Blissfully Blended Bullshit

by Rebecca Eckler

  “It didn’t seem like they minded when I used to text them right after their father and I split, and I let them know that they could always reach out to me. What more could I do? I had to accept the fact that they may not want me in their lives and were just too polite to say so. For nine years we were in each other’s lives. I encouraged my kids to keep in touch with his kids. And they did for a while until, I guess, life got in the way and they were busy with their friends and school work. It didn’t seem that my children cared that much to keep in touch with his kids. Maybe they found it awkward too.” Also, she adds, while she had closure with her ex after breaking up, she didn’t feel as if she had closure with his kids, who weren’t around when she moved into her own place again. “That always makes me sad, when I think that I didn’t even really get the chance to say goodbye.”

  So, yes, I admit, I often find myself extremely jealous of my friend who set Boyfriend and me up. I look back at that night of our double date and think, “Oh, okay, now I get it! I get why you bickered so much.” Smug me is now humbled me. That’s for fucking sure. I have started to resent Boyfriend over many issues, mostly those that stem from financial disagreements and feeling as if I can do no right, that I’m always being reprimanded for something, like I’m a child. I have a myriad of complaints and hurt feelings, and I no longer trust Boyfriend’s promises that things will get better. Boyfriend has a myriad of complaints about me and my expectations, and he doesn’t understand why I lash out. It turns out that Boyfriend’s financial condition wasn’t situational, and I’ve become like my girlfriend’s ex, reminding him about how much I shell out for our blended family compared to him. I know what triggers my anger and am self-aware enough to know why I’ve started to feel unappreciated, which leads me to feel resentful and Boyfriend to feel disrespected. He doesn’t always deserve my wrath, that’s for sure. But I can never seem to get him to see my side of things.

  From my perspective, I’ve let a lot of things slide — truthfully, because Boyfriend gave me the baby I was so desperate for. When I cry to one of my friends after an epic fight with Boyfriend, years into blending, she actually says to me, “If you two didn’t have a baby together, I think you would have been done with him within six months.” I don’t know whether to agree or not — I can’t think of life now without Baby Holt in it — though I do often think that if Boyfriend and I had no kids, there would be a hell of lot less arguing and we’d be truly happy. Fuck, when I think about the early days, when we were just dating, when we had no issues and it was glorious, when I did really feel like I had found my soulmate, I felt like I was his priority. I felt wooed, and he showed it. And I showed it. But it is entirely true that I let a lot slide with Boyfriend that I never would put up with from any other man because he gave me Baby Holt, and what better gift is that? So many times, I guess, I feel like I owe him.

  By the time the friends who set up Boyfriend and me break up and she has moved out, I am catching up, understanding now how hard blending can be, how it affects everyone in the family, and how much extra effort you have to put in to make blending work, to make it so that, if everyone is not necessarily blissfully happy, they are, at the very least, reasonably happy. Yes, I’d settle for reasonably happy. So while my friends’ relationship has been beaten to shit and is dead and buried, some part of them must feel a huge relief that it has ended, as if both of them have been acquitted on all counts of murder. It was self-defence.

  My friend is free! She. Is. Out. And on some days, this makes me green with envy. My shrink tells me that “jealousy is also a fear of comparison and insecurity.” I find myself comparing my girlfriend’s once-blended family to mine, which is dumb for a number of reasons. I don’t know exactly how much of a role blending played in their breakup, because my friend has never really told me the entire story of the demise of their relationship. Plus, I don’t want to pry, and — La la la, I can’t hear you — do I really want to know? Mostly, on bad days in my blended household, I torment myself by comparing our lives, despite the fact that all families, blended or not, have their own unique issues.

  I know Boyfriend really loves me, and I love him, but I have started to feel insecure in my relationship and am starting to wonder what the hell we’ve gotten into. On many days, I wonder when I turned into such a bitch, seething with resentment, jealousy, and insecurity. What has happened to the lighthearted, witty, independent woman I once was? I wonder why Boyfriend can never, ever say he’s sorry. Mostly, I no longer feel like Boyfriend’s priority, or a priority at all. The more I tell him how I’m feeling, the more defensive he becomes. I feel a lack of appreciation for all the things I’ve purchased for him and our family — the condo in Mexico, the motorcycle I bought him for his fortieth birthday, the piece of expensive artwork I bought for our anniversary, the leather motorcycle jacket he wanted, the designer sunglasses he wanted, the $500 bottle of cologne he wanted, the house they all are living in. I’ve started to feel like a walking bank machine. All I really want is either a genuine “thank you” or a genuine “I’m sorry.”

  Because we never can seem to resolve our issues when we argue in person, the arguments often continue throughout the following days by text or email. I get a lot of emails from Boyfriend after I tell him how I’m feeling. “We can speak about everything in detail: driving Rowan, food in the fridge, paying bills, vacationing, taking care of Holt, paying for Holt, the house, repairs to the house, the condo in Mexico, showing thanks, managing and splitting time with kids, time and money spent with our own daughters, division of time, my business,” Boyfriend writes to me in one text. So it’s not like he doesn’t know what bothers me or what our relationship issues are. I stare at the list of issues he’s written out that clearly need to get resolved. Boyfriend, yes, is aware of how I’m feeling, but will anything change? Because I need them to.

  But, at the same time, I wanted all of this, right? I was the one who invited my partner and his daughters to move in. I was the one who brought up the idea of having another baby. On many, many occasions, I can’t help but think, “We thought blending our families was a great idea! We were so in love! Having another baby was a blessing! So what the hell happened to us?!”

  “At least you are dedicated to your nights playing soccer or badminton,” I find myself complaining to him, jealous of how he can find a dedicated time to play his sports, while I can’t even lock him down for one date night a week. We try, of course, to have date nights, but we can’t quite fit it in with all of our kids’ schedules and with the baby. Of course I was a priority when we first met. We were trying to impress each other and we wanted to spend all of our time together. But now, I just feel taken advantage of. I wonder how much more I have in me to make us work, considering nothing really ever gets resolved and I find myself criticizing more than complimenting. He has started criticizing more than complimenting as well.

  Bonus Daughters aren’t staying with us as much anymore, and when they do, they bring friends and boyfriends. Since their friends, boyfriends, and part-time jobs are near their mother’s, that’s where they stay most of the time. So now, to see them, Boyfriend must drive to them and take them for dinner near their mother’s house. I start to feel less and less important to him as he starts to make plans to go out more nights than not. I find myself constantly complaining that he’s not appreciative of all I have done and do. Our family is starting to unravel, because I can’t seem to lower my expectations and have started to resent the fact that I’m always being told to “be the bigger person” and that I’m being “unrealistic.” I wonder, Are we fighting to continue to blend, or is this the start of us un-blending?

  Thanks to my friend and her newfound freedom, I now also can’t stop asking myself, If I had to blend again, would I? The unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach is now constant.

  · TEN ·

  There’s subversive disparity not just within the four walls of the house, but also within the snack drawers and refrigerator. I’ve started to n
otice how Boyfriend magically turns into a short-order cook when his children are with us, buying groceries he knows they like or have asked for and practically making three-course meals when they are staying with us. On the days they are not with us, Boyfriend doesn’t seem to care as much about what we — Rowan, me, and him — are having for dinner. He’s more than happy leaving our nanny to make us something and leaving the fridge almost bare. Boiled pasta is as fancy as he gets for Rowan. There are still nights, of course, when he does make dinners for the two of us, when the children aren’t around or on our date nights we have promised to have once a week. But mostly, on the nights without his children, dinners are pretty plain.

  It’s unfathomable, isn’t it, to be jealous of children who always have the groceries they enjoy in our house and to resent the fact that their dad spends an hour preparing a meal for them as if he’s on a cooking game show on the Food Network. But I often am jealous when I see that Boyfriend — what, tries harder? Puts in more of an effort? — as he stocks the cupboards and fridge and makes home-cooked dinners, from scratch and, of course, with love, mostly on the days when his children stay with us. So, yes, we even argue over groceries.

  Boyfriend, by default, is in charge of the grocery shopping, his way of contributing to the household. We never talked about the division of household chores before we blended, but we both know it’s his way of chipping in, while living without paying rent or the mortgage or property taxes or the gardener or the internet or cable bill. I hate grocery shopping, so I think it’s a fair trade. But it does bother me that, if it’s just my daughter at home, he’ll boil her pasta, while he puts on an elaborate dinner when his children are with us.

  While my feelings may be irrational, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who goes through this. “Sometimes it does bother me that my husband does things for his biological son that he never does for our two kids, because I’m the primary parent,” one of my friends tells me, once I start noticing how, when Boyfriend’s children are over, our house turns into a five-star restaurant. “For instance, he goes to his son’s doctor’s appointments and buys him birthday and Christmas presents and clothes, and he’s never done any of that with our other two. He’s happy to let me be the primary parent, whereas he’s somewhat competitive with his ex-wife, who he has a very strained relationship with,” she says. “Part of it is also that he feels terribly guilty about his son, which I understand. So he plans special activities with him and tries harder to have quality time, and makes him meals that he’d never make for us. I do understand why this is the case, but sometimes I can’t help but feel that he treats his kids differently, including when it comes to what they eat.”

  Unlike Boyfriend’s kids, my daughter lives with me and Boyfriend full-time. I really don’t know what it’s like to only see your children half the time, nor can I really, truly, understand what it’s like for his children to only see their dad part-time. This guilt and need to make up for the times he isn’t with them is an emotion he keeps close to his heart — I have never actually heard him say he feels guilty — but that he shows by making them elaborate meals. Maybe his guilt is the root cause of many of our arguments, including those about grocery shopping. I do know, however, what it’s like to not see your children for a while, as my daughter spends three consecutive weeks with her father every summer and during winter break from school. If the pain Boyfriend and his children feel when they don’t see each other is anything like how I feel when Rowan is not with me, I feel for all of them. I miss my daughter so much when I don’t see her for weeks; it feels like a part of me is missing, even though I know she’s safe and happy. There’s always a constant ache in my heart. Does Boyfriend feel this ache? Do Boyfriend’s children feel this ache? Is he trying to show them, through home-cooked meals, his love? I don’t know. My gut tells me, Duh, obviously.

  What I do know is that I often want to scream, “Where are my staples?” when I wake up and see there is no orange juice left. Or that someone in the household has left a carton of orange juice in the fridge with maybe a teaspoon left. Boyfriend will say he shops for me, but I don’t remember the last time I ate a Fruit Roll-Up or slices of ham. Of course, in a traditional family, finding an empty carton of milk happens all the time, especially if you have teenagers. The difference is, you can yell at your kid. I can’t yell at Boyfriend’s children, so I just scream in my head.

  One of my friends, who has six children and is happily married, and not in a blended family, told me about the time one of her kid’s birthday request was an entire carton of chocolate milk just for himself. How easy and cheap a gift is that? Alas, her kid didn’t end up getting his birthday present wish, because his siblings didn’t know that their mom had bought that carton of chocolate milk especially for the birthday boy. The kid burst into tears, of course, when he realized he didn’t get the one and only wish he had for his birthday. That’s how I’m starting to feel. I’m a grown-ass woman who doesn’t get the groceries she wants. I don’t cry, but I do get angry, an adult throwing a tantrum, like a kid who didn’t get his carton of chocolate milk on his birthday.

  How can Boyfriend remember that his daughters like a certain type of potato chips but can’t remember that I need to eat a banana every morning? I’ve become pretty protective of the few staples I like to always have on hand.

  “I’ll just go grocery shopping for myself,” I’ve huffed on more than one occasion, but I never do. Once I hid a few cans of Diet Coke in my bedroom because of all the other mouths who like Diet Coke. I have also, when there is one Diet Coke left in the fridge, put a Post-it note on it, with my name written across, feeling as if I’m living in a dorm room with roommates instead of with my family. I remember those emails sent to “all company” from a colleague at work who realized that other people in the office had been using the cream in the office fridge that they’d bought for themself. I always laughed at those company emails. Should I send out a group text to my blended family? At home, I’m the one who wants to remind people that it’s my cream.

  In my defence, I have to say that I felt that I needed to. However, I also have to admit that my actions might have been a bit over the top. But I want to tell you what one of Boyfriend’s children does for me, because it shows that they not only care about me but also know me. One day, when I open the fridge, I see a Post-it note on a lone Diet Coke on the shelf, with “Rebecca” written on it. I didn’t do it. Boyfriend’s daughter did this, and even though it seems like such a small thing, it actually means the world to me. She cares! Just as little things can turn into huge arguments in a blended family, sometimes small things make you want to cry because you realize that, while it may not always seem like it, people are thinking about you.

  But shopping for a blended family means integrating differences and evolving new rules and rituals. Boundaries are more fluid in our house, because, by definition, we are less cohesive than non-divorced families. When Boyfriend’s girls are with us, we all eat together. “I can’t think of any blended family that I know of where everyone’s happy all the time,” one of my divorced, and wisest, friends says. She, too, tried to blend with a man who had two children. “Maybe you should just accept the fact that he’s going to act differently, and go out of his way, when his children are around. Just enjoy that he cooks for you!” she says. She has a good point. And I do enjoy when Boyfriend makes us all dinner, because Boyfriend is a wonderful cook … when his children are with us, that is.

  I find it hilarious that, yet again, this common bullshit issue in blended families is something else that somehow didn’t make it to the lips or fingers of any so-called blended family expert. Sure, I appreciate their advice on how not to force other children to love you — duh — but where’s the advice about the grocery shopping arguments you’ll inevitably have? Where’s the tip warning me to not take it personally that Boyfriend is a chef part-time? It’s not the huge issues that I need advice on. It’s the small issues, like grocery shopping, that no on
e seems to talk about, that often lead to fights that can last days. Death by a million paper cuts. I know that others feel the same way. A coincidence? I think not.

  “Oh my god,” I read in a comment section on a blended family forum I visit when I need to see if I’m being totally unrealistic about something … and also, to read about others who have it worse than I do. “No lie! We almost never have eggs or pancakes or anything like that on our alone weekends, but the second it’s the weekend with his children, we turn into a Denny’s,” one commenter writes, and I can’t help but laugh out loud, not just because I haven’t been to a Denny’s in years, but also because now I’m craving pancakes. Still, I know only too well how she feels. “Last weekend with them, they wanted omelettes,” another commenter posts. “My husband has never made me an omelette in the seven years we’ve been together, but that’s what his kids wanted. He even had to go out and buy all the ingredients because all we had was eggs.” I feel validated. I’m not alone!

  “Mine, too! Husband becomes a chef when his kids are around. My husband used to make me breakfast when we we’re still dating and he was trying to impress me. Now I’m lucky if he makes me a coffee. Sometimes I ask him to make me breakfast when the kids aren’t around, and he whines that he doesn’t want to. I’m like, ‘Seriously?! When your kids are around you make eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, cinnamon rolls …’” yet another commenter writes, somewhat excitedly, perhaps because, like me, she didn’t know this was going to be a concern after blending, and even though we don’t know each other, we are in this together. We aren’t batshit crazy. The contempt is real!