The Stepmom's Tool Box

A Day in the Life of a Step Mom

July 2007

I am a damn good second wife. No.  Better than damn good.  I’m freaking phenomenal.  The day I said I do, I married not only my husband, but I also married his kids, his ex-wife, and all of his ex-in-laws…who aren’t really ex’s…except his first wife…she’s definitely an ex…but the rest is family.  Maybe she is too…but more in the line of second cousin twice removed. 

What’s “normal” (that’s such an odd word…normal is in the eye of the beholder, because my normal is so far out in left field, that most people think I have three heads). 

My normal is pretty bizarre…but I’ll take my normal because the drama surronding first spouses, second spouses, step kids, in-laws, out-laws, just isn’t there.  Oh, there’s drama, just not on par with jealous first wives, battling ex-spouses who use the kids to obfuscate and confuse, courtroom annihilation over child support…it doesn’t exist…on either side…and for that I am so blessed and so very grateful.

But on the other hand, I’m on shaky ground.  As much as my ex husband has erased me from his past, there is no erasing my husband’s first wife.  His first lover.  The woman he was married to for 17 years.  The woman he had 4 kids with.  Today, they are co-parents and my brain knows how wonderful that is for their kids.  But for me, it’s knowing that she can and does call him anytime to discuss kid issues.  Or just last week they met somewhere to discuss Tim.  And yesterday morning she called to ask his advice on her personal life. 

These last two incidents, coming so close together have left me in a high state of insecurity.  I’m practically code red.  It’s taking everything I have in me not to curl up in a fetal position…not to cling to his leg like a 5 year old…not to be so up his butt I end up suffocating the very person I love so much…I’m really rather pathetic right now. 

You know what?  I may be this open prairie but even a prairie has a fence somewhere…or a natural boundary.  A river or a forest.  Or a mountain even.  And my boundary has been crossed…like illegal aliens pouring over the Rio Grande.  I feel vulnerable and violated. 

Where are the directions for being the second wife?  In my desperation, I’ve bought two more books.  More than anything, I need insight…wisdom…the right words to say even though all I want to say is Back Off Bitch!  And then dope slap my husband for even entertaining the conversation about her personal life.  Guess what?  I don’t care about her life.  I DON’T CARE.  It’s so inappropriate on her end and his.  There’s this part of me that’s like “fuck ‘em both.  I don’t need this shit.” 

And there’s another part of me that’s scared witless.  My husband is the love of my life…he was the first boy I ever fell in love with…he was my first boyfriend in high school…and it doesn’t matter that we were seperated for 25 years…we spanned the time gap…and this love I have for him gets so big sometimes that I don’t know what to do with myself.  I can’t imagine living without this love…without him…without us. 

No matter how angry and scared I am right now, I keep telling myself that I know where he sleeps at night.  Right next to me.  If I say it often enough, I feel the vice grip in my chest loosen up a bit. I breathe a little easier.  I can focus on something else and take a mini break from this obsessive thinking.