Blending

Blending families isn't easy. There are always obstacles, speed bumps, steps backward. I've learned to be patient and keep my expectations reasonable.

But there are those moments that make my heart sing.

KlutzGirl curling up on the couch with me to watch TV, letting me stroke her long blond hair and give her a cuddle.

The Padawan making a sly joke about me that sets us all laughing.

The Dark One letting me hug her--and kind of hugging me back.

DramaBoy running across the room to hug MTL exuberantly after days at his dad's place.

The Widget giggling uncontrollably as MTL tickles him and they rough house on the couch.

Sitting around the dining room table, all of us, eating dinner and laughing. Together. A family.

Habit

There are moments when I'm washed with a wave of gratitude and relief to be joined with this man, moments when I recognize the subtle poison of many years' habit slowly leached clean by today's reality.

The Ex did not particularly love my parents. He didn't hate them, but he didn't ever feel terribly comfortable around them--and he most certainly resented them during the months they were here. We would go years without having them around, and then when they were--well, I wanted to spend time with them. So schedules would be altered, plans would be made, and sometimes they'd want to come over just to spend time. You know, with their daughter. With their son-in-law. With their grandchildren.

He resented the changes to the status quo. He resented having to fit additional people and plans into our holidays, our weekends, our summers. And he outright hated having them come by to visit if there hadn't been, oh, a week or so of advance notice.

I grew accustomed to mediating. I'd tell them I needed to check with him first before confirming. He'd rarely say an outright No, but I would be in for a long bout of soothing, cajoling, and hours of underlying tension. Flexibility and graciousness were not his strong points. I felt torn, forced to choose between my parents and my husband.

Looking back, no one won in that scenario.

Flash forward to last night. My parents are back in the country--they flew in this last weekend--and while MTL and I were able to spend some time with them, they hadn't gotten to see the kids yet. We had plans for them to come to dinner Friday night, and I hadn't told the boys that Grandma and Grandpa were back in town, since I didn't want them to get too upset about waiting. The Ex must have said something to them. Yesterday when I picked up The Widget from daycare, he took one look at me, burst into tears, and buried his head in his arms. I miss Grandma and Grandpa! he sobbed, and it was with no avail that I assured him they would be visiting the next day.

So I called them, and we made plans for them to come by for dinner and a brief visit.

As I hung up the phone, a wave of apprehension washed over me. I hadn't checked with MTL before making the plans. How would he feel about it? Would he be angry about my parents showing up a day ahead of schedule? Would he resent them spending this much time at our house? Would he be upset that I had invited them before checking with him?

I texted him nervously and waited for his reply, reminding myself that he is far more laid back than The Ex in these matters, reminding myself that he showed no sign of resenting my parents this last weekend--he was even pleased that their plane's delay allowed him to accompany me to the airport to pick them up.

Sure enough, when he called me, he had no problem at all with the change in plans. There was no guilt trip, no resentment, no tension. When I told him later that night what I had experienced, he just looked at me and said I'm a silly girl--and when I explained why it had happened, touched my arm with compassion and understanding, and told me not to worry.

There are so many reasons I love him. He keeps giving me more every day.

A Giant Leap for Stepkind

There are small steps in this process. Unintended pun, but hey, it works: small steps in becoming a step-parent, a step-couple.

This week was a hard one for me and MTL, as old baggage and old issues raised their ugly heads again. It takes time, and I'm not good at patience. I want a quick fix, a quick solution, and that just can't happen when we're dealing with ancient scars that have etched themselves across the deepest parts of our psyches.

So. Small steps. Sometimes even step-backs.

The children, however, occasionally take leaps. When DramaBoy was dropped off by his father this week, he was clutching two pudding cups and sporting a huge grin. I have pudding! he crowed. One is for me, and one is for my stepbrother! I have a treat for my stepbrother The Padawan!

MTL and I conjecture that perhaps The Ex told DramaBoy that it's okay to refer to The Padawan as his stepbrother, something that DB wants deeply. A couple of months ago DB pointedly asked when MTL and I are going to get married, as he wants The Padawan to be his brother. I told him at the time that they pretty much are, so it's fine to call The Padawan his stepbrother, but he didn't do so until this week. So...some switch was tripped in his head, and boy was he happy about it.

Last night MTL handed me some mail, saying it was mine. Two envelopes were addressed to me; the third was addressed to "The Parent of The Padawan". Oh, I said, am I the parent of The Padawan? You sure this is for me?

Yep, you are, he said.

So I opened it. And then handed the contents over to MTL, since it was something from The Padawan's school. Heh.

But the biggest leap? The one that had me warmed up inside? Last night The Padawan reminded us that we needed to contact his friend's mother about having his friend stay the night this weekend. He called, and once the mother was on the other end, told her (and I quote): My parents are ready to talk to you. Here!

And he handed me the phone.

It's hard to read The Padawan sometimes. I know he likes me. I know he's very fond of DramaBoy and The Widget. But last night, hearing him refer to me as one of his parents...

That was a very big step.

Home for Christmas

The other day, as I was driving along listening to the radio as I ran all the many many errands that tend to fill my afternoons, a minor miracle happened.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is "I'll Be Home For Christmas." As much as I love it, however, it's a song that has always been mixed with sorrow for me. Which, really, makes sense. It's a wistful song. For me, listening to it has always made me long for the holidays of Yore, back in West Africa with my parents and all the family traditions and joy of that time of year. This has been true ever since I was in college. Even when I was swept up into my former in-laws' family and welcomed into their homes for the holidays (as well as other times, of course, but you know what I mean) long before I even became an official in-law, even when I was married and forming new traditions--I always longed for Christmas at Home.

I realize now that this is because I had not truly formed a new Home with The Ex, all those many years.

So normally that song would make me think of years long ago, in another time, another place. The other day, however, when I heard that song, I had a completely different response than I've ever had before. Instead of thinking of West Africa and holidays of decades past, my first thought was of my Home with MTL and our children. I pictured our living room with a Christmas tree in the corner, the children opening the presents we've gotten for them, and me snuggling on the couch with My True Love watching it all with joy and delight.

It's a new era for me. I truly have a Home, and it's Here and Now rather than There and Then. And that's where I'll be for Christmas.

This Isn't My Version Of The Fairytale

I never pictured myself as the Evil Stepmother in any of my visions of the future. The Loving Stepmother--great. The Funny and Just A Bit Odd Stepmother--sure. Sarcastic, Snarky, Cynical-With-A-Heart-of-Gold Stepmother--naturally. Evil? Not so much.

And yet, here I am. I suppose I should have seen it coming, and I even did just a bit, but I was truly under the impression that The Dark One liked me well enough--and "like" was just fine. It would have been wonderful to be loved, but that would be pushing it with a girl already in her teens by the time I came into her life, and who is not terribly tender towards parent types to begin with.

When things got nasty three months ago and she ended up moving in with her mom, it seemed as though I was the neutral ground. She seemed to see me as someone she could talk to about certain things she couldn't say to her father. We tried hard to keep it that way.

But since then...since then things have become increasingly difficult with her. I have found myself enraged with her attitude: her use and abuse of people around her, her self-centeredness, her downright bitchiness. I cannot stand the way she treats her father. I have to bite my tongue. I have to not tell her exactly what I think of her. Sometimes a little bit of it sneaks through.

I know, I know. She's a fourteen-year-old girl. And I'm realizing that a part of my reaction is, as MTL so astutely intuited, guilt over realizing how I treated my own parents when I was her age--though it should be noted that I wasn't quite so bold in my mistreatment. I'm the adult in the situation. I can't control her behavior, but I can--and should--control mine.

Today, though, she quite suddenly took several steps beyond the boundary with MTL. The trigger? Apparently, me. Somehow, she has twisted my presence in her father's life into a Grimm's fairytale of evil stepmother and evilly-influenced abandoning father. She is using me as a tool to manipulate her mother and strike out against her father.

It's not all me, of course--she has issues that go back far before I ever was even a blip on MTL's computer screen. But my presence is a weapon she's choosing to wield...and she used it today.

I won't go into the details, but the result is that she is persona non grata here. If she wanted to see how far she could push her father, she found the limit--and surpassed it--today. She isn't to come back to our house. She isn't welcome here for Christmas. She's done.

And honestly? I can't blame him.

Now we're sitting here in the wreckage of what had been a rather good holiday weekend. It's yet another adjustment among all the other adjustments. Where it goes from here? I don't quite know.

I hope that one day we will all find our way back together, to something approaching a more whole family. But for now, we gather up the fringes around the ragged hole torn in our family's fabric, and figure out how the pieces fit again.

As for me, I have to make sure the label does not become the reality, regardless of provocation.

Because I Wasn't Already Way Outnumbered

My brother is moving in with us on Saturday. And we're happy about it.

He's an odd duck, that one, an odd duck of whom I am very fond but also somewhat protective and worried on a regular basis because he's so VERY odd, and while not caring much about what society/other people think about oneself is rather admirable....well, there are ways in which he takes that a bit too far.

But MTL really likes him. More importantly, in a way, and most definitely related, MTL understands him. Perhaps better than anyone I've ever met. In many ways more than I do. And rather than overlooking my brother or rejecting him or finding him annoying, MTL likes having him around, finds him amusing and good company--ACCEPTS HIM.

The Padawan very much likes having my brother around as well, and the boylets adore him.

So since life has gotten a bit rough lately, and he has a better chance of finding jobs and being taken care of to a certain extent and not crawling into a hermit's hole, he's joining our crowd for while.

He stayed with us for almost two weeks a little bit ago, and the situation worked out so well that I started wondering if it was at all feasible to have him move in. But it's not something I necessarily wanted to propose to MTL, especially considering the difficult family history with his parents and his maternal uncles (long story, but it basically involves her taking care of them all their lives, to the financial and relational detriment of MTL's parents). When my brother (I really need to come up with a pseudonym for him) left to take care of business down at my parents' house for a while, and asked if perhaps he could come back for another visit once the business was handled, and MTL said yes...well, that started me thinking more.

And then MTL brought the situation up, and I felt him out a bit, and he was the one to suggest that my brother move in at least until March, when my parents return to the country.

And I fell even deeper in love with that man.

I don't know how to explain it, really. It's that he GETS my brother, with whom I am very close. It's that he would welcome my brother into our house for an extended stay. It's that my brother can be comfortable around us--around MTL--when so often other people drain him.

Even that doesn't quite work as an explanation.

But consider that The Ex never particularly liked my brother--and the feeling was mutual. That The Ex decided very early on (when my brother was only eight) that he was annoying and obnoxious and too weird to have around. And never gave him another chance, not really. They were always polite around each other, but never comfortable. And while my brother never said anything against The Ex when I was living with my brother while separated from The Ex--well, let's say that he listened very well and didn't attempt to influence my decision either way, but didn't seem exactly displeased with the divorce.

So he will be moving into what was supposed to be The Dark One's bedroom. MTL even cleaned out the stuff she'd left behind and sent it to her mother's. She's been back all of one overnight in the last three months, and spent most of that time shut away upstairs watching TV. She doesn't seem interested in being part of our lives.

I won't lie about how that hurts.

But I have to say that having my brother around creates the opposite of drama. And since I already have enough going on dealing with old, old issues in therapy--yeah. I'm very happy about it.

Even if we do sound like we're trying to reach sitcom status.

What Dreams May Come

I rarely remember my dreams, at least for long. When I do, they rarely make sense, other than the occasional anxiety dream in which I am very obviously worried about (usually) work or money or both. I don't even have the recurring nightmares of my youth any longer.

Lately, however, my dreams have been speaking to me. I think my mind is preparing itself for the battle to come: I head back to therapy on Wednesday to work through some old, old issues.

A couple of them have been reassurance dreams, as I see them, much akin to the dream I had ten months ago in which I firmly and contentedly rejected The Ex despite being unattached, lonely, and (frankly) horny as hell. When I woke that morning, I woke with the realization that two important questions had been answered: no, I didn't want The Ex any longer in any way, and no, I wasn't going to go back to him just because of loneliness.

The other night I had a dream in which The Ex suddenly married his girlfriend. For some reason, MTL and I were at the house when they returned from the wedding. I helped the girlfriend/wife put items away, and as we worked side by side I saw that she was already upset and frustrated in her new role. And in my dream, I stood there with my hand covering a sympathetic (and slightly smug) smile and said, Oh dear. I know.

I know. A little passive-aggressive, that. But I woke with the clear understanding that if and when The Ex does remarry, I certainly won't feel hurt--but I might feel a little pity.

The dream that has me reeling still, however, is one that I will mention on Wednesday to my therapist, because it goes to the heart of so many of the issues I still have with insecurity and anger and fear of abandonment, fear of Not Measuring Up.

Saturday afternoon MTL and I lay down for a much needed nap, and I dreamed one of the most vivid dreams I've had in some time. In my dream, four women suddenly showed up at my door: my mother and three classmates from high school. They are all women with whom I have been close at some point in my life. I am still close with two of them (my mother being one, of course) and keep vague tabs on the other two through blogs and FaceBook. In my dream they came tumbling into my house, uninvited, and I felt myself retreating through the rooms as they advanced. They weren't there in a menacing way--rather, it was as if they were intent on simply having a good time in my presence--but I felt invaded and uncomfortable. They were chattering away about what music and concerts and such were the proper ones to attend--vivacious small talk, you see--and I realized that I didn't much like anything they mentioned. And as they rampaged through the rooms, I suddenly realized that this was not my house at all, but my mother's, and suddenly I didn't know where MY space was--the place that was truly mine rather than belonging to her.

I felt small and alone and very, very much on the fringes.

Then MTL woke me because it was time to get ready for the wedding we were attending that night, and as I stood in the shower mulling over the dream, I suddenly realized that these four women are all women whom I deeply respect but who also leave me feeling judged and insufficient on a regular basis. They all lead lives and have views and strong beliefs that vary considerably from mine, in various areas, for they are not by any means identical to each other. But because I do respect them, their opinion of me matters more than, perhaps, it should.

In my view, I don't battle demons. I battle dragons--thus the name of my other blog.

The other night, in yet another dream, MTL fought dragons at my side.

I have some work to do, some battles to fight. But I'm not alone.

The Ex-Factor

We are very Civilized.

That's the word a coworker used when we were chatting about Halloween plans and I listed all the people who will be with us for that Event.

You see, MTL and I have, by blending our families, become the center of this trailing extended family involving Exes and others. And since we are amicable and try to focus on the children, we'll all be joining forces for certain events, such as Trick or Treating. On October 31st, our enormous group will consist of me and MTL, our five children/stepchildren, MTL's Ex and her husband and their daughter (MTL's kids' half-sister), and then The Ex and his girlfriend. The Ex's mother, with whom I am still close, may also join us. A massive group of six children and six or seven adults with a tangled web of connections.

Very Civilized.

And we are, honestly. To the best of our abilities, we get along and avoid conflict and try to keep the focus on the children. The Ex and I haven't fought about anything in ages and have become far better at communicating and working through occasional issues than we ever did when we were a couple. It's a level of teamwork that was markedly lacking in that marriage. As a close friend (who knew us when we were together and is still friends with us both) said to me yesterday, The Ex and I do much better when we don't have to take care of or worry about each other as individuals and spouses--we're quite decent co-parents instead.

Who would've thunk.

MTL and his Ex do fairly well that way too, though with different areas of trouble and ease than The Ex and I have. Of course. Their dynamic is different because they are different. But still, overall...Civilized. She and I get along quite well too. In fact, I even "rate" enough to get those annoying text forwards that are the new evolution of the email chain letters--you know, the ones about beautiful women and send this to the ten most beautiful women you know blah blah blah?  Yeah, those. JOY. It says something that we're at that level of amicability, though. And this weekend MTL and I have her daughter with us so that she and her husband can actually celebrate their anniversary.

It reminds me of the whole Bruce Willis/Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher situation. With much the same responses from people who hear about it, really. And I'm grateful, because it means there's so much less drama and the kids aren't torn apart by parent conflict.

But here's the catch. As much as we all Get Along and, I'm sure, will get even better at Getting Along as time goes on, there's still an underlying sense of unease about the Exes. One time when MTL and I were chatting online (we were at work) about cooking and laughing a bit about our respective Exes' cooking problems, I wrote that The Ex did actually bake really good pumpkin pies. MTL said something snarky along the lines of There will be no complimenting of exes! Just trash talk. I agreed. I'm not interested in hearing compliments about her, either. Not total bashing--they're not evil, either of them--but certainly not praise.

There's something unsettling about the existence of another person with which the other has spent a significant part of their lives, with whom the other has children, with whom the other did Significant Other things including the intimate stuff. Neither of us likes to dwell on it.

And I'll admit this: when MTL's Ex calls, which she does frequently, to talk about the kids and work out transportation and all that sort of thing, I have to fight back a little surge of jealousy. There was this one day last week when MTL was talking to her and she said something and he laughed and called her a dork. That's an affectionate term in our family, and I hated that he called her that. Last night she called to check how her daughter was doing with us, and she said something funny and he laughed, and I hated that too.

It's silly. It's petty. I fight it and I don't make a fuss about it and I'm sure it will get easier with time. But it's there.

I'm sure there are ways he feels the same with The Ex, too. I know that months ago when The Ex and I met at a restaurant to go over some legal paperwork, MTL struggled with it. He knew it was silly, but the whole idea of my meeting The Ex for dinner, all by ourselves--it triggered the same sort of jealousy. And the other night when I had a long phone conversation with The Ex about the kids and DramaBoy's school and some behavioral things we've been seeing with them both and Halloween and all that sort of Co-Parenting Stuff, I noticed that MTL stayed close and listened in--much as I often do when he has similar phone conversations with his Ex.

I know that it's good that we all get along and cooperate and co-parent. It's healthier for the children. And that's why we do it: for the children. I know perfectly well that if there weren't children involved, neither of us would have much, if any, contact with the Exes at all.

I don't fear that he wants to be back with her. I know better. I don't fear that he doesn't love me. I know better. The whole thing has very little to do with logic.

That's the Ex-Factor, isn't it? And I--we--have to get more comfortable with it, because it's not going away. Not as long as we have children in common. It's just a part of our life.

But I don't have to like it.

Why It's Hard To Love

They left again.

As they always do. As they always have. It's a part of the life they've chosen, and all the pain and sorrow they feel at the leaving cannot change the essential truth: they leave me again and again and again, and I have felt that pain since I was a child.

Not just them, you see. Always there was the leaving, with me in tow, friendships made torn asunder and only sometimes fed fuel from time to time, rekindled in later years.

It made me angry. It makes me angry.

And I feel ashamed of that anger.

How can I be angry when their lives hold so much meaning? When they do so much good? How can I be angry when that life gave me a richness of experience that I value to this day? How can I be angry when I know that others have never had the depth of love I have been given since the day I was born, who have also been torn from friends and family, who have suffered tragedy of such dimension that my pain is dwarfed by theirs?

How dare I?

So guilt and shame is mixed with anger and sorrow, and the poison cocktail has soaked the crevices of my heart for three decades. I bandage the wounds but let them fester, ignoring the ache until they crack and bleed again.

I would not let myself fully love, for love means loss. Love means pain. And if everyone always leaves, than it must mean I am not worth staying for.

They always leave.

********************************

He bears many of the same wounds, though from different poisons. He too built the walls.

We dared each other to take the risk. And, gambling on the outcome, went all in.

I still panic about it. There are times when I want to reach out and pull back just a little of my Self, keep some in reserve, Just In Case. There are times when I can barely breathe with the momentary certainty that he will throw up his hands and shake his head and walk away.

I was angry this last weekend: they had left, and the anger I cannot admit was welling up into overreaction to everything and everyone else. He came to me, and I found that with him I could admit the truth, and with him I could weep, and he held me, and then he said the words that told me that he understood the deeper truth behind my fear and sorrow and anger and pain: I'm not going anywhere.

He's had to say it to me before. And I know he'll have to say it again. The fact that he even understands that need says so much about why I have allowed myself to love him as I have never loved anyone else--not just romantically, but at all. Some of those wounds are healing.

But not all.

The anger is still there, and it has washed me in darkness this whole week. I have been taking offense to the slightest things, feeling unintended insults from all directions, fighting back a shadowing of despair. Yesterday I had a moment when I had to remind myself, again, of his words. I'm not going anywhere. 

Becoming part of this new Us, this larger Family that reaches beyond just me and him, is a terrifying thing at times. I'm choosing to take more people into that circle that involves risk and loss. I'm choosing to open up my heart to the possibility of pain.

Because they always leave.

Even when they don't want to.

I May Need A Diagram For This One

My sense of Family has changed in the last half year, and in more than one way. I'm still wrapping my head around it. I'm still working out what this new paradigm means for me and my children and all the other people who now trail out in increasingly complex connections to the core.

I used to consider my core "family" to include everyone connected directly by blood, with no remove. My parents, my sister, my brother, my sons. The Ex teetered on the edge; he was connected by marriage, but not by blood. We were family...but not completely. Many times I chose my parents and siblings over him. I didn't fully realize that this is what I was doing, but somewhere in my subconscious I recognized that I had never completely cleaved to him, in that biblical sense that is not so much sex as it is transference of priority and loyalty. Yes, we are to honor our parents. But we are also to LEAVE them and become one with our partners instead.

I never really did that, not completely. I was torn between the two. Looking back, I realize now how many problems that caused in that relationship, how it prevented a fundamental connection from forming.

With MTL, that foundation was formed. Sadly, it's even challenged a bit. My parents and sister don't approve of our unmarried cohabitation, and it has already become a silent barrier rising between me and them. I found myself telling my mother that as much as I love her, she and my father and my siblings are my extended family. MTL and the family we are forming? That's my Family. If I were forced to choose--and God forbid it happens, but there it is--I would choose MTL.

But...it's not as simple as that. Because we aren't a simple nuclear family unit, MTL and our children and me. We come with pasts and Exes and family connections that stretch the links. My boys are with us half the time. His son is with us most of the time, except for every other weekend. His daughters are only with us every other weekend, although with the current tension between MTL and The Dark One we're not sure when she'll be back in our home.

And then on his side there's his Ex, with her husband and the daughter she has with him. On my side there's The Ex, and he also has his girlfriend. Whom I know, as she has been his friend since high school and I used to be quite friendly with her, in the Long Ago.

This weekend brought a good bit of this new reality home--ironic, considering it was a weekend without kids, a weekend when MTL and I could be Us Together for long lovely hours and days.

Saturday was my goddaughter's fourth birthday. Her parents are one of my closest friends and the closest thing to a best friend The Ex has. So MTL and I attended, and before we could leave gracefully, The Ex showed up with DramaBoy and The Widget. And his girlfriend.

So I found myself in a slightly awkward group of four adults, greeting each other, with The Ex eying MTL uncomfortably (they've only met once before, very briefly) and his girlfriend chatting quite comfortably with me and MTL.

I had to hold back the giggles.

Later, MTL and I were discussing Halloween plans in the car (we're planners, peoples) and decided that we may very well end up inviting everyone to just come do Halloween at our complex. It's big, it's child-friendly, and we're the couple at the core of this all. So if everyone agrees...it would be MTL and me, The Ex (and possibly his girlfriend), MTL's Ex and her husband, my boys, MTL's three children, and their half-sister.

That is, if you were counting, potentially twelve people. And that doesn't even include extended family like grandparents and aunts and uncles and whatnot.

A Portrait of the Modern Family.

At this rate, I may need a flowchart just to keep track of everyone.