Stepmothers' Coparenting Experience with the Mother in Joint Custody

Journal of Divorce & Remarriage

ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20

Stepmothers’ Coparenting Experience with the Mother in Joint Custody Stepfamilies

Annkatrine Liegmann Gates

To cite this article: Annkatrine Liegmann Gates (2018): Stepmothers’ Coparenting Experience with the Mother in Joint Custody Stepfamilies, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1488124 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1488124

Published online: 27 Jun 2018.

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Stepmothers’ Coparenting Experience with the Mother in Joint Custody Stepfamilies Annkatrine Liegmann Gates Clinicial Psychology Department, William James College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This qualitative study is the first to focus exclusively on step- coparenting; divorce; mothers’ coparenting experiences with mothers in joint cus- grounded theory; joint ’ custody; stepfamilies; tody families. Central findings include the stepmothers (a) stepmother; two mothers struggles with the mother–father–stepmother relationship triangle, (b) stepmothers’ internal struggles with their role, (c) the perception of the mother as powerful, and (d) the view of themselves as powerless. Results also suggest that stepmothers in joint custody families undergo a 5-phase process of adapting to an unexpectedly complex stepfamily system. Based on these findings, the author suggests that future stepfamily research continue to examine joint custody families, especially the experiences and perceptions of mothers and stepmothers.

It was not until the 1970s that more remarriages followed divorce than the death of a spouse, and not until the 1990s that stepfamily research significantly increased (Ganong & Coleman, 2017). The majority of stepfamily research continues to focus on the mother–stepfather household because mothers are still more likely to hold primary physical custody of their children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Father–stepmother households remain understudied, despite stepmothers experiencing a higher rate of anxiety and depression than biological mothers and more stress in general than stepfathers (Doodson, 2014; Ganong & Coleman, 2017). In addition, mothers and stepmothers often have the tensest relationship across stepfamily households, and a threatened ex-wife or stepmother might draw a rigid boundary between a child’s two families (Papernow, 2013). Doodson (2014) identified the stepchildren’s biological mother as an important source of anxiety for the stepmother due to the mother’s ongoing control and interference as well as her enduring relationship with the father. Many stepmothers experience either a noncommunicative connection with the mother of their stepchildren or no relationship at all. On the other hand,

CONTACT Annkatrine Liegmann Gates [email protected] 10 Coolidge Hill Road, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/wjdr. © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 2 A. L. GATES divorced mothers tend to struggle to allow stepmothers into their children’s lives (Ganong, Coleman, Jamison, & Feistman, 2015). Direct effective communication between coparenting ex-partners is critical for protecting children from adult conflict. Researchers have shown that children do best in low-conflict collaborative joint custody arrangements and that frequent and peaceful collaboration between ex-partners results in more positive outcomes for children of divorce (Bauserman, 2002; Ganong & Coleman, 2017). Children also do best when they have positive relationships with both their father and stepfather (King, 2006; White & Gilbreth, 2001), suggesting that a positive relationship with their mother and stepmother is likely to affect children in a similar way. Weaver and Coleman (2005) found that stepmothers have complex feelings regarding their role within the stepfamily context. Stepparents often get stuck in outsider positions, and a lack of awareness about stepfamily dynamics and an eagerness to form a new family makes their position especially surprising and painful (Papernow, 2013). Stepmothers face many challenges, especially those confronting their status as the “other” mother whose role seems ambiguously defined and overshadowed by the lack of support from family, culture, and community (Hart, 2009). Research of stepfamilies in which mothers were the primary custodian of their children found that interhousehold relationships succeeded when stepfamilies were able to address conflict directly, listen to one another, and share activities (Golish, 2003). Although the existing stepfamily research identifies sources and impact of conflict, none of the research specifically addresses the harm that can be done when the relationship between the two mothering adults remains complicated, especially in families that share the custody of their children. The results of this study reveal that stepmothers undergo a personal and internal struggle in determining their role within the family, as well as generally experiencing feelings of powerlessness. They also consistently report an adaptation process that can be summarized by five phases that ultimately determine their successful negotiation of a new position for themselves within the family unit.

Method

The majority of stepparent literature is quantitative in nature and focuses on either stepfather households or nonresidential stepmothers. This research was intended instead to be an in-depth investigation of stepmothers’ coparenting experiences with the biological mother in stepfamilies that share legal and physical custody of the children. The use of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), a qualitative method of inquiry, allowed the researcher to focus on the central research question: What is the coparenting experience of stepmothers with the biological mother? JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 3

Participants The researcher recruited participants in this study via personal and profes- sional contacts, through Internet forums, locally posted flyers, and the use of snowball sampling (Rubin & Babbie, 2005). Individuals were selected to participate in the study based on the following criteria:

● Stepmother status. ● The stepmother must be married to or cohabiting with the biological father for at least 2 years. ● The biological father had joint legal and physical custody of the child or children. ● The stepmother’s stepchild or stepchildren spent essentially equal time in both biological parents’ homes. ● The stepmother may or may not have had biological children. ● Stepfamilies as a result of death, foster, or adoptive families were not considered.

Eight stepmothers participated in the interview, ranging in age from 30 to 55 years old. The majority of the sample identified as heterosexual, female, and White. Seven participants were working professionals, and one was a stay-at-home mother. All of the participants had a yearly household income of more than $50,000, with six participants’ yearly household income being over $100,000. Seven participants were married to the father of their stepchildren, two for 1 to 3 years, four for 4 to 6 years, and one for more than 15 years. One participant had been living with her partner for 5 years. Six participants had two stepchildren, one participant had one stepchild, and one participant had three stepchildren in their current partnerships. Only one participant had a child from a previous partnership. Three stepmothers had no children with their current partners, three had two biological children with their current partners, and two had one biological child with their current partner. Most stepchildren were 10 years old or younger when they first met their stepmother.

Procedure The researcher conducted semistructured interviews with all participants either in person or over the telephone, beginning the interview process by asking the participants specific questions regarding background and demo- graphics information, followed by open-ended research questions about the participants’ coparenting experiences with the biological mothers. The researcher posed follow-up interview questions based on new ideas as well as to elaborate and clarify certain points. 4 A. L. GATES

Data analysis The researcher applied a grounded theory approach while analyzing the data. During the analysis process, the researcher reviewed the participants’ interview responses and determined (a) appropriate coding processes that led to the formation of themes, and (b) a possible change of the interview focus as themes emerged from data collection. Data analysis involved the constant comparative method, meaning that later interviews were tailored to further examine the developing theory (Creswell, 2007). Coding began directly after each interview was completed and transcribed. The researcher examined the interview transcripts employing the following coding processes: (a) open coding, (b) axial coding, and (c) selective coding. In addition, the researcher kept an ongoing record of personal reactions to control for any potential bias.

Results

The results of the study are broken down into three main categories: conflict, power dynamics, and resolution. Each of the main categories featured several subcategories illustrating the complexity of stepfamilies and confirming previous stepfamily research findings, including participants’ internal struggles with their stepmother role and the challenges of navigating the relationship triangle between the biological mother, biological father, and stepmother. This research clearly identified an absence of a coparental relationship between stepmothers and biological mothers. Most stepmothers did not experience the coparenting relationship across households as supportive; instead, participants expressed needing to rely on their internal resources. In fact, the thematic data that emerged appear to indicate an overarching story of a five-phase process that joint custody stepmothers follow in adapting to stepfamily dynamics over time. This adaptive stepmothering process included the following sequential phases: (a) the honeymoon phase; (b) stepping back; (c) searching for voice and clarity; (d) acceptance; and (e) focusing on the relationship with the stepchildren (see Figure 1).

Conflict Given the complicated dynamics of stepfamilies, it is probably not surprising that conflict emerged as the most commonly reported subject during the interviews. All stepmothers shared experiencing conflict in a variety of ways, but four main subcategories emerged from the narratives, including original separation conflict, triangle, covert conflict, and the stepmother’s internal conflict. These themes refer to the complicated dynamics the stepmothers experienced within the mother–father–stepmother relationship triangle, as JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 5

Figure 1. Five-step stepmothering process.

well as the stepmothers’ internal struggles of figuring out their place within the stepfamily system.

Original separation conflict This theme refers to the stepmother’s experience of the father’s separation or divorce from the mother. Stepmothers discussed how a major aspect of their newly forming relationship with the father was his struggle to negotiate agreements with the mother regarding finances and custody of their children. Because this conflict was the first conflict participants described experiencing as they became stepmothers and formed stepfamilies, it is referred to as the “original” conflict. One stepmother shared, “When I met my husband he was still married but had been in the throes of a very nasty divorce for about 3 years.” Another stepmother said, “My husband was in the process of divorcing while I came into his life, and so the children were still very unsettled. His ex was still very unsettled. And so the situation was very dynamic.” Thus, when stepmothers begin dating the father of their stepchildren, they are entering a situation that is often overshadowed by the loss and the separation of the biological parents. The ex-couple might still be nego- tiating their disagreements and the ending of their intimate relationship, and stepmothers might wonder whether they have a place in the family.

Triangle Stepmothers talked about experiencing a triangular relationship between themselves and the biological mother and father. As part of the triangle experience, participants described difficulties with communication, boundaries, the father’s avoidance of conflict, and anger. One participant said, “Those early years of a marriage when you really should be a lot about each other, you know, we really were in a three-way relationship, even though I was not in direct contact with 6 A. L. GATES

[the mother].” Another participant described her experience of the triangle as: “He and I talk to each other, and she and he talk to each other, yeah, . . . it’slikea game of telephone, you know.” All participants reported being on the outside regarding parental communication and six stepmothers described how communicating with the mother seemed impossible or very challenging. For example, one stepmother shared, “She is not participating in the conversation with me. So like I’ll say things to her, and she won’t respond.” All stepmothers talked about boundary struggles with the mother. For instance, some participants experienced mothers wanting to be involved in decisions made in the stepmother’s household, or who demanded attention or last-minute scheduling changes during vacation times, by sharing information with the children that stepmothers felt was theirs to share, or by walking into the stepmother’s house without being invited. For example, one stepmother described:

And so many times it’s boundary issues that you have to sort through with the ex. I think it’s really important that she doesn’t have say of how things are run in our house. And she sometimes tried to have say of how things are run in our house, and some of that is blurry, right, she might say “I want to make sure the kids have sneakers when they go to school.” That’s then putting a demand on how we do things in our house. But there’s that issue where she can’t decide how things are done in this household, and she’s tried on numerous occasions, just small things like, you know, “The kids shouldn’t eat that.”

Seven of the eight participants talked about the father disliking conflict. For example, one stepmother shared:

He’d be afraid to go back and negotiate, and then that power dynamic is really entering into our relationship, and it’s really like, I am now in a box because you don’t want to go talk to your ex-wife about schedules? Or I can’t do what I want this summer because you don’t want to upset the apple cart? Then she is dictating my life.

For many of the participants, their partner’s refusal to confront their ex fueled feelings of anger. In their interviews, stepmothers disclosed many different sources of anger. Some stepmothers were picking up on anger that had long been present between the ex-partners. One participant identified, “There’s a lot of aggres- sion in that old family group that’s sort of below the surface.” For other stepmothers, the father’s unwillingness to engage in conflict with his ex- partner created a sense of insecurity. One stepmother revealed, “I had this fear that he would be making decisions still based on his marriage with [his ex-wife] rather than decisions of what was best for our family. So that fed into my hatred of her, really.” Another stepmother shared how she was JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 7

feeling angry because she realized that her husband was paying his ex-wife as much financial support as she was earning professionally:

You know, there was a while where I would just like really stew—I never said it out loud to [the father], but I would stew like “fuck you” you know, like I work hard every day, I’m a working mom working so hard, so that I can pay you to go to the beach? But you know, that would just make me feel so angry. It is important to understand the complex dynamics of this mother–father– stepmother triangular relationship as it often pushes the stepmother into an outsider position where she might feel trapped. When stepmothers come onto the scene, they are joining a preexisting family unit (i.e., the mother, the father, and the children) that might share a long history and is still working through the loss of being a traditional family. Biological mothers might feel threatened by the stepmothers’ presence and exclude them from coparenting decisions and activities, leaving stepmothers feeling ignored and unaccepted.

Covert conflict Participants reported experiencing a hostile environment that was often created by the way the mother was talking about them but not directly to them. Five participants talked about the mother bad-mouthing them to the father, the stepchildren, or both. For example, one stepmother shared the mother making the following comment about her to her stepchildren: “Be careful when you go to [the stepmother’s] house, because she doesn’t open the windows, and you’re gonna get sick, you know, because you need to air out the house.” Three participants disclosed feeling ignored and apparently intentionally avoided by the mother. One participant shared, “Just by the evidence of refusing to speak to me or acknowledge me or look at me—I just don’t exist.” Another participant described how her stepchildren’s mother avoided her when she stepped in for child care for the first time:

So she got out of the car, she dropped off the kid, basically we got in some weird situation the very first time she saw me, leaving her youngest child. She got out of the car, I said “Hi,” and she didn’t look at me, she didn’t talk to me, she basically acted as if I wasn’t there. In her interview, one stepmother shared feeling ignored, not just literally by the mother when they crossed paths, but also in her role as stepmother to her stepchild:

Now when I went to that school at the beginning of the school year, you know, when they got all the forms, the emergency forms, and I saw where my husband had to sign off, and (mother) listed all the emergency contacts, my name wasn’ton there, which broke my heart, I mean it made me so sad. These findings suggest that the biological mother’s behavior strongly influ- ences the stepfamily dynamics. When the biological mother cannot accept 8 A. L. GATES the stepmother, the result is tension and friction. For many participants, the experience of being unnoticed, not taken into account, or denigrated by the mother engendered a phase marked by introspection, leaving stepmothers to figure out what their role within the stepfamily should be.

Stepmother’s internal conflict Participants described first undergoing a so-called honeymoon phase followed by role confusion. When stepmothers first met their new partners and their stepchild or stepchildren it was often a time filled with hope and enthusiasm and excitement to start or become a part of a family. One stepmother said:

I had dreams, oh I can’t tell you—I thought we would have these big birthday parties, and there would be grandparents from both sides, and there’d be siblings and stepbrothers and cousins, you know? The honeymoon phase often ended when stepmothers realized that what they had imagined and hoped for was not going to transpire. Participants described their disappointments and feelings of defeat when they found they were unable to influence the outcome in the way they had envisioned. Many shared feeling trapped, causing them to reevaluate their positions in the stepfamily. Participants reported feeling a need to extricate themselves from their stepfamily to process the loss of their initial hopes and dreams and to reassess their circumstances. One stepmother said:

It’s gotten to the point now where, when we have family dinners, I don’t necessa- rily stay for the whole dinner because I’m just ignored at the table, so I just leave, it’s easier. I can just step away from the bigger family gatherings. But it is hard, I mean you have a family, and you think this is my place, my family is my place. And it’s not, and it’s not my place. You guys go out. Participants talked about struggling internally regarding the meaning and definition of their role as stepmother. Many described feeling confused in regard to their role in that they were mothering their stepchildren but without having the privileges of the mothering role. One stepmother shared, “I feel like the stepmom has all the responsibilities of being a mother, and absolutely none of the joys or the freedom to do it.”

Power dynamics Power was another critical theme that arose from this study. Stepmothers clearly experienced an extreme dichotomy between their sense of their own lack of power and their perception of the mother’s power. All of the interviewed stepmothers spoke of lacking agency and control in the stepfamily, and they described the mothers as influential and powerful. This theme that JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 9 emerged during the interviews contained three subcategories, including the original family, the mother, and the stepmother.

Original family Six participants labeled the original family (i.e., the mother, father, and stepchildren) as very influential. Participants described entering an already established family system rather than creating a new family of their own. For example, one stepmother shared that this system, “didn’t adjust to me, nor did I feel empowered to demand an adjustment. . . . Nothing has ever changed, except the illusion that I had that this family, that this unit would absorb me.” Four participants struggled with the amount of closeness between the father and mother. One stepmother shared, “I’ve said to [the father] like ‘if you’re having this conversation or going to decide this with your ex and not me, then you two are in the intimate relationship, and not you and me, and that’sadeal- breaker.’” The same stepmother described being confronted with having to navigate established values regarding holidays:

And these are the sort of things that are interesting with relationships—that was always a very important holiday for her. And in their marriage, it was never a very important holiday for [the father] because I mean as he said, he wasn’t sort of allowed to have it his way, so it wasn’t important because, you know, whatever. But so she sort of felt like “Okay, this is a very important holiday for me, it’s not very important for you,” and dug in. It’s totally stupid, and every year it’s stupid, but the day is kind of split, the Thanksgiving day is split. Stepmothers often enter stepfamily systems eager to become involved and to be allowed a place at the parenting table. However, too often the “original” family unit is not ready to create a new family system and to invite a new adult into their inner circle. Children are scared to lose one or both of their parents, and mothers and fathers are still processing the loss of their nuclear family, feelings of guilt, conceptualizing their separation as having failed in their ability to create a healthy home for the child. Society still views the traditional family as normal and does not provide alternative success stories for separated parents.

Mother All participants talked about their experience of the biological mother’s power and control. One stepmother described, “She’ll just become obsessive. When she needs [the father] to do something, she expects it done in that moment, and she’ll just badger the hell out of him.” Another stepmother recalled, “I felt like things had to be done her way or no other way, and I was very intimidated by that.” When participants shared the challenges of the mother’s behavior, many also revealed feeling challenged by the mother holding most of the parental control. For example, as one stepmother described: 10 A. L. GATES

I asked [the mother] if I could have the boys to go to this [special] dinner, and she said no, that the only way that I could go with the boys was if I invited her, too, like she had to come as well. And that just made me so mad, and that helped me understand like that from her perspective, like she’s the mom. Another stepmother explained:

I get this feeling of like you know everybody is sort of watching me as I come into the house. And she’s there, and she has sort of dominion because they’re her kids, even though it’s my house. One stepmother touched on the power of the mother role and how the children might experience a loyalty bind:

She really should sort of give them permission to have a relationship with me. And in theory she has and so on, but at different times it’s been more difficult. So I think there’s a loyalty, like the boys—maybe it’s very typical in divorces, but they have to decide like you either like your mom more or your dad more, and I think they’ve waffled occasionally. And I basically try to be like the friendly adult who’s like not part of that, as much as I can. Stepmothers reported mothers being in the position of holding most of the parental control in their stepfamilies. For example, mothers were often in charge of choosing children’s activities, creating children’s schedules, and prioritizing family values that were important to them. In addition, society idealizes the idea of the “good mother” and assumes that she is the only one truly able to nurture her child. She has performed the miracle of birth and is therefore granted the highest parental status. Legally this is reflected by family courts asking fathers to argue for their equal parental rights, assuming that mothers will have custody of their children. The mother’s expected parental power makes it particularly hard for stepmothers to gain any kind of influential role in the family.

Stepmother All participants talked about their lack of power and control within the stepfamily system. All stepmothers described feeling lack of agency. For example, one stepmother stated clearly, “I’m powerless to do anything.” Another stepmother explained:

I’m lacking the real agency with it. I mean my influence is limited, you know, like I don’t have real power. Because like in that moment, in my house, my rules don’t quite apply, so that’s where it’s really sort of tricky, sort of how far to go in and say something or not say something, you know. Another stepmother recognized, “I basically have to accept that there’s this thing that’s going to influence my life, and I just have to deal with the consequences that I have to be a passive like participant in it in some way.” She continued: “I am so not important, I’m just like this stepmom. I have this sense that yeah, I have no legal existence kind of in this child’s life.” JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 11

Stepmothers do not experience themselves as being powerful and influential within the stepfamily system. They enter stepfamilies during times of hardship and after parents have separated and made most of the decisions regarding their children’s custody arrangements. In addition, stepmothers do not have any legal parental rights to their stepchildren, and society continues to marginalize them by ignoring their existence. For example, many schools only let stepmothers participate in parent–teacher conferences when the biological mother allows the stepmother to attend. Finally, stepmothers continue to be negatively stereotyped and portrayed as women who neglect, abandon, and mistreat their stepchildren.

Resolution Stepmothers in this study appeared to resolve some of their struggles with the conflicts and power dynamics by searching for their voice and achieving role clarity. What appeared to resolve most of the tension for stepmothers, however, was their acceptance of their inability to fully control their environment, and perhaps most important, directing their attention to their relationship with their stepchildren. This third main category includes two subcategories: the stepmother’s internal resolution and the stepmother focuses on the stepchildren.

Stepmother’s internal resolution Seven participants shared their process of finding their voice within their stepfamily system by articulating their needs. One stepmother shared stand- ing up for herself during a family meeting that included her stepchildren’s mother. She said that the children’s mother was talking disrespectfully about her in her presence. This participant spoke up: “I’m in the room, right? So that was something where, you know, I said basically like ‘you can’t be rude.’” Although generally preferring to leave the main communication between father and mother, one stepmother shared establishing her boundaries directly: “I reach like a boiling point, and I usually just text her, but I’ll say ‘The plan has been set for 6 months, do not come and blow our family’s plans, stop it now.’” She also described reinforcing the boundary by refusing to change schedule plans. “And there have been times that we’ve pushed back against that and said ‘No, you’re gonna see them next week. This is our Thanksgiving holiday.’” Another stepmother found clarity by accepting her limited influence on her stepchildren. “And I think also with the girls, sort of just seeing what I can and cannot change, and I sort of just had to accept things a little bit—the way that they are.” Five participants described their relationship with the mother of their stepchild or stepchildren as “friendly but not friends,” creating a solution for amiable engagement between the two women. For example, one stepmother said: 12 A. L. GATES

[The mother] was always very civil—you know, seemingly friendly. You know, the . . . (laughs) it’s the only way I can describe it—you know the way women are like okay, we’ll just be like friendly people, and not overly so, but just maybe because it’s this unique relationship, if you could call it that. Another stepmother shared, “The mom decided that she wants to have a good relationship with me, so we have sort of like a very friendly—very surfacey but very friendly relationship. And I think that’s very good when people can do that.” Although some participants found a friendly way to interact with the mother, five stepmothers stated they preferred their distance with their stepchildren’s mother. For example, one participant described her reasons for preferring to keep her distance:

So I actually was not unhappy not to interact with her. I think I just didn’t wanna invite a conversation with her because I didn’t feel as though it would be a conversation between two people who had the best interests, who had a similar perspective on what they were trying to do. Stepmothers in this study regained some of their internal strength by focusing on their own needs and deepening their own understanding of the stepmother role. Due to a lack of external resources and ways for stepmothers to find guidance, many participants described turning inward to connect to their sense of their own boundaries and limits, at which point they began articulating their newly discovered clarity. Stepmothers eventually told mothers and fathers to stop or change certain behaviors.

Stepmother focuses on stepchildren Much to their initial frustration, the stepmothers in this study were not able to establish a process in their larger stepfamily context for addressing conflict directly and effectively. In fact, participants articulated experiencing the opposite, including an absence of communication and listening, and direct expression of conflict, as well as an aversion to joint household activities. Stepmothers did not find that it was realistic to establish effective and satisfying rules of interacting with the mother and were often frustrated with the father’s conflict avoidance. Many participants described coming to the decision to turn their attention away from the conflict-oriented adult relationships and concentrate on their relationship to their stepchild or stepchildren instead. For example, one stepmother explained, “So I just wanted to kind of really just focus on what experience [the stepchildren] were having with me.” One stepmother shared her realization:

My only I guess divining rod, the thing that would always make how I need to act clear was just what do I think is best for the children, and that’s how I did it. That was my clear line. When I disengage, the relationship starts falling apart, my relationship to the boys, and everything starts getting more dysfunctional. You actually have to deal with them if you have joint custody. JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 13

Many participants began to place their stepchildren’s needs at the center of their role as stepmother. They came to a position of wanting to protect and care for the child no matter how difficult the adult dynamics had become. Articulating to their stepchildren what stepmothering meant for them also appeared to help participants to deal with the ambiguity of their role.

Five-step stepmothering process Participants expressed needing to rely on their internal resources, utilizing an adaptive process that ultimately allowed them to find relief for their internal conflicts by identifying their voice within the stepfamily system and illumi- nating their stepmother role. The themes that emerged from this research suggest that stepmothers go through a five-phase adaptive process to successfully adjust to an unexpectedly complex stepfamily system (see Figure 1). This five-phase process includes the honeymoon phase, the stepping back phase, the searching for voice and role clarity phase, the acceptance phase, and the focus on relationship to the stepchildren phase. During the honeymoon phase, fathers seemed eager for the stepmothers to join their family and to get to know their children. Stepmothers described feeling overwhelmed by the fast family formation, yet their feelings of love for the father and their openness to the new situation creates a sense of optimism. This phase of initial hopes is followed by confrontation with conflicts and power dynamics, particularly the struggle to feel included. When stepmothers felt helpless and unable to find an ally in their partner (i.e., the father) they tend to step away from the central actions of the stepfamily to digest their experience and to search for clarity. The stepping back phase allows stepmothers to disconnect from the complex relationship dynamics, providing a space for reflection. During the third phase, searching for voice and role clarity, interviewees shared tackling big questions regarding the role of the stepmother. Stepmothers shared needing to rely on their own internal resources as they could not find enough external support. Often their partners also struggled with the challenges of the stepfamily dynamics in their own ways. The larger social context, laden with myths and stereotypical preconceptions of the stepmother, and the lack of stepfamily-specialized psychological support, has resulted in stepmothers failing to receive the help they clearly need. However, many participants of this study shared reaching a point of acceptance. This phase was manifested by stepmothers’ willingness and courage to accept the fact that they could not control their environment and the interpersonal dynamics in the larger stepfamily context. Stepmothers described letting go of their initial goals, realizing that they did not have the power to change how the mother parents her children, how the mother and 14 A. L. GATES

father relate to one another, or how society perceives their roles as stepmothers. Instead, participants focused on what they could control, namely their relationship with their stepchildren. The stepmothers’ focus on their relationship with their stepchildren defined the fifth phase of the process. Stepmothers revealed realizing that they did not want to dwell in the conflicts aroused by the stepfamily dynamic, nor did they want to get lost in the toxic energy of the adult relationships. Adaptive stepmothers strove instead to focus on their relationship with their stepchildren, and that focus in turn resolved much of their confusion and despair. Many participants began to place their stepchildren’s needs at the center of their role as stepmother. They came to a position of wanting to protect and care for the child no matter how difficult the adult dynamics had become. As one stepmother came to realize, “My only role is to be a loving and kind person that my stepchildren can depend on.”

Discussion

This study was a qualitative investigation into the coparenting experience of stepmothers with biological mothers in joint custody families. Although this particular relationship dyad (i.e., mother and stepmother) remains understudied, the researcher was surprised to find an absence of a coparental relationship between mother and stepmother. In fact, all of the stepmothers in this study described a complete lack of a cooperative parental relationship between the two women. Instead, achieving a mutual understanding of how to engage superficially, in a way that kept conflict low, appeared to be the best solution for mother–stepmother relationships. Achieving a friendly, superficial way of engaging with the mother, either at their doorsteps or passing in the school hallways, was considered a success. Protecting children from adult conflict is essential for their well-being in both divorced and never-divorced families, and researchers have found that even moderate tension can have a negative impact (Bauserman, 2002; El-Sheikh, Buckhalt, Cummings, & Keller, 2007). Although a cooperative coparenting relationship between mothers and stepmothers might be a wonderful outcome for all members of a stepfamily, it might be an unattainable goal for most mothers and stepmothers. Thus, achieving a cordial, low-conflict way of interacting could be a more realistic goal and the second best outcome for stepfamilies. In addition, the findings of this study underscore the lack of external support for stepmothers and shed light on the internal struggles they experience. Perhaps most important to note is the strength these stepmothers found within themselves, and how successful they were in confronting their challenges and resolving their own pain. However, because stepmothers tend to struggle alone and quietly within themselves, it came as a surprise to find out that they collectively seemed to use the same adaptive process to JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 15 successfully cope with their role and position in the family. Naming and sharing this five-step stepmothering process might give stepmothers hope and provide them with clear guidance when they find themselves overwhelmed by the blurry dynamics of their stepfamily.

Limitations of the study This study had several important limitations. Although the semistructured interview format allowed for more in-depth understanding of the personal and unique stories of the stepmothers, the small sample size makes it difficult to generalize the findings. In addition, the participants were quite homo- geneous, being mostly White heterosexual women, all with college degrees, and some with graduate degrees. All had a gross annual income of at least $50,000 with most of the participants’ household incomes over $100,000. Thus, it is still unclear how stepmothers from lower income and more diverse backgrounds might react when joining a stepfamily. Finally and significantly, the researcher is a longtime joint custody stepmother herself and held her own biases as to how she experienced coparenting with the biological mother of her stepchildren over the last 15 years. The researcher documented her personal reactions after the interviews in an effort to remain aware of potential biases. Nevertheless, the researcher’s own perceptions could have influenced her understanding of the participants’ narratives.

Self-of-the-researcher For the past 15 years, I have been a stepmother coparenting my husband’s four children from his first marriage in a joint custody stepfamily. When I started my research I wondered whether other stepmothers in joint custody families shared my experience of difficulty coparenting with the biological mother. During this process of interviewing other stepmothers, I tried my best to control for my research bias and to take as neutral a position as possible in my conversations with the participants. For example, I did not share details about my personal story until interviews were completed. I asked only very open-ended questions and followed my participants’ leads in follow-up questioning. I had expected to find a full range of coparenting experiences between stepmothers and mothers, and I was surprised to find that none of the stepmothers I interviewed reported collaboratively coparenting with the mother of their stepchildren. It was profound to discover that other stepmothers struggled like me, often with similar issues, and that much of that struggle took place in isolation. As I reviewed the conversations I had with the participants and began to see a pattern that I described earlier as a five- phase process these women go through to settle into their identities as 16 A. L. GATES stepmothers, I realized that (a) forming a stepfamily takes time, (b) researchers and clinicians need to highlight these shared experiences of stepmothers to normalize their experiences, and (c) how successful stepmothers and mothers are when they can be amicable and find superficial ways of interacting.

Recommendations for future research Stepmothers have been identified as one of the most psychologically vulner- able members of stepfamilies, yet research on stepmothers remains scarce as most of the stepfamily research continues to focus on the mother–stepfather household. However, a larger proportion of fathers than ever before are achieving equal parental status in custody arrangements following divorce, which increases interactions and the need for negotiation between coparents’ households. In addition, nonresidential father households also include stepmothers who struggle mightily with their role. These households are rarely counted as stepfamilies and remain vastly understudied. Thus it seems apparent that more research is needed to focus on stepfamilies that share the care of their children, whether equally or not. In addition, this study described how much stepmothers in these particular families needed to rely on their own internal resources to navigate the challenges of their complex stepfamily system, in part because of the absence of available external sources of support. Future studies could further inspect and identify relevant internal as well as external resources for stepmothers and examine explanations for the scarcity of the latter. Finally, the absence of diversity in this study also warrants further investigation. Future research should explore stepfamilies that include sexually, racially, religiously, and socioeconomically diverse ex-couples or stepcouples.

Clinical implications It is my hope that this study provides clinicians with a greater awareness of the complexity of stepfamily relationship dynamics, particularly in that they cannot be treated or understood in the same way as traditional families. Although, of course, each stepfamily is unique, this research confirmed many previous studies that found predictable patterns in stepfamilies. This study focused on the perceptions of stepmothers, and found that although most stepmothers still remain isolated, effectively left alone to deal with their struggles, stepmothers in fact seem to share many of the same challenges. Thus, it is important to increase awareness for clinicians so that they can help normalize stepmothers’ feelings, offer support to them, and raise societal awareness of the unique challenges faced by stepmothers, particularly in the context of a shared custody arrangement. JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 17

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