Summer of 2013: What Could Possibly Go Wrong??

Five years ago, the Summer of 2013, was the most pivotal period of my life.  During this time, everything changed.  My spouse quite literally walked out the door on April Fools Day of that year, an act that was devastating to me in the moment but looking back was the catalyst for a change that I desperately needed to make. 

Before the summer of 2013, there was always a sense that something was missing.  My life was comfortable, but it was very generic.  I lived in a home that, while technically in Minneapolis, was less than a block away from not one, but two small, quiet suburbs.  I knew I was not straight, but there was no ethical way to live that out, other than surrounding myself with queer friends and involving myself in queer politics (spoiler: this wasn't enough).  Most of my free time was spent at the gym, on a quest to sculpt myself into the socially normative ideal of female beauty.  My evenings involved bad television, games of Yahtzee, and 10:00 on-the-dot bed times.  I lived with the knowledge that some of the people close to me were of the opinion that I was going to hell because their religion was not mine.  I didn't know how to get myself out of this cycle of monotony, and I thought that this was just how life was going to be forever.

When I was finally, involuntarily, released from that life, everything changed.  I spent that summer of 2013 doing some sort of cross between flailing around gasping for air, and finally feeling and finding myself.  I did things that even just a year prior I never would have expected or imagined would happen in my life.  I stayed out, even on weeknights, until 1:00, 2:00, even 3:00 in the morning.  This was not sustainable and slightly irresponsible, but it was a phase that I needed at that time.  I was, for the first time ever, truly my own person living my own life. 

I was nowhere near ready for or capable of a real relationship, but I had the best time experimenting with dating.  My confidence skyrocketed as I realized that I was a person who other people found attractive and wanted to date.  For the first time in my life, I dated women, and in doing so felt more authentically, freely "me" than ever before.  I learned that dating just to date, rather than in aspiration of a long-term relationship, can still be meaningful and impactful.

I met more people that summer than I have ever met in such a short span of time.  Some of these people became lifelong friends, and some of them were just friends for the season.  I learned that friends can be family, which made the loss of my closest family member feel less devastating. I spent so much time investing in friendships, developing inside jokes, creating traditions, and just plain having FUN.

For mostly the first time ever, I also traveled with friends.  Between April and September, I  took four separate trips with groups of friends.  I hope I never stop traveling with friends, as doing this creates strong relationships and some of the best lifetime memories that I have ever made. 

During the Summer of 2013, I also grieved hard.  I grieved for the things that this transition necessitated I leave behind.  My husband.  My house.  My in-laws (just kidding - I was fine with that part).  My (erroneous) sense of stability and security.  A couple of key people who I have never seen again and probably never will.  But I learned to grieve effectively.  I learned to trust the process, and that time really is the greatest healer.  The hard parts of the summer were just as vital to growth and transition as the fun parts.

My friends and I coined this time-frame "Summer of 2013: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?", or "Whakkapah" for short.  Even to this day, we sometimes joke that we might finally find out the answer to that question.  Although I'm no longer in this transitional, hugely social, particularly impactful, slightly irresponsible phase of life, I still carry it with me, because it's created the person I now am.  Without that summer five years ago, I would not have some of the most important people in my life.  I certainly wouldn't have been a good fit for Pete, my incredible now-partner, without that time of growth. 

Reflecting back now with five more years under my belt, I am realizing not just how quickly time passes, but also what a gift time really is.  We get to choose how and with whom we spend our time.  The choices I made in the Summer of 2013, intentionally or unintentionally, turned out to be some of the best I have made in my life.  They paved the way for incredible experiences, lifelong relationships, and a future that is incomprehensibly fuller and more authentic than the one I had previously imagined.  

Partners First, Parents Second

One of the most difficult and confounding things that I have heard said about parenting is that "the kids always come first."  It's more of a theoretical idea than a practical guideline, and it doesn't actually carry much meaning when announced without context.  It also doesn't ring true to me at all.

 

I don't know much about building houses, but I do know this: It is important to start with a good foundation.  The foundation is what the house is built on, and the rest of the house can't be structurally sound without a solid foundation.  No matter how nice the rest of the house is, if the foundation breaks, eventually, the rest of the house will crumble.

 

In a family household, the partners or spouses are the foundation. They are what the family is built on.  Without a rock-solid foundation, the family will function poorly.  To build and maintain that solid foundation, it is imperative that the partners invest in their relationship: giving it priority, putting it first, not taking it for granted. 

This concept is important in ALL families, but I think it is especially important in step-families, for three main reasons:

 

1. The partners in a step-family don't have the benefit of years of relationship development before children.  In a step-family, the children chronologically DID come before the relationship, so there was no honeymoon period exclusively focused on relationship-building.  In the first few years of step-family formation, the foundation is being built simultaneously with child-raising.  

 

2. The divorce rate in step-family couples is over 70% in the first five years- substantially higher than the divorce rate for couples without kids or for couples with biological children only. Being in a step-family creates an enormous strain on a relationship.  If partners don't put each other first, focusing consistently and intentionally one each other and on the relationship, the chance of the marriage or partnership surviving is bleak.

3. Typically, one or both partners in a step-family have experienced the devolving of their first primary relationship.  Often that happens, at least in part, because of a failure to keep the foundational relationship strong. In second families, couples know firsthand what happens in a relationship in which the foundation isn't prioritized - it falls apart.  We have a second chance to form lasting love and commitment, so it's extra important for us to value and take advantage of that opportunity.  We also owe it to our children and/or step-childen, whose first model of marriage or partnership is one of brokenness and loss.

Early on in our relationship, Pete and I made a conscious commitment to put each other, and our relationship, first. So, how do we honor that commitment, practically?  It  doesn't mean we ignore the child in our family.  Pete and I engage Lucas every day that we are parenting him.  We work on homework with him. We take turns picking him up from the bus stop and reading to him before bed every night.  We sit down for dinner together every night - sometimes either Pete or I aren't home, but he has at least one parent eating with him every night.  We talk to him about his day and ask him questions about school. After dinner we play a game, go for a walk, or do something else together as a family.  Pete and I both go to parent/teacher conferences, I've volunteered in his classroom, and we communicate regularly with his teachers.  We are highly active parents with a happy, healthy, little boy who has secure attachments and increasing independence.

For Pete and me, putting each other first means being highly intentional about making time for one another.  We enforce an 8:00 pm bedtime, and at least a few nights a week, we use the remaining hours of the day as time for us to spend together.  Our parenting schedule allows us kid-free time on Thursday nights and every other weekend, and we use that time to the fullest - spending it with mutual friends, going on date nights, being out of the house as much as possible. We also utilize babysitters once a month or so - the financial impact of this is well worth the positive impact on our relationship.  Finally, we have pledged to travel together 4 times a year. These could be big trips, like our winter vacation to Puerto Rico, or small trips, like our fall road trip to the North Shore.  It's really important to us to disengage from normal life occasionally, and focus on having awesome experiences together - things we can look back on fondly and remember that we've had amazing, life-enriching, adventures.  In short, we prioritize having regular, consistent, and intentional time together as a couple.

Putting each other first also means setting boundaries with Lucas.  We have a small house, so it would be easy to allow shared space to get dominated by kids' stuff.  But, in order to preserve an adult focus in our home, the vast majority of Lucas's belongings are kept in his bedroom.  Additionally, our own bedroom is off-limits to him, except in specific instances in which he asks permission to enter.  The idea of keeping one room in the home as a kid-free "sacred space" is recommended by step-family experts, and it's been hugely sanity-preserving for us.   We also don't let Lucas interrupt us when we are talking to each other, and we make a point to hug and kiss each other first when one of us gets home.   These might seem like little things, but they are little things that add up to send a clear message to each other, and to Lucas, that we value and cherish each other.  In doing this, we're not only achieving a five-star relationship that will last, but we're modeling to Lucas what a strong relationship should look like.

I'm proud of the parenting that Pete and I are doing, and I'm proud of our decision to put each other first.  We have experienced a lot of trial and error during this first year as a family, and this is the model that we have found works best for us. Because of our choices, our relationship is strong, and I feel confident that down the road, we will continue to be in the 30% of successful step-family partners.

Cheers to family:  However you define it, establish it, and sustain it.  We're all different, we're all winging it, and we're all doing our best.

Who Am I? A Crisis of Identity in a Blended Family

"I don't know who I am anymore."

This is an all-too-common sentiment expressed by stepmoms, one that I have read about repeatedly in my seemingly endless quest to identify and understand my new-normal.  It's also at the very top of my list of personal issues in this phase of my life.

There is so much role ambiguity involved in stepfamily life  Articles and books on the topic, authored by stepfamily experts, offer conflicting ideas about best stepmom practices. Treat the kids as if they are your own, but don't try to be a parent.  Make it known that you're an authority in the house, but leave the disciplining to the bio parent.  You're choosing both your partner and his kids, but don't feel guilty if you don't love the kids.  The kids should always come first, but it is of utmost importance to prioritize your relationship with your partner.  It you don't speak up, you'll become resentful, but don't vent to your partner about his kids.  Be a source of support for your partner, but don't take on too many household responsibilities.  All of these well-intentioned, but contradictory, tidbits of advice make me want to scream: "Who am I? What am I doing?"

In our case, all of these ambiguities are compounded by the fact that, despite Pete only having 50% custody, Lucas's biological mother ("affectionately" abbreviated BM in the stepmom community) is basically out of the picture, and has been since before we moved in together.  Because of this, I've taken on a different role than I otherwise would.  I'm simultaneously learning how to be both a mom as well as a stepmom - all rolled into one.

And yet, legally, biologically, custodially... I'm not his mom.  I didn't conceive him, birth him, name him.  Although I routinely give up other priorities to parent him, although I outfitted him in a Halloween costume, planned his birthday party, and created a behavior/rewards system for him, although I pick him up from the bus stop and help him with homework and read to him and give him baths and fold his laundry and tuck him into bed... I have no legal custody.  Pete and I are not equals in parenting.  Although we work together to make parenting decisions, in the end they are HIS decisions, not mine.  I can't even sign a school field trip permission slip.  Worse yet, legally, another woman - a conspicuously absent, completely non-mom mom -  has 50% of that decision-making power. And, if (God forbid) something happened to Pete, I would have zero parenting rights, zero custody rights, zero visitation rights. The brutal, heart-wrenching truth is: I'm raising a child who isn't mine. 

Another factor is my actual relationship with Lucas.  We have come a long way in the nine months (less than one year!) since we first met.  In the early phase, when he saw me, he would play the "shy game" of hiding under pillows or behind Pete's leg and refusing to talk to me (spoiler alert: it was about the least fun game ever, and no one was the winner).  When we first moved in together, he tried to exclude me from family activities, and put up a fuss when I put him to bed instead of Pete.  Due to a combination of concerted effort and the passage of time, these things have changed.  He references the three of us "a family", and he occasionally reciprocates my expressions of love.  He knows that there are different types of parents, and that Pete and I are teammates in parenting him.  And yet, just last night when we were talking about this, he said, "but she [his bio mom] is my real mom."  And how can I dispute that?  Even though Lucas and I have made huge strides in our relationship, we seem to be asking each other the same questions: "Who are you and what is your role in my life?"  I'm doing all of the mom work, and getting none of the mom credit.   

When I step back and think of all of these pieces holistically, it's not hard to understand why I'm finding myself in the middle of an identity crisis, and why my self-confidence is on shaky ground.  I don't want to lose myself in this sea of parenting ambiguity.  I don't want to lose the version of myself that I was before Pete and Lucas were my family, yet I want to be as involved as I can in life with them. This is the MOST complicated and most difficult path I have ever trotted.  My role is not one that is not well understood by most people  - and certainly not one that is well empathized.  Although I know that there are thousands of other stepmoms who have been through the same thing, I still often feel very isolated.  Although I'm trying my absolute best 100% of the time, I don't know if I'm doing a good job. I don't even know what doing a good job should look like. 

And yet - I'm still doing it.  Maybe part of how I define myself in this ambiguous life is that I am a person of perseverance and integrity, with a strong desire to create and sustain family - however I define it.  Although I don't always know who I am, or what my role in my family is, I have never let go of these fundamental qualities.  I'm going to keep going, and keep working, and keep creating.  I'm not going to do it perfectly, but I'm going to do it.  Maybe THAT is what defines who I am. Maybe that's all any of us can expect from ourselves. 

Stepparenting: The Good, The Bad, and The Challenging

I've been a stepmom for a few months now; just enough time to THINK I know everything about the job while realistically still having a lot to learn. But I do know this: Entering into and becoming this kind of family comes with a unique set of good, bad, and challenging elements.  Most of them are impossible to predict before the fact, and my previous attempts to prepare myself for this new life now feel laughable - just like new parents who are adjusting to life with an infant, entering into life as a stepparent simply isn't something that one can prepare for.  There aren't enough books, articles, and other resources in the world (and by this point, I think I have read everything written on this topic) to adequately understand how life changes when a person enters into stepmotherhood. I've had a really tough time articulating my experience over the last few months.  Friends have asked me how things are going, and the best answer I can give is "it's the hardest thing I've ever done."  And although that's true, it's not a real answer.  So here it is - my three-months-in, as balanced as possible, explanation of my experience of being a stepmom: The Good, The Bad, and The Challenging.  The Good 1.  I think that becoming a stepmom is the greatest gift that a woman can give to her partner.  It is extremely gratifying to know that I'm helping Pete in a profound way that no one else can.  During the early stages of our relationship, I witnessed first-hand how difficult - often devastating - single parenting was on Pete.  Now that we are co-parenting, his load is lightened.  This not only means that simple time-management things are easier (e.g. one of us can fold laundry while the other puts Lucas to bed), but also that Pete has the opportunity for a more balanced life.  Unlike before, he now has adult company every night, and when he needs a break, he can take a night off to do something that fills him up, while I take over the parenting.  We all know that we're better to others when we care for ourselves first, and in his single parent days, Pete didn't have much opportunity for that.  Being Pete's partner and co-parent gives me the opportunity not only to care for him, but also to empower him to take the time to care for himself.  2.  Stepmothering has given me the valuable opportunity to be a positive influence in Lucas's life long-term. The more caring, nurturing adults children have in their support system, the better their prospects are for success.  Pete brings a set of parenting strengths to our family, and I bring a separate set - which means Lucas gets twice as much support, structure, and love at home as he would without me.  3. I'm learning a new skill-set.  There are a variety of ways people live out their role as stepparents, and  I’ve chosen the highly active route - I help with homework, I enforce rules and discipline, I participate in bedtime routines, I plan birthday parties and gift ideas, I initiate craft projects, I help with school drop-offs and pick-ups.  Although I never thought I would be good at this before, I've been working hard at honing these skills, and it turns out...  I'm actually not too bad.    The Bad 1.  Sometimes I feel left out of my own family.  I really can't explain the sting that comes from Lucas pushing right past me to get to Pete, completely ignoring me.  Or the sting of him refusing to hug me at bedtime after I've spent my whole evening entertaining him and taking care of him.  Or the sting of not being acknowledged as a parent by other family members.  Stepmoms statistically have the worst mental health of anyone in a family, and I think a big reason for that is because we consistently receive these blows to our self-worth. Some days I feel nervous to come home because I know that I'm risking facing these blows yet again. 2.  The cliche that step-parenting is "all of the responsibility with none of the credit" could not be more true. So much of my time, energy, and resources are spent on parenting.  But yet, this work so often goes unseen and unacknowledged, both by Lucas and by others.  Bio parents often experience a similar feeling, but I think it is compounded for stepparents because our efforts are focused on a child for whom we have no legal rights, biological ties, or shared history.  We also tend to do more of the "behind the scenes" work, while our partners do the work on the "front lines".  Although Pete has been wonderful about giving me credit and building my confidence, it's still an uphill battle. 3. Although we know it's important, it's difficult for Pete and me to prioritize our relationship as #1.  Every resource I have found says that it is vital that partners in stepfamilies put their relationship first, prioritize one another, and create a strong foundation.  Without this, the family will fall apart.  This is especially important in a blended family, since the daily stresses are so much greater, divorce rates are so much higher, and the children's first model of an adult romantic relationship is one of brokenness.  That Pete and I should put each other first is a wonderful idea in theory.  But the demands of parenting and other forms of adulting stretches us so thin that sometimes it feels like we don't end up prioritizing each other to the extent that we both deserve.  The Challenging 1. I have to be very intentional about keeping my priorities and schedule balanced.  Becoming a stepmom has been a massive life change, but it doesn't mean that my other identities and values are less important now.  As mentioned above, I work hard to keep my identity as Pete's partner at the top of my priority list, just as he does for me.  I also am trying my very best to keep up with my social calendar and my groups of friends who mean so much to me and really give me life.  I’m also trying to make time for the things that benefit my mental and physical heath. Finally, I’m still working toward finding personal meaning, interests, and direction.  Keeping all of these things balanced is challenging for many people, but managing everything in addition to being a new stepparent is extra tough. 2.  Stepmoms are constantly combating systemic cultural undervaluing.  Society does not look favorably on stepmoms as a whole, and this can have a negative impact on how we view ourselves and treat ourselves.  Some stepmoms think of themselves as "less than" bio parents, and some don't even refer to themselves as stepparents unless they are married to their partner.  I have to be very careful to avoid these self-depreciating tendencies.  Most of the time, I think I'm doing okay with this. I know that my role matters.  I'm not JUST the stepmom, I AM the stepmom.  It's something that I can be, and should be, super proud of.  3. I'm still figuring out my role.  This is particularly true when it comes to behavioral problems and discipline.  Whichever "experts" say that disciplining should be left up to the biological parents have obviously never been in a room or a house alone with their stepchildren.  It's just not realistic.  But, as we have been combating a lot of behavioral issues during the past few months, Pete and I have to work together to decide how to, and who should, handle them.  We want Lucas to see me as a parent with authority in our home, but we don't want him to resent me, which could happen in this phase since he's still getting used to my permanency in his life.  Luckily, Pete and I are virtually always in agreement when it comes to rewards and consequences for Lucas, and this is just one of many things that we have the opportunity to work on, and learn from, together.  Having a teammate in this is invaluable.   Conclusions In short: This is hard.  But what that is worthwhile ISN'T hard?  I'm sure my list of good, bad, and challenging things will change a lot as time goes on, because this is such a dynamic role that I have stepped into.  But one important thing that continues to be clear is that I have the unwavering support of my partner, who is grateful that I've stepped into this role and never lets me forget it.  That alone makes it worth all of the hard parts. And finally, even when I feel like I don't know what I'm doing - and that's most of the time - the important thing is that I AM DOING IT.  And I'm going to keep doing it, and keep working on doing it well.