Not Being a Stepmom

On July 1, 2008, when I moved in with my boyfriend, I officially became a stepmom. A little over six years later, in September 2013, my relationship ended, I moved out and I stopped being a stepmom.

Being a stepmom was probably the hardest and yet most rewarding thing I have ever done. I've never being a "regular" parent so I can't make a comparison first hand. There are probably a lot of things that are the same but there are definitely some differences.  For example, you almost instantly have all the roles and responsibilities as a parent (feeding them, taking care of them when they are sick, the discipline etc.) but you haven't formed a relationship yet (really). You don't know how they feel about you, and you don't really know how you feel about them. There are often other parent(s) in the picture and you need to figure out where you fit in to all of that - which part is yours to play in the raising of the child. And that child may or may not resent you for a myriad of reasons from the change in household routine to jealously (although I thankfully didn't experience much of that).

But once you get through that, and you settle in, there is a lot of good stuff that can come with being a step-parent. In my case, "The Child" often would speak more freely with me than he would his dad, asking me a lot of great questions about how things in the world worked. We could have some pretty interesting conversations in the five minutes it took to get him home from daycare after school. I got to do things with him that I loved like making cookies or teaching him how to cook. I was able to share some of my family traditions with him, whether it was trick or treating Halloween, or creating some pretty awesome memories at Christmas. Every year, regardless of if he was planning to be at his mom's or his dad's for Christmas, we'd set a day to decorate the tree and house together, Christmas music playing in the background. One of my favourite Christmas memories from my childhood was the year my parents gave me a Smurf themed Christmas (because I was totally into Smurfs). All the gifts I got from Santa were Smurf related and I was thrilled. So it was pretty cool when decades later I got to do the same thing for The Child, although his was a "Nerf" themed Christmas.

Activities and traditions aside, if you are lucky (and I was), a bond forms. And they learn to love you and you learn to love them. Not because you have to, but because you want to.

When I broke up with The Child's dad, he was at his mothers for the week. He had left, on the Monday, for his usual week on/week off custody arrangement. Because the breakup was somewhat unexpected, he left not knowing that I wouldn't be there when he returned. I didn't know that either. So I didn't get a chance to talk to him or say goodbye. His dad, wanting to protect him, asked his mom to keep him a little longer until I could move out. When he eventually came back, I didn't live there anymore. And his dad didn't want me to see him.

I think - actually I know - that this was probably the hardest thing I've had to deal in my life (with perhaps the exception of my dad dying). In the first few months after the break up, it was soul crushing. If any thoughts of him or memories came bubbling to the surface I had to shove them away with everything in me in order to keep it together. I couldn't look at pictures or I'd cry. Ugly cry. I thought about writing him a letter but couldn't figure out what to say, and wasn't entirely sure (at the time) his dad would let him have it anyway.

There are a lot of articles and tips out there about the end of romantic relationships. There are a ton of blogs and resources about becoming and being a step-parent. What is surprising though is that despite all the blended and re-blended families out there these days, there isn't much about what happens with step-parents and step kids when things don't work out. And there really should be. Because you are grieving the loss of something real.

At first I didn't think I was justified in being sad. I mean, I was partially to blame for the end of the relationship with his dad and this was a consequence. And I wasn't the "real" parent so I didn't have any rights to anything. And The Child wasn't gone, he just wasn't in my life anymore. So I didn't talk about it much with anyone and I tried not to think about it. I wondered how he was doing, how school was, if he was eating his lunch or letting it go bad in his backpack (a six year, ongoing battle we had) and if he knew how much I cared about him. I wondered how soccer was going, how he was doing with homework and what he thought about all of this. Every once in a blue moon I'd see a picture of him on Facebook courtesy of his aunt or uncle and I'd be both thrilled, and then sad all over again.

About a year after the split, this past Fall, my ex wanted to borrow one of the dogs for a hike in the mountains with The Child (we had barely been on speaking terms until that point). They came by my new house to get the dog and I got to see The Child for the first time. We just exchanged hellos in the driveway for the briefest of moments and off they went. My brain went into overdrive trying to process everything. I couldn't push it away as much as I wanted to. It was so good to see him and at the same time so hard. Later that day, after the dog was returned, my ex sent some pictures from the hike of The Child and the dog. And it was like things shifted a little - maybe some healing began.

Today the three of us had brunch together - our first visit since the breakup. It made my heart so happy to see the The Child, to hear about school and the gifts he got for Christmas. To know he is doing well, making good choices and becoming a great young man. Losing our relationship (the one with The Child) will probably be one of the very few regrets I have in my life, but I feel like today I got the start of a bit of closure on grieving what our relationship was in the past. Hopefully I'll still get to know what is going on in his life as time goes on. I'd like that a lot. I'm really proud of who he is becoming and where his life is heading and I'm glad I had the opportunity to be a part of it for six years.