“Show Notes”
Blending families where children are concerned can bring extra challenges to building a relationship & creating a home.
This weeks guest is Brittney Philips the blended family coach.
Relationship Revolutions is presented & hosted by Alan Watts – The Love Engineer. Alan is a relationship & dating coach, working with divorcees and singles who have come out of a long term relationship, and would like to move forward in to a healthy, loving and lasting relationship. Alan also works with couples in crisis to turn their relationship around and bring deeper connection, more passion, understanding and intimacy. Alan’s socials, website, quizzes etc can call be found on his link tree www.linktr.ee/LoveEngineer
About Brittney :- Brittney is a mom of 4 in a ‘yours, mine, and ours’ family dynamic and a certified coach and teacher. She has personal experience in blending her own family and spent many years learning strategies in the ‘school of hard knocks’.
Her approach is centred around empowering women to strengthen themselves, which ultimately influences and benefits the whole family.
“Show Transcription”
Alan
G’day and welcome to the latest episode of relationship revolutions where today I’m
joined by Britany and we’re going to be talking about dating as parents and Blended
families and all that kind of thing and um to start with first two
questions Britney how are you and where are you?
Brittney
thank you for letting me have on
the show first um I’m doing great um and I am in the United States in
Utah
Alan
Utah that’s my American geography isn’t very good but I’m guessing that’s
kind of somewhere in the middle-ish
Brittney
in middle its yeah more towards
the West Coast I’m not super far from Las Vegas so
Alan
okay excellent so Blended families and dating single
parents I’m guessing that it’s something that like myself you’ve got a little
experience with so would you like to share with us a little bit about your story and
background and where you’ve come to get to where you are today
Brittney
yes I’d be happy
to share so it’s starts back over a decade ago um I was in a marriage that
was well we can just simplify and say it was a toxic unhealthy marriage uh I was
able to get out of that and found myself as a single mom um I had full custody of my daughter
and in the dating world again trying to figure out how to start over
um that’s when I met my husband um at some point in there he was also a single
dad and we met fell in love decided we can do this we’ll blend our families um
and so we got married combined our families to um where we both had
one and thought it was going to be really easy the joke was on
us it um caught us off guard in so many ways so many different aspects we
had co-parenting and our parenting Style were different and all of a sudden the kids aren’t getting along anymore
because they’re siblings instead of just friends uh and just a lot of complications and so just kind of our
journey through that was very difficult but I thought it would be much easier
than it was um looking back with hindsight I think there were a lot of things that we could have done
differently which is why I do what I do now, just try to make that transition easier for people who are trying to
blend their families there are certain strategies you can use in a step family but also um like things that we
can do with our own mindset to make that transition easier
Alan
yeah what would you say has been the biggest challenge with blending your two families
Brittney
this is this is a weird answer but I think the biggest challenge was me
like getting over my own expectations and um being able to be
more flexible in certain ways where maybe I was more rigid especially coming from a divorce uh where I was kind of
tired of being pushed around I got pretty rigid and so allowing myself to
be vulnerable again and kind of open my heart and my mind to new ideas and
Concepts that was very difficult
Alan
yeah I’ve I had one of those um
unhealthy marriages as well so I definitely get where you’re coming from
um and I think one of the things that has the biggest impact on either
blending two families or dating as a parent or dating a single parent is if
the child’s shall we say other parent is involved or not
Brittney
yes yes I see this all the time with my uh with my clients where that’s one of
the biggest problems that they’re coming to me with is hey this person is trying to control what’s happening in our life and
in our family and I don’t know how to handle it and what can we do right and
and it is very difficult especially if um those people haven’t been working on
themselves if they’re high conflict person and just kind of like disturb the pot all the time those relationships can
be very very tricky uh to navigate to say the
least
Alan
yeah especially if uh if one of them’s got parental alienation in their
in their toolkit or um has a lot of shall we say narcissistic
Tendencies because not everyone that has those Tendencies is a narcissist you could get that impression
5:58
off all the stuff on social media these days
Brittney
yes
Alan
so let’s start from the beginning let’s say you’ve just come out of a long-term
relationship and you’ve got children you want another
relationship where do you start?
Brittney
oh there’s so many places we
want to start but I think it really starts with um with us so I’ve got to work on
myself and you’ll do a lot of work on yourself um anyway I’m going to pull in my own story too
just to kind of help paint this picture but um well I did I was going to a
therapist who counsellor you know doing a lot of things for myself got into a new
marriage and all of a sudden I am being retriggered and all of these things are
coming up from my past because I’m in another marriage that has nothing to do
with the person or the people I’m with has everything to do with the
circumstances if that makes sense so yeah no matter how much work you will do
there will be things that will resurface and you’ll have
to work on head off face it again uh in
that circumstance so I guess being prepared knowing that ahead of time that nothing is actually wrong that your body
is actually working in the way it’s meant to be like hey we did this
once like you know sounding the alarms inside your body and that’s okay and that nothing is
necessarily wrong you’re just going to have to teach your body that there
is safety there again and that’s um dep depending on the severity of what
happened in your first relationship um can be really difficult so knowing that going into it, that there
will be things that that resurface I mean you could spend a
longer Time dating but still I think when you’re actually
getting married again if that’s the ultimate goal if that’s what you’re looking
for it’s the circumstance so work on yourself as much
as possible um and then things that you might want to think about are your parenting
Styles um you know you could have the same values you could be very much aligned in a lot of ways think the same
ways but even down to the specifics like what are we going to do with screen time
or what are we going to do how many activities are our kids going to be involved in just really simple things
that could be um big things if you don’t have those conversations
beforehand with the people you’re looking at um in dating um I got a
little head of so I’m going to rewind a little bit as you’re looking for people let’s say that you’re just new into the
dating World some things you might want to think about like you mentioned is the
children’s other parent what are they like are they high conflict are they
more easy-going do they have do they live close do they live far like those things
can all be big factors um what are the finances are
they going to court all the time trying to like fight custody battles or are
um child support or paying Alimony are those things financially going out the
door which is something that a lot of families don’t think about beforehand
um as you’re looking for a person you’re wanting to find someone
that’s able to see the problem as the
problem um what ends up happening, a lot in Blended families is I don’t
know why but it feels like the whole world is just against your family and wants to rip you apart and so can we be
on the same side can we stand here together and look at the problem as the problem like yeah this circumstance is
frustrating but it’s not me versus you it’s US versus that um and can we
Face that together um how does this person communicate huge piece right
can we work through a problem not do we avoid all problems because that’s not
realistic every relationship will have um disagreements or differences of
opinions and that’s super normal but it’s how we communicate and work
through those problems that will really matter so look for someone that
can admit when they make a mistake that can um you know not lose their temper
completely at you that they can kind of like um manage their own emotions so
you’re not trying to manage their emotions for them or tiptoe around and walk on eggshells those are unhealthy
traits so try to find someone as self-regulated as
possible
Alan
and at the same time it’s as you say a lot of it is about the
self so we’ve also got to be that person that’s self-regulated that can see the
problem as the problem and sort of face that issue together so it’s um it’s a
fun time
Brittney
well that’s one way of looking at it I guess
Alan
um I’m thinking back to
what you said about almost as if the whole world’s trying to rip you were part this time last year I was having a
conversation with my partner because between us we’ve got four kids okay and both um both shall we say other parents
um aren’t on the same page as us shall we say yeah and we’re in this position
where we’re looking at okay both of us could potentially have a court case coming up with regard to child contact
and all that kind of stuff and on top of that we’re still getting to know each other we’ve got different age children
because my two are 13 and hers are now what they’re nine and six now so
eight and five last year and on top of that because we’re living in what was
her grandmother’s house her grandmother passed away so we didn’t know how long we’re
going to be in the house or anything as well so could be looking at either renting somewhere or buying
it’s like if we get through this year together we can get through pretty much
anything right, and we have
Brittney
oh yeah that’s the thing like
that first year actually
okay I’ll throw a statistic that at you in a blended family it takes on average four to seven
years to kind of feel Blended finally and I think a lot of couples call it
quits in that before that first four years like oh this is hard especially
that first year oh my goodness that anyone that’s lucky to make it through that first year right um
and it is hard like let’s do this together there’s so many things that complicate the relationship but um
knowing people that have come through that like hey this was hard for us too this is not just your problem, this is like just a blended family thing and that it comes on the other side it’s going to be okay I’m so
glad we didn’t call it quits because we did actually talk about that at one point it was so heavy for us I’m so glad
we didn’t because my family is my greatest blessing today I mean it’s just the most beautiful thing so it
does get better and it can be better and uh I could never have imagined how we
would have come through how the relationships could have shifted in the ways that they have
Alan
yeah and I think in some ways uh the first sort of three four
five years of a or shall we say original
family unit the first five years of being
parents that puts a big test on them anyway because before we get married you
don’t have those conversations of well who’s going to um fulfil this role how do we um
raise children how are we going to discipline them and all this kind of things because we don’t talk about it so
and we almost assume that our partner will be on the same page as us and think
about it the same way but we don’t even think the same way about our music tastes or movies or
Tech perspectives or anything like that so
it’s not really surprising that the divorce rates are as high as they
are
Brittney
yes
Alan
plus it’s a lot easier than it’s ever been before right
Brittney
yeah the divorce
rates are crazy when both parents come into the relationship with
kids the divorce rates are almost 70% that’s mind blowing to me like that’s
so how do we become that 30% right um and so many people try to
do it alone and it’s hard you don’t get a special badge for doing it on your own
right you find someone to guide you through that Journey because that’s it’s tough
stuff
Alan
yeah I saw a real or a podcast or
something on online a few times now where they’re talking about the
people that have been incarcerated over in the states and there’s a really high percentage of them that have
come from single mother households where both parents are there not a problem or if a single dad is not
a problem but these single moms that those rates are scary and I’ve got
nothing against single moms at all in fact I respect them because it’s being
a single parent is hard especially if the other parent
is shall we say not involved whether it be their decision or yours it’s still
tough right even more so if you’ve got more than one kid and you’re trying to balance
the finances when it’s tough to make ends meet as a couple and doing it on
your own it’s crazy I take my hat off to them yeah but it’s some scary
numbers yes the statistics are almost overwhelming sometimes
Brittney
when
you look at all the different statistics you’re like why would I why should I even try it feels almost hopeless so we
try not to get too hung up there especially as you’re if you’re going into a blended family right that
statistic is a scary number we can acknowledge that but we don’t want to stay there because um it is scary and
like you’re talking about um single parenting statistics are also scary and
we don’t really want to face it face the realities of those either
Alan
yeah yeah
Brittney
I was gonna say, so we have we both had one child from our previous
marriages and then we had two more together so we have like a true blended family Yours Mine and Ours type of
situation um and the Dynamics have changed even more since we’ve had more
kids together and um just all so
beautiful actually it’s um brought us even
closer since we’ve had more together and it’s just it’s the best I wouldn’t
trade it
Alan
so when I’m guessing that both you
and your husband want to treat all children equally or at least have them
feel like they’ve been treated equally even though that doesn’t always happen
right because we can’t control our children’s emotions unfortunately um if the children
that are with and other parents keep coming and going do they feel like they don’t fit
in as much as the two that are there all the time or
Brittney
yeah that’s a great question and I um
don’t know if I can I mean I can’t answer completely for them because I I’m not in their head but I imagine that
yes I think they there is some feeling of a difference at least um we have one
child in particular that is not here nearly as much as the other three and
and there is a difference there um with just even with just the time right with
the family uh but we do our very best that when they are here that we’re doing
things as a family that you know we’re strengthening those connections um
and I hope that they feel as welcome as possible it’s getting a little easier now that um they’re older um you know I
my two oldest are teenagers now and so they have phones and we can text them
and involve them um video call them right and keep them more involved that
way when they’re not physically with us um but it is it’s it is tricky and
you can’t keep things fair this is actually something that came up on my um
my Tik Tok account this week with Christmas time uh like some parents
are like well we can’t keep it fair because they’re that kid’s not here all the time so they shouldn’t get as many
presents and I was like um I don’t I don’t completely agree with that I think
that when the kids are here we treat them as fairly as possible because the
message we’re trying to send is that you’re welcome here you’re loved here you are part of our family it doesn’t
matter if you’re gone half of the time or more than half of the time even like you belong here I think that’s such an
important message for the kids
Alan
yeah
definitely and I think something that come comes up for me with regards to
treat treating them fairly because when we’ve got my two that well
both sides kind of come and go a little bit but the way it’s been for the last I
don’t know six eight weeks my partners two are with us for
eight days then the dad for six days and at the end of the eight days like
can you tidy your rooms please why do I have to tidy it why can’t step brother
brother or step sister do their part okay well in those eight days they’ve spent one night here and look at the
stuff on the floor is it yours or theirs uh well it’s mine well so who
do you think should be tidying it up well we should be doing it
together
Brittney
yeah it really is little things like that you are unexpected you’re like
well how do I handle this situation right how do we handle chores and cleaning the house and this kid’s not
here as much as this one like how do we do that and there’s no black and white
answer it’s
Alan
yeah it’s very gray and a
lot of people will have opinions about it and so you just have to make the decisions so do what feels best for your
circumstances and your family your partner yeah so when in those times where a
child does need some kind of discipline and you’re the stepparent I do I certainly feel like
that it’s not really my place to do the discipline stuff but when they get to my
partner and she’s pulling her hair out then I kind of step in but I haven’t
experienced it myself yet but that response of well you’re not my dad or you’re not my mom why do I have to do
what you say and all this kind of thing how does someone handle that
Brittney
yeah
that is such a hard question um because again
like I said each relationship will be so different so it will really depend on your relationship with the child and how
they’re receiving you uh my recommendation um which is actually
backed up by um a lot of Science and things too is that the step
parent stay out of the parenting at least for the first bit so like as long
as possible we let the biological parent do the parenting as much as possible
especially when it comes to like discipline um leave it to the parent it
will go over better and it will help your relationship with that child if I
try to just immediately jump in and take over it will
will spin around on me it’s going to it’s going to make things harder in the
long run I’ll we’ll just say it that way uh that it will turn around on you
and make your life much more difficult because the child’s like who are you why are you coming in and just telling me
all this stuff all of a sudden like they don’t even see you as an authority yet so focus on building the relationship
first before you try to jump in and just be that awesome adult in their life that
they love to see like work on that connection let the parent, parent you be
the fun one for a while so that relationship can grow they already have
that strong relationship with their parent and so if the parent says something that they don’t like that
deeper love that root is still there right and they can like get over it
but they don’t have that with us as a stepparent yet so you say something they don’t like that’s really going to hurt
uh and might harm the relationship permanently so I would do
everything in your power to avoid that now I know because I’ve worked with lots
of clients and done it myself like sometimes the other parent isn’t always here when I’m with the step
kids um and so what do I do what I use usually recommend is
coming up with some house rules as a family unit we all sit down have a
family meeting and say okay we’re going to make just some basic house rules that everybody follows it doesn’t matter
who’s family you’re from we’re not doing that this is just the rules of the house even if it’s the neighbour kid
they’re still going to follow these rules and so we uh agree on the rules we
all feel good about the rules and then we could even like post them on the fridge or on the wall where everyone can
see everyone follows those rules so if I am at home with um all the kids right
and my partner’s not with me I see someone jumping on the couch and that’s one of our rules like hey we don’t treat
the furniture that way I can say that and say hey remember our house rule I could like physically even point to it
this is a house rule I need you to stop doing that please I’m not actually disciplining them in the moment I’m just
reminding them of the rule that we all agreed on originally so that’s one way to kind of help with that transition um
one the reason we do it as a family meeting is because the kids are more invested in it they were part of that
conversation um and it wasn’t just here’s how we’re gonna do everything in
our house right we’re not just laying the law so they involved in that conversation especially when they’re um
ages like you’re saying your kids and um those step kids are same as mine
my kids range from 15 down to four and so those are all ages that we could all
be part of that conversation maybe the four-year-old debatable depending on the on the
day but they feel invested when you’re inviting them in
the conversation so absolutely I always recommend come up with some house rules
that will help make the transition easier for everyone and it will help you get on the same page as your partner
here’s what we feel strongly about maybe these ones we’re going to have to talk about
or sometimes in extreme cases we might parent our kids a little bit different
uh if we can’t get on the same page so that that does happen sometimes
too
Alan
yeah I’ve seen some comments on social media that sort of say well I’ve
just seen some podcast somewhere saying that um because I’ve got kids I’m
undatable which is not something I agree with it’s certainly not been my
experience it I think it does depend on the age of the children a little bit
because if say you’ve got kids and they they’ve
grown up and left home you may not want to go back to the changing nappies
stage
Brittney
right but at the same time you might I don’t know
Alan
something I do remember seeing on a lot of um dating profiles
when I was on the online dating stuff myself was um the expression that um my
kids are my world and that will never change for any man
so what is behind women putting that on their profile do you
think
Brittney
oh I you know I actually see that a lot
um on Tik Tok, I’m on Tik Tok and I
see a lot of very strong opinions out there um excuse
me uh my take on it is I believe if you want a blended
family to work you have got to put some emphasis and some focus on the
partnership as your relationship um because I don’t even know what the point is like why you’re
even in a relationship if that’s not going to be a high priority now when I
say that I always get backlash because people are like why what you’re neglecting
your kids and that is not what I’m saying at all I’m just saying that if
you’re going to be in a relationship then be in the
relationship right like be all in or don’t be in it at all
so if I’m focusing on my relationship if my partner is my partner we’re working
together to make a beautiful family environment it actually ends up
benefiting everyone even more when there is a healthy thriving couple in the
house that is such a gift that we can give to our kids right focus on healthy
there that we’re working as a team we’re working as a partnership um what a
beautiful example that we’re setting for the kids and hopefully they can see that and say wow
that’s something I want to have in my life someday I want to have a partnership where you know I have my
person and we work together um what I see sometimes when
people blend in families is they just want to roommate someone to kind of like share the cost with them and that is um
Gonna be a disaster yeah if you’re not willing to
put time in on that relationship then yeah I it’s not if your world is
your kids and you literally mean that that you don’t have time to let another human in your heart then then I don’t
think there is a place you’re not ready mentally to be in
another relationship uh it’s not fair to your person it’s not fair to just say I
mean it’s almost like you’re using them for their resources for to babysit or to
bring in money or whatever it is you’re having that person do that’s not fair in
a relationship that’s not what a healthy relationship looks like so I feel really strongly about that that’s a hot
topic for me but um I do think there is pressure why do
women do that there is pressure there is a mom perhaps they were in a
relationship where it was unhealthy maybe it was toppled the other way um
and so they become they’ve become rigid possibly I don’t know I mean I
can’t say for everybody but those are possibilities um but what if somebody is saying something like that they may not
be ready to be in a blended family relationship
Alan
yeah because for me it
definitely feels like it’s coming from a place of uh of fear of I don’t really
want to let you in so I’m going to use my kids as a bit of a shield
Brittney
yes oh yeah I think that could
Alan
definitely be a reason for a lot of people can you imagine a man the response or
kickback to a guy putting um my career is
my world and I will never change that for any woman can you imagine the
kickback for that
Brittney
oh yeah okay so it sounds like you’re not
ready for a relationship that’s what it sounds like yeah to me and it it’s the same message it is yeah
this is my number one priority
Alan
I remember being a network
marketing seminar many years ago there was an Irish couple speaking and
the lady caught my attention when she says um a lot a lot of my friends
disagree with me when I talk them about my priorities and my Values she says
at the center of the circle there is God and the next part of it is
Stuarty my husband then there’s the children then there’s everybody else
and they keep my friends keep telling me that I should put my children before
Stuarty and she says well no because if I don’t put him make him a priority now
when they’ve grown up and left home gone to University got married or whatever else why should he make me a
priority then because by then he’ll be on the golf course having fun with his mates and I’ll be on my
own selfish reasoning but at the same time I see a lot of sense in it and as
you mentioned earlier also gives the children a foundation for what a healthy relationship looks
like and also they’re living in an environment of Love
Brittney
Yes instead of
disconnected fear yeah and the kids can feel it they may not see it they may not
see you disagreeing but they can sense if things are good or if things
are not great and yeah if you want to create safety in your home which is
that’s how kids Thrive is in safety it starts with your partnership it really
does yeah uh so I and people take it so extreme oh so you’re going to neglect
your kids no I can have lots of priorities my partner can be a priority and also my kids can be a priority like
I love my kids and we have to balance sometimes my kids do get more time than my partner but I make sure my
person is on my schedule because they’re a priority to me some sometimes my kids
take more time if especially like if I have a newborn or even a toddler they
there’s a lot of time required there um and so there’s some give and take it’s
not one or the other I’m not choosing one or the other I’m choosing to create
a strong family environment
Alan
yeah and I think any relationship is a
little bit like a three-legged race you’ve got both got your individual legs and you’ve got that one tied together if
you don’t put your individual leg down or your partner doesn’t you both fall over and if you don’t use that joint leg
in the middle you fall over which one’s the priority right you got to use them got
use them they’re just different
Brittney
yes exactly I actually love that analogy
that’s a good one
Alan
yeah I keep coming up with crazy things like that but um it gets the point across I think so someone
who’s just getting into a blended family
relationship or has the possibility of one coming up what’s the main thing that they need
to hear
Brittney
ah trying to like rewind my brain
what did I need to hear it will be hard but it will be worth
it putting in the time putting in the effort will be worth it so um and I
think the messages I personally needed where you are not alone in this I felt
very alone like I didn’t even know anybody else that was a stepparent at
the time now I know many but I didn’t I felt very isolated and that’s not the reality there are a lot of Step
families out there I mean in the United States alone 40% of families are step
families like what that’s crazy I didn’t I had no idea so why did I not know any of these people because they weren’t
talking about it probably right hi I’m in a step family okay right that’s not
how people were introducing themselves to me but you’re not alone and it will get better and you
don’t have to do it on your own they’re people that have done it and there are
great tips out there I got certified as a step parent coach learn skills that
work for step families um because we do have to think different we’re trying to fit inside this box of nuclear family
traditional family it’s not going to fit it’s trying to get a square peg into a round hole is that the saying it’s not
going to work so we have to think outside the box but it can be a
amazing and beautiful and all the things you have envisioned you just may have to go a different
way
Alan
yeah so how do you become a step parent coach
Brittney
well so I got certified as a life coach um originally and then um there
was a step parent certification that I did online and um they taught a lot of those classic step family strategies um you I mean even certain therapists
specialise in Step family things so it was just an a course that I
took
Alan
excellent I didn’t I didn’t even know you could do such things um I don’t
think there are things like that over here um there are a lot of um life
coaches that may focus on a specific area of life for
me its relationships other people that be Finance and just about every other topic
you can think of but at the end of it all comes back to the relationship I
have with me
Brittney
yes
Alan
and if that one’s in a mess the relationship I have with my partner is
going to be in a mess the relationship I have with my business is going to be in mess so it’s one with one with my
children it’s all about that going within
Brittney
yes and um some people think it
sounds selfish but if you think about it I like to call it the the family Fountain and I imagine like a water
fountain you know that has like three different levels three tiers the water fills up it fills up at
the top and I like to think of that as ourselves I start there it fills up
when it’s filled it starts to spill out to the next tier um which I like to
consider as our partnership our relationship with our person and
then that fills up with water and then what happens it spills over the edge to
the bottom tier which is the kids and the family unit but I can’t start
filling it up the bottom first it’s never going to get to the Top If I do that right so to have it flowing and
being this beautiful Fountain it has to start at the top has to start with me
being okay if I if I’m not filled if I don’t fill my own cup I have nothing else to give anyone and I’m not as
useful but if I am filled then with the abundance the extra water I can then
help fill the other areas of my life and my family
Alan
yeah yeah and then once it
goes over the top overflowing the bottom level where the where the kids are then
it goes out into the rest of the world and affects everyone else hopefully in a positive way
Brittney
yes and
I very strongly believe that strong families change the world if we could
strengthen individual families we would have a different world than we have right now I think that’s
where when things are hard in our world it’s if you could look take a microscope
it would start back in those family units that’s where we’ve got to put our
efforts
Alan
yeah so if somebody’s in a relationship with
a someone who’s got a child from a previous relationship and that child
happens to be um neuro divergent whether it’s Autistic or ADHD and shall we say brings
extra complications or challenges to that relationship
have you got any guidance or advice or tips on dealing with that
Brittney
yeah I think my best tip where I
think that’s actually very common situation um I think that you can get
educated as much as possible on that because I believe that many people are
not educated enough especially about well about both of them but ADHD I think we think we know what that looks like
but it’s actually a lot different than we realise uh what strategies can we use so
just allow yourself to learn about
it what can I do to support my partner if this is their child we’re talking
about ask them how can I support you uh and
become teachable I don’t know how to handle this well can you show me and allow
yourself like you’re probably going to be bad at first you’re going to do things wrong
and you’re going to mess up and hopefully you’re able to learn from those mistakes right um don’t go in
being really proud and saying I’m the best parent I know how to handle every situation right that’s not going to go
very well but if I could say I’m not sure how to handle this the right way I
want to learn I want to figure it out with you
uh that’s how you become on the same team so there I there is no black and white answer on that either which that’s
Makes it hard because there’s not a lot of super clear answers yeah become teachable learn figure it out practice
try again apologise when you screw up right even to the kids like I didn’t
handle that very well can you forgive me uh let’s try this again let’s do a
and it’s hard if you need a break that those are a lot that’s a lot to
just step into if you need a break figure out how to take care of yourself so you do have
that water to share with other people because if they’re draining you, then you won’t have as much to give it
won’t be your best self
Alan
yeah and I think with any
relationship whether it’s there’s children involved or whether
they’re biological children or blended family children I think if the environment
is set up in a way that you don’t feel safe to be
yourself then something needs to change
Brittney
yes some conversations definitely
need to be had yes if you feel like you’re the one
always giving or always is changing um or you don’t even recognise
yourself anymore that is those are some red flags of an unhealthy relationship
so absolutely want to stay true to yourself and the thing is um in a
healthy relationship uh I can have my own
opinions and ideas and activities that I
like to do and my partner can have his as well and like I am a whole human
being and he is a whole human being and we can do that together I don’t have to become exactly like him I don’t want to
be too in meshed because that’s where co-dependency happens which is unhealthy uh and we don’t want to be
that so I’m a whole you’re a whole person and we work together we take our
strengths um and use them where I am weak maybe you’re strong there
and like we can become even more right um even better as we work that way but
absolutely I think that’s really important that’s something I work with my clients on is staying true to
yourself setting boundaries personal boundaries emotional boundaries so I
don’t lose myself in the process
Alan
yeah yeah and a lot of people
haven’t even found themselves
Brittney
yeah yeah that’s really important if you’re getting into dating
work on that first
Alan
yeah definitely who do I want to be in this relationship start there
never mind who your ideal partner is because they may not be attracted to who
you are showing up or wanting to show up and wanting to be in that
relationship it starts with self
Brittney
yes absolutely yeah if we want to attract
this kind of person we need to be this kind of person that’s who they’ll be attracted to
Alan
yeah yeah otherwise we end up morphing ourselves into what we think or feel or
believe they want or desire and that goes for the
relationship with the children as well I think
Brittney
yeah that’s true
Alan
I think that I think that child will want me to play computer games with them all the time or um take him to McDonald’s every week
whatever it may be yeah but if you’re really into health
and healthy eating and all that kind of thing are you really being your authentic self going to McDonald’s every
week
Brittney
right right that’s such a good point I had yeah I don’t think about it as the parenting that’s why we set
boundaries right even with our kids yeah I don’t want to do that right now and that’s okay like it’s okay to say no to
our kids sometimes I think what you’re saying we don’t want to lose ourselves um plus
when we do that that’s when we become resentful I don’t want to resent my
kid because I’m eating at McDonald’s every week that’s my that’s on me I said yes to that where I could have said
how about we do this instead right so if you’re feeling resentment which is very
common in Blended families is probably because you are doing something that you
are not comfortable with or you don’t it’s not true to
yourself
Alan
yeah definitely so as we’re getting close to
the uh hour mark now if anyone’s listening to this and thinking actually
I could do with some more guidance or depth on this topic how can they find you and reach out to you
Brittney
yeah uh so I
have a website it’s blendingbravely.com you can find me there I’ve got
free resources on there um my most popular resource is 13 significant steps
to blending your family so if you just want like a quick bullet list that’s the
one for you I have one about how to get out of mom or stepmom
burnout uh and then I have one that’s tips for building stronger connections
and bonds in your blended family so that’s on my website right now those are just free you can grab those um you can
get on my email list where I just sometimes I’ll Send free resources that I create I used to be a school teacher so
that’s kind of just built into my heart to create uh worksheets and resources
and things that people can use um so yeah that’s one way if you want to find me on social media I’m on Instagram I’m
on Tik Tok my handle is it’s me Brittney
P Britney is spelled b r i TT NE y if you want to find me there so I share
lots of tips and resources on there as well
Alan
I’ll stick all the links down in
the show notes as well to make life a little bit easier so question that’s just come up for me um I was speaking to
a guy called Joe Horton on his podcast recently and he talks about this thing
he calls parental martyrdom where you’re coming from a place of nobody can look
after my children like me so you don’t let anyone else into that little circle
so how much of an issue would something like that be with a blended family
Brittney
oh I have never heard that term and I
actually think it’s a great one because we do turn into Martyrs sometimes for our kids but if you’re doing that here’s
the problem is it can actually complicate the relationships with the
other adults in your kids lives like a lot I’ve seen the reverse side of that
so if my child has a stepparent in their life
now and I am being that martyr for them oh they can’t take care of you that new
stepmom she’s not as good as me and I’m becoming I’m like making it mean something I’m having feelings of
jealousy or whatever it actually makes that relationship so much more
complicated for your child you are making your child’s life harder by doing
that uh where they feel it’s actually called a loyalty bind they get stuck in
this bind where they have a hard time letting this new adult into their life
someone that could influence them for the better um but now all of the sudden the relationship’s complicated because
you’re like well my mom’s going to be mad if I allow this new person to like
be part of my life which they’re not maybe not even threatening to like most
of the time the Stepmom is not trying to become the mom but what happens is that the mother
biological mother makes it mean something and so all these feelings come up well now all of a sudden my child is
torn and they are like physically like mentally in a
bind if I do this they’re feeling guilt they’re feeling shame and that’s coming
from me because I put that guilt there
if I say you know what you’ve got this new step parent in your life and I’m this is going to be really fun I’m
excited for you they’re you’re going to learn great things from them and I give them permission to allow
this person into my life their life I release all of those
chains uh and literally I mean the situation is what it is right we’ve
already had a divorce or separation or whatever it is that’s already happened and so if I can just free my child from
that they don’t have to carry my chains around so much easier on the kids if you
want to do them a favour
Alan
yeah and something else that I don’t
think helps the especially stepmom’s situation and that is when you watch all
those Disney movies when you’re a kid every single one of them that’s got a stepmother in it Stepmother’s
evil
Brittney
but that’s not always the case most the time I found it’s
not I have found that every stepmother I have worked with has been an
incredible loving and beautiful human and I agree I Disney has not done
us any favorus there which is frustrating sometimes it can seem like
they’re the evil stepmom and I think it’s just the cultural thing that we’ve learned as a
society like oh why are they like everything I do is wrong and actually
myself as when I was am the Stepmom I put that on myself sometimes like oh I
just got upset with my stepchild I’m the evil stepmom right and I put that own
uh label on myself so I think absolutely it is time for us to change that story
change the narrative there uh stepparents in general are not
evil I mean I don’t it seems like stepdads often will be like wow you’re
so great that you stepped in for those kids it is the same for a stepmom yeah
it’s the same story it’s just that I don’t know if it’s because of women
taking it more personal or what I don’t know what’s going on there but something
needs to change in our culture
Alan
yeah yeah most definitely on
both sides of the fence so final question as this podcast is called
relationship revolutions if there was one thing that could bring Revolution or
Evolution to the world of dating and relationships what would that
Be
Britney
I actually think it goes back to what we talked to about working on ourselves
let’s strengthen ourselves let’s heal our past hurts and become strong
individuals I think that if everyone can do that our world would be a
different world
Alan
I have to agree with you there
that’s certainly um one of the top ones on the list for
me Britney it’s been an honour and a pleasure chatting with you and um you never know we might be back again
soon
Brittney
yeah that’d be great.