If you’ve read here for any length of time you probably know way too much about my ex-husband and his new wife. No doubt I have exposed you to far too many one-sided and slanted retellings of events, conversations and mishaps. If that is the case, please accept my apologies for being so…childish…petulant…immature.

Somewhere in all of the she said, I said or he said, we said bullshit there was a major breakdown. As a parent I lost sight of the two most precious things in the world, the real reasons for laying differences and petty behaviors aside. I focused on the fact that there was someone else in their life that wasn’t me. I obsessed and stressed; I ranted and raved but not once did I ever stop to think about what it might be like for my little girls.

Being diagnosed with cancer didn’t open my eyes to the reality as far as our whole situation went. It opened my eyes to the importance of love and security on some level I suppose, but not on the level that it made me change my behaviors as a parent. Writing this now is more than difficult, because I never wanted to be that kind of former spouse, that kind of parent. Acknowledging that I ended up that way is hard and humiliating as can be.

Finding out that the chemotherapy used in the clinical trial had worked was like a gift from God. A personal gift and open invitation to start living my life the way it should have been lived all along. No more excuses, no more bullshit, just honest living and loving, the way I should have been doing all along.

At about the same time my daughters step-mother blogged about some of the things that were on her mind. The things were less than flattering and as I read them it was devastating that someone in this world felt that way about me. I thought I was an okay person. Not a person without faults or a person who couldn’t improve but a decent person none the less. After reading what she wrote, I was a breath away from wishing for death.

As I usually do when something is on my mind, I curled into a ball and cried like a baby. Part of me wanted to scream and throw things, exclaim at the top of my lungs that she wasn’t right about me. I wanted to knock on doors and shout that I wasn’t the evil, self-absorbed bitch that she thought I was. But I couldn’t very well do that without admitting that while every story does indeed have two sides, every side does have its facts. Hers was no exception.

So I whined and I cried. I snapped at my husband. I cried and ate cookies. Then I emailed her with facts instead of excuses. I didn’t care what Joe Blow might think of me as much as I cared what SHE thought of me. But why did it matter so much all of a sudden?

The truth be told, it wasn’t all of a sudden. It was always there, the need to find some middle ground, a safe space to share with one another the things that mothers (biological, step or otherwise) need to share. We didn’t have it and I think I can safely say that we both felt the absence keenly.

For me, as a step-mother, I know the position that she is in to an extent. While she lives with my girls day in and day out, I live with The Knights sons day in and day out. While she may have the girls all the time and I have the guys all the time, the fact remains that we’re raising another woman’s biological children. As so many blended families can attest to, this is no easy thing to do, even if the other woman is your closest friend. Can you imagine trying to do it when the other person is fighting you every step of the way?

I didn’t want them to like her more than me. I didn’t want them to want to be with her more than they wanted to be with me. I certainly didn’t want them to love her. I wanted all of them to be only for me! (This has been the same for sharing them with The Knight as well and only recently has it been addressed and an effort made to NOT be that way.)

I realize now that having those desires and that mindset only served to put the girls in the middle of what basically amounted to an emotional and metal war zone. I can’t go back and undo what has been done. They are beyond the age of kissing and cuddling the hurts away so only love and honesty will do. I can’t change what came before, but I can change what happens from here on out.

Through all of this it seems that The Other Mother (I think that will be her name on here…I will have to ask her what she thinks) and I have found our way to a place where the white flag waves. So with each tentative step and each stifled impulse to dive right in, I suddenly find myself breathing a little easier. (And as crazy as it sounds, I find myself wanting to get to know her, like someone I’ve just met for the first time; I find myself wanting to open up and call her friend!) All I know is that it feels really damn good to have muddled through the muck and the mire to find that blessed middle ground.

{Now I have to wonder if it’s more courageous to leave the posts from the past or get rid of them? They fill me with shame and I don’t want the people who read here to think that my words are all that there is to the woman who is The Other Mother to my girls. Opinions welcome!}

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