Hey everyone, welcome to Stepmom side Chats.
We are your hosts, Alyssa and Rebecca. 2 stepmoms.
Who are done pretending everything's perfect.
This is where we talk boundaries, Co parenting, hard
truths, healing, and the stuff nobody says out loud.
If you're ready for real talk, real growth and a little bit of
spice, let's get into it. Hey, everyone, welcome back,
Alyssa. Welcome.
So excited today we have one of the Ogs of, you know, the
stepmom. Oh.
God damn, yeah, I guess I am now.
You are. You are.
So today's conversation, it's one that me and Alyssa, we know
so many of us need right now. Without further ado, we're
joined by Nigel Hall. She's founder of VIP Stepmom.
She's helped so many women navigate high conflict
situations, struggles within their identity, and just what it
really means to protect your piece as a stepmom.
So here she is. Can you tell us a little bit
about yourself, your background when you became a stepmom and
what made you want to start coaching stepmoms?
Yes, yes, hey everybody, I'm Nadja, Nadja Hall of VIP Stepmom
blended in blacknadjahall.com. All things blended, right?
So I've been doing this, as they said, I'm an OG.
Gosh, like I'm one of the older ones now.
I've been this thing for kind of double digit years.
I consider myself one of the Queens of conflict resolution
because I eat conflict like cupcakes.
I initially started doing this because of my own real life
scenario. Like didn't we all get into,
especially those of us that are service workers, helpers, light
workers, Whatever you do, you probably got into it trying to
heal yourself from some of your own trauma or from some life
experience that happened to you. For me, it was kind of like
that. I fell in love with an amazing
dude who was attached to a not so amazing, amazing circumstance
and I could not understand for the life of me because I'm Miss
Naja. In high school, I was
everybody's friend. Never had a bully that I could
not make my employee. Everybody was like cool.
But just coming across an individual at that time who in
my mind was so consumed with chaos and hatred.
I really thought the things that were being projected on to me.
I took a lot of that stuff personally.
So I started doing the work to try to understand.
Then I uncovered personality disorders and different types of
mental illness and all of the things that we do to try to
under assign understanding to to people.
I started a Facebook group. I'm the high conflict person,
joined the Facebook group and tried to expose me and guess
what? We went viral.
We freaking blew up. Next day I had 10,000 followers
and so people are coming to me for advice and I am a girl
that's going to answer the call. And so I started getting the
advice. I have an undergrad degree in
family and consumer sciences. I went and did my 16,000 hours
to become certified as a family life educator.
And so my background already revolved around that, but I went
and I did the work. And this has been double digit
years ago now. So I hope I answered your
question. That's why I'm here.
Tell you no, you definitely did too we appreciate your energy
she is bringing the energy y'all and it's going to be so good
because we. Have some and I have not even
had my coffee yet. Like come.
On man Nice. Wait, so how many step kids do
you have? When did you meet your husband?
When did you meet bio mom? Just just give it, give it to
us. Sure, sure.
My husband has three children from a previous situation.
The only time we've ever been in the same room the first time was
about 10 years into our relation, me and my husband's
relationship, and that was in a courtroom.
The lat. The second and only time after
14 or so years was at a graduation.
And we didn't really come in close contact because the law
now says we can't. And so, yeah, I've been around
for just that long. I've watched these babies grow
from here to here. So my experiences run the gamut
of experiencing alienation, trauma, and having to watch that
from early childhood all the way now to young adulthood.
Yeah, that's so intense and I love that you refer to it as his
previous situation. Grown over the years because
those of you that have followed me for a long time know that I'm
I'm trying to clean up my language.
I am a professional in what I do.
People literally bring me all over the world to talk about
conflict resolution. So I can't be calling.
I can't be like, oh, dumpster cooch, I can't really say that
and still remain in the professional realm.
So yes, Alyssa, it's going to be previous Stitch.
I will say in our household, and I don't know if you're the same,
it's like saying her name in our house is very triggering for my
husband seeing her name like so we changed it in his phone.
We call her something different in the house, and not that it's
like a bad word necessarily. Is that the pulse that you guys
that I saw on your page that cracked me up?
That's how I kind of I got on you guys radar that I started
seeing who you guys were because that was so freaking funny.
I was like, damn, why did not think of that?
That was so funny. Was that?
Is that what you're talking about the.
Yes. Not I, not necessarily did I do
that. I got that from another stepmom.
Yeah. But yeah.
And actually that's something I learned from therapy.
Many years of therapy is like when you're triggered by
someone's name, you have to give them another name.
So that kind of book previously married.
So we have they have other names too.
But anyways, tell us something nausea that from your background
that people might think is true that it's just not.
Tell us something that from the outside appearance you have
everything figured out now and that you know things were smooth
sailing because you just didn't see by a mom maybe?
Or what do you call her? Do you say bio mom?
Wait publicly or when I'm talking to my friends like.
Give it to well, this is the side chat.
We, we are your friends. So I like you guys and if you
like, I don't believe in calling the name of someone who has
brought me harm, but that's with anybody, whether the harm is
intentional or not. I don't just, you know, I
believe names are attached to energy, but they're also
attached to the power that we give them.
So I don't necessarily have like a nickname anymore.
It's just like you are an ender script, inanimate, not useful
thing that deserves a place in my line of thought.
And it took me a long time to get there.
Because when somebody constantly pokes and toils with you and
tries to hurt the dude that you love.
And you're seeing what's happening to once very innocent
children who had these innocent perspectives of the world and
they were blessed with childhood naivete.
Until a mother is showing them divorce papers or showing them
dad's pictures on vacation or saying dad doesn't love you,
those things do something to you.
So I grew up Christian and one thing we said is like, honey,
you don't call the devil's name unless you wanted to come to
your door. So I don't I don't like I don't
even have a name. Oh, you, I'm sorry, I didn't
answer your question. You said, what's something
that's a tough question? That's a tough question because
I've transitioned from a place of venting a bunch online to a
space of teaching. One thing that was a little bit
tough in the beginning was to take remove my own sense of
bias. It took me a while to understand
that just because we call a woman a high conflict biological
mother does not make her that. We so often want to put people
into these categories because that feels comfortable to us.
I'm going to put you in this box so I can understand why you're
treating me the way you are. That way I can give it a name.
And it took me a while to a while to be like, oh, wait, not
everybody's high conflict. You just might be the bitch that
makes her life harder. She might not like your face.
She might not, you might not be someone that she sees.
Does this make her high conflict or someone that you have
difficulty managing that? That took a lot.
It took me a lot to be like not everybody's high conflict.
Bio mom and I noticed that one of the biggest challenges
amongst my clients is they feel very, very, they react in a very
defensive way when I have to say, hey honey, she's not high
conflict, she just don't like you and that's okay.
A lot of stepmoms have an issue with not being liked because
you're so cool and you have great intentions.
Well girl, the role to hell is paved with good intentions.
Nobody cares. About Oh yeah and there's so
many haters I will say that come after us because we say high
conflict bio mom and I agree with you.
It's not necessarily that that person is high conflict or and I
don't like the narcissistic term because that is like such a
vague category. But yeah, you have to call it
something because it is a situation that all of us are in.
And I mean, I say all of us because most stepmoms aren't
just like peachy kosher and like, you know, go into, yeah,
football games together. But yeah, So what do you say to
the people that are like, how dare you say high conflict bio
mom? Like because we have to block me
something block. Me.
If you don't like it, you're going to have to block me, OK?
If you don't like my face, something I say I need you to
make your life better and you got a mental illness.
If you come into my page every day and you don't like me, block
me, girl. That's what I could say.
Honestly, make free yourself from me.
I want you to free yourself. But those of you that choose to
be here with me and understands the lessons, the way that I
teach them, you might not like my language, you might not like
the way that I deliver the medicine.
You might need somebody to sugarcoat things for you.
This, this ain't that. Like I like to get people from
point A to point B as quick as possible.
And sometimes that is painful. Sometimes that means I'm going
to attack your ego. The ego is just built in fear
and it's frail and I don't I don't have time to delve in all
this stuff anymore. So have you always just been
like a straight shooter like this, like you're just, you've
always been like this? Or do you think that over time,
being a stepmom, you're like, you know what?
I don't care what she thinks. I don't care what my step kids
think. I don't even care what my
husband thinks because I'm so secure in who I am and in my
role as a stepmom. Or did that take you time?
I think once I reach like mid fees, something literally
transition in my brain to where I the level that I don't give a
fuck is probably criminal, probably dangerous.
Now there's not anybody that can make me feel ugly or less than
or stupid or not smart enough. There's no words.
There's nothing that you can present to me that would put me
in that place. But very early on, just in my
experiences as a woman growing up in the South, we were taught
to be docile and nice and kind and don't speak your mind
because you're going to hurt the feelings of others.
Then I moved to New York and I had to become a thug overnight
because New York would chew you up and spit you out and that
nice girl. I think all women, all women
should come and spend do like a six month life class in New York
because you're going to it's going to make a man out of you
in the in the in the best way possible.
If if there's a good way to, you know, embrace that part of
ourselves. But I think just in my nature, I
started off being this nice person that that really cared
what people think. And a lot of the stepmoms that
are attracted to me in the way that I teach they themselves
also in this situation where they feel inherently
misunderstood and they just just haven't grown the hair on their
chest yet to realize some people are so committed to
misunderstanding you, girl, you just got to put some sprinkles
on it and help their asses. That's the greatest analogy.
I love all of your your one liners.
Becca always like checks me because I'm throwing out these
stupid lines that I just dumb. If you heard our podcast, yeah,
these are even better. These are rich stepmoms.
How are you coping with transition day?
I'll tell you how I am. I'm lighting my big ass candles
to calm my big ass anxieties and honestly it changes the whole
mood of the house. Same chaos, just calmer vibes
and way better energy. We're obsessed with big ass
candles from big ass luxuries. Yep, the ones from Shark Tank.
If you want to try one, use code stepmom at checkout for a
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big ass candles because stepmom life comes with big ass
feelings. So you have this analogy about a
bee and a family. Dean 1 egg get into that for
anyone and that that has not for whatever reason, is not aware of
this fabulous and so true analogy.
Yeah, yeah, I was on somebody else's podcast.
I was a guest on theirs and they, the host was she seemed
very consumed with the actions of the high conflict bio mom of
her step kids, mother of, you know, whatever you want to call
a gremlin face, whatever your name is for your that person in
your life. She was very consumed and I
could tell and and I was like, OK, girl, let's do a reframe.
I need you to just sit with me here.
Pretend you're at a BBQ. It's a nice hot day.
You're at a barbecue in the backyard or in the park.
And one thing we know, when there's good food around, great
aromas, music, you're having fun, you got Coca-Cola, you got
an open bar. It's going to attract pests.
Pests love the good stuff. They love the fun.
It's like they show up when they know we're having the time of
our lives. And initially, if you don't go
get anything to protect yourself from the pests, they're going to
fly. They're going to land on your
food and you're going to have bees around.
So, OK, cool, what do we go? Do we go get the bee repellent?
Now, a bee is a pretty strong pest because it has a Stinger.
If you let it get near you, it could sting you.
So a smart person is going to do what they need to do to keep
that thing that is harmful to keep it at arm's length.
Maybe you're going to put on a particular lotions.
They have insect spray. You're going to light one of the
citronella candles, whatever it is that you have to do.
OK, cool, we got rid of the bees.
But then there's the other past. The big past is gone now.
Then the the, the past being the high conflict person or the
chaos that they bring to your life and that spray or that
centronella, I'm going to equate that to you putting some sort of
paperwork in orders or so that you can kind of compartmentalize
them, right. But then they start doing other
things. They're they have to be a bit
more crafty to reach you. So then we got this fly.
Flies will go and land on shit and then come and sit on your
barbecue and you would go and eat that BBQ.
Flies are gusting. Pets fly I think maggots aren't.
Don't maggots become flies? Like flies are awful.
I hate maggots and crawly things.
By the way, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to speed
this up because it's taking too long, but I want you guys to
understand this, your listeners to understand this.
So then the fly, the fly is around and then we find a
repellent for this fly. The fly is a pest that's not
going to sting you and make it. I don't know if you've gotten a
bee sting before, guys, but that bee sting, I equate that to
getting served with paperwork or having CPS called on you and
your house under your kids or something upsetting your
household. It's invasive.
It's instantly painful. The fly isn't like that.
We've gotten rid of the bee, but now the fly is here.
So you do what you got to do. You get the fly repellent, but
then, OK, no more flies. But damn, y'all, now the flies
are gone. Here comes the gnats.
Now gnats are annoying. They're not as intrusive or
invasive as the fly. You know, you can kind of fan
them off your food and all you need to do is set up a fan,
occasionally put a fan over there, put a fan over there and
you'll kind of keep the gnats away.
I equate all of this to you finding systems in your
household, your life, your relationship to minimize the
effects and take the Stinger out of the high conflict by your
mom. She can't come and bring her
shitty shoes and put them in your carpet as the flywood
because you don't have, she doesn't have the type of access
to you anymore. A net is a mere annoyance and
I'm going to, I'm cool with dealing with the net because I
can shoo them away. I can block the net.
I cannot listen to the net. I can make sure that I do my
cognitive work to lessen the effects of this annoying net.
So I've taken away the sting and now I have this mere occasional
annoyance to deal with. And that's how I kind of
minimize the effects. Or that's how I teach people to
see, to visualize the effects of making this one thing that felt
massive to you, squishing it into something that's just a
gnat girl. You a gnat out of here.
I I'm obsessed with that analogy that that's too funny.
And honestly, it's real. It's real.
So, you know, this is a good segue.
Then what's a boundary if you feel comfortable sharing that
you've set in your life with maybe a high conflict person
that maybe you thought was was harsh at the time, but it really
just, it changed the whole dynamic so that that B wasn't
stinging you. Like, how did you get that
repellent? What did you do?
Yeah, So what? I regret not setting boundaries
with high conflict people, situation, job, work, just all
these scenarios. I regret that because I realized
that how many people did I allow to have access to me because I
was being nice and I cared about not hurting them, but they
didn't care about hurting me. Once I realized nausea, you are
allowing this, that changed the game for me.
One thing I tell my clients, this is my own rule.
It's my rule now actually. And I started sharing with the
with clients and publicly is if you don't want the high conflict
person or a scenario that's in your life that's bothersome to
run rampant in your head all day, you got to compartmentalize
it. I'm so big on that because when
you teach your brain, she's going to think about this thing
all day, she's going to say words, then the words are going
to become action. It's never going to stop.
And we learned this in CBTDBT, different types of therapies.
So one of the rules is we don't talk about business, we don't
talk about drama. We don't talk about any of that
stuff in our marital bedroom. It's not allowed.
I will not lay in my bed and talk to my husband about a
dumpster fire of any sort that's happening.
We save those things maybe for, you know, hey and breakfast when
we're catching up. Oh hey, this is the order of
business. It's literally the, it's a one
liner. It's a one liner and we're done
with it. You catch me up on the bullshit,
I'm going to catch you up. OK, let's move on.
I've literally trained my brain to not sit and focus on that
which should not fester in my mind.
We don't talk about crap on date nights.
We make ourselves unavailable and inaccessible for certain
people and things, especially those that are chaotic.
I had this question because it sounds like and you know, I've
been following you for a really long time now.
So, you know, without, you know, sharing maybe too much, it
sounds like you know, he might have had a high conflict bio mom
to deal with. You know, during secret I got.
Whole damn books about it, I got books about it I got, I've been
on TV, national TV talking about it.
Like everybody knows that. So I want to know if that high
conflict bio mom affected your relationship with your step kids
and your husband. Like how did that all align?
Because I have heard from stepmoms, I have experience in
my own stepmom life that's been really hurtful for me as you
know, his partner because I'm like, look, he's such this great
guy. He's such this great dad and and
so how did how is that all affected you and your step kids?
I think from the jump I knew that alienation.
I didn't know the name for it in the very beginning.
But you know how if you're afraid if you're a girl that's
that's child free or you don't have your own kids yet, whether
you've made the decision or not, then one of the things that a
lot of us were afraid of is like, I don't want to deal with
baby Mama drama. Like I don't want to deal with a
crazy bitch. Like like why would I bring that
type of crap into my life? Like no dude is worth all that.
But I think, I think quite early on I was like, this is going to
come with some mess. This is going to come with
associated with some mess. I did not know the gamut of how
much cuz my mom and dad are still married.
All my aunties and uncles, grandma and granddaddy, like
everybody, we didn't see divorce in the family.
So me being just naive or and experienced in that realm, I
never actually knew that a person would intentionally to
hurt their other parent, their their child's other parent.
I've never knew that. That a woman would intentionally
make a kid read an e-mail or read a text message, a kid
that's just now learning to read.
I never knew that a woman would say your dad doesn't love you
because he's with nausea. You see, he's on vacation with
nausea in Mexico. Your dad doesn't come to get to
pick you up, does he? I never knew that a woman would
deny the dad that's banging on the door and has a cops call to
come get his kids for his parenting time would be denied
parenting time and the mother would conveniently be saved.
Well, he never showed up. There's so many instances on
paper sitting in the little box that I always tell stepmoms to
save when one day those kids want to know why you weren't
there. Dad, take the damn box and read
the box and then come back and holler at me.
I never knew that this type. I thought I was on TV.
I've seen mommy dearest stupid ass me.
I never knew that this was for real.
And that's, that's a privilege of mine.
I'd sat in that privilege for many years until I had to come
out of that ignorance. So I knew that it was going to
be tougher than not. And I was told very early on,
bitch, you'll never, my kids will never know you as anything.
They won't even know you. I was told probably like a month
in, being cool, being cool, like, hey, I'm not sure.
Like, why would you not want to be my friend?
Like I'm the cool auntie. I'm going to take your kids to
Paris. We're going to have a great
time. Hey, I get all this free stuff
from all over the place that I don't use.
Hey, the kids want it. Like it could have been that.
So that was a very heartbreaking notion, but I had to accept it.
I've moved into a place which is radical acceptance.
That was. A long answer am I like I'm
giving really long answers here y'all just butt in if I'm my
answers are getting too long. Well, you said you're the cool
auntie. That's exactly the analogy that
I give of like what are these kids to us?
For outsiders that don't understand they are like our
niece and nephew because we love them a little bit more than like
our friends kids and like my kids friends, but not it's not
the same as like my bio kids. So like it's kind of like your
niece and nephew. Sure, stay the night.
I'd rather have you longer than like my friend's kids, but don't
stay that long. You got to go home at some
point. You know, and I'm looking OK
when I say cool auntie. There are some of my friends
whose children call me Auntie and they have an expectation to
see me. They have an expectation for me
to come pick them up from school.
But then their parent, who is a friend of mine, encourages them
to love me and respect me and treat me as such.
Those relationships come with ease, a mutual love and respect.
I literally do anything for them.
I love being able to send them back home, home to their parents
though. But I love having them with me
when I think of an alienated stepchild.
When they come into your home, they come into your space.
These kids are carrying the baggage of strife, maybe another
parent's mental illness or disordered personality.
They're carrying their other parents this heavy 50 LB bag of
vengeance from their mom's house, and they're bringing it
into your house and they're suffocating the good air out of
your home. You and your partner are tense
with each other. Your kids are uncomfortable.
So I can be cool. Who, Auntie?
In terms of I'm going to keep you alive while you're here, If
you allow me to pour into you, I will.
But if you've been taught to stay away from me, the only
thing I asked for is boundaries and respect.
That's all I can do. What?
Would you say to a stepmom that is experiencing what you just
described? Because I know so many stepmoms
can relate to what you just said.
You know, the alienated stepchild, they come to visit or
it's their week at dad's house and like you said, mom and dad
or you know, you and husband, it's tense IO kids, it's tense
other kids in the house tents. And you just feel this layer of
complexity in your home. And there's nothing as a stepmom
that you can really do to fix it per SE.
But what would you stay to a stepmom that that's experiencing
that? I was actually on the phone with
a client the other day, so I'm going to tell you what I what I
told her. I said she was like, Naja, you
know, the whole tone in the house changes when they're here.
I said, well, girl, it's your damn house.
How are these little beings that are looking for love and
desperate for guidance and who are being misguided by a woman
who has become their center? Star said first you have to
control the temperament in your home.
No child, no adult, no person is ever going to step foot in my
and Naja's home and not say, hey, how you doing?
How are you cool? At a minimum, just basic
respective, treat me like you would the mail person or the
delivery person. Say hello like a teacher.
Cool. But these kids are coming in
with this extra like this extra sense of almost hatred.
These women equip their children.
And these women are the first ones, not the only, not only
their kids, first bullies, but they're teaching them how to
hate. They're teaching them how to be
Mean Girls and bully boys. So the second thing I say is
tell the stepmom, what if you had a very sweet stepchild who
was physically impaired? Wouldn't you build a ramp so
that they can come into the house?
They're like absolutely right. So that, you know, wheelchair
accessible, You'd make things accessible in your home.
I said these alienated stepchildren are impaired.
They are not like the normies walking around here that you can
just play and go like these kids need an extra layer.
And while this we have more sympathy for the stepchild
that's in the wheelchair. Oh, we're helping them reach
this reach the dish because they can't get it and they have the
sweetest little temperament. I need you to see these
alienated step kids as they're not fully functional.
And it's hard to have sympathy or even show empathy when the
visceral that they're directing at you feels like it hurts you.
But girl, how much like once you say, OK, my kid is is mentally
emotional stunted. This stepchild is not able to
even be nice. This is fucked up.
Like this parent has a mess up. So I need us to start injecting
a bit of empathy and sympathy and like, Oh my God, you poor
dear soul. What would I want to do?
How would I want somebody to treat me if I was a puppy from
the pound and I got beat every day of my life and I'm going
into this new house and there's just food everywhere.
Their step kids are sheepish. They don't know how to receive
love the way that you give it. They don't know how to patients.
They can't even make decisions for themselves because their
other parent literally has parentified them so much that
they have to ask permission just to think.
They are afraid to think freely. So I need you to keep that in
mind when these kids are coming in your house.
This is your opportunity you're going to have to be on.
This is your opportunity to teach.
Your ministry is showing them, maybe not directly telling them,
but indirectly showing them what it's like to be a loving mother,
partner, wife, what it's like to have healthy conflict.
When you and your partner are in a heated discussion, they're
watching you and they're literally desperate.
Learn another way. And so you got to show them.
Yeah, I noticed that the kids can be stunted in so many ways.
They're emotionally stunted. They can't handle like every
single thing my husband says that kids get hurt like 1
little, it'll be a bee sting or a hangnail.
And my husband's like, oh, they're out for the season.
They can't handle physically. They're like stunted like at the
other house we see a lot that the little one who's 7 now I
tell people all the time, oh, I have a 5 year old and I'm like,
no, I'm not. He literally stopped at 5 and
he's just gotten bigger. But it's because she ties his
shoes for him still. She helped him get dressed.
She brushes his teeth and it's like my 3 year old brushes her
own teeth. So there are so many things that
they it's so sad that they can't do but contrast.
So the respect thing to me where I find the issue where we hear a
lot of our stepmoms in our membership saying that like they
have an issue with the loyalty bind aspect of it where the kids
are so locked into mom that they like they've been told you don't
have to respect daddy and Lissa. You don't have to go over and
listen to what they say. They're they don't go to all
your games. So why you have to, you know,
care for your siblings games. They're told these things like
I've heard it from the children's mouths.
So I see that they have that loyalty by then to their mom
too. So how do you separate that to
make them be respectful when they just see you then as being
mean because you're like, well, you need to respect me.
But they're told and they're trained that you're a terrible
person. You're you know, you don't
deserve respect. How do you break the loyalty
bind? Can you I?
Would not focus so much on saying I'm going to break this
loyalty bind. I'm going to break it because
kids are going to identify with the weaker parent.
I say this at least once a week on my page.
They identify, feel empathy, sympathy, cling to the parent
that's weaker. The weaker parent is the one
that's teaching them to disrespect and to ignore and to
like have all these unhealthy habits.
That's what a weak parent does. The weak parent is leading
parenting from the place of fear and parenting from their own
ego. They are so deathly afraid of
their kid forming a bond with you that they're going to teach
this kid to hate instead of teach this child to love.
That is weak as hell. You're just a weak woman if if
that's how you choose to preside over a child's life, that's how
you choose to lead. So I wouldn't be so focused on
breaking the loyalty bind because the kid it is going to
do that. What I believe we should all be
doing and even encouraging our partners to do is give these
children the tools to refute what the liar says.
Right. There's a quote Oh my God.
I can't remember who the quote is from but it says I would
rather I would rather build it. It's hard to unlearn it.
Please y'all. Damn, I wish I would have went
to look at this quote, but basically it's saying, would you
rather teach a grown man to unlearn bad habits or teach him
all of the habits from the jump, meaning from zero, zero to 18.
So it is a responsibility of everyone around a child who has
a very weak parent to teach these kids.
If mom says, oh, you don't have to respect Becca.
Like you can even call her a name if you want to.
And if the kid says my mom says I can call you a bitch, Becca,
you're a big old fat bitch. You're going to right?
You're going to say, well, tell me what a big fat bitch is.
Like seriously, I want you to just tell me what a big fat
bitch is. What you'll learn is that kids
that are parentified, they can't think for themselves.
And so they mom hasn't given the answer, they're going to start
glitching. Well, a big fat right?
So and like how big is big? Because if you're going to call
me names, is this this is for any adult, anyone that I even
have a debate with. I need to understand your
motivations. And the child is going to you
know, I'm going to say, well, where'd you get that?
From the people that nobody talks to me like that.
So where'd you get? I'm a big fat bitch.
Like, am I fat? Well, no.
OK, Like, So what have I done to you to make you think I'm a
bitch? And the kid, what happens is a
kid is going to clam up and get quiet.
If a the person knows that they are outgunned out, man out,
you're out intellectual, you're outsmarted, then they're going
to get smaller and smaller and smaller.
So they're going to challenge you less and less and less.
If you use words against me, you're going to have to explain
what those words mean. And what I find is that these
kids that come over that have just been fed the lingo.
They don't have the words they're going to, they're going
to get small, they're probably going to cry.
And then you can say, you can even say, well, who told you to
say that? Because it's like nobody around
here talks like that. Like, there's literally not any
adult in this house that will ever teach a child to say such a
nasty, vile thing. Because people that talk like
that, they don't make it too far in the world.
They don't really have friends. Nobody truly likes them.
So who taught you that? They're never going to say
mommy. But now you've taught them.
You've put a seed in their head and you've taught them a new
pattern of thinking. We have to constantly challenge
what these kids are allowed to think.
Because if by some snowballs chance in hell that they stop
drinking the kool-aid and they're able to think for
themselves, they're going to remember all of these things
that you said to them and taught them and they'll have that to
refer to. Our responsibility is not to
kill the loyalty bond. It's just to give them the
references and tools so that when they're ready to kill it,
because this is their cross to bear.
It ain't Charles. It's not our cross to bear.
If they're ready, they can pick up the tools that you and dad
and everybody that truly loved them and wanted to see them grow
gave them and they can use them. Not, and that's really, that's
really, that's really cool to see though, because I think now
that I'm farther in my stepmom journey, I'm a little bit
hopefully more mature and have a little bit more tools in my
toolbox to be able to respond to those remarks without becoming
so emotional and reactive. So I, I try to take a lot of
proactive steps now, you know, I'm not perfect by any means,
you know, but I did want to go into something really fast with
you about this high conflict dynamic and how you and your own
life or you know, and the stepmoms you work with lives,
how it affects the marriage between the stepmom and the
husband. And any advice you would have
for, for that stepmom. Because I truly believe,
especially in the beginning, it it affects a marriage.
Yeah, yeah. If you make it through year one,
I'm so I'm proud of you. Whether you are a long term
partner, you're married on paper or however you choose to.
You know, if you decided that this is going to be your person,
you make it through that first year and you're dealing with a
high conflict person, I commend you.
I know that it's affected your your relationship.
I know you've lost sleep. I know that as a woman, it's
caused you to resent your partner because you're looking
at them like are you dumb? Like why'd you even like why'd
you get that knock that bitch out like what's wrong with you?
Are you yes, right. We all ask ourselves questions
like that. So that leads you to resent your
partner, maybe even lose a little bit of respect for them
because how could you go from that to all of this?
I'm glad you wisened up. It might it might even make you
question yourself and your own value because you're like, wait,
he did go from that to this. Am I like no girl, you're not
No, no, no, you're not You're still here.
You're still here. So don't even let that lie come
in anywhere into your head. So that's the thing like work on
the level of resent. If you have resent your person
had a life before you, honey, you had a life before them.
And if you were so happy in your life and everything was working
out perfectly, how were you able even aligned to find them?
So you both found each other. So don't look down on your
partner because he did that. You made mistakes too.
You just didn't get knocked up by everyone and have to still
talk to them. So now that we got that done out
of the way, the second thing is, as I mentioned earlier, please
compartmentalize conversations about high conflict stuff
compartmentalize and you don't talk about it in your marital or
your your couple's bedroom. You only have certain spaces.
I'll give you I'll give you 30 minutes a day to talk about
that. Everybody does listening to
this, you get 30 minutes and 1 sitting to talk about it.
Once you have used up your 30 minutes, that's it.
Next thing I want you to do you and some this might be
controversial but I find that the stepmoms that have the
easier time does finances play a play a big part in the happiness
of your relationship and what you the flexibility that you
have. If your partner is in a
situation where he has a handshake deal with the other Co
parent. There's no paperwork anywhere
involved. You're cruising for a bruising.
We we stick to the paperwork exactly as it is and all we are
in big trouble if we are two minutes late to drop off or pick
up. But they have more of an open
communication situation where they can say, hey, you want to
take the kid today? Yeah, that kind of thing.
So yeah, I guess that's where it gets confusing.
I'm like. Yeah, like I'm cool with that.
But yeah, like I, I see the paperwork is like, that's our
Bible. That's like our family law.
I'll say it better. That's the law for our
particular family. And if the Co parents are cool
enough, they have a cohesive enough relationship that centers
a child. I can't pick them up at 2.
Can you get them at six? Absolutely.
We can deviate from it. But in cases where we're
deadlocked or there is high conflict, these are the this is
the law. This is what we got to follow.
If a man has kids with another person, even if it's a great Co
parenting relationship, even in great business partnerships.
You guys have a podcast together.
I'm sure you got some sort of paperwork together.
You sign a lease or a mortgage to live in your home when you
get your new job. Like you sign the paperwork
everywhere. If you have kids with somebody
else, honey, that handshake deal is going to wear off.
It's going to wear off and things are going to need to
change. She's cool now.
She's been cool for 10 years. She gets a new guy in her life.
He all of a sudden wants things to change.
So a man that cares about you is going to get his paperwork work
in order, at least he's going to have paternity established.
There's going to be a certain amount that he knows he has to
pay. So you can know exactly what
money is leaving your household and the visitation will be
established. Now, some men don't like when I
say though, I don't want to get the courts of my business, baby,
we'll turn in your damn driver's license and passport then.
So don't pick. We can't pick these chooses with
that. And what else?
I think that's all. I mean, I could go on and on and
on, but that's just what I can think of off the Dome.
No, no. You're good.
That's good. Were there ever, like times in
the beginning where you were just like, you know what?
I can't do this. I'm out.
The other day. So like, what did you do to Like
what? What do you do to regulate
yourself when those moments come?
Yeah. OK.
In the beginning, anxiety got the best of me.
I would be like, Naja, you can't do this.
And it would be approaching A visitation or some sort of
thing. And then one thing I would
realize is when the kids would get there, like for me, the kids
has been the kids have been the best part of the stepmothering
experience. Once we're all together, it's
really cool. Like it's real.
Like there's some really freaking cool individuals, which
is one thing that led me to be like, how can how can a high
conflict bio mom raise such cool people?
And so cognitive dissonance started happening in my own
mind. Like this is interesting.
Is she as high conflict whole nother conversation.
But the thing that would talk me off the ledge is my husband
would be like, Hey, have you ever noticed that, that you get
so antsy before they come and then while you're here, it's
cool. So it's just the anxiety leading
up to it. You got to develop some sort of
habits, traditions or patterns to calm your own mind.
Now, if your anxiety proves true and then you are thrown in the
midst of fire. I don't advocate for anybody to
stay in a situation that's literally causing them to lose
their mental health or causing them to have premature aging or
any stress or anything like that.
I don't advocate for that, but it's usually not as bad as our
brains tell us it is. Y'all, It's usually not like,
did you die? No.
Did it suck? Yeah.
I'm so talk yourself down and have some ways to kind of talk
and calm yourself down. That really helped me in the
beginning to be like, Naja. It's not as bad as your brain
would have you to believe. Your brain is just trying to
protect you. It's not fire.
You've not been burned too many times and if you have, you've
been OK because you've grown so much.
You've written another e-book or something.
Something's landed. Just everything's.
Every time something has been thrown my way to try to harm me,
it matriculates into something massive beyond my imagination.
So it's blessings on blessings on blessings.
Look at it like that. How can I transition this this
shit to sugar this? Shit to sugar.
OK, we have a few questions from the stepmoms that are in our
membership. Some of them are kind of
repetitive and similar, so let me just shoot a few at you real
quick. One of them I do like it says
what should husbands know or consider about their partners,
like the stepmom through all this.
Besides, obviously, like you put us through a lot with all your
drama and all your baggage. Yeah, we often want them to know
our pain. Not sure.
He doesn't understand how I feel what I'm going through.
Girl, he he can't even talk to his damn kids when he wants to.
The man is crying in his damn pillow because this bitch is
keeping them away. He's barely keeping 2 households
afloat. So what do you want him to?
What should he know about you? He should know that you choose
to be here and you're the one thing that's not going to make
his life harder. You're not going to leave him,
but you have holding him to some very high standards.
He should know that he has to protect you from the.
Stuff that he created before and as long as he does that then you
got his back. That's such a good one too.
Yeah, you and we have a really good understanding of that in my
house. And so does Becca's of like
we're A-Team and you. Yeah, that's well.
And I think there's something that hits at the two year mark.
What is that nausea? Like the two year mark, there's
a twist or a flip and maybe it's in bio mom, but man, if I didn't
have my husband totally saying like, Hey, this is this is my
sidekick, like this is my person.
Kids, can they come and go now? But she's here with me all the
time and Oh my gosh, we would have, we would split way by.
Moms crazy, crazy regenerates and crazy changes faces, but the
space of preserving peace in your own relationship when you
hit that tool, when you hit that flow of oh, we are locked in
it's me and you Becca has my back, Alyssa, she Alysa's my
partner. We're not going anywhere.
This means that you do you have a dude that you can trust,
though. Do you know how many women I
talked to the say Naja, how do I teach my man boundaries?
Girl, his his mammy should have taught him that.
Like, why are you teaching a grown ass man boundaries?
Like call your divorce lawyer. Like we don't, we don't, we
don't teach grown men how to protect us when they've proved
it time and time again that they don't that they can't.
But when you we hit this stride, when we start to have this
ultimate trust in one another, No baby Mama, no kids, my
family, your family, nobody's coming, coming in between this
thing that we've created. So that's the great space.
That's when we can start to grow.
Yes, I think after a few years, that's definitely the space I'm
in now and it's it's so cool. It's like, you know, I just had
the kids for spring break and and you know, kids are a lot.
So at the end of the week I was, I was excited for a little
piece, not going to lie, But I would say it was definitely the
most like life giving spring break and break I had with them
because I, you know, I'm in that space with my husband now.
So so the yeah, thank you for sharing that.
Another one of our stepmom listeners and this is a good
one, she said. What are some good comebacks to
say to bio moms, whether you know them or they're complete
strangers who might blame the stepmom for the issues or say
they'll never be good enough because they don't have their
own kids? OK, now don't advocate for you
guys giving comebacks because a lot of you that are asking me
for comebacks, you're not as quick with it as I am.
I grew up in Memphis City Schools.
I had to fight for my life verbally every day.
Like, so if you weren't in that lunch room dealing with bullies
and making them cry, I don't want you to get into it with a
woman who has a disordered personality because she's going
to outgun you out. Thank you.
She's going to go so far below the belt.
She's going to equip her kids with stuff too.
But if you must, if you must be Patty, Patty, you can say, well,
I mean, I might not have kids, but girl, I keep yours all the
time. You ain't doing such a goddamn
bang up the job yourself. I wouldn't take lessons from
you, Mother Teresa. You know, you just, you kind of
want to just go there. But I can come up with comebacks
instantaneously. If that's not what you're made
of, don't engage. Don't.
Engage. You are really quick witted.
I love it. Just to kind of close up though,
what's your favorite part of being A stop mom?
This might sound selfish and self-centered.
That's OK. But the woman.
The woman that I've become, the person that I've transformed
that I've had to become, and the woman that I'm not anymore, I'm
not naive anymore. I've seen the bowels of
motherhood. I've seen the corruption of the
court system. I've seen hatred personified and
I've eaten it up and shitted it out into some beautiful
sprinkles on television. Every major network you can
imagine, successful podcast, Amazon bestseller.
I like who I've become out of the thing that I thought would
bring me the most strife. So that's my favorite part of
having this role plopped in my lap is what I've been able to do
with the hardships presented from it.
That's great. That is not selfish whatsoever
and that is 100%. I think that's good for every
stepmom to hear, to kind of think about because that put me
in a spot to where I was like, you know what, this is so true.
I got to a place where Becca and I were like, we're not going to
be stepmom coaches, but we are able to like rely on ourselves,
on our past experiences and see how we overcame things.
And it's kind of an eye opener of like, wow, we have come
through a lot in just like under 10 years.
So that's I think. That's what makes actually
really good cultures though. I know you're trying to cut off,
but I don't know why you guys wouldn't be coaches.
I think that's what cultures are made of.
We might have to talk about that then off there.
Yeah. Right.
Before we go, though, where can people find you?
Tell us it all, Yes? Yes, yes y'all.
So thank you so much ladies for having me.
This has been a beautiful conversation.
I hope I didn't talk too much, but you got a lot to flip up.
But you can find me at vipstepmom.com.
DMS are open, e-mail is open. I have a podcast, it's called I
Know I'm Crazy with Naja Hall. We got to have these side chat
girls on there. But yeah, I'm all over the
Internet at VIP Stepmom. We love you, Nausea.
You're going to have to come back.
I love you ladies too. I thank you for having me.
It's like straight up, it's a privilege and an honor.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
I really appreciate you too. And I'm proud of the great work
you're doing. And whatever I can do to amplify
that, please let me know because I'm all about there's, there's,
there's more than than enough room for all of us.
So let's do it. Let's make it happen.
Let's do it. That's it for this week on
Stepmom Side Chats. We're Alyssa and Becca, your
stepmom bestie before you go. It's something we said hit a
little close to home. Go ahead and hit follow now so
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Keep giving yourself grace, you're doing better than you
think. We'll chat with you all soon.