

Tim the Disney Dad! 27:59

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was they would say, so my daughter and my wife would say there was a moment when we came back from honeymoon. Let's be clear, my daughter didn't come on a honeymoon. That I don't think that's ever a good idea. Um, but there's that moment where we all came back from honeymoon. I think we sat in the house for the first time. So my wife hadn't moved in full-time before we got married, and so we sat in the house, and there's that moment where like I'd gone to the kitchen and they kind of looked at each other with a knowing like uh uh uh okay, this this is how it is now, and this is this is how it is moving forward, and this is you know, you're gonna be there every moment, and you know, I'm not gonna get a moment's rest from you, am I? Both ways, and at that point, they needed to build a new dynamic and a new relationship. And I think at this point, hands up, I think I probably took my foot off the gas a little bit at that point. I I know you're recording it, but the the viewers won't see the camera. I would stare down the camera at this point and said, Hi, my name's Tim, and I am a Disney dad. You know, I will I will give that sentiment to say, and and I've only realized some of this recently, and I think, you know, and I I thank and appreciate people like yourselves who have shone light on the world that we live in. I think for me, with my my daughter, having parented her through, you know, not glamming it up and I'm not looking for simple, having parented her through some of the the darkest moments you can do as a parent of having to tell your daughter your mum's got cancer, having to tell your daughter your mum's gonna die, having to tell your daughter, like go and pick her up and be like, your mum's died. You're you're kind of like, I'm I'm kind of done with this now. I'm I'm done with telling her the bad stuff. Why didn't I just tell you the good stuff? Why didn't I just sing and dance and make a song about it?

Katie South 29:46

You're properly auditioning for this dame role now. You're showing me this voice, the singing, this canto. We've got until Christmas 23.

Tim the Disney Dad! 29:54

I'm there, I'm there. It'd be beautiful. Uh but I think I definitely because from quite early on, I was very much like, you know, my my wife is now your stepmom, and so we are gonna parent you together. There are gonna be some things that I will do, there are gonna be some things, and let's be clear, because you're becoming a woman, and because I've now got a woman in the house, I'm gonna take a big step out of, and you can go to her with it. And actually, that's great for you. I think what I did a lot of the time was I I said, you know, we whilst behind the scenes and in our life we would choose how we were gonna parent, I would maybe defer some of that parenting to my wife, and we created a scenario where I was all smiles and jazz hands and giggles, and hey, isn't this great? Hey, I've got a wife and I've got a daughter, and everything's fine. And they're like, Yeah, great. And after after a while, we reached a point where I'm like, uh, they're struggling with this. Oh wait, as Taylor Swift would say, hi, it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. And that's me owning it and saying, like, I need to step up here and be, you know, I need to, yes, put my wife as priority, but also I need to be the parent who co-parents with my wife and step up and be the bad guy. Because, you know, I've got many, many years of evidence and proof of my daughter seeing me and being like, Well, I know that you love me and I know that you care for me. And so when you're making me clean up and re-clean up because I haven't done a good enough job, I know you love me, so it's fine. Whereas my wife and my daughter, they haven't got that sounds cheesy, like relational capital that they haven't built it up to kind of say, we haven't built this yet, and so you're trying to put too much on us.

Katie South 31:38

Yeah.

Tim the Disney Dad! 31:38

Yeah.

Katie South 31:39

And you know, it's so good to hear that because obviously the classic line, again, and I don't believe in this, and having had a child psychologist on the show who says don't believe in it, I feel more comfortable saying that. But uh people will often say, you know, treat all the kids the same. And in a lot of situations, there are when there are kids from sort of previous marriages and then kids from other previous marriages. I know in my situation, I couldn't treat my son and my stepdaughters the same because I could say things to my son that probably sounded pretty harsh, like clean clean your room absolutely stinks. Come on, get back in there and do it properly.

Speaker 32:16

Yeah.

Katie South 32:17

And he can take that. But if I spoke to my stepdaughters like that, they would feel so upset and so hurt and like it was an attack on them because we hadn't built up that, you know, line. But then you're sitting here saying, But hang on, if I say to them, Oh, hi, hi, girls, you've done such an amazing job, would you mind just picking up those pants or whatever it might be? My son's in there thinking, I don't know, why am I getting the kiddie gloves and I'm getting like get back in a stink bomb? So it's so difficult to navigate. And I think that's when it does come down to actually if you get the to begin with for sure, the biological parents stepping up and doing that disciplining, then great. But what you hear a lot of the time is people will say that the biological parents should do all the discipline. But to your point earlier, you get a lot of Disney dads who are like, Oh, I'm not doing that. And in most cases, who don't live with their children full time, who are saying, But I don't want to be telling them off all the time. So I noticed you said, you know, you came to that realization that you were being Jazhand's Disney dad while your wife was doing the rough end of parenting.

Speaker 33:21

Yes.

Katie South 33:21

What was it you who came to that realisation, or was it something that was sort of suggested to you by your wife?

Tim the Disney Dad! 33:28

What on earth do you mean? Um are you saying she might have listened to some kind of really helpful podcast that maybe gave her language to what she was feeling?

Speaker 33:36

Maybe.

Tim the Disney Dad! 33:37

Perhaps, and you didn't he didn't pay me to say that. Yeah, I mean, there's two things. I think I I was able to, in my own words, I would refer to me having biological grace, but also biological blind spots. Where I would see, you know, my daughter, I would have biological grace and be like, yeah, but she's my little girl, and you know, I've had to walk her through the most horrid things. So let let's let's give her let's give her a bit of grace here. Where my wife's capacity is like, yeah, okay, but she's been a she's being a little madam. I'm like, yeah, yeah, but come on. But equally then she would be able to point out what I'd call my biological blind spots of being like stuff I wouldn't see, and she's like, you know, most 13-year-old girls are pretty manipulative, and I'm like, yeah, but not mine. I don't think you really understand my mine, isn't that? And so I I'd kind of I'd seen all of these things, and I had spotted in myself my what I refer to as biological grace and biological blind spots, and as my wife understandably kind of tried to articulate and understand how she was feeling because I think she was like, I feel like you know, I feel like I'm a bitch, and I'm like, No, you're not, you'll you'll live in the most weird world out there, and so she started to find resources and read stuff and kind of she'd bring stuff to me and be like, or I'd get screenshots of Instagram posts and be like, Does this sound familiar? And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, maybe. And so more and more, you know, I I was beginning to kind of put words to what I understood. And so yeah, she was the first one that obviously I didn't come up with the phrase Disney Dad, and anyway, uh, she was the first one that obviously said, Well, you know, there's this, and then I was like, Oh, wait, so what what what you're actually saying is here that you know I'm uh uh that might be me. And I'm like, Yeah, okay, yeah, I can own that. We then had a moment, I think, as as I said before, I I've I've put myself through counselling, and my wife has put herself through counseling, and my my my daughter hasn't. We're a big fan of seeing where we're at and talking stuff through. And so I, you know, I sat down as a family with them and owned my mistake and owned to my daughter and said, you know, I've I haven't been pulling my weight here and haven't been stepping up properly, and only to my wife apologise and being like, I've put you in an impossible situation here, right? I'm I'm gonna be the bad guy for a while, and I'm gonna take up and take on the parenting and the bad stuff. I'm gonna give you space to grow a relationship. Yeah, funny aside, after that, my daughter's then like, actually, I don't know if I need much counselling anymore. I don't really got as much to talk about. And I'm like, okay, so uh I'm saving money now as well. Um and then and then just just just a couple of days ago, we sat with some old friends, uh kind of my old friends, and we're talking through the scenario, and they're you know, these are friends that have kind of walked this really closely with me and so as my wife dying, and how through that season my role was to make my daughter feel safe and loved. And so for a five-year period of uh illness and just afterwards, I made my daughter feel safe and loved. My priority wasn't to make her feel safe and loved and disciplined, like it was to make her feel safe and loved. And I'm coming out five years out of this journey, and now she knows she's safe and loved, and now actually she's feeling pretty disciplined as well, but it comes from a place of love, and and they were laughing and being like, Oh, yeah, I wondered when you're gonna get around to doing that. And I think now it is that thing by doing that and making her feel safe. Like I said to her, you know, you only discipline the people you love, you only you only do that. It's like the cheesiest of phrases and things that I love is that you know, our job for kids in whatever circumstance is the whole thing, you give them roots and you give them wings, and it's like you make them feel as grounded as they can be, and you want to make them feel that they can fly as high as they can, but know that you'll catch them at any moment, and so I want to do that, and sometimes she needs to be pruned a little bit, and sometimes she needs to be disciplined, but it's so that yeah, she can, and sometimes she flies a bit closer to the sun, and I have to pull her right in and ground her, but actually she knows she can and she knows she's safe to do it, and actually, with my wife, we do it well. But at the moment, I'm the bad guy.

Katie South 37:50

But I think as well, you know, you talked earlier about the fact that children are the fruits, or you know, my my dad uses the same analogy that you do a lot. And my and my mum will always say, Well, your children are only lent to you, so you have to focus on your relationship with your partner because your kids will leave, they will form their own adult independent lives. So I do think that whole thing that can happen in step families where children can hold all the power, and the relationship is all about the parent and the child can be incredibly damaging to the to the couple relationship. Um, and it's no wonder that you know the statistics of step families lasting the distance aren't particularly great. But I think when you can prioritize that couple relationship, and particularly as you've done, be really self-aware and be actually willing to go. Do you know what? I have done that. So I'm interested. There will be a lot of women listening who are like, Oh my god, this guy is amazing. You'll have your own, it's lies, you'll have your own little fan club going on.

Tim the Disney Dad! 38:50

No, okay, it's all right. I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you my number of my wife. You can call her and be like, he's really not, he's a bit of a douche. But he he he's all right, yeah.

Katie South 38:59

So if there's a woman listening now who's thinking my partner is a Disney dad, but every time I try and have the conversation with him, it just ends up in a massive argument. What would be your advice to her on how to approach that in the right way?

Tim the Disney Dad! 39:15

To echo things I've said, I think firstly, there's no such thing as a stepwife, you know, it's husband and wife, and so that is priority, that is number one, and essentially sometimes is you know, the the vows that you say when you get married, if you do the traditional ones, it's like you know, it's love, honour, and protect and cherish and those things. And it's are you doing that fully to your wife? It's got to be number one for the wife. And I I fully appreciate my circumstance is different in that I, you know, I don't have an ex-wife around, and there's not that dynamic at play. And so it's very easy to say for me to say that, and I I get some circumstances are going to be different, and there's going to be different levels of hurt and things and power balances at play. I think it has to always be a case of let's establish like husband and wife, or like or man and woman together, if you're not married, obviously, you know, sometimes stepmums aren't they're playing the stepmum role, but they're not married. So you know, the couple dynamic there, I think, has to be number one. And it has to be articulated to say, like, you know, my wife is more important than my kids, even though you know, I'll say, like, okay, yeah, but biological, it's like no, no. I I make a vow, I wear a ring that reminds me I'm married. I don't uh wear a ring that says I'm I'm I I I have kids, like believe me, I have wrinkles that let me know I have kids. Um I I think so, you know, I don't want to sound flippant and easy, but yeah, like you've got to, you know, it's establishing that pecking order, so you know, it's husband and wife, partners together at the top, and then kids. And actually, if it feels misbalanced, there's probably an element in me, if I was Disney daddying it, that maybe I wasn't fully honouring my wife. Maybe my there's parts that I won't no, actually, my wife's most important here. I've got a supporter here. How can I make her her life easiest? I I look across my room now, and this Christmas my wife got me a present that says, Happy wife, happy life. True story. True story. There's you don't see many cut signs that say happy kids, happy life. That's not always an easiest thing to do, but I think it's not about always stepping up. Sometimes it's about like stepping down and being like, okay, no, I need to humble myself a little bit here and be like, okay, I got that wrong. Like, I got that right, and being being okay to say, can I do this better?

Katie South 41:36

And what about to the dads? Because as you mentioned, your situation's different to most step-family situations in that your daughter's with you 100% of the time. But I hear from a lot of women who will say, Oh, my partner or my husband is so afraid that his child will turn around and not come to ours because they get disciplined, whereas at mum's they might not. How do you think a dad can handle that situation of balancing the love with the discipline?

Tim the Disney Dad! 42:04

Yeah, it's it's what you model, it's what you as a dad. I saw a cheesy picture on Facebook a year ago. It said, you know, the best thing a dad can do for his kids is to love their mum. And I I remember commenting at a time going, well, yeah, but that's a little bit awkward in my situation because actually it's uh it's more important that my dad loves uh his current wife, not my mum. But it is that there is that thing of like, you know, the most important thing for a husband to do or or the man to do is to love the woman he's with and to establish a relationship there of loving, honoring, cherishing, protecting. Because if he does that, that's what the kid will see that as well and see actually, look, you know, that model of like saying, you know, I'm gonna make you feel safe, I'm gonna make you feel loved, I'm gonna make you laugh because that's what dad's trying to do. But also, I'm disciplining you because I love you, and you know, explaining consequences and what they are. And I know this can be horribly different. If you've only got your kid for like one day a week, you want to give them that full Disney experience in a day. But I think it's talking it through beforehand. And so when so my daughter now knows if certain things happen, this will be the consequence. So it's not a it's not a consequence reactive in the moment that can sometimes then be a bit irrational and almost anger-driven of like, oh, you've done this, you cannot you can't have your phone or whatever it is, or you know, I'm taking away your peace, whatever. It's saying, Okay, well, look, this is the freedom I'm gonna give you. But actually, if you step over this, this is gonna be the consequence, and outlining that, and they'll be like, Okay, these are the boundaries. I feel safe, I feel loved, I can play as much as I want within this. If I step out of it, I'm gonna get pulled back into this. Where possible, talk that through in advance, because then when it happens, you're like, you did that, yeah, I did. Okay, so we need to do this, yeah. You do. It's never that easy. I know in lots of ways I have life easy compared to others, but I think being consistent and establishing what you expect and what they can expect from you in advance, I think makes life easier.

Katie South 44:01

Yeah, definitely. I've got, I mean, we've asked you quite a few, but we've got quite a lot of questions.

Tim the Disney Dad! 44:07

I'll try and give shorter answers. Yeah.

Katie South 44:10

So I had a message from a lady who said she's actually she's a stepmum, but she's also a widow herself and has remarried again. And she had a question around saying, how do you manage the grief whilst also starting again?

Tim the Disney Dad! 44:22

Yeah, this may be an um not an unpopular thing, but something I've chosen to do in myself is I refer to active grief and passive grief. That some when you're first hit by it, it it's active and all-consuming, and it's it consumes every moment of what you're doing, and uh you know, everything's reminding you of this and and those things, and then and then that there's passive grief that sometimes things creep up on you, but you're not, and it can take you by shock. When I remarried, we said the traditional kind of church vows, and it says forsaking all others. And I referred to earlier that kind of new plan A thing. Like for me, with my wife, she is my new plan A, and part of making her plan A is lovingly and rightfully forsaking my old wife and saying actually that was and it was great, and the fruit of that first marriage was my daughter, and I you know it's that thing. If I choose to look back on that and reflect, I can have moments where I where I mourn and I go, Oh, that was crap, like oh, and and my most often my my greatest moments of grief are surrounding what my my daughter has missed out on. There will be future grief moments for her where her mum won't be there, and that that makes me sad for her more than anything. But I in me in my my now and my my marriage that I am now with my wife, I have to make her a priority, I have to forsake my old wife. I only wear one ring, it wasn't popular, but the day I took my first wedding ring off the day of my wife's funeral, because I'm like, I don't need a ring to remind me of her. And actually, for some time after, my finger was still indented. It's like whether I wear it or not, I'm still gonna remember her, but you know, and then there's a moment when I put a new ring on and to saying, right, I can uh I'm now making a vow with my new wife that you're gonna be number one, and I'm gonna cherish you and honour you. And some of that is is saying, you know what, and I'm gonna I'm gonna put that ahead of any grief. And that's something like you've got it. It sounds, I don't want to sound so simplistic, but it's like you've got to throw your your love and your energy and your resource into into what is growing and building as opposed to what was, and that's not to demean what I had, and that's not to forget what I had and be like, it wasn't anything. It was, it was great, it was a happy marriage, but it was, and I'm now in what is, and I've got I've got to focus on what is, otherwise, you're not, yeah, you've got to be present and in the moment in that, yeah.

Katie South 47:11

Yeah, I read something the other day that was talking about there's no point in focusing on the past because that's not the direction you're heading in.

Tim the Disney Dad! 47:17

Akuna matata, what a wonderful phrase.

Katie South 47:20

Yeah, um, so somebody else wanted to know how do you help your wife understand those boundaries with it within which you want her to parent?

Tim the Disney Dad! 47:33

Can I can I just check? Did my wife ask any of these questions? I'll check. No, no, um, I think with all these things, we we're in a bit of a pendulum at the moment, in that we where we want to be isn't necessarily where we are at the moment. We had swung one way the other way, where I was off singing the Disney songs and she was the evil stepmother. And at the moment I'm now the evil loving father, and she's kind of off singing the country songs or whatever it is she's doing. And we need to find ourselves in the middle. Where we find ourselves in the middle of, you know, we create us as our marriage and where we where we are one is you know, we talk together about what we expect. And so often it'll be a case of she'll send me a WhatsApp going, Can you ask her to do this? This is what we agreed. Yeah, fine. And then out of nowhere, my my daughter will get a text saying, Uh, have you done that? And she'll think it's me, but actually it's come from. And so again, we we we will talk about how we want to parent and how we do it. And sometimes it'll be like, right, you need to do this. She'll be saying to me, like, no, you need to take this one, you need to own this one. And at the moment, we're in a place where I'm tending to do it more. We will gradually start to come back to a center line where we do things together, yeah. But only when they've kind of built the relationship that can withhold that until that point, it's got to be me that takes the lead on it. But we've agreed that I'm taking the lead on it, and so it works, yeah. It's only it because you know, she's only a stepmother because of me, yeah. Because she chose to be with me, and so I I need to own that and take responsibility in that, yeah.

Katie South 49:03

And it sort of leans into another question that somebody was saying, how this is the lady who's trying to have some of these conversations around boundaries and discipline and dad not being so sort of Disney, but it always descends into an argument. So she's saying, Have you got any tips on good ways to have those conversations without them descending into arguments?

Tim the Disney Dad! 49:26

Uh yeah. It's fair to say we've had some arguments, it's fair to say she's expressed her views passionately about uh how I haven't necessarily stepped up at times, and the things that hurt the most are the things that are the truthful of a lot of the time. You know, she sees me at my best and she sees me at my worst. And so conversations where you know a wife is telling husband, you need to step up, you need to, it has to be framed in a way of you need to step up because it's making me feel like this, it's making me feel like this, it's making me feel less than you said I was. And actually, it feels like you're not keeping up your part of the bargain that you know, that we were going to do this together by you doing all this, I'm having to do this, but actually, I'm not, we're not. A lot of it comes down to again, it's that imbalance of man-woman, like partners, get that back on the same page. Like we I often say to my wife is like, it feels like we're not on the same page. And sometimes the only way we need to take ourselves out of parenting world and live in marriage world, and we're I'm not saying we know all this at all, but it is be it a date night or watching the same TV or just spending time where we don't talk about the kids, yeah, when we just talk about us, and we, you know, we remind ourselves of all the reasons why we fell in love and why we got married, and we we bring ourselves closer to being on the same page and closer to being a team and one together. And it's then in that place of saying, right, well, actually, at the moment I feel a little bit here. Yeah, and I realize my hand actions aren't going to connect on a uh I'm giving great elaborate like uh diagrams with my hands here. Um, I realize this won't like go on the podcast too well. But it it's it's saying, you know, if you're not feeling that you're right on the same page, get back on the same page together as a couple and then express how you feel, don't express what they've done, being like, hey, I'm feeling this by you being, and whether you use the term Disney dads and things, I feel at the moment I'm having to do more. And what you're actually saying is you're doing less is but it is that kind of owning it and saying, like, I feel like I'm I'm becoming the bad guy and doing more. And what you're actually saying is like, well, the the flip of that is you're being too much of the good guy and you're not you're not doing enough.

Katie South 51:45

It's a subtle tweak in language, isn't it?

Tim the Disney Dad! 51:47

And I think absolutely, but you've got you've got you've got to be on the you've got to be on the same page to do that.

Katie South 51:54

If you're on separate pages and you're either throwing stones up to somebody or pulling somebody down, it's like it's a car crash when you I mean, even with the children that are biologically mine and my husband's that we parent together when we have a different view of, you know, I'm just thinking about last night, like my daughter was absolutely kicking off because I said she couldn't have her dinner while she was watching the TV, she was coming to the table, you know, which I think is quite a reasonable parenting demand. So it was like, turn the turn the TV off, you're eating your dinner at the table. And my husband came down, he'd been working upstairs and straight away kind of backed me up, had my back on it, obviously was on my team. And I always say to him, like, once you when you're on the same team, and that doesn't mean you're against anybody else, you know, you can achieve so much more than when you're trying to butt heads against each other. And I think what you've talked about just shows that you guys are doing that so well together. And I think this is probably going to be one of the episodes that gets forwarded a lot to um husbands, partners, boyfriends. For the for those who can't see, you've just pulled a slightly worried face.

Tim the Disney Dad! 53:06

No, I hey, I'm I'm grateful for the stuff that's been put in front of me, even when it's been subtly, and I've kind of maybe listened to half of it. Like, yeah, yeah, I'll listen to that, all the little sound clipper things. I you know, it's always easier when somebody else points out to me where I might need to, or you know, if I can see somebody else, it's always easier to spot somebody else's faults. So, hey, I'm happy for people to like have spotted my faults and be like, oh well, this guy did this and then he did this, so I'm gonna learn from that. Yeah, look, this guy's a bit like our situation, like, and actually he learned this, and so I'm I'm grateful for the moments in in various stages of life where I've seen an example of somebody doing something and be like, Oh, I I could take something from that. And I'm not, you know, I'm not saying be like me, not at all. Um, because but saying, Hey, if I can speak into a conversation that says prioritize your wife, and actually normally things work out, yeah, yeah.

Katie South 54:05

And uh it's so important because you're not saying you've made no mistakes, you're standing there as I kind of was inspired to even start this podcast of like, here's all the millions of mistakes that I've made. You know, let's have conversations about them. And I've made lots of mistakes in lots of different situations, and everybody does, right? That's life. Like, nobody's perfect, nobody's a perfect parent, nobody's a perfect step parent, and that's okay. So I just want to say, like, massive, massive, massive thank you for being so open and candid and volunteering. So I've got my first member of the Panto cast. Anyone else who's a budding actor, do get in touch with me. Uh, but yeah, massive thank you so much for your time. Really, really, really appreciate it. And it's amazing the place that you've got to, and like wish you every happiness for the future.

Tim the Disney Dad! 54:54

Thank you. That's been great, appreciate it.

Katie South 54:58

Oh, I loved that chat so much. Tim really made me laugh a lot, and I am a big fan of laughter. I hope you enjoyed it too and found something useful for you or your partner to take away. Now, those regular listeners will know that I am all about lifelong learning and personal development. Many of you have been on that journey with me through the Stepmum Space workshops, and I wanted to let you know there are still just a couple of spaces available for our evening workshops on Zoom on the 21st and 28th of February. You can find out more about what we cover in the workshops by going to www.stepmum space.com forward slash workshops. It's a super open conversational session where you'll come away with clarity, confidence, as well as practical tools and techniques to help make your life as a stepmum easier and more enjoyable. Because after all, that's what it's about. Many women have also found good friendships through the workshops, which has been amazing to see. So if you're thinking about signing up, please don't hesitate. An investment in yourself is never ever wasted. Head to www.stepmonspace.comslash workshops and I look forward to meeting you soon. See you next time!