Just when you think you're making progress and reducing some of the stress in your immediate family life, there come your husband's family members and his ex-wife (or ex-wives) to heap on some more. You're "married" to them, too, sort of, and you'll have to find a way to manage their impact on your life. Try these three steps.

1. Be true to yourself. Sometimes, you can create a lot of stress for yourself because you're trying to be accommodating and tolerant of all these new people in your life. That's admirable, but if you let it go too far, you only end up feeling resentful and overwhelmed, and your stress level goes sky high. Back up, and try another approach.

Know your limits. Know how much interaction you're comfortable with in dealing with these people who may cause you stress. For example, if you can't talk to your stepkids' mom without hyperventilating, don't. Defer her calls to your husband and don't feel guilty about it. If you can't get along with your in-laws despite your best efforts, remove yourself from their gatherings and let your husband and kids go alone. Learn to identify exactly what situations cause you the most stress in dealing with these extended family members, and don't put yourself there. It may be a hard choice sometimes, but you'll be better for it.

Stand up for yourself and learn to say no. These people can only stress you as much as you let them. Practice denying them entry into your psyche, keeping them as far away, emotionally, as you have to, to reduce your stress. Your primary concern is with the people in your home. Don't let the interferences of these outside forces destroy your family. Protect yourself and your home turf.

2. Lower your expectations. We want so much for our new lives to run smoothly that we often expect too much from ourselves and everyone else. Your relationship with your mother-in-law or your sister-in-law or your stepkids' mom can become a tremendous source of stress if you expect some sort of instant understanding or bonding or friendship. Give yourself and every one else a break.

Maybe you want to be friends with your stepkids' mom, start fresh and let the past stay in the past. That's a good goal, but she may have other plans. She may be unresponsive or hostile, or you may be unable to be as "giving" as you'd hoped. If so, lower your expectations so that you reduce your stress. Be satisfied with whatever progress you make each day. That's enough. Do what you can to build the relationship you want, but don't expect miracles in a difficult situation.

Circumstances may arise that you never considered. What do you do, for example, if your mother-in-law clearly prefers her former daughter-in-law to you? Stressful, huh?! Whether it's for the sake of the kids or because of some history that you don't understand, it doesn't matter. It hurts, but if you expect her to change, to cut the ties she had before, or to pretend the ex-wife never existed, you may be expecting too much. Don't stress yourself over the choices of someone else. Do your best and leave it at that.

3. Communicate well. Learning to communicate clearly and efficiently when you have a complicated stepfamily can save you loads of stress. We all have too much to keep track of these days. Make it easy on everyone with good communication.

Sometimes, we don't discuss difficult issues either because we don't know how or we don't want to or we don't think we can. It seems that avoiding the issues would be less stressful, but we end up with more stress the longer we deny that a problem exists. So reduce your stress by resolving to communicate about what matters in your life, with everyone involved.

You can communicate even with those you don't like or get along with if you'll keep it simple. Communicate by email or postal mail if you'd rather not speak. Or schedule a meeting so that you can prepare ahead of time when you need to discuss something important. And be sure that you and your husband are completely clear on where the two of you stand on the issues. You need to be seen as "one" when you confront the other family members.

Communicating about plans is absolutely crucial to eliminating or avoiding more stress, especially with your stepkids' mom. Establish a habit now of communicating clearly and early, and keep a record of it, especially if the plans aren't agreeable to someone. Having everything documented keeps the stress level to a minimum and keeps you from having to re-negotiate or explain the decisions that have already been made. With a good record of your stepfamily's communication, everything is simpler: Here are the plans, period. Written records are just the facts. That's fairly stress-free.

You'll get so much better at handling the stress that these outside people cause the longer you're a stepmom. Take these relationships slowly, because they're complicated and you have so many other more important relationships to work on: those with your husband and stepkids. Please don't allow these outside people to stress you so -- you're bigger than anything they can do to affect your life.

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