Enough already

As of this coming Wednesday it's been a full 4 weeks since hubby has talked to or even seen the child. Since that time I have almost cleaned out and repainted the room she was staying in. Since that time I have also found, written on the walls, "I hate Stepmom!!" I get it. The child hates me. The child also does not respect her father enough not to deface the walls in his home. I want her out of my house, as in all the pictures and crap that is in my home reminding me of the little b*tch that she is, reminding me of the hurt and pain she has caused me. Yes, she does this because she has been poisoned by her mother, but why take it out on the person that has been on your side. Why not take it out on the person that hurt you, your mother and father. Why, because stepmom is the easy target. Stepmom can be trashed and if she leaves who really cares. I get that, but why do I have to have the reminders in my home? I know a lot of people will disagree with me and tell me that hubby has a right to have the pictues up that remind him of happy times, but what about my rights? Maybe I will get stickers and put them over her face. I mean I get that she is listening to her mom and she wants to believe her mom at all costs, but there does come a point in time in a person's life where it's not okay to act out on what someone else said. She's not mature, she's not smart, she's the bane of my existance right now. I know, I need to step back and let it go, which is why I haven't acted out because I would be acting out of anger and I would be no better then the child. I want to, the hurt in me wants to act out and hurt just like I was hurt. But enough already!

Power Struggles Part II

Anyone who has raised a teen or have been around teenagers knows that teenagers are a rare breed. They are at the age where they think they know everything and lash out at their parents, their teachers, and anyone else they think needs to back the hell off and let them live their life. Unless you are their best friend as a parent you are usually told things that make you feel like crap. Now, being a stepmom in this situation means you need to get everything that makes you happy and bunker down, you are in for a long hard road (in most cases).
Power struggles I have been faced with are the ones I will be talking about. "You can't make me, I make my own decisions." I love this little power struggle. We, as parents, cannot make a child do anything, not really. We can have consequences to actions but we cannot physically make a child do chores or homework or participate in counseling. One situation was the fact that we knew that SD needed (and still does need) counseling. We picked a counselor, met with her, brought SD to meet with her. SD was in counseling for a few weeks and we met with the counselor again. Guess what, the counselor said it was a waste of time and money. SD was telling her what she wanted to hear but wasn't being honest with her or herself. So SD proved us wrong, we could not make her get better. All we could do was force her to go, not participate.
"If you love me you will do this." I love that line. If you love me you will buy me these jeans that cost $300. If you love me this and that. When did love become conditional with parents and children? Teenagers from this generation seem to have this idea that parents have to prove their love to them. I really believe that it is due to how these children are parented and the parents that fall into that trap. I have one stepmom that's in a sitation that SD wants dad to move across the country to be by her and leave stepmom behind. Really!!! If dad loves the child he will leave his wife. When did that become okay? I understand that some power strugges are normal in teenagers, but really, who the hell would think things like this would happen? Things that I have heard from other stepmom's, I want to see you but I don't want stepmom there, in her own freaking house!!
One thing that we did was the child had a master suite room in our house. Hubby gave her this room when his brother was still living in the house so she didn't have to share a bathroom with a grown man. That was okay. He then spent about $3000 buying things that she wanted in the bathroom, a nice sink and a faucet that he didn't even want. A light for her room and curtains that she wanted (that I sewed to make work) and various other crap and that does not include the cost of things we needed to buy for the room, like the flooring and new toilet and such. So when hubby finally reached his limit with the lying and crap he said fine, you have just lost your room. And guess what, then the child didn't want to come over ever again. Because she had consequences she didn't want to face. So fine, hubby is done with the crap and he agreed. No more power stuggles with a child that won't tell her dad that she loves him back and won't call or text him anymore. He is not her father according to her. I just wish we didn't have to pay child support anymore.

Power Struggles Part I

In a blended family there seems to be such power struggles. Most of the families I know (blended of course) there seems to be a power struggle, either between TM, the kids, or both. Lets go back and look at these power struggles. TM doesn't like the boundries place upon her. Things like not calling after a certain time, not being able to walk in any time she wants, communication through email or text messages (so that there is proof of the conversation), and not having her ex-husband at her beck and call. There are parenting issues, as most blended families that I know have to parellel parent because TM will not co-parent. In our home I can say that TM HATES when DH tells her that we are the parents in our home that even though she tries to parent in our home, we have the final decision ability capibility. Case in point, there was a concert that was on our parenting time and SD was grounded, so no concert. Well TM bought tickets months before, and had she asked when she bought the tickets we would have switched days as SD was not grounded. So, when she asked hubby talked to me, I listened, and he asked what I could live with. I explained that I didn't think it was a good idea, as SD was grounded. He came up with the idea that if SD earned the right to switch days he would be okay with it. I agreed with him, as he has the final say. SD came back after hubby told TM his decision, and informed hubby that TM said that SD should not have to earn the right and it should be given to her. Hubby explained that SD was grounded and if she didn't want to earn the right to switch days then that was fine, it wasn't going to happen. SD though she was going, up until the day, then hubby picked her up and she threw a fit. Hubby explained to her that he gave her two options, earn the right or she didn't go, period. It doesn't matter what TM says she should or should not do, she does not affect what happens in our home. Of course I caught hell for it, as I am the easy target. Another issue is the ability to POP over to our house any old time, as we are not allowed to POP over TM's house we made sure she understood that the same rule applies to her. TM sent a nasty email to hubby because SD wanted to ride by her mom's house one weekend night. SD saw a strange car parked in the driveway and asked her mom about it later. TM then decided to POP on over to hubby's apartment and leave some paperwork for him. She didn't call or let him know what was going on and brought SD with her. We were not there so she left it under the mat. hubby gets a call from SD saying the paperwork was under the mat. hubby asks if she dropped it off or if TM did, TM drove and sent SD to drop it off. Now there are two issues here. One, TM gave SD the paperwork, it was divorce paperwork, that both TM and hubby agreed to keep SD out of so here was proof that TM was allowed SD access to the paperwork. Two, they stopped by the house without letting DH know about it. When Hubby called her on both issues she blew a gasket and tried to turn it around on him. Now TM likes to have control over schooling and doctor's appointments, to the point of not informing hubby of anything. Those are the power struggles we go through with TM. Tomorrow I will talk about the power struggles we go through with SD.

lazy days

I have to say this weekend was pretty good. I got the closet painted in the new guest room and about half the walls trimmed out for painting. All I need to do is the second coat of trim paint and start the actually painting of the walls Hubby really likes the color combinations and the decorating ideas I have (using existing stuff we have). All in all a good weekend. Sunday was spent relaxing and watching movies together. I've had a bit of a headache all day so the relaxing was much needed. We also built a little water tower for hubby's train (N scale) and he's really happy with it. I just wish the weather would change so we could start working on the yard. The good news is the bulbs are starting to pop and I will have tulips (lots and lots of tulips) in a few weeks. I'm really excited. The sad note is I remember last year and what we were doing and I wonder if SD is thinking about the things we use to do together ( like gardening.) I guess it will just take time.

Foundations

In a marriage, a normal everyday marriage before kids, the foundation of the family starts with the couple. The couple gets to know each other, gets married, and then decides to have children. In a world when people think about others and actually communicate and don’t try to trap others, the couple will communicate if they actually want to have kids or not. This is something they decide together. The woman doesn’t decide this for the man. During this communication things like discipline and expectations should be addressed. When kids come along the married couple become parents, but they remain a couple. They are the foundation of the family. The kids grow up and leave the house. This is the parent’s job, to raise the children to leave.

In a blended family there are already children involved. The couple is no longer the foundation of the family and it usually is not a pretty situation. There are usually hurt feelings and unresolved emotional attachments. Divorce is hard enough on a couple without kids (this I know because I am also on my second marriage but without kids). It takes time to get over what happened and to heal from the hurts of what happened in the marriage and the whole divorce proceedings. Then one of the parents gets involved with someone else and a new foundation is created. Now people will argue that the children have to be put first, the poor kids are hurting and don’t know what to do, but it is up to the adults to model a healthy relationship. This means the new couple, the new foundation, HAS to put the marriage first, because if they don’t the foundation will crumble just like it did in the first marriage.

If you want to think about divorce and the causes of divorce, no matter what happened the fact that the couple did not work together to keep the marriage a top priority can be seen as the reason the marriage failed. The man was an abuser; guess what, he didn’t put his marriage first because he beat up his wife. It was his own needs and ideas that were put first. The man was an adultery, same thing, the marriage wasn’t put first, his needs were put first (the same for women adulteress and abusers.) When ever you stop thinking about your partner and start thinking only about yourself or your kids or anything but putting your marriage first you are attacking the foundation of your family.

In my case my ex was an abuser. The divorce was half my fault because I put my own safety and well being before the marriage and he put his need to control me and put me down before the marriage. With hubby, from what I’ve heard and seen they both put their own needs before their marriage and hubby put the child before his wife. Now, we are working on repairing the foundation (our marriage) and it’s not easy and it’s not cheap (emotionally), but anything worth having is worth earning. Just my POV.

How are you?

In the almost 3 years of being in this situation of trying to blend a family I've noticed that more and more people ask how hubby is and how SD is and how their relationship is. Only people that were my friends before the situation and who have seen SD for the person she really is inside would ask how I was doing. It's amazing how I became important when SD made her decision. People are now asking how I am doing. People are asking how I am coping. Hubby laughs at the fact that people are asking him how I am taking things. He has noticed that I am having a harder time with everything then he is, but after I found the little "present" left on the closet wall (I hate stepmom written on the wall), things have gotten easier for me to deal with. But I did not realize just how many people did not ask or seem to care about how I felt before. I've talked to other stepmoms and it seems like we disappear when we marry a man with children. It becomes more about the child and how they feel instead of how everyone else is doing. Funny how things work.

Asking for what you want

Funny thing, Valentine's Day. Hubby and I don't really celebrated Valentine's Day. It's a day just like any other, as we try to show each other that we love each other every day. I did go out with him and get him a few new cars and a hotel for his train set and I ordered dinner and we will have a picnic on our living room floor (since it's raining and we cannot go to the the picnic place where hubby suprised me with a picnic when we were dating.) We do little things, of course it's not uncommon for us to do these kinds of things on a normal day out of the blue. One thing I did voice loudly was I wanted flowers today and I wanted FB status updates from him telling me he loves me. Yes, those things mean a lot to me and I wanted to make sure hubby understood that. I post on his wall but he's not always on FB so I remind him to do the little things. A friend reminded me, men are not mind readers, sometimes they need a kick in the butt and a note or one of us telling them DO THIS PLEASE. I can say this, I did get my FB update. :)

Letting Go Poem

A fellow stepmom posted this a few months back on the forum. I thought it would be a good time to remember it:

"Letting Go"

To let go...doesn't mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else.
 To let go...is not to cut myself off, it's the realization that I can't control another.
 To let go...is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
 To let go...is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
 To let go...is not to try to change or blame another, I can only change myself.
 To let go...is not to care for, but to care about.
 To let go...is not to fix, but to be supportive.
 To let go...is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
 To let go...is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcome, but to allow others to effect their own outcomes.
 To let go...is not to be protective, it is to permit another to face reality.
 To let go...is not to deny, but to accept.
 To let go...is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.
 To let go...is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes, and to cherish the moment.
 To let go...is not to criticize or regulate anyone, but to try to become whatever dream I can be.
 To let go...is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
 To let go...is to fear less and to love more.

Judgements

Hubby and I have been talking a lot about his decision to not force the child to come back to the house and the "advice" and what we feel are the judgments that go along with what people have said. One thing that really stands out to me is the fact that some people have really personalized our situation. People tell us about when their parents kicked them out or moved them to grandparents or the other parent's house and how that made them feel. People have told us about their kids and the other parent walking out of the kid’s life and how the kids feel and how they feel. I have not heard from the parents that made the decision to not force the child to come into the home, a home where they are welcome and the child rejected the home and the parent and what happened. I can say this, I was the child that was kicked out, I was told I had until 5 that day to get everything I wanted out of the house or it was being thrown away. I was the adult-child that had to find somewhere to live and someone to hold on to my box of things when I went into the military. I had just turned 18 and just graduated from high school. I was the honor student that had a full time job. I was also the teenager that didn't want anything to do with dad's new family and new wife, my sister was cool, but she was an adult, but I still did my chores, was respectful when called for, but I rebelled in my own way and my dad wasn't having any of it. My dad did this when I had two weeks before boot camp. He could have waited two weeks, but things being the way they were and he was protecting his marriage, he had a choice to make. It hurt, I'm not going to sit here and say it didn't. But I got over it and when I became an adult and grew up I learned to listen to his side and take his feelings into consideration. We have healed and now have the best relationship I think a father and daughter can have. I was also the child that was left behind by her mother. My mom took off for parts unknown when I was 6 and my brother was 7. This created problems and drama and I wanted NOTHING to do with her when I was growing up. When I became an adult I reached out to family members that kept in contact with her and asked if I could be put in touch with her. I learned her story and we have healed, and we don't have a mother daughter relationship, but we are friends now. I have healed and I have grown up. I can say that when I was 12 my mom wanted back in my life and my dad gave me the choice, let her in or not, I made the choice to not have anything to do with her. I was hurting and did not need that in my life. She understood and left me alone until I contacted her. IT WAS MY CHOICE. No, I wasn't an adult but I knew what I wanted at 12 and I knew what I needed at 12.  Here is a big difference, my dad NEVER said a bad thing about my mom until I grew up and asked him for his side. My mom told me hers, and yes, she said many many bad things about my dad, so I told him these bad things and asked for his side. As an adult he knew I could deal with it and understand that people see things differently. I got two very different stories and I know the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Here hubby and I are, the child wanting to make the choice of not seeing her dad any more until she's ready. We do run the chance of never seeing her again. We run the risk of never hearing from her again. We run the risk of her perception clouding the truth and her believing that dad walked out on her and that his choice was his new family without her. We run the risk of her mom poisoning her mind against her dad that neither one remembers that we gave her a choice, we did not kick her out, we did not tell her not to come back, dad did not walk out on her. Dad did not make the choice, the child did. We also run the risk of TM poisoning her against me even more, telling her I made him kick her out, I poisoned dad against her, and I made her life hell. Yes, BIG HUGE risks. But in holding her tight we also run the risk of the poison leaking into our home and our marriage. It was already happening. We are also in a situation where the child likes to play the victim. NOTHING is her fault; it is always someone else's fault. So yes, we know that more then likely it will be my fault for all of this, even though I am the one who has the least amount of say in the whole situation, I will be the one to blame. Just like I am the one to blame for the divorce between hubby and TM, I am the one to blame for the child's crappy attitude and crappy grades. I am the one to blame for the child's relationship with others. I am the easy target. I guess it's a really good thing I'm secure in my role and my life and feel if you want to blame me, then fine. I didn't break the relationship and I'm not the one who can fix it. I didn't break the marital relationship; I am not the one to fix it. I didn't break the child and I am not the one responsible for fixing her. I guess that's why I'm okay being the evil wicked stepmom, they are words, not who I am inside.

Learning New Habits

Things are super weird for me. After 2 1/2 years of being a stepmom, both officially and unofficially, to not being a stepmom, not due to being divorced, but due to my husband's decision to honor his daughter's choices. To change my own way of thinking about things. I said something to hubby last night and he hugged me, he told me that he loved me because my heart is so big and that he sees that I actually care more about the child then her own parents, or at least that is how it seems to him. I am the only one that really sees the child as a person and not a pawn to be used. I've always been a "little mother", since I was 6 years old. My dad thinks it's pretty funny, I'm what most people call a natural parent but I'm not an official parent. Anyway, I need to get some of the info I got from my SIL yesterday out to I can take it apart and process it.

Yesterday I called SIL to give her an update on what was going on. Basically, TM finally agreed to honor the child's decision to not come back to our house. Of course she wants more money, but she won't get it as she is getting the max allowed by the state and if she really wants to fight us on this we will just say fine, the child comes back to our house and we will go for a reduction (as hubby never got his parenting time credit). But our talk was trying to figure out if what we are doing is going to make a difference in the long run. We can't keep doing what we have been doing and expect a different outcome, insanity anyone! We started talking about nature vs. nurture. So I found out that the child's cousin, the one raised with her (at the time hubby's mom was doing all the day care for the kids and hubby was the primary parent) and the cousin is the complete opposite of the child. Hubby was the strict parent and had consequences and was doing things right, when TM wasn't around because TM didn't agree with his parenting and made sure the child knew this, at one time she actually tried to make hubby go up and take back his punishment and tell the child he was wrong and he was sorry for being strict. So the child was raised, yes disfunctionally, but to the best of hubby's ability. Fast forward to now, hubby let a lot of things go slack, because of his guilt, and the child got out of control. The years of seeing mom treat dad like crap and get what ever she wanted taught her to treat people like crap and you get what ever you want. Hubby started to fight back, with consequences and expectations and the child couldn't handle it. TM was in the background telling her that dad doesn't love her and she shouldn't have to earn anything at dad's, just stop talking to him and make him feel you are angry with him. That all back fired, as hubby has someone standing behind him telling him that he is a good person and doesn't deserve to be treated that way, in addition to counseling. So now he is looking to the future and making decisions based on ways to teach the child her actions have consequences and he won't roll over. He needs to learn new habits. SIL was thinking that TM was raised that way, but started thinking about her older sister and TM's parents, and come to find out that neither TM or the older sister were raised to be the way they are, but they are that way. It seems they got the bad from the parents and not the good, just like the child. SIL laughed and said that if the child had my DNA maybe she wouldn't be the way she is. Just a few thoughts for today.

The weekend

Things this weekend were pretty good. Hubby and I enjoyed our time by cleaning the house and running around town. It's really weird in our home right now. Hubby doesn't want to talk about a lot of things regarding the child and TM wants double the child support she is court ordered to receive, even though we already pay as if the child were with her 100% of the time. I guess the good thing this weekend was I found out that hubby was over paying by almost $200 a month for the past 3 years and he never did get a credit for having the child over 25% of the time. Hubby has agreed that he actually wants to tote up the child's things she left behind and he is getting his head straight, dealing with seperate issues. I guess it's a sit and wait until he's ready to talk more and see if the child wants to talk or wants anything to do with us. I can say that a lot of things have come out, things I'm not free to post on a public website, but good things in the long run.

What happened

So I'm going to try to explain what happened, the events that occured, to the best of my knowledge, that led up to the child not coming over any more.
I've been a "stepmom" officially for 1 1/2 years, we officially dated for a year and unofficially dated for about 5 months before that. I came into the picture with the child around March of 2008, 7 months after hubby left TM, the first 5 months was just a hang out period, DH was still officially married, in the process of divorce, so I didn't want to muddy the waters. I took the both of them with me to meet my friends and their kids and we developed a nice little environment. Two years ago hubby had to give up his apartment and move back into the family home because his brother and his brother's friends (who were renting at the time) left and the house needed repairs badly. So we have spent the past two years remodeling this house. Because of all the work we played pretty hard when we had time, and we made time when the child was around. The spring of 09 the child started to display behavior issues, like lying and major rudeness. She was rude and selfish before, but not to this extent. It is normal only child kinds of things, when not checked gets out of hand, but at the time hubby was pretty good about checking her. I wasn't living with hubby, as we were not married yet, so I let most of the crap go, I wasn't around enough. I started to put my foot down about manners and such, basically, if the child didn't have manners and use them I wouldn't be around. The child changed, for the better, and things went well. We got married in the fall and by that winter I was the evil wicked stepmom, why, because I enforced hubby's rules and did not allow disrespect to be shown towards me. It has only gone down hill from there. Hubby stopped enforcing his rules and let the child become more and more disrespectful. She snuck out of the house until 4 AM, she started yelling at hubby, and everything an out of control teenager does. When she was called on it she didn't care, as her mom let her do it at her house and her mom "just got over it."
Some people, me included, think that hubby is a shitty dad, because he didn't control it, but I'm also in the mind of the fact we had the child EOW and had visits during the week, not a lot of time. It would go back and forth, hubby would put his foot down, the child would behave, she would get out of line, hubby didn't see it until it got extreme, he would out his foot down, and around and around we would go.
So the child lost the room we remodeled for her, I blogged about that. DH checked on some of the things she told him, she lied, she doesn't care, and it came down to her telling hubby that she never wants to come over again, he can't force her, her mom can't force her, to bad. As everyone knows, yes the parents can force parenting time and she gets no say. So yesterday we picked her up and I could tell that it wasn't going to work and hubby had already decided that he was okay with letting her go and not forcing visitation. It wasn't a really long talk, but we didn't kick her out, hubby just told her that he won't force visitation and if or when she wants to come back she is more then welcome, with a week's notice, but she will have to follow the rules or he would tell her she was unwelcome. She is not to call for money, hubby will still pay child support, but any of the extras are gone, as she would not have the opportunity to earn it. She is not allowed to come over for birthdays and Christmas only, it's the court parenting time or she doesn't come over, this will not be the house to go to and get presents and have a party. There is a lot for her to think about but I don't think she will. She is just that selfish. When hubby told her twice that he loved her she said nothing. Honestly, I think she just wrote him out of her life until she grows us.

A new day

I am in a kind of limbo now. The child doesn't want to ever come over again and hubby agreed to stop forcing her. I am trying to find the ground now. I'll update later, but I need to process some of this.

In Honor Of Erin's Blog

I added some mommy lions to the blog. :)

Karma and the Goodness of my Fellow Man

So today I was given the most incredible news. As everyone knows, the economy has been just a mess. People are lucky to have jobs! I have a college degree and with my hours and the work I do I wouldn't even think about looking for another job. I work with some of the most incredible people and I can take off at noon if I need to and not get docked. Yes, some weeks I work 50+ hours and some weeks I work less than 40, and we are friends as well as co-workers. So my boss tells me today that my co-worker has offered to give up his pay increase in order to give the money to me as a pay increase. He took a 1% pay increase so that I could have a 4.4% pay increase instead of a 2.7% pay increase. I did the same thing a few years back, so yes, this is the right thing to do, but I didn't do it to have it paid back, I did it so the company could pay the guy what he is worth and he's such a valuable co-worker to have. I have to say, yes, last year it was talked about and upper management said no, but this year there is no caps on what can be given (except the amount of money in the bucket) so we are crossing our fingers that it takes. And you know what, if it doesn't there are no hard feelings, the fact that the guy would put himself out there for me warms my heart!!! I am not going to protest or say no because when I did it I knew I was doing the right thing and for him to do it he must know it is the right thing. So, I thanked him from the bottom of my heart and was speechless, something I'm not very often. So all of you out there that don't believe you get what you put out, remember, it does come back, the good and the bad!!