Step Moms Confessions
I’m a soon to be step mom, though I have been in their lives for 4 years now. I’m reminded I’m not yet the step mom since we are not married. Financially, it’s just not feasible for us right now, a choice we have agree together to wait until we fix the damage of his divorce and my finances as well.
I have a few struggles and some I know I am being selfish, but I feel the way I do, heartbroken. I have three amazing step children, I love them to pieces, which is why my heart hurts. Their father and I dated originally over 20 years ago, each other’s first loves. He went down a path I could not follow at the time so I left the relationship, though I loved him completely. He dated and later married his first wife whom once she found out that I was his first love, hated me from that moment and has never looked back. You see, his Mom and I have had a special connection from the start and I have called her Mom for 20 years. So this also became a source of hatred. His ex ended up cheating on him and telling him right before his surgery on his cancer that she couldn’t wait until he was done with his cancer (expletive) so she could divorce his ass. He spent the next few months taking himself or having a friend or other family member take him to chemo. He was stage 3 C, and yes he made it and is still cancer free. In the midst of this I heard about the cancer, I had not spoken to him since before he was engaged even. We spoke and became instant friends, as if that had never stopped. Long story short, though I originally said I did not want to rekindle our relationship, he won me over. I also met his three beautiful children, and have been attacked by his ex wife and her now new husband a multitude of times. Not to my face, they tell the children whom then tell me. Not that I have not received some lovely text messages putting me down for how little I make as an EMT or how I need to shop at Lane Bryant, among other things. The kids know she hates me, she says things all the time to them. Most is that I have a cows derrière, which at the time I didn’t have but I may at this point. Who cares, we all have a derrière, mine just happens to have a little more meat. Haha.
So knowing all of this above, I know the kids struggle with it because when they first come over there are times they are a little skittish of me. Granted moments later they are all about telling me everything that they have been doing, that they’ve learned, new things they have, etc. My fiancé says he is chopped liver when I am around. He is happy they love me so much. Then we get text messages from their Mom that I am mean because I put one in the corner for acting out and that the kids can’t stand me, that they hate me. This is where I falter, because I instantly worry that maybe she is right, maybe they do. The teenager, well I know she is a teenager but she seems to have a new found attitude and her manners with simple please and thank you are severely lacking. I told her the other day her hair looked nice, she said ya. I guess what I’m trying to relay is how back and forth, up and down I feel emotionally with everything. I want to continue how I have been from the start, supportive, emotionally attached, focused on them and what they need and not my heart hurting when I feel rejected. I guess I wish I had more connection with all of them. I struggle sometimes too with being the disciplinarian that I feel needs to be but not too much where they hate me. Family and friends have said how much the kids have changed in a positive way since I came along, but I feel heavy because at times I feel alone in that, like I’m the only one who cares to show them right, wrong, why they should or should not do something, the consequences of actions. Aren’t these good tools to carry with them as they grow up? I try to set a hard working positive example and teach them how one choice may be better than another but let them make their own choices and mistakes. I also think it’s important to let them make those mistakes. They can learn from each one. I take the time to teach, not just yell at them. I don’t think yelling teaches valuable tools for them to use. I unsuccessfully attempted to reach out to their Mom for us to come together for the kids, all be a united front. I will spare you the nasty response.
I’m not one to care what others think of me unless I find you to be a good hearted person. I know their mother will never like me and that is okay, except when it comes to how it affects the kids. They are the ones I am concerned for. Admittedly however, I am also hurting with the unknown of whether they really do hate me. Then again if they were my kids, I would know I was doing my job then. How do I get myself to a point where I don’t let this all get to me? I feel like it effects me way too much and gets me down. It’s all unfamiliar territory for me and I guess that is why I don’t know how to handle it. Please tell me I am not alone in this and how to properly handle this emotionally so I don’t let it effect the kids in the overall situation.
Just A Step Parent? 