If you are watching the news or reading the newspaper and not liking the direction our country is heading in, what our government is or is not doing, and the legacy of debt they are leaving for our children and grandchildren, you aren't alone. We've gone off track on what our country is about, what it was founded on, what was good about our country and it's damn scary to me.
My husband doesn't have to work tonight. It's nice to have a day off together (and even more so that he will be home tonight). Sounds like a good night for sexy lingerie and margaritas! LOL.
I think it is important for couples to re-connect often so they don't lose the emotional closeness in the day to day life. When you throw in stepchildren and a difficult ex, it makes it that much more important so that no matter what you go through with an ex, court, etc., you retain the emotional connection and the stressful circumstances bring you together rather than tear you apart.
The relationship with my husband's ex has always been bad, but in the first half of our marriage it was downright nasty. I'd ask him how she could behave like that, how could she say/do that to him or the kids, etc. because I couldn't comprehend the intensity of hate and bitterness. He'd tell me she was doing it to come between us. All her behavior did, however, was bring us closer because we really united as a couple. He supported me and I supported him. Her plan backfired. I'm glad it did.
I'll bet that is one title you never thought of for yourself, huh?
According to Wikipedia, we, the step-parents, are legal strangers because we have no legal right to the minor child even if we are the step-child's "parent" in terms of love and responsibility.
This is taken from Wikipedia:
"The stepparent is a "legal stranger" in most of the US and has no legal right to the minor child no matter how involved in the child's life they are. The biological parents (and, where applicable, adoptive parents) hold that privilege and responsibility. So if the biological parent doesn't give up his or her parental rights and custodial to the child, a parent's subsequent marriage cannot create a stepparent relationship without the parent written consent before a "child" reaches adulthood. In most cases, the stepparent can not be ordered to pay child support."
I get that we have no legal rights. You can love that child like your own and take care of that child like your own, but you can lose that child without any legal recourse if you and their biological parent were to divorce. What a risk step-parents take with their hearts. A risk that many step-parents have taken and had their hearts broken either through divorce or by loss of the relationship due to other factors (ex: the ex's emotional manipulations). Besides, the family court will beat "no legal rights" over any step-parent's head repeatedly so I think we all know we have no legal rights.
I don't understand what they mean by "...marriage cannot create a stepparent relationship without the parent written consent..." Written consent by who? The biological parent you married or the same sex biological parent, AKA the ex?
This week, I went over the 26,000 visitor mark! Thanks for reading my blog. I hope it offers you some helpful information for your stepfamily trials along with other interesting information.
Read more...I've been reading some other stepfamily blogs this morning and it made me a little sad. I was remembering the super close relationship my stepdaughter and I used to share.
I remember when my stepdaughter would come in the front door after my husband would pick her up. I would hear her little feet running through the house asking, "Where is Cole?" When she'd find me, I'd have this little girl running into my arms. Eventually, I became "Momma Cole" and then "Mom" and then my full first name because her mother's fits were too much for a child to deal with.
I remember Friday night was girls night where, after we would put the younger kids to bed, my stepdaughter and I would spend time together, just the two of us, doing craft activities together.
I remember my stepdaughter telling me that whenever we would call for them, their mother would get an angry look on her face.
I remember my stepdaughter telling me that if they talked to us while at their mom's house, she would stop playing with them and look mad. I remember after that all the times they stopped picking up the phone when we'd call or the times they would hang up on my daughter when she'd call them. Not even our children were allowed a relationship with their siblings when they were with their mom.
I remember a girl who would beg not to have to go back to her mother's house, wanting to stay with us.
I remember a girl who would climb into my lap for hours because she was sad about leaving.
I remember when my stepdaughter told me that her maternal aunt told them that our house was haunted by serial killer ghosts and that I was going to hell. I remember how scared she was. I remember easing her fears and then the ex's excuses for her sister's behavior when we went to her about it for trying to scare the kids away from our house.
I remember a girl who would cry in the bathroom for hours when we'd meet at my stepson's swim meets for the exchange because she didn't want to go back to her mother's house. I remember a girl telling her mother, when she tried to go into the pool bathroom to talk to her, to get out. She didn't want her mom; she wanted her stepmom and dad.
I remember telling my stepdaughter that her mother loved her too, always being careful not to badmouth her mother in any way (even though there was plenty to badmouth).
I remember all the times my stepdaughter would tell us something negative her mother had said about me, their dad, our home, etc.
I remember their mother crying when my husband would pick the kids up. I remember seeing her standing at the end of her driveway while we pulled away, crying. I remember how much it worried the kids to see her like that.
I remember the courts telling her she had to stay in the house and to quit doing that to the kids. I remember that she didn't listen.
I remember them telling me that she told them that she cried without them.
I remember when they started to worry about leaving their mother alone.
I remember the day their mother stood on my front porch, sobbing and clinging to my stepdaughter, not wanting to give her up to spend any time with their dad and dad's family. I remember how much it hurt my stepdaughter.
I remember my stepson as a toddler telling me, "Mommy is at home crying without me. I have to go home."
I remember my tween stepdaughter talking about suicide, wanting a car accident to kill her, so she didn't have to worry about her mother anymore.
I remember after that point the emotional distance my stepdaughter put between herself and us. The therapist said it was for her own protection, to protect herself from her mother's behavior/manipulations. I remember understanding. I also remember that it still hurt.
I remember all the love, hugs, and kisses. I remember how close my stepdaughter and I used to be and it makes me so sad to know that is gone now, that a person who was supposed to love them (their mother) manipulated them and hurt them out of insecurity and jealousy.
I thought it wouldn't hurt after the past couple of years of it being that way. I thought wrong. It still hurts.
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