Summer is Approaching

Each year I enter into summertime with excitement and trepidation. Only moms in blended families can understand the incredible joy and challenge of mothering children who are not part of your history and belong to another mom. Each year I think, "okay, this year it will be easier ~ we are further along the journey, we have grown so much together..." but then my heart belies my anxiety about how things will go. I hate to experience this feeling. I like to think myself not one to buy into the worries, but my stomach has already begun knotting up...knowing that there is a daily struggle ahead to walk through.

My heart yearns for my stepchildren to know they are loved fully and completely. My heart desires to protect them from some of the things in their lives that I have no rights over. My heart breaks at some of the ways they do not recieve what I consider absolutes for children ~ and because of this it also hesitates; I know there will again be challenges in adjustment to our family's life versus what they are used to. When I first married their dad, the kids lived locally and we saw them very often. Once per week one of them would stay the night with us, as well as every other weekend, a few weeks here and there, and some extended time in the summers. That changed three years ago when their mom decided to move to Florida (not a great reason given - she and her husband just wanted to retire and move). Their dad didn't fight the move, with the reasoning that she was retiring, so they would get more of her than they had recieved before (she traveled a lot for work). He was also trying to keep them out of what would have been an ugly battle.

Well, they moved, she retired, and promptly began working full time again. Some things can't be changed...anyway, that is not my big heart issue. My big issue is how they float in and out of our lives, and how our influence is important, but not consistent. Their dad struggles daily with not being able to provide a home environment for them that he would prefer they have, and not being able to encourage their mom to consider some of his concerns. It is difficult at times, heartbreaking at others. We don't have the same challenges on my former spouse's side thankfully, but that doesn't mean I feel any better about the fact that my kids even have to adjust to two families.

My stepchildren have been parented in such a way that they are becoming the kind of kids I don't necessarily want fully influencing my children. I love my stepchildren passionately. I often fight against my urges to mother them as I would naturally do; I must relinquish that fullness since it goes against what works for their mom and causes conflict. They want to do well and are good kids overall ~ but they are not used to many things we have here such as schedules, parents overseeing their every plan, as well as other rules. They are also now 11 and 13, being raised like they are about 15 and 17 in their freedoms and adult interactions. This causes some adjustment conflicts each summer when they arrive for an extended "visit" (this year is nine weeks, usually it is 7-8).

The three to ten day visits throughout the year are a bit easier as they truly are "visiting" those times. Sliding kids in and out of our daily lives, incorporating them and embracing them, and then letting them slip back home for many weeks between shorter visits is very difficult emotionally as we miss them so much, but it is not as disruptive in the family dynamics... I can't even put to words the challenges of incorporating kids in to a totally different environment than their regular home life when they spend at least 75% of their time at their regular home. It doesn't work this way in my mind, but the actuality is always something that pulls at the hearts and emotions in them and us...how do you compartmentalize life? It is totally unfair. I know why marriages are intended to be forever.

Anyway, with their return fast approaching, I am preparing their rooms and clothes, connecting with my husband about summer plans, and discussing what might be done differently related to some things this summer as compared to last ~ as well as affirming with one another what has been good overall. In the interim, as this time where their mother must relinquish them draws near, I am getting verbally berated by *interested parties* about how I care about the kids and try to support them. I have been flat out told that I need to butt out of their lives and not worry about anything they are dealing with and not try to help them with struggles they have in school or challenges they have with other things because it is "none of my business." I have been attacked for things I have done with them in the past that they "didn't need and never would have had" if it had only been their dad caring for them. (Course, if he was still single, they wouldn't be able to come visit for most of the summer so there would be differences there anyway.) I am overall being challenged to "realize that I am not their mother (uh, yeah, I know) and therefore I have no *rights* to parent them (unless it is something their mom asks me to do, according to this person). Their dad continues to be treated as a prop in their lives. It is truly amazing to me. The anger being directed toward me is not my husband's perspective, but he is not yet able to support me in these instances. It is truly HARD. I feel drained after these encounters, and discouraged as well.

As these interactions have been amping up again, and as the kids have continuously been taught and encouraged to judge me as inadequate and a bit crazy; not necessarily someone that they need to respect or listen to unless their dad is telling them to, I am praying steadily that God will again work miracles through me by keeping me from reacting to the strains from the actions that come from this teaching... keeping me steady in trusting that I can do all things through Him alone. Last summer was better, as was Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break - we only had a couple of real struggles this past year...but...life is life, and that means it is undpredictable.

Ultimately as I sit here and type this, I know it will be okay. We have had some wonderful visits. I am just on edge because of the need for "perfect" behavior in order not to be judged as lacking and reported upon to others. It feels like a fishbowl effect. Any dispute that arises between my husband and myself (which happens a bit more during the transition times as the anxiety is there based upon the lack of control my husband has for what he prefers for them and what he wants for them...) is grounds for reporting more about our "terrible marriage" to their home. Any challenge stirred up late in the day that is between the kids and I is also an area of contention as the splitting efforts begin and my husband's guilt/protective instincts kick in against me given how much he has had to fight against his former wife to keep his time with the kids. This, of course, often gets blown out of proportion. It can be very provocative and stirring in our home. My stepkids have been taught that "normal families don't argue" and if you argue "there is something wrong with you." I really have no idea how their home life works, but it appears that there must be much disconnection, and I don't ever want that in my family. I know you won't argue if you continue to go your own way and do your own thing...but what kind of intimacy would that breed?

So, I enter in to the homestretch of preparation. Much time being spent shoring up coparent values, preparing my heart for submitting when it goes against everything in me, and trusting that God will lead us through ~ not just "making it", but loving one another triumphantly. He has brought us so far...our family unity can only continue to improve as we grow together and individually under His tender love and mercy. It is times like these I especially Thank God HE is God and I can rest in Him.