Don't Divorce the Step Kids ? An Apparent Intensity

I have a really amazing relationship with my former step-daughters.? Their father is remarrying today, and the events leading up to the wedding have increased our bond. So I?ve been giving it a lot of thought lately.? I never really congratulate myself for things in life, but I was a really good stepmother to the girls. I may have done a LOT wrong with my own kids, but with my stepkids I was more of an enhancement to their lives than a critical element ? or at least I didn?t realize I was critical until the past few years.

The girls are 17 and 20 now. But I helped raised them for 7 years, from the time they were 7 and 10 years old .? I wondered for a long time if they would mostly remember me struggling to raise my sons as a single mother, despite living with the girls? father all that time, or if they would remember the fighting the most. But it turns out? they remember the arts and crafts, the harebrained ideas I had for fun like mall scavenger hunts and feeding squirrels at the park. They remember the fact that I made sure we always celebrated their birthdays, even when we were very poor, the ?potions,? the times I stuck up for them when their father was incapable of being understanding or worse.? They remember the Family Pajammy Jams when we watched movies all night in our pajamas on the living room floor, the video games we all played together, dinner at the table ? all of us, and our roadtrips. They remember being important. They remember that I love them to the moon and back. That?s what I did right. It didn?t come from a book about step-parenting. It came from my heart.

We had tough times too, but those times don?t seem so bad now that they?re older. I don?t see one of them very much as she has moved out of the state, but we text message each other ?miss you?s? and ?love you?s? and ?thinking about you?s? from time to time. When she is here she pops in for a visit with us.

The younger one comes to visit regularly. We spend time together like friends now, or at least like siblings (one much older hehe).? She has been unhappy with the turn of events involving the woman her father is marrying and her father?s behavior since our split.? A lot of things have come out in the open since 2011 came into existence. On New Year?s Eve she called me crying hysterically to pick her up from her dad?s fiance?s house.? She ran outside in the cold with no shoes and jumped into the truck as the fiance came crying after her, begging her to stay and work it out. I talked to the fiance, gave her a hug and said it was going to be ok.? She just needed time to feel what she?s feeling, and she will talk to them tomorrow. The fiance lamented not being as close to her as I was, but I reminded her that we had like 10 years of history behind us.

I took my stepdaughter to my house, gave her a sweater and some shoes, and found out a lot that night ? about how his temper was so awful when mine wasn?t there to keep it in check, about the way he scared her, and how he snapped that night the same way he did when she was really little.? She said that the only good years of her childhood were the ones when she lived with me. She called her mom to get her and, at the stroke of midnight, I hugged her and her mom and I told my stepdaughter that things were going to change this year, and that she was going to be ok.

Today I sent a text message asking if she?s ready for the world to end.? She said, ?Yes, it starts at 1pm? (referring to the wedding, in case you?re not catching on here). I reminded her not to do anything to get herself arrested because we have plans next weekend. ? Her sister is down from Georgia and she?s going to stop by for a visit with us. I know they feel lucky to have had me during some difficult years in their lives. But I feel really lucky to have been a part of their lives at all.

Source: http://vintagelux.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/dont-divorce-the-step-kids/

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