Stepmother, 41, became an ‘anxious mess’ after moving in with her partner and his two children

A stepmum has opened up about how she went from a ‘confident, strong woman’ to an ‘anxious mess’ after moving in with her partner and his children.

Katie Harrison, 41, from Suffolk, reached breaking point becoming a stepmother – admitting she felt she was ‘treading on eggshells’ and ‘constantly under surveillance’ in her own home. 

The mother-of-three, who shares two children with partner Dom, says she felt ‘lost and isolated’ while trying to maintain the ‘very delicate balance’ they had achieved as a blended family.

Earlier this year she launched successful BBC podcast ‘You’re Not My Mum: The Stepmums Side’ in a bid to provide support and tackle the ‘taboo’ around being a stepmother. 

Katie told FEMAIL: ‘I felt I was expected to give give give, but not expect anything back, and it was breaking me. I went from being a confident, strong woman to being an anxious mess. 

‘Every other weekend I was treading on eggshells in my own home, feeling I was constantly under surveillance and overthinking everything for fear of saying something which might upset the very delicate balance we had. 

‘We were a bit like a Jenga tower, constantly moving blocks around in our family and with our schedules, trying not to let the tower collapse.

‘All this time I looked desperately for support. WHERE WERE ALL THE STEPMUMS? I felt lost and isolated. As a ‘”real’ mum” I had plenty of people I could share my deepest truths with, but as a stepmum there was nothing’.  

The mother-of-three, who shares two children with partner Dom, says she felt ‘lost and isolated’ while trying to maintain the ‘very delicate balance’ they had achieved as a blended family

The mother-of-three, who shares two children with partner Dom, says she felt ‘lost and isolated’ while trying to maintain the ‘very delicate balance’ they had achieved as a blended family. Dom and Katie are pictured enjoying a walk with their children

Katie met her partner Dom at work in 2016 and said that she ‘rather naively’ thought it would be simple taking on his two young children alongside her three-year-old son.   

‘I have always loved children and I wanted a big family’, she said. ‘Dom had talked about his girls a lot, so I was excited to get to know them. I saw them as a bonus really and thought that the fact he was a dad would also mean he understood my commitments to my son. 

‘I knew it wouldn’t always be plain sailing and I anticipated bumps along the way but looking back I was very naïve to the sorts of complications which might come up, and how hard it would be!’ 

As a mother herself, Katie knew how difficult it is to have to share your child – however admitted it was ‘impossible’ finding a balance between making the girls feel cared for and not stepping on their mother’s toes.   

‘I was worried about how my son would take to my partner and his kids’, she said. ‘The worries on that side were fairly unfounded as my son built a good relationship with them all quickly.

‘Before we’d moved in together, I think it was trickier for the children. Most of our time was spent at ‘my’ house where my son obviously had a room and his toys so for him, he felt like his space wasn’t his own and he had to share ALL the time, and for the girls they felt like it wasn’t their home.’ 

Things improved when the couple had officially moved in together and all the children had their own space – but the complications of being a stepmother were far from over.    

Katie says all major decisions had to decided ‘by committee’ and often choices she felt were right for her own children, weren’t the same as those made by the children’s own mother.    

‘People would say to me, just “Treat them as your own” but of course I couldn’t do that as there were a lot of decisions about the way they were raised e.g. access to social media, which just weren’t my decisions to make.

‘So it felt like I had all the responsibility but none of the authority which comes with raising kids. That felt so hard.

‘In our home we had a way of living which worked for us but it wasn’t always the same as their mum’s way of living in her home so the littlest of things like what time the kids went to bed, taking shoes off in the house, what sort of food we ate, ended up erupting into huge issues which was so stressful for us all. 

‘Whilst I know they’re only little things, when so many of the little ways in which you like to live are questioned it can cause huge emotional pressure.’ 

She added: ‘In a first family the power tends to trickle down from the parents, but stepfamilies can often be a percolator model where power trickles up from the kids. This creates a really difficult situation for everyone in the family’. 

While their children have always had a good relationship, Katie admitted that it’s difficult to fight the ‘almost primal’ urge to defend your child amid conflict – a fact she feels it’s important for parents to be vocal about.   

The mum would escape to her parents house for the weekend with her son, admitting that while she thought Dom and his girls needed quality time – she ‘couldn’t face the tension’ at home.  

‘I knew I was running away and just pushing the problem down the road but I was on such a knife edge emotionally I just went into ‘protect myself’ mode’, she said.  

‘Some of the people in my home were unhappy. And I couldn’t do anything about it. I was so desperate for our house to be the happy home I craved, and at that time it wasn’t.

‘I really struggled that I couldn’t ‘fix’ the problems in our family. My joy was formed on someone else’s pain and that is a very difficult pill to swallow. For any stepmum to even exist there has to have been a loss for the child, whether that’s through death or divorce. 

‘So, no matter how much I wanted my stepchildren to be happy, sometimes me being there was just a reminder that their parents weren’t together anymore. I took that very personally, even though it wasn’t about me as a person’.  

Katie says her relationship with Dom suffered in the early days of being a stepmum, admitting there were ‘so many tears’ as they were finding their feet as a blended family. 

After winning the contest, Katie’s podcast ‘You’re not my Mum; The Stepmum’s side’ was released on BBC Sounds earlier this year

‘It’s not surprising the single biggest predictor of divorce in second marriages is the presence of children from the first! There were times when I felt I just couldn’t take the pressure, the upset and the stress anymore.

‘There was a lot of hurt, for us all, at different points. There is very little support for stepmums and also very little support for Dads in second relationships.

‘Going through those painful lows has brought us a lot closer together though and we have an extremely strong, honest relationship now’.  

Katie’s lightbulb moment came when she was crying alone in her bedroom thinking ‘I can’t be the only woman who feels like this’. 

‘I remember very clearly telling Dom about the BBC podcast competition and saying, “someone needs to talk about this stuff, it’s complicated and taboo but the way to break taboos is to talk about things” and his response was “well you should enter”! 

After winning the contest, Katie’s podcast ‘You’re not my Mum; The Stepmum’s side’ was released on BBC Sounds earlier this year.