The tale my mom tells of how the divorce came about is logical, consistent, and doesn’t vary with telling. My dad, though, tells a story that doesn’t make any logical sense, changes every time he tells it, and is wildly emotional, like he’s trying to compensate for something… a lack of truthfulness, I expect. But you can’t browbeat someone into buying into your side of the story. Every time his voice raised, I hung up. Simple, simple!

Dad has minimal contact with me now (I’ll talk to him on the phone when he calls, but I don’t call him.) One of my siblings has completely disowned him, and the other is cordial… but not that cozy.

Anyway, so they were cheaters and they got what they wanted: each other.

Seven years on, I can accept that, and what’s more, I can understand how middle-aged married people can just plain get SICK of each other and be desperate enough to do anything to finally move on before life passes them by entirely, even if it’s messy, trashy and a little dishonest.

I suppose Dad was just biding his time till the kids were out of the house, but the whole thing came out of the blue to us. I wish he’d done a better job of making a clean break with Mom before hooking up with Carol, but what’s done is done.

Mom is doing OK, partly because the sibling who sided most strongly with her is providing significant financial help. She’s back in school and holding down a decent fulltime job; between those things and her share of their retirement assets, I feel relatively confident that their divorce won’t mean that I’ll have to look after my mother while raising my children just because Dad had some major sexual itches to scratch.

So that assuaged my initial concerns a great deal. (none of this is thanks to my dad, who of course fought every court judgment like it was his last penny, another thing I have been annoyed about for years. They were married for 25 years; did he really expect he could walk out scot-free?!)

I’d like to improve my relationship with my dad, for the sake of my own children, but unfortunately this will mean setting aside my feelings of antipathy for a couple who pretty much conducted themselves like fools in the initial honeymoon rush. My understanding of WHY they did this has mellowed my earlier harsh judgement, but the memory is irritating nonetheless.

“Hi, I’m your new mom!” is NOT the way to introduce yourself to your new hubby’s adult children. What a ditz. Anyway, surely she does have her good points… somewhere.

When the reaction to the speech was, as you described, I was shocked.

As a stepmother, hopefully with a sense of humor, I actually quoted that speech a lot.

When I first became a stepmom, 12 years ago, sometimes the kids wouldn’t even say good morning or hello or good-bye to me. I’d always say it for them as they passed through the room. Over time they began to give me little responses. When they were out of sight but the others were present I would grab my heart and swoon, “He likes me! He really, really likes me!”

It made everybody laugh. Of course, they were 9, 7 and 5 years old so I don’t think they got the Sally Field reference!

To this day when the kids give me a nice little greeting we all kind of grin. We all know that it is their little gift to me!

“They like me! They really, really like me!”

http://www.stepmotherinthesuburbs.blogspot.com

You don’t need to gain your in-laws approval, they should gain yours. And it looks like so far they have not. Do you plan on having children? Will they spoil you with a nice baby shower? When in-laws treat you second best and ignore how their words and actions can make you feel, it can give you an out. That out is avoidance. You know how you and your spouse have to take turns at eachothers families homes for holidays, etc? Just go to your own families for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mothers Day, Easter, etc…….

It took me 40 years of living (and one year of fighting for my life) to become a RECOVERING people pleaser.

I remember a training call I was on a few years ago and the guest trainer said this (and I’m paraphrasing): You know 100 people (this makes the math easier for me). 98 of those people really like you. Two of them can’t stand you. Instead of growing your relationships with the 98 that darn near worship you, you focus your time and energy on the two that can’t stand you because you really want them to like you.

At the time that I heard this, there was one person that hated my guts: my exhusband. And I didn’t understand why. We were married for 19 years, we had two kids together…but there I was, trying to make peace, extending olive branches, blah blah blah. And then the training I listened to made sense. And I stopped. I stopped trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. I stopped wasting my time and energy on someone who hated me and quite frankly, I wasn’t all that keen on either.

It’s a bonus that my stepkids like me. That my husband’s family likes me. That his ex-wife’s family likes me. But I don’t go out of my way to “make them like me.” I am who I am – if you like me, GREAT. If you don’t, well, that’s ok, too. (And if you hate my guts, I’m totally fine with that!)

xo
Peggy