I have a guest post on Jennifer Newcomb Marine and Carole Marine's No One's the Bitch Website today. As you know, I strongly feel that women don't need the additional pressure of "fixing it" with hubby's ex. Civility is often a difficult enough goal, and we need to be very careful about siphoning energy away from self-care and tending to our marriage, given how depleting stepmothering is, and how vulnerable remarriages with kids are to divorce. In the spirit of engineering the kind of civility that can make everyone's life easier, and in the hopes of fostering mutual understanding, here's my post.

The December Issue of Stepmom magazine is here (www.stepmommag.com)! Lots of great reading as you gear up for your winter holiday nervous breakdown — Mary Kelly provides a priceless window onto an ex-wife's (temporary) divorce regret; the sassy and hilarious Belle Mere remembers her first Christmas with sprogs; Erin Erickson on being a heavy-lifting "single" stepmom whose husband is out of town more often than not; Peggy Nolan on a stepfamily wedding; therapists/authors/experts Jacque Fletcher, Susan Swanson and Susan Wisdom all share their wisdom on topics from holiday survival to Mad Men; party girl Izzy Rose gives tips on how to do it right; I write about avoiding holiday stepmartyr syndrome; and Joel Schwartzberg tells divorced and remarried dads what they owe their partners — that would be US! There's more where that came from. Believe it. Buy it. Read it.

There's a new cultural pressure in town — to befriend your ex's wife, or your husband's ex. As you might know from reading my posts, I feel strongly that any woman married to a guy with kids and an ex should feel free to just say no to this pressure — to focus on her marriage and her own mental health and adjustment, given how depleting and decentering the role of stepmother can be and usually is.

Holiday preparations have you feeling worn down already? Take a minute (okay, twenty) for yourself. This podcast with Jacque Fletcher ushers in a new series she's started, "In the Stepfamily Mix" — featuring Jacque and me sounding off weekly about issues relevant to stepmoms. On the plate this week is Thanksgiving: "What if I'm expected to do Thanksgiving with my husband's ex but don't want to?"; "How can we make holiday and other get-togethers less stressful?"; "Why do my husband and I only fight when his kids are around?" Plus helpful tips to keep you (relatively) sane and stable over the ensuing weeks!

Any multi-tasking mom or woman with stepkids might relate to this...please have a read and post a comment on my newest piece for the Huffington Post!