Squillion's recent post made me remember this from another board. This is fantastic. I think many of us could have authored this....

Did You Know?

Author Unknown

I phone my mother to fill her in on my married life and she says, "You knew what you were getting into". And I think, how can she know?

My mother has been married once, to a man who has only been married once. They are still married. I have uncles who have divorced and had multiple wives, cousins who have somehow coped with stepparents and half or step siblings. But we never talk about that. So I wonder how this wise woman can know what it's like to be in my place, dealing with frustrating feelings, fleeting emotions, paranoia and stress?

Seven common words. Seven words used by everyone, everyday. To one demographic this particular arrangement shoots straight to our core.

Second wives. Stepmothers.

I have not been either for very long, but I've been on the message boards and in the forums. There are many species of us, but still there are some basic commonalities between us. For my kind, we are second wives to first husbands, no children of our own and the rhythm of our routines is ruptured ever other week (and sometimes in-between) by forces we cannot (even legally, sometimes) control. Perhaps the best advice I can offer to these women is Give Up. Give up the notion that you did, in fact, know what you were getting into when you married this man. Give up and it'll be easier to deal with.

Of course, there are the rare cases where stepmotherhood is everything a woman thought it would be. You marry a man, he has a tyke running around who adores you, and you live as a happy family, ever after. Then there are the rest of us.

The ones who married men who see their kids maybe 60 days a year. The ones with kids who are 8 or 12 or 16 years old. The ones with ex-wives who somehow manage to creep their way back into their lives in increasing amounts as the years go by. The ones who are devastated by this. The ones who try in vain to maintain relationships with their children when inside they too have given up, claimed defeat, lost.

Did we know what we were getting ourselves into? Could we have? Were we supposed to know what toll the ex-wife, the children, the situation in general or the situations that were to come, would have on us?

I'm not pretending that if I had my own biological family that we wouldn't have our share of problems. I'm sure there'd be disagreements over grades, clothes, homework. But these are not our families. Publicly, on paper, in society's rhetoric we are a family. But in our hearts, our souls, we know . These kids may outright hate us, disrespect us or they may simply come to accept our presence in their lives. Yet we continue to toil for their benefit, providing them the comforts of our home, presents on birthdays and holidays, transportation to the mall, movie tickets, college funds, health insurance. We don't expect any thanks, and usually, none are even offered. We have no real say in how they behave in our own home, much less how they are raised or how they are disciplined.

Sometimes we thought we knew what we were getting into. Sometimes the early days are bittersweet memories, when our husband's child(ren) displayed delight at us being there for dinner, or to go to the movies, or to hang out. They liked us as friends, but as soon as the proposal was made, they withdrew. Or maybe the kids always resented us being there, threw peas in our hair, screamed at us in an adolescent rage before slamming the door and they became more scathing, more manipulative as they grew up. We might have even gone to message boards and forums and culled what we thought was brilliant and enlightened advice to wield only to have it backfire.

What we knew was that we were marrying very special men. We were marrying our loves, our soul mates, partners who brought out the best in us. Yes, we knew they had children. Yes, we knew they had former wives. As for me, no matter what the wisest, most experienced stepmother on the Internet says, I did not marry the children . I did not marry the former wife. I know. I was there at the wedding ceremony. We were pronounced 'man and wife'. Not 'man, his kids, and you', not 'man, his kids, their mother and I'm sorry-you are??" What we knew was that we were taking steps to move our own lives forward, to go forth as a unit forging a life of our own to live together happily ever after. What we knew was life is often unfair and is fond of curve balls but we should be open to all possibilities.

What we really didn't know was how our perspective would change. We didn't predict that we would get tired of the ex-wife interfering in our lives (yes, we know she's our stepchildren's mother and that she must have some contact with our husband regarding them), we didn't realize our husbands would be doormats for children who found the power of guilt, and we certainly didn't know that our lives, futures, desires would be put on the back burner until these same children got what they wanted or grew up and out of the house. And when we did realize what we had indeed gotten into....

We tried to play peacekeeper. We tried to stay out of it. We tried to do what we thought best for our men. We tried to do what we thought was best for the children. We offered our opinions, we offered our sacrifices. We tried disengaging, we tried to give room, we tried to be patient. We gathered strength to be more supportive, more caring, more understanding. We melted, bent and conformed to the needs of our husbands, their children, their ex-wives. We waited years to begin new families that only stirred up more turmoil. We grew restless, and--sometimes--resentful.

To add insult to injury there are those, even among us, who maintain we knew what we were getting into. That we should never have gotten married if we weren't going to unconditionally love and accept all the strings that came attached. We should be downright grateful that we have stepchildren. That it can never be the stepchild's responsibility--no matter how old they may be--for how they treat us or their fathers, that they are innocent and only act out through some fault of our own. That if you give them and their mothers respect, they will reciprocate. They say we gave up our rights to want lives, families of our own when we chose the men.

Did we really know all this beforehand?

Did we know we would lose ourselves to the undertow? Could we have been better prepared? If it were our own children it would be easier...we could lay down the ground rules, we could do our best, without invoking the rage and wrath of the other mother, or the father, or the children who--intentionally or not-- pit each party against the others. Was there a way to know what we would be sacrificing of ourselves, that we totally ignored? Even a convict with a lifetime sentence has the opportunity for parole, why don't we?

No, I did not know what I was getting into. I do not enjoy it. I do not look forward to what it brings. Nor do I want the negativity in my life. And unless you live it, you can't begin to fathom what it is like.

If you're really interested in helping and you obviously know what it is that I've gotten into, then tell me how to get out of it, over it, around it--but please, do not presume to tell me I knew what I was getting into.