Taming the Mommy Tiger: When His Ex Resents You in the January Issue of Stepmom Magazine
Cameron and A-Rod's daughter
Let me get something out front: I love Star Magazine. Oh, and Us. I also love The New Yorker and the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage. But I've got nothing against lowbrow.
A big piece splashed across the pages of Star this week "reports" that Alex Rodriguez–okay, A-Rod–is getting cozy with Cameron Diaz again (they broke up for a while this fall but are back together now–why do I know this?!), bringing her on vacation with him and his two young kids. And his ex-wife, we're told, is not happy about it. In fact, she is allegedly spitting mad. Then there's the story–brewing for several months now–of the animosity between LeAnn Rimes and Brandi Glanville, the ex-wife of LeAnn's now-fiance Whatshisname, which frequently bursts aflame on Twitter.
As a woman married to a man who has 1) kids and 2) an ex-wife, my first impulse might be to feel for the stepmamas in these situations. But as a mother and occasional mommy tiger myself (you do NOT want to be that elderly gentleman at Starbucks who gave my three-year-old the hairy eyeball for coughing in his vicinity the other day, trust me), and having researched and written about wife/ex-wife resentment for the last several years, I have another take on what makes the Mommy Tiger rage–and how to tame her.
On this topic, one wishes LeAnn would lay off the passive-aggressive, self-canonizing tweets, as if she were St. Stepmom. Sure, it was Whatshisface's choice to have an extramarital affair and leave his wife. We can't blame LeAnn for his call. But do he and LeAnn actually expect Brandi to NOT be angry about this public humiliation and its emotional half-life, particularly when LeAnn steps on her turf and her toes with frequent tweets about how she loves Whatshisface's kids like they're her own, referring to them on twitter as "my boys" and listing all the things she does for them, like spending 20K on their Christmas presents? When is a stepmom being good and when is she trying too hard and when is she rubbing her husband's ex's nose it in? How can a mom NOT be infuriated when she finds out via Twitter that one of her children has wound up in the emergency room for stitches during a weekend with Dad and Stepmom, neither of whom bothered to phone her about the injury? Sometimes a stepmother with the best intentions will piss off a mother/ex-wife by "overreaching" and encroaching on mom's role and relationship with her kids, while her husband fades into the woodwork like a doofus, presuming as he does that kid stuff is "woman stuff." I would say that's what's going on here. Except for the "unintentional" part.
Meanwhile we have A-Rod's ex, Cynthia Scurtis (who has a Master's degree in psychology), allegedly fed up that their kids vacationed with him–and Cameron Diaz. "CAMERON IS MADLY IN LOVE WITH ALEX–AND HIS DAUGHTERS!" an insider tells Star. Meanwhile, a "source" states that it's the parade of women the notorious Yankees stud is subjecting the kids to, not any one of them in particular, that has Cynthia ticked. "First Madonna, then Kate Hudson, now Cameron–Cynthia is sick of having all these different women hanging around the girls," according to, you guessed it, "a source." Can't really fault her for that, if she did actually say it (I love Star but I do retain an awareness that it is not The New York Times when it comes to fact-checking and accuracy of quotes). I have to say, it is really, really hard to share. It is hard for me to imagine having to share my kids with ANYONE sleeping with the guy who fathered them. Especially when she looks as good in a bikini as Cameron does. Maternal feelings are primal and powerful and protective and yes, sometimes they are petty.
Beyond having been cheated on and dumped, what are the roots of ex-wife resentment? What makes an ex-wife infuriated and irrationally nasty toward the stepmother of her children, even when that woman didn't break up her marriage? Why does she undermine your relationship with her kids and do everything in her power to make your life hell? Hint: it's not really about money. I write about where Mommy Tiger is coming from–and what you can do if your husband's ex has it out for the two of you–in the current, second-year anniversary double edition of Stepmom magazine. Hope you will check it out.
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