do you feel this way too on your "happy" days?
This happens to me all the time and I can't help it. BF has every 2 day custody, plus all the days BM finds something better to do and I really hate having skid11 around for so many reasons which you are all familiar with because you are in the same boat. Anyway, I spend the days he is with us finding things to occupy my time, either productive or fun, but I miss the quality time with BF and deep down the skid days always suck and the skid weekends are worse and don't get me started about skid holidays (the next 3 of which BM has kindly offered ie. dumped on us). But, I am finding that I spend much of the NON-skid time thinking....wow, this is so pleasant, some people live like this all the time, some people just enjoy their BF without his baggage and without the BM crap....and these thoughts make me a little cranky, and then as our non-skid days pass way too quickly, I get even more cranky because he is coming back before I know it and I never even have time to settle into the peace that is my own home when he is absent. Then he is back, repeat the cycle every two days. Its like going on a vacation that is too short and as soon as you finally relax and put on your bikini, its time to plan the trip back to the airport. I find myself spending my short non-skid vacations dreading the time when he will return. Bottom line, my skid time sucks because of skid and my non-skid time sucks because I cannot turn off my brain and just just enjoy the brief bit of peace I have. Anyone else like this? Anyone else manage to overcome it? I would like a little bit of happiness before skid turns 18.....in 6.34 years!
Read a lot of the blogs on
Read a lot of the blogs on here - so many of us deal with this situation - if you love your BF this is what you have to deal with for the next 6.34 years - I actually keep a countdown calendar until my SS graduates in 2012. I look at it and it makes me happy when the numbers keep getting smaller and smaller - }:) }:)
Enjoy the non-skid time and try to tolerate the skid time as best as you can - xanax and ativan and alcohol seem to help alot!!
I like that idea of the
I like that idea of the count-down. I am a very patient person, and I know the 40 potential great years with BF will make up for the 6.34 (started with 9) crap skid years... And I will just pretend it isn't possible that skid will end up an emotional wreck loser who won't go to college and will still insist that daddy tuck him in to bed when he is 21. Do you literally have a countdown ticker? On your computer? If so, how did you set it up? I can see that really helping mentally. Time does pass, even though with skid around, time passes like when you try to hold your breath for a minute.
Forever I so relate to this.
Forever
I so relate to this. My only advice is to try and enjoy your Step kid Free time.Fortunately for me, my BF get his kids EOW which does give our childfree time in longer intervals.
It is a shame for some of us to waste the good time not enjoying it because we dread the upcoming bad times ..LOL I have even started torturing myself even more by thinking about the hypothetical scenario of "what if when my BF's 2 get older, what if they want to live with him (us)" I cringe....(shudder)
Whateva
I worry about that too. My
I worry about that too. My answer will be no. Flat out, sorry sweetie, but no. He knew when we started dating that I don't like kids. We both agreed EOW and Wednesday evenings. I even brought up to him before we married that exact what if scenario, and he said that BM wanted the divorce, therefore custody would be her cross to bear. He loves his son dearly, but we had him almost every day for this past summer, and he got zero work done, had to take SS8 to the university every day to work with him(damn lucky no one complained about it), and it cost us a fortune...all the while he is paying $600/mo CS and half of SS8's camps she signed him up for (without consulting DH first about the cost).
I know people will say "well, it will be different when his son begs him to let him come live with him" and you may be right. To which I will say fine, I'll be moving out 2 days before he moves in, and the divorce will be final after that. His choice. I'm already on Zoloft for the first time in my LIFE I have EVER had to be on any kind of medication, because of BM and SS8. He can have the child he didn't really want to have live with him, or the wife he claims is the love of his life. Won't care. Heck, the reason I don't care right now is because of the Zoloft!
Triggerfishgal : ) Perhaps I
Triggerfishgal : )
Perhaps I should have my Dr prescribe me some...even though I am not a fan of medicine, I would give it a try especially eow
Yeah I know sometimes you should not worry about the future but i have been hearing more and more stories of older kids and adult kids coming back to live and even though i cant speak on how I will feel in the future , if I were asked today if they could come live with us I would tell him no..that was not what I signed up for and even though some wil say "you knew he had kids" well he knew i didn't
Whateva
i actually look forward to
i actually look forward to skid time. sure, i enjoy my time alone with FH too...i guess EOWeekend just works out better for us. we may even be trying for more time with SD6 in the future.
I have often thought about
I have often thought about that barely-enjoying-the-vacation-before-you-start-dreading-it-being-over metaphor! That 2 day cycle sounds horrendous. It must be unsettling for SKid11 as well. One of my SKids just moved in full time, now I get one day off a week and EOW. On my day off I frequently find I get quite tense thinking how to best relax and make the most of it, and at the end of it never feel I have made the most of it. It's hard to know whether to Do Stuff or just enjoy flopping about in the house with DD3 and DS1. I care a lot for my SKids and have a good relationship with them, but still it is NOT as relaxing as homelife with just DH and DD3 and DS1.
My other favourite metaphor is learning to drive - for me step parenting vs bio parenting is always like learning to drive vs experienced driving. With my children everything is easy, familiar, natural, I parent without thinking about it most of the time. With my SKids I always have to think about it 'mirror,signal, manoevre': 'am I being fair, how shall I deal with this, deal with it'.
I think the longer visitation schedule Momster suggests might be better for you, and for SKid. What I have been thinking is that given that DH and I get much less alone time now we have a SKid in full time residence we need to make a special effort to set aside time for ourselves. When things have settled down with SD14 I want to go for some weekend breaks and try to make more special time, maybe that might help you, you could agree some longer 4 day weekends when you actually got more time to wind down and enjoy being wound down before you wind up again?!
the mere thought of seeing
the mere thought of seeing skids every 2 days makes me want to go file the papers today... i honestly don't think i could handle any more skid time then i am already stuck with. really, 2 days on/off sounds like one of the shittiest schedules i have ever heard of for the interest of everyone included~~ i guess one day on/off would be worse.
but i do inderstand your feelings, the only strecth of time i look forward to is when the skids are gone for 6 nights. then the cycle of misery starts again with skids shoved up our ass until the next 6 night stretch.
reading how so many of you are screwed with skids 24/7 or every 2 days or until bm wants to show up help me realize how bad it could be and i should be happy that our skid visitation is on a set schedule and i do get a relief time... but then i read how some never have to see skids except once a year or hardly ever and i am super jealous!! }:)
I know how you feel...BF
I know how you feel...BF daughter lives full time with us and rarely goes to BM and on the rare instance of going to a friends for the weekend, I find myself scared when the phone rings....."Daaaaaaaaaaaadddddy come pick me up I'm bored" or on Sunday...all I do all day is dread the thought that she will be coming home soon. I feel kinda bad that I feel the way I do...but you know if she was a cool kid who acted her age and wasn't such a whiney, manipulative, annoying person I would miss her and want her to come home. I have beat myself down thinking that she is just 10 and that is the way it is but she is not a normal 10 year old. I met her when she was 7 and she hasn't matured at all in this time. I hate feeling this way and I honestly am at a loss of what to do.
Jojo68 you sound like my
Jojo68 you sound like my twin. My skid is 11 and acts 6 and has not made much progress since I met him 2 years ago. I too beat myself up for not being a better person around him. Actually, I am perfect around him in my actions, but my mind and brain are screaming the opposite as I cater to him and pretend to enjoy him. I get mad at myself for feeling such hatred for a kid and soooo wishing that he never existed and the awful things I find myself daydreaming about make me concerned about myself as a person. Sometimes though I take a reality check and I remind myself to be more kind to me. The reality is that skid has a lot of issues and is not very pleasant to be around. He is very much like a parasite or a fungal infection in that you cannot get rid of him. He has no friends and hovers around us all day making stupid chatter, or demands, or just sharing his bad attitude. The moment BF and I are alone, I hear "Daaaad, where are you?" Little bugger knows where dad is but cannot stand to be second for 1 minute. BF encourages bad behavior and resists all of my input. BM is a controlling b--ch who doesn't want her own kid around and uses the crazy 2 day schedule to keep close tabs on us. She either makes that schedule or allows BF to make it and then proceeds to change it to whatever she wants. Yes, obviously a week on week off schedule would benefit everyone, but no one else sees it. BF wouldn't want to miss the kid for a whole week at a time. Skid is very needy and doesn't want to try it. BM just wants the control...she literally approves our vacations since we have to ask her nicely if she can switch a few days when we want a week off. That's my life. Its humiliating, and tiring and sometimes when I am clear-headed, I realize I am a saint for even trying to put up with it. Jojo, you say you are at a loss for what to do. I gave up fixing anything awhile ago. Now I just wait patiently...6.34 more years. Its not forever.