Understanding Your Stepdaughter’s Struggles in Building a Relationship With You
The Stepmother-Stepdaughter relationships are some of the most challenging for both individuals. Girls are socialized to be more emotionally attuned and divorce can be the most challenging for girls.
Age you met your stepdaughter and responsiveness
Depending on when you entered into your Stepdaughter’s life as her Stepmom will influence her responsiveness to you. Usually, children under 9 years old are more responsive than children over 9 and it becomes increasingly difficult for most teenagers, young adults, and adult Stepdaughters. It is typically harder for Stepdaughters to navigate their parent’s separation and time thereafter.
Losses and Change
Separation, divorce, and navigating blended family dynamics are a difficult time for children. When a new Stepcouple is formed, although it can be an exciting time for the adults, Stepchildren experience it differently. While a stepcouple might be in love and enjoying forming a life together, Stepchildren experience it as a time of loss, change, and grief. Their family unit is changing and it can be a time of big adjustment that can be hard for them to cope with.
Loyalty binds
Your Stepdaughter might feel that if she likes you, that she is being disloyal to her Mother. Therefore she feels that she has to dislike you or not get along with you in order for her Mother to be happy.
What her Mom is saying about you
If her Mom is speaking poorly about you, as her Stepmom, whether those words are true or not, can impact your Stepdaughter’s responsiveness to you. This puts her into a loyalty bind of having to make her Mother happy.
Competing Relationships
Stepmoms bring up feelings of insecurity for Bio-Moms and vice versa. Women feel a pressure in society to be good mothers which can lead to competition between Moms and Stepmoms and can intensify a child’s loyalty bind.
Your Stepdaughter’s relationship to her Father
A Stepmom might feel that her Stepdaughter is not responsive to her because her relationship with her Father is strained, lacking, or non-existent and a Stepmom will feel the resistance or non-responsiveness as a result. This is especially true if the Father is not involved in his daughter’s inner emotional world. It puts a Stepmom in an impossible position to carry the emotional weight in her Stepfamily, especially if her Stepdaughter doesn’t have a relationship with her own Father.
Your own relationship with your Mother or Mother wounds
Your own relationship with your Mother and your Mother wounds could be impacting your relationship with your Stepdaughter. These patterns of relationship and unhealed patterns of relationship can show up with your own Stepdaughter. You history and previous experiences influence your feelings and your feelings influence how you respond to your Stepdaughter.
An example of this might be that when your Mother was upset, instead of communicating she stopped talking to you for a few days and gave you the cold shoulder to let you know she was upset with you. The emotional distance made you feel anxious and unworthy. This might show up in your own relationship with feeling anxious when you feel like distance in your relationship with your Stepdaughter and you find yourself overthinking, doubting yourself, worried, or thinking worst case scenario. Or it might look like, when you get upset you have trouble self-regulating, communicating or resolving the conflict in a healthy way which can lead to tension, distance, and disconnection in your relationship with your Stepdaughter.
What to do next
Self-Regulate
Before you begin, the most important thing is to self-regulate. Engage in activities that help you to calm and balance your nervous system. Going for a walk, meditation, drinking tea, or journaling are all good examples of self-regulating. Notice the thoughts and the story that your mind is creating and be mindful of how you are speaking to yourself. Once you are calm and in a regulated state then proceed with connecting with your Stepdaughter or, if she isn’t open to it, do something for yourself.
Spend One-on-one time with your Stepdaughter
If she is open to it, find activities that you can enjoy together or do things that your Stepdaughter enjoys (even if you don’t). By spending one-on-one time together it lessens the impact of loyalty binds since it is the two of you. By doing an activity that your Stepdaughter enjoys it allows you to see her world (the things she likes or that she is interested in) and she will be more likely to be responsive because it’s something she is interested in doing.
Be a warm, supportive, and empathic
Stepmoms that find themselves in a disciplinary role, particularly if they are authoritarian (i.e. What I say goes! and… Because I’m the adult!) run the risk of causing more tension and harm in their relationship. Stepmoms who take on the role of being warm, supportive, and empathic, are more likely to cultivate bonds of connection with their Stepkids. Flexibility and patience is also key in building bonds with your stepdaughter.
Support her relationship with her bio-parents
In Stepfamilies, each members relationship with the other will impact the dynamic. So your Stepdaughter’s relationship with her Father has an impact on yours. If she feels that her relationship with her Father is being blocked by a Stepmom or her Stepmom is not supportive of her relationship of her Father, then a Stepdaughter’s view of her Stepmom will become more strained and so will the relationship.
Don’t speak poorly of her Mother to your Stepdaughter, even if you feel like those things are true. Not only does speaking poorly about her Mother to her intensify her loyalty binds but it puts your Stepdaughter in the middle. Talk to anyone else about it, but not your Stepdaughter. In these cases the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” statement remains true or be warm and supportive of your Stepdaughter’s relationships with her parents.
Keep in mind, it takes time
Remember, these relationships take time and patience is key. Building a relationship with your stepdaughter, or any of your Stepkids, takes time and doesn’t happen overnight. Practice the long game, and continue to show up when you can in the best way you can, but remember it doesn’t (and won’t) happen all at once. That’s okay.
Get your own support
It’s important that you are taking care of you. If you find all the Stepmom-Stepdaughter relationship stuff hard, confusing, or just don’t know where to start, seeking support from a professional therapist can help you heal from old wounds and navigate the challenges of Stepmotherhood.
Girls are taught in society to pick up on more social cues and emotional changes, leaving Stepmom-Stepdaughter relationships as being some of the most difficult. They also aren’t impossible.
Some things to reflect on….
What might feel upsetting to you that your Stepdaughter does?
What button is it pressing that you might need to heal or grow from?
How are you contributing to how your relationship is currently going?
How would you like your relationship to look?
What steps can you take to make that happen?
Need support navigating your relationship with your Stepdaughter? Reach out today to set up your free 15 minute consultation to see if Stepmom Coaching or Therapy is right for you.