Yikes. The word “Stepmom” brings up all sorts of emotions, right? Try being one. Joining a family that has already been through a traumatic experience probably isn’t the best way to start especially if that traumatic event is:
Divorce.
That word alone conjures up so many different feelings. Don’t believe me? Ask your friends. Everyone has a different spin. A different take on the word. If said person is divorced… Their parents are? Maybe a friend (and then some) are or are going through it?
As a Stepmom, we consistently wonder: what’s next? What could possibly be next? We overcome one hurdle or obstacle, only to realize there’s something waiting for us. Christmas came early. 😉 The “best” part is that we just get to watch. Our input is not only not wanted, it’s most likely taken as overstepping….
Talk about one of the loneliest roles to have. Unless you know another Stepmom, whomever you talk to doesn’t understand. They “think” they do, but in reality, they don’t “get it”-know what I mean?
Where do we go from here? I’m so glad you asked. Let’s start with ourselves. See that picture up there? It says “love”-I know you can read, but sometimes having it pointed out to you helps. LOVE YOURSELF, damn it. Don’t lose yourself. Tooo easy. Toooooo easy to love this “already made family” and all that it entails. That’s the easy part, right? Until it’s not. Being a parent is a thankless job. Being a stepparent? Even less thankless. I could write about this for hours on end… Like I said, it’s great when you love doing all things: cooking, cleaning, driving the kids around, buying them things, tucking them in, reading to them, helping with homework, laundry, making sure they have what they need, and on and on and on…. until one day, you wake up and realize that you no longer have any idea of who you are. Remember when you used to workout? Read? Travel? Sleep in? Get massages? Have a bit of QUIET time? What happened to that??? Well, it slowly creeped out of your life. Thanks to you, Stepmom. Guilty over here! I wanted to do all of the things. I wanted to join in. I wanted felt I needed to prove myself to everyone. Including the people that so politely reminded me that I didn’t have kids and these weren’t mine. Like I didn’t know. Until I resented it all. I loathed cooking, cleaning, the errands, blah, blah, blah.
Start taking your time back! But you have to do it the right way. (Can you hear my eyes rolling?) You may have slowly took all of these things on. Slowly start to shed them. Your spouse was able to do all of these things before you showed up. I bet they can still do them. To your liking? Probably not, but you know what, Stepmom? That’s not a battle we are going to fight….right now. 🙂 We are going to work through all of this….
One Step At A Time! 🙂
