Fear

Fear is a great motivator. In people fear usually puts them in a flight of fight mode, but what if you can’t fight or run? As a Stepmom I have figured out that my greatest fear is my hubby would choose his daughter’s lies over what he knew was going on. I knew I would be facing loyalty binds, I knew I would face TM doing everything she could to ruin any relationship I had with the child, what I didn’t know was the child would choose the easy path of hating me and making sure I knew I was hated. I had hear horror stories of Stepmoms not able to handle the hate, Stepmoms that are in therapy because of the trauma caused by the stepkids actions, I heard horror stories of marriages breaking up because of the stress. I didn’t want to be a horror story and I was afraid. I was afraid to stand up to a 14 year old girl because I loved my husband so much I didn’t want his love for me to turn to hate. You can’t live your life in fear. Now I am clinically depressed and have anxiety attacks at moments. There are days where I really don’t want to get out of bed and weekends where I sleep for 12-14 hours and it takes all I can to get out of bed. There are days where I can’t stop crying for no good reason. I cry because something sad happens in cartoons. The movie Bolt, yes, I cried when the dog was being sweet, how sad is that?!  There are days where my heart is pumping so hard in my chest I think it might just pump right out and I’m afraid to go to the store on the off chance I might see the child and her mother (I have never ran into either of them, but this is the extent of my fear).

So now the child doesn’t come over anymore and I am afraid of what will happen when she decides to come back. I know I can’t live with this fear, it is not good for me or my marriage, and slowly I am opening up to hubby about what is going on. Last night we were driving and he asked why I was angry. I wasn’t angry, that I knew, but once I got talking I found I was angry. I was angry because of the mess his child left in the house that I was cleaning up. I was angry because I worked side by side with him on the child’s room to make it a nice safe place for her and here I was doing all the work again (yes, he offered to help) and finding things written on the walls and other things damaged and broken. A freaking expensive faucet that was in the bathroom is broken and needs to be replaced and it’s only 2 years old. I explained that I trusted him to stay on top of his daughter, I trusted him to watch over her and to make sure she was doing what she was suppose to be doing. I trusted him to teach her respect and watch over her so she wasn’t damaging the home. I blasted him because of the fact that he raised her to be like that. It was his fault and TM’s fault and my fault was not standing up for myself. My new realization, I don’t want the child in my home that I share with my husband until she is sorry for what she does and she works to repair the relationship. I am willing to forgive, but I won’t forget. The child will have to accept responsibility for her actions and accept the consequences for those actions.