“This Family Is Not Blendable”: A Stepmum’s Difficult Relationship with Her Stepdaughter

Support, tools & coaching for stepmums: https://stepmumspace.com

In this honest and deeply relatable episode, Katie talks to Joanne, a biological mum of two girls who became a stepmum to a girl and a boy when she met her partner.

Joanne’s story shines a light on a reality many stepmums quietly experience: sometimes a family simply doesn’t blend — and that doesn’t mean anyone is failing.

While Joanne has always had a strong, loving relationship with her stepson, and her partner has bonded beautifully with her daughters, her relationship with her stepdaughter has been consistently difficult. After years of trying, hoping and adjusting, Joanne has reached a place of acceptance:
 their family doesn’t need to blend to function.

Together, Katie and Joanne discuss:

• what happens when one stepchild accepts you and another doesn’t
• living in a home where parenting styles clash
• how to cope when you and your partner disagree on discipline or boundaries
• the pressure to “blend” — and why it’s okay to step away from that expectation
• creating a peaceful home even when relationships look different across the family
• letting go of the guilt and choosing what works for your household

This episode is validating, grounding and important — especially for stepmums who feel like they’re trying everything and still not getting connection or harmony.

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

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Instagram: @stepmumspace

Keywords: family won’t blend, stepfamily not blending, difficult stepdaughter relationship, different parenting styles, stepmum feeling rejected, blended family stress, stepmum support, step-parenting challenges, co-parenting differences, stepmum podcast

You’re allowed to build a family that works — even if it doesn’t look like the blended ideal.

Head to stepmumspace.com to book your free clarity call

Transcript

Katie South: 0:01

Hello, I'm Katie, and this is Stepmum Space, the judgment freeze alone, 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 little bit better, this is the place for you. Now my guest today is Joanne. Joanne is a stepmum to two now adults, but children when they first came into her lives, and a bio mum to two adults as well now. And in this conversation, we cover a lot of ground from where to get involved, where to step back, what to do when the bio parents really aren't managing the kids in the way you would, and why not all families can or should blend. I hope you've enjoyed the conversation. Hi Joanne! Hi. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me. And um, I have already mentioned to you, but I should say again in case we get interrupted that um I've just had to pick up my five-year-old from school because of a tummy ache. So she's currently under a blanket watching Frozen, but may or may not join us. Let's see. No worries.

Joanne: 1:15

I've got a puppy on my lap, so let's hope that there's no interruption.

Katie South: 1:19

Never work with children or animals. So, Joanne, tell us a little bit about your family and what brought you to get in touch. My partner and I do live together, although he has a separate house.

Joanne: 1:32

I have two girls about to turn 20 and 18. We've got two dogs here, and also uh my partner who has two children who are 21 and 18.

Katie South: 1:45

Great. And it's really nice to hear from somebody with kind of older children or adults, I guess. Um, because we talk a lot to people with young kids, so it's really interesting to hear it kind of from a different side. And why don't you tell a little bit about how you guys got together?

Joanne: 2:01

Yeah, so uh we met late in 2015, so we've been together for quite a while now. We met through a mutual hobby, and definitely for me, I wouldn't say as I mean, I'd been separated a couple of years by this point and was kind of open to the idea of maybe having maybe a companion in my life, someone to go to the movies with, but I definitely wasn't kind of gonna get into any kind of relationship. I definitely wasn't gonna fall for anyone. Anyway, then I I met my partner and then I completely fell for him straight away.

Katie South: 2:34

So that was so that was that. It's always the way though, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Like I remember when I met my husband and I was like, Oh yeah, quite quite like this guy, obviously not looking for everything serious at all. And then, you know, a decade later, two kids married, like, oh, oh that that didn't, I mean it turned out great, but it definitely wasn't how I went into it. No, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Joanne: 2:59

Yeah, we had loads in common, and um, I remember we went on a first date and I ended up because I always used to sort of I'd go, I'd stop dabbling a little bit in dating and stuff. Um so I'd always kind of like time limit them, pretend I had to be somewhere just in case it was a disaster. But I ended up like quickly, like the kids were with my ex. I quit was ended up texting him down the table. Can you just have the kids for like an extra half an hour? Because I'm really enjoying, you know, I was really enjoying chatting to him, and I was just like, Oh, okay. We hit it off straight away, we had loads in common. So yeah, so here we are.

Katie South: 3:30

Oh you mentioned that he's got um 21-year-old and an 18-year-old, so they must have been what 10 and 13 is? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Okay, and how was it with them in the early days?

Joanne: 3:44

Uh in the early days, I I I guess you could say we took it slowly, not in the sense of like we met one another's children, so I I kind of spent a little bit of time with his son, who was living with him most of the week. I kind of saw him a little bit, uh, just briefly, and he was very sweet and very polite and very lovely. And then I didn't really see him very much after that. And in fact, our respective children didn't actually meet for two years. So it's two years before I met one another. So we very much kind of were kind of compartmentalized in that sense, in terms of we just would see each other when we, you know, when neither of us had kids, and so we kind of have had that luxury of having that real time to build our own relationship, which has been lovely. And and I guess I didn't really meet his daughter until maybe a year or so after I'd been together with my partner, and I she was living with her mum full time and wasn't going to school, and so she kind of dropped out of education and wasn't in a great way in terms of her mental health. So I just thought, well, okay, that's that's just I'll leave that be, and I'm sure that things will happen at the right time. And I guess then I probably met her maybe about a year or maybe 18 months into our relationship or something like that. So I guess it's taken a long time for everyone to kind of come together in whatever thing we are. Yeah, so we definitely took it slow from that point of view.

Katie South: 5:21

I mean, there's so much, Joanne, that I want to dive into around your story and all the things that you've mentioned. I'm just thinking, where's the best place to start? You mentioned you met his son first, and then the the 13-year-old daughter, you said she she wasn't in school. Are you able to share a bit more about that?

Joanne: 5:38

I'm sure it's gone back a long way in terms of her childhood and how she's been with things and possibly started struggling with school, maybe in primary school, and um I think she just hit a real rough patch in secondary school. It hadn't been handled particularly well by the sounds of it now. Looking back, I mean, at the time I didn't sort of have anything to do with it because I thought this is, you know, this is nothing to do with me. I haven't met, I don't, you know, I just don't know what this is about, I don't know the backstory. So at the time when I I met him, I was just very kind of just non-judgmental. I just thought, well, I just I just don't know what this is, and I you know, I knew that things had come to a head, and her mental health was quite poor, she had anxiety and wasn't coping in school, and I think the parents were getting letters in terms of threatening prosecution because she wasn't going and it wasn't really handled in a particularly sophisticated way, and it all kind of culminated with her being signed off from school by a psychiatrist, and then that sort of was the green light for her not to be in school, and then I think things never kind of recovered from that point. So I think when we met, I think that was still that coming out of that real low point that she was in where her mood was quite low, and I think things were difficult, and she was really struggling at that time. But I would say I suspect that probably there was a bit of history to that, that probably things have been difficult for quite a while for her with school.

Katie South: 7:00

And did that situation affect your sort of early relationship with her?

Joanne: 7:05

It certainly impacted on how long it took her to feel comfortable meeting me. I would say that she was just very nervous and didn't feel ready. It was a kind of a case of I went round to the house, ex house, for some reason I can't remember what the reason was. Uh, and it was very much like, well, she might come back to her room, she might not. And I was like, Well, that's fine. So it was very slowly, slowly, she did feel ready to meet me. And I understood that because I thought, you know, she's obviously got a lot of struggles, a lot going on, the time will be right when it's right. So yes, so I guess that kind of impacted on how long it took for me to meet her, yeah.

Katie South: 7:41

And you mentioned you had two girls who were sort of similar age.

Joanne: 7:45

Yes. So they um met him about four months in, they sort you know, saw him fairly soon into our relationship. Um, and that that was kind of fine, really. That was fairly easy. And what about your stepson? He was kind of still a child, like both of our children were still very much kind of children in those early days of our relationship. So it's quite sweet when we can look back on it now, we think about it now. You know, he was really polite and sort of came to the door to say goodbye the first time he met me, and he just sat colouring and he was just very, very sweet and he quite a sort of studious boy. And he and I quite soon developed a really nice relationship, and you know, I'd I'd perhaps go around there and he'd he would be there on a sort of weekday evening, and he would talk to me about school, whereas he wouldn't maybe talk to his dad about what's going on. So, you know, his dad would be sort of cooking in the kitchen, and I'd just sit and chat to him, and and we could sort of get into stuff and he'd ask me questions like I don't would know bits about what was going on for him, and you know, my partner would be like, Oh, he doesn't say that stuff to me. So it's kind of a really nice relationship, really, from the start.

Katie South: 8:49

Yeah, oh that's lovely. And what about your daughters and his son? Because they'll often people will often say, and the research will show that you know the most complex step families are the ones where both people bring children to the relationship. So, how how was it between the new step siblings?

Joanne: 9:06

We'd left it so long that we were almost kind of petrified of like getting them together, it almost became this thing, like they knew of one another, you know, but it was a couple of years in really by the time. So it became sort of quite a fraught nervous thing where they literally popped in on the way to Granny's one day for a quick kind of like oh hi and bye, which was funny and kind of sweet, and everybody was like really nervous. Uh, but then we decided to bite the bullet and decide to sort of they kind of came up with the idea, they were like, Come on, let's go bowling. So we got them all together and we finally just went out together um and went bowling, and it was and it was fine and it was really sweet. And I guess because we'd been together for quite a while by this time, they were just really curious about who these people might be. So yeah, it was it was sweet, and it was nice actually to finally get everyone together. It's kind of a nice feeling. It's like, oh, there we are, here we all are.

Katie South: 9:58

Yeah, it was nice. And I guess it's something you've talked about for so long, and you've been together with someone a couple of years, you're obviously they're your future, you're much more a partnership than you know, just kind of casually dating.

Joanne: 10:10

It was almost like we could just go on forever with them never meeting because we have this nice little compartmentalized routine going on, and nobody needs to meet one another, it isn't something that has to happen. So it had so we we kind of had to make it happen. So it kind of was harder in that respect because we could have just gone on just leading, you know, compartmentalized lives, I suppose. It and so it became quite a big like, oh my goodness.

Katie South: 10:37

But they all got on. Yeah, yeah, it was lovely, really nice. You mentioned at the beginning that your partner has his separate house. So do you guys live together?

Joanne: 10:46

We do live together now because you know, since the pandemic, and his son now goes to a different school, which is closer to mum's, so he's now at mum's full-time, so the logistics just have worked out that way, and so you know, I'm the resident parent for my girl, so he just lives here. It's just kind of happened that way, really, pretty much since the pandemic. So I think now we're kind of at the on the cusp of that, like, well, actually, now his house has just actually gone on the market to make the move because it is doesn't really make any sense having two houses, it's it's too much to keep up with. So, yeah, he's here the whole time, really has been for the last couple of years.

Katie South: 11:22

And how has that transition then from his son being with him to his son being with his mum?

Joanne: 11:28

Um, I think a fairly natural one because it was around schools, but I think my partner's found that tricky in the sense that he's always really enjoyed providing that kind of day-to-day support for his son, and and I know that he's sort of struggled with that, but he's pretty laid-back and content human being, and so for him, I think you know, it's he's fine, he's happy, his life has just kind of carried on, and you know, there's just continuity there. I would say it's probably a bit more difficult for my partner, and I think this is a difficult time at adolescence, you know, relationships with your kids and adolescents they are harder to maintain for that non-resident parent, it's in-between phase, and certainly so with boys, because you know, he's he they just don't communicate really by text. So, whereas his daughter will FaceTime and they'll have chat, his son doesn't so much. So I know that he feels uh he misses that day-to-day contact with his son.

Katie South: 12:28

I was smiling when you were talking about the boys and the girls because I was saying to my husband the other day, I'll text my son who's 13, and I'll get a message back just saying K. It's not even like okay, it's just K. Yeah. Whereas his daughter, my stepdaughter, who's 12, I'll get like a long message back with some emojis and you know, kind of like and it's not you know, it's not a measure of how they feel, I know, but it it does always make me laugh how two two people who obviously you know love them both to bits and hopefully they feel the same, but their methods of communication are just poles apart. Absolutely, absolutely, definitely.

Joanne: 13:08

It's all on a need-to-know basis for the boys, isn't it?

Katie South: 13:10

So during that time when your partner's son has moved from being with him more to being with his mum full time, you know, you mentioned that's been challenging for him. Has that affected your guys' relationship at all?

Joanne: 13:22

I don't think so, because I, you know, I sort of empathize with well, I suppose maybe in some ways, because I used to spend more time at his house. So we kind of used to have that that flow where he'd be a guest at mine and I'd cook hims in there, and I'd get the evening when he'd cook for me and I'd just hang out with his son, and and uh and then you know, then we'd kind of reciprocate, and now he's just here at mine and he doesn't formerly live here, he is living here, but it's still my house. I still put the bins out, and he comes and I cook, you know, it's like I feel like I'm in more of that gender sort of role. Yeah.

Katie South: 14:01

I'm thinking, no wonder he hasn't sold his house for so long.

Joanne: 14:04

I know it's like a low weird in-between phase where he's it is his how home, but it's not his house. So I I guess I feel like I lost those kind of evenings of being wined and dined because Laura used to go up here and he used to used to cook for me, and now that's doesn't happen anymore.

Katie South: 14:54

And during that time, because it's quite interesting, a lot of men who don't live with their biological children go in with really positive intentions around their stepchildren, but then find it quite difficult because the guilt creeps in and like, oh, I'm spending time with my stepchildren and I'm not spending as much time with my own children. Did you guys ever have any of that going on?

Joanne: 15:15

Well, funnily enough, it's not really because he has a really he's got really generous with that relationship that he has with my kids. I mean, I I feel like he's such a positive influence on them. They have a really genuine relationship. He takes an interest in them and wants to know what they're doing, he'll make conversation with them. My youngest daughter, and he sort of share interest in the same subject, so he'll input on what's happening there, and it's felt really natural, and he certainly has definitely the standard guilt thing about his own children. But I think the great thing is that it's just not really impacted by the relationship that he has with mine, which is lovely, and I feel like it's it's got that space-to-be really lovely relationship that he has with my two. It's just genuine, there's nothing in the way, there's nothing dragging it back. So I think I think we're lucky in that respect. It doesn't seem to affect that. He's kind of just gen genuine and generous with it. Um, and his guilt that he has about his own kids is a s is a separate thing, definitely there, but definitely separate.

Katie South: 16:18

And what about his daughter then? Because you mentioned that she was out of school when she was 13. How are things with her now?

Joanne: 16:26

Um, she certainly has picked up in the sense that she's definitely going out and doing stuff now. She has a Saturday job now. She kind of, I think for the last sort of four or five years, she's gone to a drama club um on a Saturday.

Katie South: 16:45

So did she ever go back into school? No. So does that mean she was home educated by her mum? So she was home but not educated.

Joanne: 16:57

So she unfortunately has been just at home for like a really long spell of sadly not doing anything particularly uh constructive for a period of sort of six, eight, seven years. Yeah.

Katie South: 17:12

And is that due to her mental health condition?

Joanne: 17:18

I would say it's due to uh her own mental health and the way that she deals with that struggle, which is perhaps not the most positive way. It's kind of high yourself away and don't try and challenge yourself and don't do anything. And and also her mum's her mum's had her own struggles with her mental health as well, so had lots of time off from work, not being able to work due to depression, and and also a kind of different parenting universe that they have. It's just a completely different like parenting climate. So they have a relationship, I would say, parenthesom, where they're kind of maybe more friends that that drive to kind of get bring your child to a sort of level of independence or get them to move on or get them to gain life skills or kind of just push them a little bit where you need to. That hasn't really ever been part of their relationship that I have seen. So I think it's just a completely different way of going about things. I I would say probably her mum struggles to really make any headway with anything constructive, or certainly over the the the years, you know, has three struggled to kind of really put any impetus behind any measures to foster any independence. So it's been a mixture of lots of different things, I would say, feeding into that situation.

Katie South: 18:53

Really, really difficult. And what about your partner's input in that? How's he found that? Yeah, I think his input into it has been minimal.

Joanne: 19:06

I would say that he probably finds that whole situation uh difficult, and I would say that her relationship his relationship with her perhaps would kind of become entrenched in a more more negative way, where perhaps you know, she you know, she would maybe irritate him a little bit, and then he would be quite negative about her, and it would be like, Oh, you're just nagging me, and uh, then it was just very easy for her to just disengage, and so it wasn't really so. I think they've all struggled really in their own ways. I think he doesn't I haven't really seen him have the skills to remanage that with her, the conversation skills, idea of how you should go about that, and then when you add on the standard layer of guilty divorce dads and feeling like you can't rock the boat with your ex or whatever else is going on there. Um so out of all of that, I would say he wasn't really engaging with that situation either.

Katie South: 20:09

It's a really difficult one because everyone's mental health journey is so personal, but your role as a parent really has to have some element of making your child independent from you.

Joanne: 20:22

And it I think, you know, definitely in my experience, I too have had a child who's had really poor mental health and struggled with school, and part of what has really been crucial to getting my child through that has been making them accountable for themselves, and actually the fact that they are responsible for themselves to a degree and how they manage themselves. And uh, I've had you know had to with my own kids really make sure that there were boundaries and expectations actually for their own good and for their own recovery and for their own healthy focus and things like you know, going outside and getting exercise, those basic things. Literally, when my daughter has gone through that, I have literally written it on a piece of paper and said, You will go outside today and you will do three acts of kindness, and it's really hard, and you get the kickback, and they don't want to, and they're miserable, and it's it's hard work, isn't it? Parenting is hard work, yeah. And that's what I have struggled with standing by watching completely different relationships take place, and you know, and for a lot of this, she was a child, and I felt desperately sorry for her. That you know, there were literally weeks would go by on end where she'd be in bed for 20 hours a day, and nobody would really question that or do anything about it. And you know, fair enough, some fair play to my partner. Uh you know, sometimes he would go round to her mum's and say, Come on, get up. But it it's not enough, is it? It needs to be the the resident parent needs to be doing that, and you know, I did feel really sorry, really sad for her, really, really sad for her that nobody was picking up for her in that regard and saying, Oh, come on, this is not good for you. You need to get up, you need to go outside, you need to do this today, you need to do this, you know, basic stuff.

Katie South: 22:19

So yeah, because unless you've got a very serious physical or mental health condition, I mean, I'm no medical expert, but the like you say, and it's it's funny when you said you write it down. So I've done the same with my son like a a year or two ago. He was just normal teenage stuff, but you know, you kind of have to nip it in the bud. And we would we we made a list and said, like all these things, they will be quite boring to you, but they make you feel good. Sleep, eating healthily, getting fresh air, moving your body, you know, not staying up ridiculously late and not staying in front of a screen. We call it the defence of his team, so that if you've got your solid defense, then when challenges come your way, you're equipped to deal with them, you've got that resilience. And I do think it's really difficult for teenagers who don't have parents who are willing to step in either because they don't have the tools themselves or because they want to be popular, they want to be a friend. You know, there are probably many times when you could have said to your daughter, or I could have said to my son, Oh, you know, don't go into school today, let's have a cozy day together. But yeah, to be anxiety, you have to face in to the situations that drive your anxiety.

Joanne: 23:35

Absolutely, and I and I do remember, you know, it's like a really different parenting ethos, isn't it? And I remember my partner saying to me, you know, she went through a period where she'd go to a tutor after school um just to have some extra, I can't remember math or English tuition. And my daughter was maybe in year six or whatever, and and we'd come out of school and she would scream and she would cry, and I would go, No, we're going to the tutor's now. Here we are at the tutor's house. She'd be crying and screaming and protesting, and I would literally just get her. She was luckily was very portable and quite petite, and I would just say, Okay, here we are now. And I knew she'd be fine when she got in there, and I'd be like, Okay, so here she is, and I'll see you in an hour. And she would go and she would do her tuition, absolutely fine. And my partner was absolutely horrified, he couldn't understand how I would even consider taking that child to that tuition session and leave her there. Like in that state, he he couldn't comprehend why I would do that. So it's just a totally different parenting mindset, completely. It's it is like a different parenting universe. I don't recognise what goes on there at all.

Katie South: 24:42

And how was it between you guys? Because obviously you've got a different style of parenting, you're not living with this child, but did you raise it with your partner in terms of your feelings about how it was all being handled?

Joanne: 24:54

Yeah, well, I've I had to because you know, like all I think prospective set step families, you start out with this really lovely, naive ideal that you're everyone's gonna be we're gonna be working on big happy family, it's gonna be lovely. And I think particularly guys like recreate, you know, this is gonna make up for the divorce, and we're all gonna be together and it's all gonna be lovely. And so, so from that point of view, they spent quite a bit of time at my house, so they would spend holidays, it'd be a week at Christmas, be a week in the summer, and it'd be like, What are we gonna do for the summer? And it all was a bit like that, but the behaviour that uh went along with the situation for uh his eldest was just so off the key in terms of her age. There was just such difficult behaviour and such immaturity uh coming from her that it uh actually everybody would feel uncomfortable, my kids would feel uncomfortable, my partner would feel uncomfortable, and you know, really whiny, toddlery sort of interaction. This is a a a child who had sort of lacked any interaction with their peers after a number of years, and uh just didn't know how to be. And uh you know, her brother would be stressed about it and would say to her, Look, don't say anything stupid in the car on the way over to my house, and you know, it just grated and was really difficult. And once she became an older teenager, it just sort of wasn't funny anymore. What sort of things used to play out? I remember COVID had hit and we weren't able to go on holiday as we had planned, so we were all in my house on a very rainy 10-day August stretch, like literally at the last minute. Borders had closed, and that's that. And I was working a really stressful job in the NHS handling COVID, and we, you know, we'd been doing COVID for over a year, and it and it was tough taking its toll on me. I had a sister with breast cancer, and in this 10-day period, she was that was my annual leave for the summer, and it was just really hard to be around her. So I think there was one evening, I think we just decided to go out to a local restaurant which is in town, and so I thought, come, let's go out for dinner. It's a miles walk into town, and you know, you've got my stepson and my two girls, okay, great, brilliant. And then my stepdaughter at the age of you know 19, not know what shoes to wear, and then was complaining. How dare you make us walk a mile into town? And she would say things like, Well, nobody else is complaining because nobody else is brave enough to complain about it. And it was just like you're actually you're actually an adult now, and you're being taken out for dinner, and it's only a 20-minute walk. But of course, her life was so limited that for her, a 20-minute walk was like hiking up Snowdon, you know, it was just she literally didn't have shoes that she could wear, and so she walked that mile, complained about it, and to have to take her shoes off to walk back because she had blisters, and then she didn't know whether to wash her feet in hot water or cold water. So she comes and then asked, What do you think I should use? Hot water or cold water? And I was just thinking, how's this person become so incapable? How is she so incapable of anything? Any normal things that everyone else can do? Just walk a mile back into town and be taken for dinner, and she'd spilt something on her t-shirt and couldn't know how to use the washing machine, and it was just exhausting to be around. And I was just like, This is my this is my summer holiday, this is my annual leave, and then we're all kind of squished into this house, which isn't really big enough. And I just thought, okay, I said to my partner, I said this is a disaster. I said, She's a disaster. So it kind of just got to a point where it just wasn't bunny anymore. And what did he say to that? Well, this is the weird thing because he would just say, Yeah, I know, you're right. So that it was just sort of like he wouldn't even argue, it was it was always would have been better if we could have had a row about we could have hurled insults at each other, it would have been easier. It was just like he'd sort of roll over and go, Yeah, I know.

Katie South: 29:25

I know from a lot of the women that I work with and the men that I work with, because I do coach men as well, that there is a lot of burying your head in the sand that goes on when you're a divorced or separated dad because the problems are just too hard to deal with. It's common to hear men talk about things that go on with their children as if they're powerless to do anything about it.

unknown: 29:49

Yeah.

Katie South: 29:50

I'll often delve into what's holding you back with them. And a lot of the time it's driven by fear, not wanting to confront the ex, not wanting to get into difficult situations. But you see this pull in men of I want to be a better dad, I want to do the right thing for my children, but then it's so difficult to go there that sometimes it's easier to ignore it and pretend it's not happening. I don't I don't know. What was the situation with your partner?

Joanne: 30:19

I think he had a lot or still feels a lot of the weight of the pressure of his own parents who are quite elderly, so they're from a really generation way back where they just really. Struggle, I think, to comprehend that they had separated and divorced, and they still couldn't, you know, there'd be the odd thing that said, not not malicious, not a dig, but just if just a different generation, just couldn't get on board with it and would always and I think they're aware that things are not super healthy around at mums, and and and all the worry that that brings for them about their grandchildren, and you know, their granddaughters just nobody's doing anything and she's just in bed and they don't really understand mental health, they're just like and so I think he'd get a bit of pressure from them to say, like, when did you see the mouse? When did you see the mouse? And I think it just really has weighed on his mind that if he did anything to rock the boat, that that would send them even further away, or it would become even more complicated and difficult. I think I think that he just wants things to be as simple as they can, and I think for him that means we get we get along to get on, and that's he's really petrified of the complexity of it all becoming real because he just wants uh he really looks up to them, they're that traditional mum and dad, and you know, he still has his mum and dad, they're still in the family home that he grew up in, and it's very 2.4, and I just think it's just too difficult for my partner to really exert any kind of friction or any anywhere in that system because he's absolutely petrified because he's already feels so guilty in terms of what he feels like his life should be like, like you know, that he's failed and admitting facing up to the level of dysfunction and what's really going on, it would just shatter that illusion, and I think that you know they are also quite nice middle class people, and he says to me, Well, you know, she's not taking drugs and on the street, but I'm like, Well, I don't know, but it's still pretty like he has there's that value system in there as well, somewhere. Like, actually, we're nice people and we all get along really well, like he's friends with his ex, but not a co-parent. You know, when I first met him, it was very like, Oh, we get on really well, we go for meals together. There's a birthday, we all go out together, we're firm friends, there's nothing more to it. And I never felt that there was anything more to it, but I also couldn't see that there was any parenting going on either. I never I could hear them talking as friends, it would be I could see, you know, they'd come and drop off kids, and it'd be like, Oh, what's happening with so-and-so? How is your mum and dad? And I was thinking, you know, you got this really big issue going on with your daughter, and I and I never hear you talk about it. I never hear a conversation about what's happening with the daughter at the moment. There's never any, so it's just gone along on this friendly level of just if we're all friends and we're all nice, then perhaps it's not as bad as I'm worried that it is that you know we've separated because it's it's almost too ashamed of that to go any further with it, with really what's really going on.

Katie South: 33:45

Yeah, you mentioned at the beginning that her mental health issues had started prior to the separation. Yeah. Um it sounds so crazy dysfunctional, and I don't I don't say that lightly because there's still like at the time there was a 13-year-old who was not parented properly. Yeah, or not parented full stop, yeah, and I get completely why you say you feel sorry for her. I work I work with quite a few stepmums actually who say I feel really sorry for my stepkids because their mum and dad aren't doing what they should be doing as parents, but I can't step in because I'm just the stepmum, and you sort of have to stand by and watch everything unfold, but you feel a bit like you know, you've got a crystal ball.

Joanne: 34:39

Because I've worked with women who say, I know what will happen, I I can see it in the future, and then you know, lo and behold, it it does happen, and you have that advantage as a step parent that you you know the child, but you're also enough of an outsider that you're not emotionally wedded, and unfortunately, and it is unfortunate, I'm a health professional and I work in child protection, I work in safeguarding, and you cannot pull the wool over my eyes with middle class families. It does not wash with me, that's my job. I've seen plenty of abusive, dysfunctional, nice middle-class people who abuse their children or scapegoat children or neglect children emotionally, or just fail to parent, and I see the fallout of it, and I can see the pattern and the pathway that she's gone on, and I can see the difficulty that she probably has had in her very early childhood, and it's just so hard to watch because I kind of also have that angle, and that's very much I've not ended up in that job as a coincidence. I'm in this job because of who I am and how strongly I feel about children's needs being separate from our own needs, and that's why you do what you do with your kids because you know that that child needs you to write those things down for their mental health more than it more than you need to just go and watch whatever you want to do on the tele. That's like a fundamental thing, and it's so fundamental that, yeah. Parenting is hard, it's meant to be hard, you're meant to be doing stuff that is really not easy, and you know, I would literally walk into that child protection suite on a Monday morning, knowing that we've all gone off to school, college, work, and that his daughter was just in bed again for the week, for another week, for another month, for another year, and I would literally go into my job in the child protection unit and just be like, I know what's going on here, and it's it's emotional neglect, it's neglect, of basic persistent failure to meet your child's needs is called neglect. And that was so hard for me when she was a child to go to work on a Monday knowing that that's going on. I just felt really sad for her.

Katie South: 36:56

Did you ever want to get involved or have a more direct conversation with the mum or or your partner?

Joanne: 37:04

Not with the mum, no, but I got really angry with him uh one September. I, you know, I it every kind of summer holiday would roll around, and I'd be thinking, okay, you know, there's probably stuff around that she could do now. You could probably sign her up to college with some functional skills or a programme or princess trust or some volunteering or some projects nearby. And I'd be thinking, okay, August is probably stuff now coming out. You could probably uh every August, I'd be like, Okay, so what's happening? This, you know, what's happening with the daughter? And and there was just this one time when I was sat at the dinner table and I asked him that question, and he said, Um, oh yes, so my ex said she was gonna make a phone call, and uh then she realised a week later that she hadn't got around to it. And this is like four years into this situation, and I just was so angry, and I was like, I think, when is someone gonna actually do something for this kid? When are you gonna do something for this kid? You know, she's got two parents. This is utterly ridiculous. And I'd always always had always said to him very early on, I will not move in and have a house with a stepfamily where three kids have to do things they don't want to do, they have to go to education, they have to go out and money, they have to help around the house, they have to do things, and then one child doesn't have to do anything they don't want to because she I could see she was just doing what she wanted, and I said it will not work for me having a house where that's going on. So I was always really clear. So I was a bit like, you know, someone needs to kind of get pull their finger out here, but of course that's really toxic because actually, as a stepmum, you have no you can't your parenting bar might be higher than theirs, but you can only be at that level that they are at, you cannot go beyond that level, and if it's really low, then that's that's just tough. So I got really angry and I said, Look, where are you in all this? What are you gonna do? So, yeah, things got really heated, and I was really angry with him, and and and then after that, he went round to see her one day, and she had this conversation with him where she'd be very lots of different there's lots of different versions of her that she presents with. You might see this version of her one day or this version of her another day. And he happened to go around shortly after that angry conversation, and she said, Do you know what, Dad? I want to do education, I want to go back to education, I want to do a hobby. And then I said, Okay, well, fine. I said, That's brilliant. I said, That is amazing. You've got a child who sends you she wants to do some stuff. I said, Well, this is brilliant, isn't it? You know, let I will help you get something set up. So I helped him to research online schooling for her, and I said, Why don't you just say, Look, you come and live with me because the environment where she's living is just she's gonna do anything. So, why don't you convert, you know, let her have your room, you convert another part of the house, she can live with you, and there's a little routine. And she said, Oh, I'm gonna do five GCSEs. I was like, Really? Five GCSEs? That's a bit much, probably after we haven't done anything for four years. Why don't they start small? But they never had the skills to kind of set it up like that, they never had the skills to kind of come to any mutual conclusion. It was all too difficult for them to manage those conversations. And she would start to manipulate those conversations and he'd say, Oh, we need to talk about this online schooling, and she'd be like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was thinking, You can't manage these conversations, this is not going to happen. So he spent thousands of pounds getting this all set up, and she did it for about three weeks and then went back to mum's and nothing was said, and it just passed, and that was that. So I kind of had this period of being involved. But it just was a lesson in the fact that you know, if if they don't have what it takes to make that happen, then you cannot make it happen. You know, it was just another kind of dysfunctional chapter, really. And you know, one said, Look, I've spent £3,000, are you gonna do this or not? No one even had that conversation with her. It was almost like, oh, it's happened again, she's just stuck out of it again. It's like this pattern. You know how kids kind of push boundaries to see what they can get away with. They kind of want you to, I think they kind of want you to respond, really, to know that actually someone's gonna go, no, but that never happens. It's just this very nothing-y response.

Katie South: 41:27

That must have been so difficult for you, obviously, given your job massively tough, but having two kids that you're raising yourself, and you know, we haven't talked about your ex, but whether they're whether they're getting that on that side as well, you're doing your bit of trying to push them.

Joanne: 41:45

This was this was this is a massive part of why I have real issues with it, because I'm shouldering a hundred percent of the burden financially, practically, emotionally with my kids. My ex has been quite unstable really since we divorced. He's lived at numerous houses, had a relationship that's broken down and been made redundant, and had all sorts of things that have really upset and destabilised my kids. They've had to watch a lot of change and uncertainty and feel sorry for him and the struggles that he's had, and he has his own inadequacies, and he's just not cut out for it. And so I do all of that, and it's caused a lot of upheaval, and you know, my eldest went through a real couple of years of really rebelling and being had behaviour was really difficult, and then my youngest has gone through real mental health struggles. She was out of school for a bit, she was under cams, and so I've been doing all of this. So there's me on this side paddling, paddling, paddling, working myself to the to the bone to keep body and soul together to keep my kids moving, get get them through school. Every winter was awful with my youngest, she would really struggle, and it was always really, really hard work, and I'd have to like take a week off just before Christmas just to manage the winter term. So that I'm doing all of this, and then I'm having down a busy job in the NHS managing a service through COVID, and then I'm having to watch the fallout of the opposite thing going on where nothing's being done, and having to deal with the fallout of that, and I've I think that's what makes me cross because I'm like, I'm not dealing with that as well.

Katie South: 43:26

Yeah, and nobody nobody can blame you. You know, you've offered support, you've offered to be there, and I would put my mortgage on the fact that if your partner had said at any time, right, I need your help, I want to do this, let's make it happen, that you would have been all in, you know. Of course I would have done. I mean, it's always really difficult for stepmums because they can see a lot of the time things from that perspective, and you you know, you can see things that are happening to children, but you're often a very different woman to the biological mother with a very different set of parenting values. Um, and like you say, you can't you can't bring up the biological mother's parenting values and parenting skills, so you have to make a choice to let yours down a bit if that child's in your house, and that can be really difficult, really uncomfortable, and it's not it's not doesn't fit very well with me at all.

Joanne: 44:18

And of course, then there was the impact on my stepson as well. Um, and he sort of felt very much in the middle of it, piggy in the middle, because it was all about the other child and what's getting on. Actually, he has a really good friendship with my youngest, and they have their own lovely sort of relationship, which they manage independently, and I know they have their own discussions and they'll have their own view on it, but you know, it really has created some really difficult emotions, really difficult.

Katie South: 44:47

So, what do you think the future holds then, Joanne?

Joanne: 44:52

Well, it's it started off as a kind of naive exercise in us, you know, we're gonna be this one big happy family, and I think now we just ended up with a more pragmatic sense of this ain't happening, this is not a blendable situation. You know, we went through a period a couple of years ago where I I kind of I called time on the relationship because he wasn't listening to me. I said she just not to come round my house anymore because at the age of 19, she threw an 18-month-old style toddler tantrum in my house, and I just said, I've had enough, I can't have this behaviour in my house. And then he threw you know guilty head in sand, parenting style dad just didn't really think I really meant it, so he kept inviting them around. And I said, You're not here, you're not hearing me. This is actually really important. Um, so I we weren't together for a while. I just said, You need to go away and think about what you want. I said, I want a relationship where we we are the top, the priority, that the adults in this relationship, you and me, are the priority, and that these are these children who are actually not children anymore, will be able to make their own path. And so we've kind of recommenced our relationship on a slightly different footing, where I don't really see that much of her, that whole kind of they come over for a week at Christmas or a week at that's stopped. And I said to him, I was really clear, I said, I'm not interested in that, that does not interest me. This is not that kind of family, this is not that kind of setup, and it doesn't need to be that kind of setup because none of these kids' children, and you know, it is different when they are older, they're not they do have their own lives, and and rightly so, and we should it should be a looser arrangement. So now we have an arrangement where I I feel like actually there are limitations and they just are what they are, and there are the relationships are just going to be what they are. And to be honest, really genuinely honest with you, Katie. I feel like there's no real relationship really with my stepdaughter. I'm polite and welcoming and respectful. She can come for it for the odd night, no problem with that whatsoever. But with the bigger picture of where she's at, it's nothing whatsoever to do with me. And that's involved a lot of self-reflection on my part, it's involved counselling on my part, it's involved me understanding my own issues and my own insecurities that are in there in that mix as well, in my own vulnerability as a single parent, feeling quite vulnerable to being buffeted by the other stuff that's going on around me. But actually, I think as I've got older and my kids have got older, I've developed more of a faith in myself, and you know, my kids are now both over 18, over the age of 18. And I I feel like as I've been able to let go of them as a parent now, that I've been able to let go of everything a bit better now, and and now we're kind of moving forward on the basis of I'm just polite and just respectful. My partner and I we are going to be moving in, we'll be selling up our properties, we will be moving in together, and it will the chips will just fall where they may. He knows how I feel about her situation, and he knows that if if she ever rang up and said, Dad, I want to come and live with you, he knows it wouldn't work. And you know, we just go into it with our eyes open, and nobody knows what the future holds. Um, but the future is definitely brighter, and I think now feeling less vulnerable in my own parenting role that my kids are older, I feel like I just want to prioritise myself, and I feel like I can just let things go a little bit more. So it's a looser arrangement, I would say. It's it's it's one of those blended families, it's never going to blend, it's not going to be one big happy family, but there are good relationships there, there are positive relationships there. My stepson is a lovely relationship that he and I have that he and I share. Um, the relationship between my partner and my girls is really lovely, and I love and I really value that. Uh, and I tell my partner that all the time, it's lovely that you have that really positive role.

Katie South: 48:57

People who listen to the podcast regularly will know I struggle with the word blended for a start because I think you know, if people, humans are not for blending with other humans, like you have to build what works for you. Um, and I think that feeling like everything has to blend and be perfect, I think is part of the problem of why people feel so pressured and different families work in different ways. I've been surprised at how common it is for dad's children to have very different roles in the stepfamily. I guess 10 years ago I would have thought, well, they're biological siblings, they'll have the same place, but it's not the case at all. And there are many, many families where the relationship with one stepchild is really different to another. What about your partner's relationship with his daughter now, then?

Joanne: 49:43

Better now. He has been to counselling himself, so fair play to him after we had this rupture in our relationship. He he did admit to me, he said, Look, I was with somebody a long time before I met you, and she could see the problems coming with my daughter, and she said, You're gonna have to sort that out. And I also kind of realised along the way that the problems that they have and the fact that he can't parent her is nothing to do with me. Literally nothing. The feelings that he has towards his daughter are complex and difficult and not great. It took me a long time to realise that, but he's taken that to a counsellor and they've gone through you know his relationship with her to try and cultivate a more unconditional love style relationship so that he can just be he can just be with her and be a presence for her rather than this nagging negative person. And he he and she and she has said to me that she feels like they've got a better relationship now, and so they certainly do have a better relationship now, and they speak regularly. Like I used to hear the conversations used to be really silted, and now it's more natural and they are at ease with each other in conversation, and so that is definitely a better relationship, it's not resulted in any more boundaries, and it's you know, she's gonna be 22 this year, so the ship sailed, and and so I'm just pleased that he has the relationship with her that he wants to have, and that's that's all I can really ask of the situation. It doesn't mean that I have to have a close, loving relationship with her, it doesn't mean that as long as I'm polite and respectful and welcoming when she comes, but it's just it's no more than that, and that is fine for everyone to have the relationships that are naturally there. So we will be moving forward, and I'm really delighted about it because I'm really excited about the future for myself and my partner. So many positives in what we all have in different ways. I love the relationship that we have, we have a great life together, and um, I feel really, really positive about it, and just we'll be able to just move forward in a way that's not contrived, in a way that's just natural, and that we are just all are who we are, and those differences are there, and that's that's life.

Katie South: 52:01

Yeah, and that sounds so kind of freeing to be able to say, actually, we've stopped trying to be something, we've stopped trying to like blend our family, we've just gone. Do you know what? We're a bunch of six different people, and we'll have lots of different relationships, and actually that's okay, like pressure off. When you were talking earlier about as I've got older, I you know, I'm letting more stuff go. And I was thinking, Oh, like you are my person because I feel totally the same. And there are so many things that I used to want to fix or help with or do better or get involved in, and none of it helped.

Joanne: 52:37

I've always been like, you know, I'm the queen of I can fix this and I can sort this, and and and I think I just turned 50 last year, and I'm like, I don't I don't care anymore. I don't I'm interested, I do care, but I'm not I don't feel like I want to fix things in the way that I did, and it's really freeing. And you know, my eldest daughter, she just does whatever she wants and always has done. She's always dipped in and out of step family life. If she wants to turn up for one dinner, she will, if she wants to go out with her friends, she will, and she wants out, and she's a super social butterfly, and she only dips in and out of what she wants to. And I'm like, you know what? That's a great lesson to us all for Step Family Life. Yeah, turn out for the bits that work and leave the bits that don't work.

Katie South: 53:20

Well, look, thank you so much for talking to me. It's been really fascinating to hear your story, and thank you for dropping me an email in the first place. Um, because obviously, without people doing that, we can't make the podcast, so I really appreciate it. Well, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Oh, Joanne, thank you so much. I loved that chat. Quite fancied a glass of wine with you at the end of it, actually. I identified with a lot of what you said, and I'm sure that many, many women listening did too. So, so much that's so valuable for us in there, particularly that pressure around feeling like we must blend. Like it doesn't always work that way for everybody, and that's okay. Like we can do our best, but we are not a neutral bullet. We cannot blend humans. So, look, a huge thank you, Joanne, for getting in touch and sharing your story. If you're listening and thinking you'd like to share yours, then please do drop me a note. You can do that via stepmamspace.com or on the socials at Stepmum Space. Thanks to everyone who's been in touch with me recently to share their stories of how the podcast has helped you. It truly, truly means the world to hear from you. So thank you. There's more help and support available at stepmamspace.com and more on its way. So watch this space and subscribe to the site. If you've enjoyed this episode or any other, please do rate or review the podcast wherever you're listening. It really, really helps getting us to other women who need the podcast. And don't forget to spread the word by sharing on your socials. We'll be back next week with another new episode, but in the meantime, have a great week.