When struggles are plentiful in your stepfamily, laughter can become a casualty. The stresses of life suck the fun and laughter out of a marriage and out of a home — if we let it.

Laughter is good medicine for our souls. We connect when we laugh together and enjoy each other’s company.

My husband and I have learned that we have to be mindful to keep fun and laughter in our home. When we are dealing with some tough issues — we have a funny movie night. We laugh. Share popcorn. Laugh some more.

Our struggles don’t disappear because we watch a movie and laugh but our hearts are lighter. We’ve spent some time connecting and that’s good stuff for any couple.

A few years ago, I wrote a post called www.cafesmom.com/index.php/2011/11/04/funny-movies-to-the-rescue/Funny Movies to the Rescue. I’m sure there are more funny movies to add to the list since it first posted yet it’s still worth reading and will give you suggestions if you are looking for a flick to watch tonight.

Sometimes we just NEED A BREAK from the hard stuff. We can get so easily wrapped up in the details of the day that we can feel overwhelmed and then transfer the negative feelings onto our spouse and our marriage.

Moments of laughter won’t erase your hard times but they will build into your marriage and give you reprieve from allowing the trials to consume you. Make time to laugh together.

To Reboot Your Remarriage (Day 5), I’m asking you to be mindful to make laughing a daily part of your life. Whether it’s sending a funny text or putting in a funny movie — do something each day that connects you and your spouse with a smile.

You may not “feel” like laughing with your spouse. You may actually “want to be mad at him” but I’m asking you to be mindful to build into your marriage by trying this. (Note, if you are in an abusive situation then this is not the advice for you and I urge you to seek counsel and keep you and your kids safe).

Imagine the look on his face when you say “Can I ask you something? Would you be up for watching a comedy tonight. I’ll make popcorn and grab a blanket. I’d love to just enjoy your company and laugh with you tonight?”

One rule for funny movie night: no talk/references to anything negative and no talk about the ex or any kids. This is time for just you and your spouse.

Note, movies aren’t the only way to build laughter into your marriage. Couples know what they enjoy…. just think back to your dating days. Cooking together, spending time in nature, experiencing a favorite hobby together, trying something new — as long as you are connecting, smiling and having a good time — that’s what matters and builds into you as a couple.
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What’s your go to funny movie? Read my list from the article above to see mine. Let’s share what movies make us each laugh. You can never have to many funny movies on your list.

Escape Plans. Schools have them. Restaurants have them. Airports and Hotels have them. These plans ensure the safety and security of those present in case of fire or other emergency that requires evacuation. While every home should have an escape plan, stepmothers need their own special escape route to provide emotional security when stepfamily life heats up.

​Stepmoms know it only takes seconds for their home to become engulfed in emotional flames. When this happens, the stepmom can get burned and left frustrated, angry, sad and alone. Knowing how to recognize the signs of an “emotional fire” and having a pre-planned exit can be very beneficial.

While I was in the process of developing a fire escape plan for my own home, I realized that as a stepmom, I could learn a few things from the United States Fire Administration on protecting my sanity during times of heated stepfamily issues.

Identify Your “Threats”
It is important for stepmoms to identify emotional fire threats. As a stepmom, we have frustrating situations to deal with. Some of them we can’t anticipate. Others are like clockwork. Yet one thing they all have in common is that we typically can’t control whether they happen or not and yet they have the potential to send us into a tailspin and set the four walls of our home on emotional fire.
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Take some time to figure out what gets you frustrated. Is it when the kids come back from their mom’s house? Is it when your partner gives into their kids or when he overrules something you’ve said? Do you cringe every time you go to a school function and the ex-wife is starring daggers through you?

You get the picture. Identify some of the stepfamily situations that you want to run and hide from then use the Special Considerations below to develop your own personal stepmom escape route:

Have Two Escape Routes For Every Situation
In keeping with the USFA’s guidelines, it is best to practice your designated escape routes and to always have two escape routes from every hazardous situation. Practice for stepmoms means being flexible. Identify what works and what doesn’t and always having a back-up plan.

If our primary escape is to physically leave our home when our stepkids get dropped off after an extended visit with their mom and it becomes impossible for us to leave, we can turn to a secondary plan of calling a friend on the phone to talk for a while. And just as the USFA recommends that you only purchase safety ladders from reputable companies, you only want to call a friend who will listen, validate and give you hope. Calling someone who will listen but then feed your own fire of negativity will only leave you feeling burned by the situation. You might want to give your friend a “head’s up” and make sure they will be available to talk during the time you feel might be hardest.

Another potential for fire is school related functions. Let’s say you show up at your stepdaughter’s basketball game and the ex-wife makes it very clear you are not welcome. You may not be able to leave the game but you can call a friend and/or get online and find solace in a positive online community.

It may even make sense to ask a friend to call you during a time when you are at a family type function to check on you and give you an emotional break.

Immediately Leave The Situation
You’ve got an angry ex-wife texting you rude and insulting comments – don’t read them. When your husband is telling you mean things your stepkids have said about you – kindly tell him that you know he means well but you don’t want to hear it.

If anyone is saying hurtful words to you, try saying “I won’t engage in this” and walk away. This can be hard to do but remember you can’t fight crazy but you can go crazy trying. If you can’t reason with the unreasonable then trying will only cause your blood pressure to skyrocket.

In the case of a real fire, we have no choice but to evacuate the premises. Often we can’t physically leave our home, school function, etc. when tensions flare but we can stop, drop and roll so to speak. We can stop our part, and refuse to engage and can excuse ourselves and leave the “confrontation.” This is a great time to call a friend or get online. Twitter, Facebook and the StepMom Forum in StepMom Magazine are great places to connect quickly with other positive like-minded stepmoms who can validate your feelings and boost your spirits.

Always try and take the safest exit route, but if you must escape through the “stepfamily smoke”, take the Fire Marshal’s advice and “crawl low under the smoke and keep your mouth shut.” Just like real smoke, another’s words can be toxic which can serve to overcome your better judgement and cause you to say things you will later regret.

You can’t regret what you didn’t say!

Never Start Hot Conversations When Another is Burning
If you are engaged in a difficult conversation with someone related to your stepfamily, stick to the topic at hand.

Throwing in more things that upset you will only fuel the fire and cause it to rage on.

Often we are the ones who can start a fire with our words. It is important to approach delicate topics like conversations about our stepchildren lightly. Personally, I know what buttons to push with my husband and I will admit that I have pushed them to get his attention in the past when it pertained to his daughters. That was and always will be an unwise decision.

Our partner often goes into “protection” mode when we start listing all the things we don’t like. The louder we talk and the more rapid fire we shoot things at them, the faster they retreat.

If a topic is a hot bed for you and your partner, make sure it is a good time for both of you to discuss it. Throwing additional items or frustrations on top of a fire that is raging is like throwing gasoline on an open flame – the fire is going to get hotter immediately and take a lot longer to put out and nothing productive will come of it.

Remember fires that get out of control are destructive.

Designate A Meeting Place Outside

While it is important to escape the fire, it is always essential that you regroup and make sure everyone is okay. After the flame has gone out, you will need to circle back around and evaluate what lead up the emotional fire and what worked and what didn’t work so you can be better prepared next time.

It’s always a good idea to talk to your partner after the emotions have cooled down. Our spouse loves us and wants to make things easy for us. Finding a good time to talk through things is essential.

Once Out, Stay Out
As children, we learned “never go back into a burning building!” We need to remember this advice as stepmoms. Sure, after we’ve walked away we can think of a million things we wished we would have said, texted or done but once you are out – STAY OUT! Going back into a hostile conversation and/or situation is never a good idea.

 If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it. – Austin O’Malley

If your partner is in a difficult conversation with his ex-wife, leave it between them. I know you want to help and support your guy and the best way is to let him deal with the mother of his children. By staying out of it, you become his calming force at the end of the day.  If you aren’t sure what your partner needs in this type of situation, ask them (when you are not in the midst of an ex-wife war).

Fireproofing Your Emotions
Often, in the moment of our stepmom frustration we can feel instantly alone and misunderstood. Switching our emotional thoughts and escaping the moment can bring peace. Creating an escape plan from emotional land mines can help us create that peace.

Spend some time thinking about some of the activities that relax you? If you like to read, have a good book on hand. If it’s hard to be home during different times, plan to run your errands. Do you enjoy volunteering for a local charity? Schedule your volunteer hours when you know you’ll need an emotional boost. Identify which friends have the power to lift your spirits. Even though our partner may be our best friend, if our emotional crisis is at the hands of his children and/or ex-wife our spouse may not be the best choice with whom to share our struggle.

In the event of a fire, time is of the essence and everyone needs to know ahead of time what the escape route is to avoid panic and ensure a safe exit. This holds true for stepmoms and the emotional fires that we walk through. Having an escape route will help the stepmom from getting burned and keep her sanity in tact.

Do you have an escape plan? What areas in your life cause the "hottest" flames?

When we marry, we make a vow to stay together for better or for worse. Let's face it. It's easy to love in the better seasons of marriage. It takes effort to love during the worse times.

If you are in a difficult season in your marriage, you may not feel love and/or respect from your spouse. Typically, if we aren't feeling loved or respected, it can be challenging to show it to our spouse.

Marriage works when we work at it!

God calls us to respond in love. Period. This doesn't mean we live through abuse (those situations need immediate attention and a safe space for those being abused and/or exposed to abuse.)

Responding in love means being loving to your husband even when you don't FEEL like it.

Yes, our emotions tell us how we are feeling but they do not have to tell us how to act.

When my husband and I are wrestling with challenging issues, I pray to keep my heart soft towards him. I know that if I am not seeking Christ but living in the flesh of hurt, I can stop doing the loving things I normally do during the "easy" times.

I pray for the Lord to keep my heart soft and I am mindful to tell my husband I love him and to show him I love him regardless of what we are walking through.

You may be thinking... "I"m upset with my husband and I can't do this. He needs to change or apologize first."
Reminder, all you can control is you. You telling your spouse that you love him doesn't erase what he has done but it does show your obedience to Christ and your commitment to your spouse.

Recently, my pastor shared this thought about love in marriage: "..... after love has been put through the strainer of marriage -- one thing is left -- commitment."

He's right. We commit to love each other through better and worse. We need to show love to each other. Yes, we need to work through disagreements and we need to do it in love.

I challenge you to write your spouse a love note. Consider writing a note for every day this week and tucking it in his lunch, his pocket, putting a post-it note on his steering wheel or on his coffee mug.

Leave the love notes and see what happens.

Today I am sharing an email I received (with the sender’s permission).This stepmom recognizes her feelings are hurt and doesn’t know if it is worth addressing with her in-laws.

​Dear Heather, 
I see you are posting helpful hints at the holidays and I’d like your advice on something. I am a stepmom of three children (SD17, SD13, SD8) and have one son (age 11) that I brought into our marriage. We have been married five years and the mother of my stepkids is in and out of rehab and while she lives only a few hours away, she doesn’t see the kids and my husband has full custody.

All of us get along great and my parents live close and they have fully welcomed my three stepkids into the family. We have typical teen struggles but life is pretty good overall.

The problem I struggle with is that my in-laws say they have accepted my son but their actions speak otherwise. When they call, they only ask to talk to their “bio” grandkids, at holidays they always send extra gifts for their bio grandkids and when they visit they do extra for their grandkids than for my son. I may be sounding jealous but the problem is that everything is so even (to a fault) from my parents and their preference for their grandkids shines through and while I don’t think my son minds. What is hard on him is that his middle stepsister constantly points out that she and her sisters get more and that proves their grandma likes them better. She has told my son that my in-laws are only her grandparents and not his. While this also hurts me to hear what my stepdaughter says to my son I haven’t told my in-laws because I think it needs to come from their son but my husband says his mom is not going to change and telling her this stuff isn’t going to make a difference.
 
Don’t know if this is selfish or not but what is hard on me is my mother in law will make comments like “your son seems to be warming up to me” or make negative comments about my son comparing the kids and I just nod and smile and want to say well the reason he seems distant is because your  granddaughter points out all the differences to him and says you are not his real grandmother but I don’t. I know it’s not worth it to say anything. She will be hurt and won’t really hear what I am saying. I do believe she intends well but is just not aware of how her actions can cause issues. Honestly, her actions probably wouldn’t be as noticeable if my stepdaughter didn’t blow things up and say things to the kids…. but when my husband has tried to talk to his daughter and set boundaries she actually does it more. It’s a delicate balance.

Having said that, as the holidays approach I get apprehensive about what my mother in law will do with gifts and how my stepdaughter will try and use it to make my son feel bad. Can you please offer some suggestions? I don’t want this to affect my relationship with my in-laws but I can’t help but get stressed with the division this often brings into our family.
Lisa (name changed to protect the stressed and conflicted)
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Dear Lisa,
Thanks for writing in. I’m sorry to hear this is a struggle for you. In-law issues can cause stress and that stress can impact you and your marriage. You are wise in processing this and understanding that words and choices spoken are impacting you.

The truth is we can only control ourself and what happens in our home. You cannot control your mother in law nor can your husband but you can control what is brought into your home with the use of boundaries.

If your in-laws lived next door to you, boundaries would definitely be necessary. Ideally, your husband would set a boundary with his mother, however, it sounds like he isn't willing and you can't force it. 

All actions have natural consequences. Your son feeling distant to his “step” grandparents is a natural consequences of the favoritism you describe. You didn’t mention if the mother’s parents are active in the grand children’s’ lives or if your mother in law was a mother figure to her grandkids before her son married you.

Whether consciously or unconsciously some grandparents will try and over compensate if the other set of grandparents go “missing” after their child (bio parent) leaves the family. This is the grandparents acting from their heart but it can send a confusing message to the kids. “Stuff” can never make up for a missing parent or grandparent and others cannot rescue you from pain.

Life isn’t fair and often we have to use those moments to teach our kids those lessons and it can be hard when outside relatives try and make up for it. 

It is beyond fantastic that your parents have welcomed your stepchildren into their family and are very even steven. That is great especially because it does sound like they see them on a more regular basis but understand that is probably more of the exception than the rule. Just like most stepmoms feel different towards their stepchildren than they do their biological children so to do most grandparents. While you may feel different about your stepdaughters than your son you most likely strive to treat them the same. Often times some grandparents don’t do that and it is unrealistic to think they will feel the same. The issue is that their actions seem to cause division and that is difficult to process and work through.

It sounds like you truly want to help all your kids and the best you can do is model a healthy marriage built on good communication and faith, being a listening ear to all the kids and not judging and gently guiding.
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I hope this was helpful. I thank you for sharing and for allowing me to share with my readers and ask their advice. Fellow stepmoms, do you struggle with issues with your in-laws? Have you had to put up boundaries? What advice do you have for this stepmom? Thanks ladies for supporting and encouraging one another.

Christmas in July. This is the perfect opportunity for stepfamilies to create traditions and makememories.

I’m all about traditions. Traditions help establish a unique identity for a family and create common memories. These two things bring positive benefits to a blended family.

One of the traditions I created for our stepfamily is celebrating Christmas in July. I try and pick a day that is hot outside and when all the kids will be home. We stay in our jammies, watch Christmas movies and drink frozen hot chocolate. One year I made sugar cookies and put up one of the small Christmas trees. There are no gifts to open. The gift of this tradition is a day to be silly, spend time together and celebrate the blessing of family with little chance of plans being changed.

Lots of laughs. One year I served the Elf diet… candy, candy canes and candy corn.


If you are in a stepfamily, you understand the blessing of being flexible. Of all the times of year, the holidays are a time where many remarried couples have to put their commitment to be flexible for the sake of the kids to the test.

Around Thanksgiving time each year, I begin getting emails from stepmoms sharing their hurt over schedules changed last minute and learning they won’t have their stepkids as planned at the holidays. This has happened in the past and they anticipate it will happen in the current year. The pain in their husband’s heart––breaks their heart. So many plans and special outings often get tainted with sadness when a child isn’t allowed to come over or plans are changed last minute by the other home.

Given the hardships that can come at the holidays in regards to schedules and the desire to create holiday traditions, I wanted to share and encourage you to consider a Christmas in July with your stepfamily. The date on the calendar is not the most important thing to the kids. Being together, having low stress and enjoying each other’s company is what matters to them.

Here are some ideas for a Christmas in July party (keep it simple):

• Cookie decorating station. Pre-bake sugar cookies and let the kids decorate.
• Christmas movie marathon. Each family member picks a Christmas movie to watch.
• Snow ball fight! We use partnerless white socks and roll them into a ball for a snowball fight. If you prefer to have a snowball outside, fill up white balloons with water for a melted snowball fight.
• Play Christmas music and dance around.
• Have a silly Santa gift exchange. Every family member wraps up a silly gift and you exchange in a circle.
• Frozen hot chocolate bar. Put out lots of toppings for this easy to make and yummy drink.
• Pack Santa hats and hit the beach. Build a sand snowman and take family photos with everyone in their Santa hat. These photos will make great Christmas cards in a few months.
• Get on Pinterest and google Christmas in July. You will find plenty of ideas, recipes and printables.

And the list goes on…..

Christmas is about celebrating the gift of our Savior. While the holidays are a special time they can become tainted with pain when kids don’t get to spend time with all parents. Hosting a Christmas in July day (whether spontaneous or getting the kids to help plan) creates a special tradition and memory for your family. Even if you have peaceful and blessed holidays with the kids, a Christmas in July is a fun time and a unique tradition that can bless your family.

Would love your thoughts. Is this something you do with your family? What ideas can you share with other stepmoms for a Christmas in July? Let’s get creative stepmom sisters.