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Very Long Rant About Being Marginalized

Gwen's picture

So I've been soooo supportive--the change to 50% custody (still progressing), the soccer coaching of SS's team, protecting the kids from conflict--just a class a stepmom. Believe me, it's hard. Several emails exchanged today, then DH spent a half hour over at BM's telling the kids they are going to a new school this fall (SS got into a GATE program and both are being switched). It was MY IDEA that the two bios told the two kids together, as a team. I sent him over there! I thought it was best for the kids. I was totally supportive.

Granted, I was annoyed after having spent the day dealing with custody details, emails between BM and DH about the school change and the custody change, even an email from BM's MOM asking about the SOCCER SCHEDULE--hello, can you not ask your daughter? I am so sick of living day in and day out with BM and her goddang family.

Last night I try to talk to DH about how, specifically, with 50/50 we are going to handle the time between after school and when we can realistically leave work. We are both owners in our firms and there are some obligations that are hard to work around. We'd talked last year when we started the custody thing about my changing to part-time (which I've wanted to do anyway, to start rolling into writing or consulting), enrolling the kids in some interesting activity after school, leaving work early on those days, some combination of these things, but the custody thing dragged on soooo long that the details became unimportant. It's been almost a year! So now it looks like it's going to happen and I tried to talk to DH about what, specifically, we were going to do--which he has to present in custody mediation Wednesday morning--and all I get is "you can't go part time we'll never move out of this house" "no I don't have a plan, no I don't have any thoughts" "no, I don't want to talk about it" gripegripedefensivegripedefensivegripe

Fine. Knock yourself out. Good luck with the mediator day after tomorrow.

So today he toddles off to his big "family meeting" with BM and the skids while I stay home alone feeling like I did the right thing to send him off but also feeling sad.

What really pissed me off was this: tonight, as he's telling me how the new school discussion went he says "oh and BM mentioned soccer logistics" What? "Well SD wants to go to SS's first practice on Thursday."

The deal is, DH is SSs coach for the first time ever this year. It's been a really, really big deal. I've watched the kids so he can go to coaching clinics, pick up soccer gear. I've helped remind of him of deadlines, organize the team list, helped him call parents, find an assistant coach, all the details. I've talked about how excited I am to be helping him with this and being part of the "team"--coach's wife! I've talked about how I excited I am to go to the practices with him to get to know the other parents. Just this morning as SS left to go to his mom's, I said see you Thursday honey! You know why? It's your first soccer practice. Of course, I wouldn't miss it sweetie. DH standing right there, responded to the comment. Of course, he already knew I was going, after the last two months of excitement, right? Riiiiggghhht.

So what does d*ckhead say to BM as he's walking out the door after the big new school talk? "Well, I'll be too busy coaching to watch SD so you'll have to make other arrangements"

Ex-freaking-scuse me? What the hell am I, chopped liver? Um, why did it not occur that Gwen would be there the whole time and could watch SD?

No, DH doesn't have ANY issue with me watching SD, he just plain old effing forgot that I had anything to do with the whole deal! Plain old effing wrote me off as a player in his little family drama. Just forgot about months of excitement and planning. Yes, he's just a dense guy. Yes, he's just lame. But he's lame in a way that really, really, really hurts. Why in the name of all that's holy should I effing put out all this effort, rearrange my life if all he's going to do is disrespect me, forget me, omit me, diminish me.

It's always been this way. Halloween the first year we were engaged he tells BM "sure I'll come to your house and taket the kids trick or treating in your neighborhood" Where do we live, a goddamn federal prison? It's always like that. What really hurts is that his default is minus me. After nearly five years together, and one year of marriage. I am not really family, and this is not home. No matter how much time I spend caring, tending, loving, wiping tears, playing, teaching. No matter how much love and support I give. No matter how much I sacrifice. I will always be second. I feel forever robbed of ever getting to be one of the "core" in a family unit. I try so hard to do the right thing, and all I get is kicked in the stomach.

He can't do the 50/50 custody thing without me, but in his mind I am still peripheral. What a d*ckhead. Perhaps I should have said no to this second wife/stepmom thing, left him to be forever managed by his ditzy ex wife, who would have been happier than a pig in you know what to continue to manage his calendar, his parenting, his vacations, his parenting etc. etc. B&stard. I am so unhappy. As the anger subsides, it's just a great big old wound that has roots that go back several decades, and his failure to even consider me as a factor unless I bitch, nag and manage just keeps re-opening this stupid pain. I am so sick of being peripheral to everyone. I've never, ever been number 1, to anyone. I always thought that being married would fix that, finally I'd be number 1. I don't mind sharing the spot with his kids, but to be constantly overlooked, as a default, is just humiliating and painful.

I HATE THIS.

Comments

luvdagirl's picture

Well it sounds like you are trying to be respectful of their roles as the birthparents but personally it sounds like you giving them that respect has turned into their license to exclude you. Where was this "family meeting" about the schools at? Why were you excluded? I used to try to make things easier for BM and DH by being on the sides but like you when it came time for all the real work it seemed to fall to me alot and I too began to feel like the world didn't appreciate the effort I had put into it everyday-Try going to school and being reminded that I have no legal rights or even to get SD registered for cheerleading clinic and be told that I had to get DH to turn in paperwork----RIDICULOUS!!! BM tried telling me that I needed to stay the F out of it since it wasn't my business, But when two years ago we started custody fight all the vital records I had kept tracking the things that were said and done and all the stuff were the most damming thing to the BM case. Anyways I hope you didn't get lost in my rant what I mean to say is that you really need to make them adjust to your being there when they have these family meetings even if its not the most comfortable for anyone else atleast your more in the loop with what is going on and since your dealing with SKs more than either of them its only right... but I really need to say that men are generally really ignorant to our roles in the family unless you tatoo it on some important body part you do have to remind them that they can't do it without us and they really do seem to expect us to know all the answers without their help alot of the time.....OR tell him what my sister once suggested for a man we know.. When you wake up and he smiles and says goodmorning look him straight in the eye and calmly say"I guess it really is true... ignorance is bliss" I hpe this helps.

Gwen's picture

sorry I was so upset I wasn't super clear. I could have chosen to be included in the discussion but chose not to because I thought (1) it would be good for the kids to get the illusion that their bioparents are working together and (2) I thought it would escalate the situation for the kids to have all four parents (bio and step) crowding around them. At my request DH suggested to BM and she agreed that the decision was to be presented by only the bios, but also presented as a decision by all four parents and that the kids could talk to us at any time. Mind you, this was ALL my idea. If BM had her way she would have given the 7 year old the choice of where to go to school (oh, Good idea BM. SD has meltdowns about picking out a stuffed animal), and DH would still be fighting with BM about which school which kid should go to. I acted as a behind the scenes mediator, helping DH figure out how to process the issues, reach a conclusion, design a solution and how to talk to BM, and how to present to the kids. In the end they were all his decisions, but he would have wandered around in fog land forever if I hadn't stepped up to help. (The reason why he was so easily manipulated by BM when even two years after separation she was still running his house and calendar. Can you believe this man is a partner in a law firm?)

While it was hard for me, I think I did the right thing.

What I'm really pissed about is after that level of effort and sacrifice (just one drop in the lake of what I've been doing lately to try to help with custody etc. but also to remember *my* boundaries), DH just completely forgot about me while talking to BM. Just slipped his mind that we've been talking for two months about this soccer adventure. I mean, it's been a HUGE deal--DH and the kids and I all have matching soccer t-shirts, we've been talking about it for months!

It's not this one incident it's a long long pattern with DH--help me, be there for me, sacrifice for me, invest for me, and I still get to treat you like a -- a -- I don't even know what. But certainly not the number one person or female lead in his life.

It's not a malicious omission by DH, it's a sin of his default emotional state. Somewhere in the back of his mind, I will always be just the girlfriend. I can never have the respect due a wife unless I pin him to the mat and sit on his head. If I were their mom, he never would have just assumed I wasn't coming to practice. The information wouldn't have flown out of his head the minute he lost sight of me. But he never marginalizes the woman with the "real" standing, his ex. No matter what an idiot she is. No matter what horrible (and untrue) things she says about him and his relationship to his kids. It just doesn't matter.

Clearly, after a night's sleep, I am still very bitter.

Anonymous's picture

This is the first time I've read/responded to a stepparenting blog. I've been an SM (sorry if I get the abbreviations wrong) to an SD officially for 8 years, been with her dad for 10 years. We only lived in the same state as SD for about a year before the BM starting this multiple-state journey. My husband (DH?) has always been at the losing end of any court battle, in spite of attorney switches, attempts on my part to get us prepared and make an effort to level the playing field.

We just finished a ten day summer visit. SD hasn't been here since her week at Christmas, and court order calls for 6-8 WEEKS during the summer, but her BM and BGM, whom SD and BM are living with, left it up to SD about length of visit, and she chose ten days. Now, my BD5 is heartbroken, because her sissy is already leaving, and my BD2 has just opened up to her, and now she's gone.

I hear you on the stuff about being marginalized, being peripheral, and it doesn't matter that we have our own kids. After a horrible Christmas visit that included the BM, who lived in Alabama at the time, sending the cops to our house in Ohio (DH is a cop in our town) because we had the nerve to take SD12's cellphone away at 11:30PM because we felt she was talking on it too late, I have felt myself to be emotionally bankrupt in regards to my SD. I was told, by several people on several sides of the issue, including my husband (DH?, not sure on that abbreviation), that I was the problem. So I completely emotionally distanced myself, didn't give or take, didn't ask, didn't care. Just went around quietly trying not to get in the way, doing the laundry, cooking the meals, planning the required "fun stuff", buying some school supplies for SD. And in the end, I still got told, as my husband and SD left for the airport this morning, that I was nothing but a big b@#$@ and that I should save my good-byes, because they didn't need them. I was told this by my husband, who, presumably, plans on returning home to me tonight and taking up life with me again.

Marginalized? That is not even the half of it. I have not yet figured out the roll my husband wants me to play in this tragedy. I am losing interest fast, in trying to figure it out. My husband lied about who SD was, told me she was his niece. It wasn't until we had to see the priest for the required pre-marriage ceremony counseling that he even fessed up to the previous marriage and that the kid was his. I had, of course, already found this out from other people who thought I should know. I don't know what is expected of me, and I am tired of trying to figure it out. SD has never respected me and never seen me as anything but a way to get clothes/money/toys/trips, since I'm the logistical coordinator of the household. What do you do in that case?

You can't be a SP unless your spouse is backing you up, through the mistakes and through the few moments of brilliance. So why are the BP's such idiots about that?

Dawn-Moderator's picture

I just wanted to say that I know how bad that feels. I don't really have any solutions for you but I'm sending hugs your way! Hang in there!

Dawn