Long Relationships

I have several posts started about this topic, but realize the importance in telling them in good order. So, this snippet should truly come before the others.

I have mentioned briefly before that I am the blessed mother of two and stepmother of two. In being the stay at home parent, I am the one who deals most exclusively with my husband’s ex-wife regarding matters of my stepchildren. It is not the job I sought in this life, but it is the one I have ended up with—because of my love for my mate.

The path is not smooth—in fact, it feels hardly like a path at all. We are making our own way thru the undergrowth with machetes and as much tact as we can manage, both with the hope of making a good life for the children involved. There are inevitable difficulties and moments where impasses seem too great.

These difficulties are corrosive to me. There are days that I feel I let it eat away at the days I have left on this precious earth and I am ashamed I do not take that power back. I am compelled to want to fix the difficulties—much like a man, right Tim? But, there is no fix, save time…save adjustment to what is only an experience that is three years young and will last decades longer. We have made it thru a preschool graduation—with high school, college, weddings, and grandbabies yet to go. And the weight of it sometimes, is unspeakable.

I love my life, and yet there are times that this particular “long relationship” feels like the death of me…feels (to honor Cliché Day) like I’ve “bitten off more than I can chew.â€? And so I seek the advice of my closest companions. I seek temperance and guidance. I seek strength that I know they can reflect back to me, if I just sit looking long enough.

The advice? “The situation you’re in is very draining, no matter how you look at it. How could you possibly have an enjoyable relationship when there is so much other crap involved? His ex and the strain that creates is huge. Taking care of his children is also very difficult if 1) they weren’t raised by you and may not have the personality/behavior patterns you would have liked to instill in them and 2) they spend a great deal of time with the ex, which is counterproductive when you relate to them. Basically, by working long hours, 11 of 14 days, R. has dropped all of that responsibility on you. It’s unfair to expect you to pick it all up. Yes, you’ve agreed to become the stay at home mom, but you should not have to bear the bulk of the unpleasantness. As for you saying you signed up for this, you didn’t really. You signed up to love R., and share your life with R. You didn’t sign up to deal with his ex—that’s his issue and you didn’t marry her. Being a step-mom is one thing. Being overburdened by it is something completely different. You married him, not his baggage. You agreed when you married him to accept that he has baggage, but you don’t have to take it on as your baggage…It’s not too much to ask for peace.â€?

So, I’m trying that. We’re trying, as an misaligned threesome, to uncover these new boundaries of co-parenting, when the two parents don’t actually see each other that much. It’s hardly the FMF dynamic that delights the fantasies of so many. It’s an interesting dynamic, and we don’t yet have resolution. What we do have is plenty of discord and discontent along the way.

We’re hoping to fix that….I’ll continue this for you as we ebb and flow in that circumstance.

relationships, ex-wife, ex-husband, marriage, stepfamily, stepchildren, spouse, co-parenting