How Jealousy Affects Stepmom-Stepchild Relationships: It’s Not Easy Being Green, by Wednesday Martin, Phd
It has been said over and over: Children, even grown ones, feel threatened, displaced, hurt and scared when dad remarries. Less often do we hear how the stepmother experiences this reality: Hurt and threatened stepchildren are also frequently angry and jealous—and they want us gone.
A stepmother’s “vengefulness and jealousy” toward her husband’s powerless children may be something other than what it seems. Often, it is a fantasy and a projection, one that allows stepchildren of all ages to disavow a deeper, more disturbing truth. Feeling de-centered and enraged, envious of the woman who is now so important in the father’s life, a stepchild may transform his or her very own fantasies of revenge into a sense of victimization.
“Rather than acknowledging, ‘I’m angry and jealous,’ they tell themselves and anyone else who will listen, ‘She is a jealous, angry bitch,’” explains New York City-based Psychoanalyst Stephanie Newman, PhD. In other words, these intense and disturbing feelings the kids have themselves are so hard for them to cope with that they frequently put them on the stepmother.
Newman elaborates: “When I hear a story about a horrible, irredeemably jealous, petty stepmother from a patient, that is my clue to guide the patient toward understanding her own feelings of jealousy, anger, resentment and envy.”
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When I was my husbands girlfriend, I was told by my husbands children that their Mom said I had fake boobs, sent her porn. I was lied about (from her) that her Son was afraid of me.
Now we are married it is worse. I am lied about constantly. She gave up custody. Now that she is married, she wants her 13 year old Son back. She is telling the court he lives in a hostile environment. Which is a complete lie. She is jealous of my relationship with her children. She is trying to destroy me. It is so awful.
I am trying to stay strong. I can’t stand this lying woman.
What am I supposed to do?
That is such a difficult situation.
What is your husband doing to help you? As long as you and your husband stick together and become united, that becomes a great role model for his son. As difficult as it is, let her be her crazy self.
You and your husband stay strong – never say anything bad about Mom in front of his son. The son will see that you and your husband are the stable ones.