Hey to your Therapist listeners.

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Hey, fellow travelers.

I'm Laurie Gottlieb.

I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic.

And I'm Guy Wench.

I wrote Emotional First Aid and I write the Dear Guy Collumn for Ted And this is Dear Therapists.

This week we'll talk about the challenges of blending families together.

When young children are.

Involved, I'll say, oh, everything is going fine, Maybe heay is going to be a good day.

And I certainly don't know what to say when she's like, I hate you.

Get away from me.

Listen in and maybe learn something about yourself and the process.

Hi, Laurie, Hey Guy, Ready for this week's letter.

I am great, Dear Therapists.

I've been dating a single dad for two years.

We've known each other for thirteen years, and we've reconnected after our divorces.

I do not have any kids and his are six and eight.

We do not live together, and I see them two to three weekends a month.

His son, he is eight, he's a sweetheart.

His daughter, the six year old, she hates me one minute and loves me ten minutes later.

This roller coaster usually lasts throughout the weekend.

She says mean things like I'm fatter than her mom, or I make crappy grilled cheese, or that she reminds me constantly that I'm not her mum and I can't tell her what to do, even though I don't discipline, I follow all the books that say not to.

I'm not trying to be her mum at all.

So how do I help this little girl with a divorce or me?

Or how do I at least try to survive it?

Being in my position?

I feel like I should love her, but I don't even like her most days.

Signed Priscilla.

So blended families, even though they're not married.

Let's call them a blended family, because that's basically what they are operating as.

And they're really hard because in any relationship, you're navigating the couple itself, but there are all these other people involved.

You have exes and children involved, and the children are an integral part of the couple's relationship.

And learning families takes time, often as he is, before the family can feel fully comfortable and that they've made the transition, and that's when it's happening almost full time.

Here she's there just a few weekends a month.

But what I think is that she's underestimating how it's going.

The fact that the boy is fine with her, the fact that the little girl, ten minutes after she says I hate you, says I love you and it's cool with her, and I think she's perhaps having too high a bar of how it should go.

Yeah, she's thinking to herself, well, why is the girl acting this way when I'm doing nothing to try to be her mom?

And she can't imagine the kid's point of view instead of thinking about why is she accusing me of things that I'm not doing?

To try to understand what is actually going on with this little girl.

Right, And I think that the only way she can fully understand the little girl's point of view is to understand the mom's point of view, because the girl is representing her mom here in quite a significant way, and so Priscilla needs to understand not just the girl's point of view, but the girl's mother's point of view, so she knows that when she's talking to the girl, she's really talking to the mom.

A lot of the time.

That's true, she's so young.

You think they've been together for two years.

And so the girl was four when this couple got together.

And I'm imagining that the mom had concerns about how much this new woman was going to be a maternal figure to her daughter.

Would the mom be left out?

The age of the kids is really important here too.

Some people think, oh, when they're younger, it's easier.

In some ways, when they're younger, it's harder.

And I think we need to understand the system as a whole.

How is that different from the family system they used to have, and also the system that they have when they're spending time with their mom.

And I'm also curious a little bit about the boy.

He doesn't seem to be a big player here at all.

He just seems to be fine with whatever.

It could be that the conflict with the girl is orienting Priscilla towards the girl and she's ignoring stuff that might be happening with a boy.

Yeah, we're talking about family systems.

We should mention that there's always an identified patient, what we call an IP, and it might be that the girl is holding all the symptoms for whatever distress.

This disruption has caused and she looks like the problem, but we don't really know yet, and.

We'll get Priscilla in for a consultation after a quick break.

You're listening to Dear Therapists for my Heart Radio.

This is Deotherapists.

Thanks for listening, So why don't we go and talk to Perc.

Hi?

Priscilla, Hi, Yes.

Thank you so much for coming on our show.

We really want to ask you a few questions about your letter, and one of those is we wanted to get a better sense of your boyfriend of the dad.

What does position in all of this?

What does he do when his daughter is criticizing you?

Sure, when he's there, he's very good at saying you know that's not very nice, please apologize.

Sometimes he's not there, then I don't tell him about it because I don't want to be a tattletail.

So if he is there and he hears it, he does support me and he lets them know that what she's doing is not right.

Okay?

And how frequent are these moments of oh, I hate you and you don't make good Glucci sandwiches?

I would say twenty five percent is her saying I love you can you come play with me right after a time that she has been pretty mean, But most of the times that are difficult are about seventy five percent of the time.

Well, you're actually doing a really good job.

And I know that sounds off because of the ratio that you just gave us, but blended families are really hard, and I think you have to remember that whatever is going on with the kids has a lot to do with what's going on in the family she is coming from, and part of that family is her mom.

And I want to be.

Really careful here not to criticize the mom, because the mom probably has a lot of feelings about the fact that she is not seeing her children all the time now that there's another adult in her children's lives, and that could be really hard on her.

And the little girl probably feels torn between seeing that her mother might be struggling with this and also wanting to form a relationship with you, but maybe feeling almost disloyal in doing so.

So in essence, what the girl is representing is her idea of what the mom needs her to represent, whether the mom expressed that or not, wants to have to do that or not.

So you're not really talking to the girl.

A lot of the time you're talking to the mom through the girl, and so it's important to consider that because the girl is not just being rude or defiant, she's actually being loyal, she's actually being loving toward her mom.

But once she has she's you know, kind of checked the box, done her duty, then she can afford to just be how she really feels with you.

Okay, so that makes a lot of sense.

And she I think I have a hard time switching back and forth, and I certainly don't know what to say when she's like I hate you.

Get away from me after we've just been playing and say, oh, everything is going fine, maybe today's going to be a good day, and then obviously it's not until it is again maybe half an hour later.

Priscilla, I'm wondering, what do you say in those moments when.

She says the mean things.

Well, sometimes I say I'm sorry, I don't hate you.

I'm your friend and I really like hanging out with you.

There are moments where I'm not so great and I.

Say, well, why would you say that?

I need to know why why do you hate me?

The important thing here to remember is that it's okay for her to have the feelings that she's having.

The way that she expresses them is problematic, but it's okay for her to feel how she feels.

She doesn't know what to do with these very big feelings that she's having, and so trying to talk her out of her feelings or trying to have her back up her feelings with I need three bullet points on.

Why you hate me.

Yeah, she's not able to do that.

She's six years old, and so I think first of all, what would feel so good for her is for her mom and her dad to be talking to her about what is going on and how are you feeling about all of these changes, and when she says I don't like Priscilla, that they said, you don't have to like Priscilla, but you do have to be kind and respectful, and it gives her the freedom to be okay with the conflict of I'm having these feelings I don't like the divorce, and I also kind of I'm starting to like this other woman.

Yeah, you said, so, we we're playing.

Everything's very nice, and suddenly I say, you know the next thing because we're having a good time, and she's like, no, I hate you.

I don't want to talk to you.

She's saying that because you just had a good time.

She hates you after she feels that she loves you.

The picture of what the I hate you statement is about hit in fact, means oops, I love you too much right now now I need to hate you because I'm going to feel guilty.

The thing is that for her liking you is dangerous.

The minute that she feels that she likes you, this alarm bell goes off in her and she doesn't know what to do with it.

And you say, that's not going on with the boy.

What's his relationship like with his mom compared to what the girl's relationship is like with her mom?

From what I hear, because their mom doesn't want to meet me, he's very affectionate with her too.

And it seems that his daughter is very touch and go with the mom.

Too, meaning that she's having conflict with her mom as well.

Yes, it's interesting too that you've been dating for two years and there's this co parenting situation, but that she has not wanted to meet you, and yet her kids are spending a significant amount of time with you.

How does your boyfriend talk to you about what's going on with his divorce.

It's a pretty contentious situation.

They aren't in a oh I think what I would say a co parenting situation.

They are in a limited speaking situation.

Most communication happens via email.

And how do you and your boyfriend talk about your role in this emerging family that you're creating with the boyfriend, I.

Don't know that we talk about my role and that he says, I'm very happy that you're in their life.

I'm happy that you're a friend for them, and he wants me to be comfortable spending time with them.

Of course, I think he does very much want me to live with them.

I have put the brakes on that because I don't think it's a good time right now.

So that's how we've talked about it.

Look, you are in the toughest position in the blended family scenario because her parents are not communicating other than in emails.

They're not really having a productive conversation to try and co parent and help this girl deal with the emotional conflict the divorce presents, so she's left to deal with it on her own with messages from mom that you are not to be greeted.

Then here's what sets up a loyalty conflict.

If nothing else, and there's plenty else.

That's why this girl is in conflict.

She likes you, she has fun with you, yet mom doesn't like you, and so it's not okay, really like you, and so she can get over that a lot of the time, but not all of the time, and not even most of the time.

And I just want you to have a very different perspective on what's going on, so that you see it that way rather than I must be failing or the girl must be too difficult because we're not.

Connecting all the time, both of those things.

Actually, I think I think both of those things, and I have never thought of it that way.

And honestly, in the first time in two years, I feel bad for her because I have not felt that way the whole time.

It has just been difficult.

So thank you for I think, allowing me to feel bad for her.

And I don't know if there is a role for me to help her in this.

We're gonna talk in a second and come up with some advice for you and will help you manage that a little bit.

But first I had one more question.

I want to know more about your relationship with your boyfriend.

Tell me about the relationship and tell me about the quality and the depth of the kinds of conversations that you have, because it sounds like this divorce is a big, big, big part of his life, and I don't know how much you talk about that.

Is that compartmentalized so that you guys have this romantic time together, but you're not really talking about this whole other piece of his life that's going on in the background.

How are things between the two of you, And in terms of even talking about your life goals?

When he says I want you to move in with me and you're not really ready, do you have the same ideas about what you both want in the future.

So, yeah, we've known each other for thirteen years.

We liked each other back then, timing wasn't right, and you know, over the years we loosely stayed in touch, and then we got married and divorced, and I've been divorced for two years.

He roughly the same time.

It was official, about a year ago.

The first year, I think we were very much, yes, trying to be focused on building a relationship for us one to two days a week, which is kind of tough, so we didn't talk too much about those other things.

But now that his divorce has been final and they're having some he and his ex wife are having some difficulties dealing with custody issues and child support and school choices and all that sort of stuff.

I hear about it, and I think it's been starting to weigh on us as a couple, because I think he is missing me a lot and he wants me to spend more time with them, and just having two years out from a divorce, I'm really finally for once I had a difficult marriage.

I'm very happy in my life where it is right now that I get to have some peaceful time on my own, I get some time with him, we get some time as a group together.

I know he wants it to happen right now because he really wants me to be there and he loves having his time with me, and he has expressed to me that brings him peace and calmness when I'm there with him or there with him and his kids, And I would agree.

I love spending time with him.

I think we do have the same goals as far as living together.

I'm looking at it as a couple years down the road when because in my mind, the child's situation settles down a little bit, and I didn't have kids in my life, so I think I'm still trying to adjust to having kids and what that means.

I did not go off around little children either, so there's also a lot for me to adjust to that too.

Did you plan on not having children?

I did.

I was married to an alcoholic for ten years, and so I chose to not have kids with him for a very good reason.

And then just kind of a custom myself to saying I'm not going to be someone that is able to have kids.

So it wasn't that you didn't imagine yourself as a parent, it was that you didn't imagine yourself in that situation as a parent.

That's right.

And let me just ask you, what is your boyfriend's relationship with his daughter.

Sure, in the beginning, I saw how does he love this child so much when she's so difficult to him as well?

I think she acts out quite a bit, pushes his boundaries as well.

I think we all walk on eggshells around her, waiting for her to kind of erupt with some sort of behavior.

So he really really.

Wants to try to have a better relationship with her.

If the girl were easier, would you consider moving in sooner?

Or is it's not that necessarily that's stopping you.

Oh, such a good question, because I have asked myself that I almost have said if she wasn't in the picture and it was just me and my boyfriend and his son, would I want to do it.

I think the timeline would be shorter, but I still wouldn't be ready to move in right now.

I am still enjoying my life as it is right now.

So guy, let's give Priscilla some advice.

So you know, it's an interesting thing that's going on because to us, it seems that everyone's struggling here.

It's not just the girl who's struggling or you that's struggling because of her.

Everyone seems to be struggling, And again, completely normative given the situation.

Divorces are difficult, Blended families are difficult, but when a divorce is really contentious and there's not a lot of co parenting or good communication going on between the parents, it does make things trickier and more difficult for all and often especially for the kids.

So the first thing we want to suggest to you, is that you and her dad need to have a different way of responding to the girl when she's having these difficult moments because they come out angry, they come out hostile, but what's beneath both of those is pain.

She's in pain.

She has no idea why or what to do with it, and so it's okay to say to her.

And this is the most important part to give her permission to be upset, to be angry, to feel whatever she's feeling, because when you say to her that's not nice apologize, or when her dad says that, it really doesn't give her the room to have the feelings that she's having.

So it just frustrates her more because it's in denial of what she's feeling.

So it's more important that you and the dad respond by saying, I know you don't like my grilled cheese, and I know you might be missing mom now and missing Mom's grilled cheese, and that's okay.

You're allowed to me, you're allowed not to like mind grilled cheese, but you do need to say it more nicely, you know, the messages like that let her know that you get that she's in distress.

But have a limit attached to them about but it's not okay to express it this way, and maybe there are other ways you can express it and then offer those to her in the moment, and she will use them or not, but over time they'll begin to fold more into her repertoire.

I think she understands that there's a lot of conflict between her parents right now, and that there probably aren't a lot of positive things being said about her mom.

And so it sounds like some of the comments that she makes to you set up a comparison between you and the mom, like you're fatter than my mom, her grilled cheese is better.

It's not just a comment about your body separate from her mom, or your grilled cheese separate from her mom.

It's a comparison, and.

I think that you need to keep out of that comparison.

And so if she says, you know, you're fatter than my mom, you can say, yeah, you know, she's spin her and we both like our bodies.

You can talk to her more generally, maybe not in that moment, about what we do when we are sad or mad or anxious, and really give her that vocabulary.

It sounds like neither of her parents has really had that conversation with her, And so if you can approach her with more compassion in those moments, and I know it's hard to do because she's saying things that are very provocative, but if you can have a lot of compassion for the pain she's feeling that made her say what she said, I think that you will respond to her in a way that allows her to have to have the feelings that she's having.

But again, if her mom's not going to have that conversation with her, her dad certainly needs to.

Which is I know that it's hard going back and forth.

I know it's hard getting used to a new person.

And I know at times you're going to have feelings about that.

Your mom, me, your brother, we all have feelings about it, and we are here to talk about what you're feeling.

A lot of the times, with divorce, especially two years out, the feeling on the parent's side is well, we're getting over it.

But divorce is a live issue for kids.

They go back and forth.

It's real for them every day.

It's live for them every day.

It doesn't go with so I think her dad, especially has to have an ongoing dialogue with her that mentions the divorce, mentions the separation, the difficulty of the back and forth, the missing her mom, because that has to be legitimized.

That does actually make sense because they never talk about it at all, and the kids sometimes do mention I hate having to switch houses all the time, and it's not responded to, and I certainly don't say anything to that, So I think that would be very helpful.

And when you say it's not responded to, you mean their dad doesn't respond to it.

That's correct, yeah, right, So part of our advice is about how their dad can talk to the kids about what's going on, because it's always the unspoken thing that creates it comes out somehow, So people cannot speak about something and think what's not going to come up.

Well, it does come up.

It comes out, especially with kids through behavior, so it's really important for him to talk about it.

I was also struck by the fact that you said that your boyfriend wants you around more.

Part of it is obviously he wants to be with you, but part of it is that something he's having a little bit of trouble managing being a single dad.

So part of it is having the dad talk to the girl and the boy because he needs it as well, even if he's not acting out.

And part of it is the two of you having a conversation about what really is going on.

And I don't know how much the two of you are talking about the fact that you don't want to move in partly because you're enjoying your life right now.

And one last piece of advice would be that there seems to be some much conflict between the parents and it would really help this girl manage her conflict between being loyal to the mom and also being able to adjust to this new situation that the mom really doesn't like.

If you give her some wins, if you give her the mom some clear wins.

So is there something that you can say positively about the mom?

I know you haven't met her, but grilled cheese.

Let's just start with grilled cheese.

Yeah, so much better than mine.

You're absolutely right, or.

Even yeah, your mom's really pretty right, anything like, oh, your mom must do that really well.

I really like the outfit that you're wearing.

That did your mom get that free?

That's beautiful.

It will help the girl with that conflict so much if she knows that, Oh, it's okay for Priscilla to say positive things about my mom, So I can now say positive things about my mom too.

I don't have to have that conflict of who's better and who likes whom better.

They both have positive qualities.

I have never heard that before, so that's going to be I have never known how to address those statements when she does say, then, my mom loves this kind of music, and I'm.

Like, okay, well you can say that's great, your mom has really good taste in music.

These are easy wins, Pricilla right, because it doesn't cost you anything to say mom has good taste in music and clothes, she makes good food, Like none of it matters.

But the girl will feel less in conflict, and some of that will get back to the mom, and the mom will feel less threatened, and so it'll ease things all around.

So you look for wins that you can give mom whenever they're presented, and you will see that it will ease the girl's tension in the moment, but over time, especially, which I think is important.

Yeah, you guys are geniuses.

That's that to me.

I think will make her really happy.

And it would help if her dad could do that too, and you might want to talk to him about it.

That she needs to know that it is okay between her parents, not that they're going to be best friends, but that they can respect each other.

If you're asking her to be respectful to you and to her dad and to her brother, she needs to see the adults being respectful.

And if she's not seeing adults, who can say.

We're not married anymore, but your mom has these great qualities, and I really admire this about your mom.

I understand why you love your mom so much, and there are things that we like and respect about your mom too, even though your mom and I aren't married anymore.

Okay, do you have any questions for us, Priscilla, I.

Don't think so.

This is a lot of really really great advice that I'm looking forward to trying.

And these are all pieces that I didn't know what to do in these situations has.

Come up, and they seem very simple.

Like you said in very quick wins, what.

We're going to do is we're going to have you try them, and then we're going to have you come back and tell us how it went.

That sounds great.

Thank you so much.

I'm really looking forward to putting these things into action.

So that was really interesting because when we have patients come and we give them specific suggestions, you can tell who's hungry for them yet might not be able to act on them, or be ready to act on them, and who's hungry for them and eager to act on them.

Priscilla strikes me as egot act.

I would anticipate she would go and give an earnest try of putting all these things into action.

I agree with that, and from what I'm guessing, her boyfriend might have been less eager.

I have a feeling that he's going to have a harder time implementing this than she is.

And I'm not sure how ready he will be to, for example, give the wife props, or how ready he is to talk about this with his daughter, because it's really kind of remarkable that after two years he has not had a conversation with her about this divorce.

That's striking to me, right.

And I always tend to think that if somebody is not doing that, then they're afraid of doing it because they don't think they have the tools with which to do it, or they don't think they can handle it well, or they don't literally know how or to what end they would be doing it.

But I think my hope is that her coming and saying here are some tools, here are some ideas we can both implement, and it's both of us that need to do it.

It's not just you.

You're not alone in this fight.

That might ease him into it, or reassure him a little bit or give him a little bit more confidence.

A lot of times parents are reluctant to bring up something painful with their kids because they feel like if I don't talk about it, they won't feel the pain, and if I bring it up, I'm going to have them experience pain that they aren't experiencing.

It's like, let's not talk about this thing that's painful to you because I'm reminding you of your pain, which is completely wrong because the kid doesn't need reminding of her pain.

She's in pain.

It'll be interesting to see what he's actually able to do.

So I'm excited to have her back me too.

This is dear Therapist, and we'll be back after a short break.

I'm Guy Wich.

And I'm Laurie Gottlieb, and this is Dear Therapists.

Well, let's listen to the voicemail.

Hey Laurie and Guy, thank you for the advice you gave me on how to have a better relationship with my boyfriend's six year old daughter.

I have been able to put some of the things that you suggested into play.

The biggest game changer for me and I think her was how to respond when she was yelling at me or calling me harsh names, or more recently, telling me to get out of her house.

Since she makes those statements pretty suddenly, you said to say something like, it's okay if you don't want to play with me or you don't like me right now now, but it's not okay how you're talking to me.

I said that exactly, and she stopped immediately.

I'm not gonna lie.

It was really hard.

I was really.

Nervous saying it to her because if she didn't stop, I had no game plan on what to say next.

But it has worked every time.

Of course, she didn't behave that way just once.

It's usually each time I see them there is an outburst like that.

So that sentence has been my go to and it's been easier to use each time.

Just getting it to stop has been really helpful.

There's still lots of things that need help and guidance with her.

She is going to be talking to a therapist to help her with her emotions and what seems to be a lot of anger.

I mean, she's only six, and we really want to help her because I can't imagine she likes feeling like this.

We still have no plans on living together, which is what's best for me and his daughter and I still do have really great moments together that have been and I think sometimes continue to be overshadowed by those really tough times.

But thank you for helping me see that she is probably feeling a connection with me and struggling with that betrayal in her mind to her mom.

So we're all working on ourselves and hopefully that means a better family dynamic.

So thank you again.

I really feel good about how she took the advice.

It definitely sounds like Priscilla has a new arrow in her quiver and she's robin hooding all over the place with that arrow, as she should.

And I think it's effective, and I think that's what's helping her calm down, that she found something that works.

Yeah, and I think her situation is so relatable, not only to people in blended families, but just as a parent.

Sometimes your child will say something so provocative and you want to react in that moment, And what she's getting really good at is just taking a breath and realizing that what she's feeling doesn't necessarily match what's going on, and that there's much more to it and it's much more complicated.

And so when she responds more calmly.

Girl, And I'm really glad to hear that despite all these difficulties, she hasn't lost sight of the good moments since she's still able to enjoy them, as is the girl and I'm sure the entire family.

Yeah.

Sometimes I think people feel like they have to change everything at once and they get overwhelmed by that.

But you can see here that when you change one small thing, it can have a huge ripple effect.

That brings us to the end of our show for this week.

Thank you so much for listening.

You can follow us both online.

I'm at Lorigottlieb dot com and you can follow me on Twitter at Lorigottlieb one or on Instagram at Lorigottlieb Underscore Author.

And I'm at Guywinch dot com and on Instagram at guywinch.

If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us, big or small, email us at Lorimguy at iHeartMedia dot com.

Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis.

We're produced and edited by Mike Johns.

Special thanks to Samuel Benefield and to our podcast Fairy Godmother Katie Couric.

Next week, a man who left his wife for the love of his life wonders if that makes him a bad person.

Prob me.

I did leave my wife for another woman, but the rumors that were about were as nasty as can be and set the timeline very differently than what reality was.

Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio.