In the middle of all the drama with The Boy I decided to hunt up a message board support group for stepmothers. I found one and I’ve been lurking there a few weeks now. What I read really depresses me. Either A) The stepmother and her husband have 100% custody of the kid(s), which makes me sad because that probably will never happen for us or B) The stepmother and her husband have some other percentage of custody of the kid(s) and she’s always complaining about it.
I’m neither of these – we have The Boy every other weekend and 1 month this summer, plus assorted visitation for assorted holidays. I would love it if we had full custody of him, but he loves his mother and half sisters very much. Gene told me he was a father before we even met for the first time. The boy has been a large part of all the choices I’ve made about how to live my life these last 10 years (the city I live in, the house and car we bought, the activities the 3 of us do together). And I just don’t understand why all stepmothers can’t be like me. If they can’t be like that, why bother??
I have known The Boy for 10 years now so I truly feel I know what I’m talking about on this particular subject:
Fact #1 about Stepparenting: It is super hard. Imagine you have a child. Now imagine you have only the barest control over what that kid wears, says, does, lives, goes to school, acts, does for fun. And imagine you and your husband get to bankroll the whole damn thing.
Fact #2: You KNEW this guy/person had one or more kids. Did you think they attended Swiss boarding school as if they’re kids from soap operas??? This man is not a solo act, sweetheart. He is a package deal with these kids – this is where the phrase “Ready made family” comes from. Resentment is NOT an option.
Fact #3: You MUST take care of the ones that came first before you even think about ones that aren’t even there yet. If your man has 3 kids from his first marriage and you want more kids, you’d damn well better get the stepkids house in order first. THEY CAME FIRST. This one is the scariest for me: A year ago, The Boy’s house was in order. Now? Not so much. So now what do I do?
(I went on from there, but deleted it all. You are so welcome).