OUR SITUATION

We met at the school. Our kids were in the same class in primary. We were both (relatively) newly divorced (my gf very newly and me about a year or so out). I parent my son (now 12 years old) full time (his mum is very absent – she lives hours away and sees him one weekend a fortnight and in holidays) and my gf parents her two boys (9 and 11) almost full time (they spend every other weekend with their father and one night a week).

We fell in love.

Our relationship (we’ve been together 5 years or so, on and off) has been passionate, intense, at times wonderful and at times impossible. My gf has a history of mental health issues and has a diagnosis of BPD – which has been at the root of some very emotional outbursts, some pretty intense rages, and has helped to create a relationship that has always been tumultuous (I acknowledge I must have played my part in that too).

LIVING TOGETHER AND KIDS

I’ve known from very early on that I don’t feel comfortable living with my gf at this time. Something in my gut has told me that if I do I will regret it and will be sacrificing my wellbeing and my son’s wellbeing. Here’s why:

My gf’s emotional state can be unpredictable at times. She is a wonderful person. I love her very, very much, and appreciate so many things about her and about what we share. However, she can be unpredictable and when we are together (our current arrangement is that we live separately and spend one night in the week together, plus weekends – we do see each other at other times too and share holidays together during holiday periods but this is our basic structure) you never quite know what might “offend” or “hurt” her at any given moment or on a bad day (i.e., she might take offense if I’m too tired to have sex on a given night, don’t show her the right amount of attention, or something she’ll pick up on that indicates she’s being short-changed emotionally). Even my son has started to notice that it can feel like “walking on eggshells” around her sometimes (and sometimes not).

Her kids. They aren’t “bad” kids in any way. They can be lovely. But they are truly exhausting. They are SO DIFFERENT to my son and how they operate as a family unit is SO DIFFERENT to how my son and I operate. They are loud and boisterous, they interject in conversations all the time (especially their mum's), they seem to think that their mum should be at their beck-and-call, no matter what she might be doing, they “invade” conversations, our adult time together, barge into the bedroom. They CANNOT play a game fairly. They argue and fight constantly. A car journey with them feels like coming out of a decade-long military conflict. They seem unable to listen when told NOT to do something. They seem to think the world is THEIR playground – and that all that matters is their pleasure at any given moment. Their mum, it seems to me, is the facilitator and enabler of this – and it drives me nuts. I try to be tolerant. My son is tolerant too (but he doesn't enjoy the dynamic - at all). But the truth is that when we come home after spending a day, night, or weekend with them, we are thankful for our sanctuary of peace, of calm, of not feeling like we are living in the midst of a tornado. We are fundamentally different families in terms of our pace of life, our dynamics, our emotional DNA.

You know when you “just know” that living together isn’t going to work? Well, I feel like I “just know” it.

But I guess the thought that we MIGHT still be able to make things work if we tried the “living together apart” sort of model has been seductive. So that’s what we currently do. That’s what we’ve been trying. We have a structure of spending Wednesday’s together, we come together as a “family” under one roof, we share time, share a meal, all sleep under one roof. We live in our separate homes for the rest of the week and share weekends together too. Every other weekend my gf and I get time alone (all children are with other parents) and every other weekend we have all the children. My gf and I also spend time together alone - sometimes during the week – when the children are at school.

Honestly, this arrangement is the best I feel I can manage in order to preserve my own and my son’s wellbeing at this time and for our relationship to "work." But it isn't "working."

THE COMPLEXITIES

Ultimately, for me, it’s simple. I fell in love with my gf. Without sugar coating it, I DIDN’T (and I feel terrible writing this – but it’s true) fall in love with her kids. The most valuable and rewarding times in our relationship, for me, are the times we share as a couple, alone (which are increasingly few and far between as time goes by). I “enjoy” (or is it “tolerate?”) the time we all spend together but lately it also simply leaves me feeling increasingly frustrated, exhausted, invisible, and undervalued.

For me, there HAS to be a balance between that sort of chaotic, invasive, exhausting climate – and some genuinely rewarding time as adult relationship partners.

I guess I also realise, as things become clearer with time, that I don’t even “like” the person my gf becomes when she’s around her children. I find it irritating, frustrating, and feel invisible and unseen. I feel she is a slave to their every emotional whim – and treats them like infants.

I realise that if I could click my fingers and have what my deeper psyche really wants – then it’d probably be a relationship with my gf WITHOUT her kids.

Conversely, if she could click her fingers, she’d want me to be as “in love with” her kids as she is. She’d want me to be there 24/7, for her not to feel alone, and to feel like I’m completely happy and OK with being a part of their “dynamic.” I think she’d also choose for my son not to be part of her ideal.

Neither are possible, of course. Both are pure fantasy.

Resentment is brewing (and has now been served too) in lots of ways and has been the cause of conflict and anger for a while now. My gf resents the fact that I cannot “be” what she’d ideally like me to be. She resents my son for being part of the reason I can’t do that. She resents my need for needing space and time outside of the blended dynamic. She resents me for not being something I can’t be. I resent the fact that she resents all of that. I resent the fact that her children invade almost all of the time we have to spend together. I resent the fact that she doesn’t seem to care when I tell her I need to find a balance between the relative frustration, chaos, and exhaustion of “skid-centred life” with the “connected, exclusive, romantic, us-centred life” that I need to “find” in order to feel that this relationship is still rewarding enough for me too.

ALL IN ALL

This site has been an amazing eye-opener for me in relation to helping me categorise feelings and emotions that seem to be more commonplace in step/blended family life than I'd ever have guessed. I feel a little better realising that it’s not necessarily an abnormality:

To fall in love with someone and NOT to automatically fall in love (or perhaps NEVER fall in love) with their children.

To find that your partner can take on a different persona when in-relationship with their children than they do when in-relationship with you – and that you might be deeply in love with one persona and, simultaneously, strongly dislike the other (what a mindf**k that is).

To realise that sometimes the dynamics and ways of being of two families trying to blend just CANNOT fit neatly together – and that trying to make them do so creates by-products and toxins you didn’t anticipate and that can eat you (all) alive.

Thank you to all who’ve written here – because you’ve helped me appreciate that the above sorts of feelings (that I’ve wrestled with, alone, for what seems like forever) – aren’t something other people aren’t struggling with too – and they can be articulated.

WHERE I’M AT

Right now, my gf and I have reached a place where we have taken a separation period. I reached a place, two weeks ago, where I could not continue. I couldn’t take another Wednesday feeling like I’m going to go nuts if I have to witness the dynamic her children create with her and the behaviour they inflict on the whole household. I couldn’t take another week of feeling like I’m “tolerating” something and getting nothing in return. I couldn’t take another week of trying to tell my gf I NEED to protect our time together too – to feel like she just doesn’t care about that. I couldn’t take another week of feeling like she hates me for not being what she really desires.

I just couldn’t take another step.

So, we called a break…

I don’t know what I’m asking for here. I guess I just feel so tired of the complexity. I think I thought (looking at what I’ve written, I must have been nuts?!) we could “make this work” – somehow. I guess I just need someone to hear my struggles, to feel less alone in them. I’m sure my gf would tell a very different story to the one I’ve told…and it would be equally as valid. But I’ve reached a place where I need MY side of the story to feel valid too…