Real life the reality of being a stepmom

INTRO:





This book is NOT intended to make you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. I’m not going to blow a bunch of smoke up your butt about how everyone in your blended family can all get along, love each other dearly and start a traveling music group. This book is intended to let me get all this reality off my shoulders and maybe let some of you know that the things that you are feeling are NORMAL…It’s OK to NOT like your step-kids all the time (in some cases ever).

You can read all the ‘self-help’ books on the subject of step-kids and blended families you want but in my experience not all the advice is realistic and makes you feel worse than you did before you picked the book up. That being said, this is NOT a ‘self-help’ book. Hopefully me telling my story will help someone to not feel alone like I did and maybe less like a ’horrible person’ for the feelings that you are having.



Okay, ready? Here we go…









CHAPTER 1



I was a semi-only child. I do have a brother but he was married, starting a family and out of the house before I was even born. So I lived my life as an only child. As I got older I often  wondered what it would be like to have a large family however not enough to do anything about it. Don’t get me wrong, I like kids, just not other peoples kids. I married young, divorced quickly and my daughter being an only child was fine with me.



I later met a man that could do what no other man had done before, he could make me laugh till I peed my pants, I knew I had to marry him. So I did. We worked blue collar jobs that payed  hardly enough to make ends meet. Oh who am I kidding the ends never met. We were broke, all the time. Other woman were shopping, making plans to meet with the ladies for lunch and I was cleaning their houses so they didn’t have to. Why were we so broke you ask? Okay, I’ll let you twist my arm.





CHAPTER 2



The EX-WIFE. Just the mere mention of that phrase strikes fear into the hearts of men and second wives all over the world. Cue Darth Vader breathing tract.



Yes, my husband was married before, like myself. Oh did I forget to mention that? I wish I could forget that (so does he). He also has 4, yes 4 children with her. Now here is the section of the book that I’ve been dreading. Do I have a whole chapter dedicated to the woman that made my life a living hell for the first 4 years of my relationship with my husband? NO, I won’t do it. I will just give you the short list.



She did everything in her power to make sure her family was supported and well taken care of. As long as that meant not getting out of bed, cleaning her house or…dare I say it…getting a JOB! And to make things worse the live in boyfriend wouldn’t get a job either. Yep, we were supporting 2 households. So that is why we were so broke. We got to work 2-3 jobs at a time and she got to nap, shop, collect state aid and child support. As far as domestic duties went in her house, they didn’t. The children were on auto-pilot.



That was the sad part. They were raising themselves and it was going all wrong. With no one there to guide them on a day to day basis they developed all kinds of bad behaviors. The kids really got used to no one being in charge and it was starting to show. For example the oldest daughter stopped coming on her fathers weekends because there were just too many rules and we were ‘watching her’ too closely. Well that’s because she was developing a stealing problem and no one at her house minded.

The two youngest children were very sweet but with no guidance they were quite rough around the edges. The floor was just as good a place as any for garbage, dirty clothes, food and the quite consistent pile of dog poop. 



Well, I could go on from there but, I’d like to get to the heart of the matter here…the day our whole lives changed.









CHAPTER 2 ½



I told you I refuse to give that woman a whole chapter.