Blissfully Blended Bullshit

by Rebecca Eckler

  Maybe the biggest perk for him was the almost-free ride, at least when it came to living rent and mortgage free. But I don’t want to think that, especially because he’s the father of my child. And Ex-Boyfriend doesn’t see it that way, and he never will. But when I see yet another spreadsheet in my inbox — maybe the eighth or ninth — with him demanding that I now owe him money, I break down. My friends rally around me, taking me out, calling me every day, asking how they can help me. I owe him money? He can’t be fucking serious. Does he not remember, even during our worst times, that only a handful of weeks ago I gave him a car? Does the man have zero pride? The answer, from all my friends, is a resounding, “Yes!”

  It’s hard to explain what it feels like when you realize you’ve been used for years — or at least that’s how I feel — and when you’ve tried your best at something and failed. It’s hard to admit defeat. It’s hard to think of someone who I still care about being described by friends like that.

  On the other hand, for reasons too complicated to get into, he disliked two of my best friends, friends I had known for twenty-plus years, and over the years made that clear to me, often making me feel bad for being friends with them. Meanwhile, my friends always supported me and my relationship, even though I learn, only after we break up, how much they dislike him, his attitude, and his lack of appreciation of me.

  I want to yell at the top of my lungs, “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  I hope that this will be an amicable divorce, that we will move forward to “positively” co-parent Holt, who is now almost six. After all, “positive co-parenting” is what everyone tries to do when they have children and split up. I get along with Rowan’s father, after all. So why shouldn’t I be able to get along with Ex-Boyfriend? But I can’t. Every time he sends me a note with the subject line “Spreadsheet” or says I can “buy” a piece of furniture from him, my heart sinks and I lose a little more respect.

  I am not overly concerned over how our split will affect our son, the baby who was our co-venture, the baby who will tie us together for life, even if we aren’t together. The baby I wouldn’t have if Ex-Boyfriend hadn’t agreed. He gave me a baby, one who was meant to be, even if Ex-Boyfriend and I weren’t.

  Holt has grown up seeing all of his sisters go from one house to another. He knows that Ex-Boyfriend’s other children have another house, their biological mom’s house. He knows that Rowan goes off with her father or grandparents often, to their houses. To him, having two houses is … normal. So I’m not particularly worried about his adjustment to our new new. Having two houses, to five-year-old Holt, is fun and exciting! Now he’s just like his sisters! Holt truly doesn’t seem affected at all. When he’s with me, he doesn’t ask for Daddy. I’m assuming that when he’s with Daddy, he doesn’t ask for me. We have let his teachers know, so they can keep an eye out for him, to see if he’s acting any differently. He’s not.

  The un-blending of our blended family, at least when it comes to the move, seems very quick, just as quick as when we decided to blend families. We got together fast, and we ended things fast.

  Once Ex-Boyfriend moves into his new place, we make our first co-parenting trip with Holt to Walmart, where we pick out cute paintings for his walls and cute carpets. And, yes, because he is our son, I pay for half of everything. Back at my house, I can finally see the dining room table again. I hire a professional cleaning service and have five people come to “deep clean” my house, including steam cleaning the carpets that the dog has shit and peed on. It takes the five of them almost nine hours to scrub my house from top to bottom. I’m sad, because I know I’m trying to scrub Ex-Boyfriend, and any memory of my once-blended family, out. At this point, I want them erased. Nothing compares to the feeling I get when I walk in. It’s like a new house; it’s so organized and clean. There’s no more clutter. A clean slate.

  The basement, where Bonus Children used to sleep, is completely empty, and I promise my daughter that I’m going to decorate it for her so it can be her hang-out when her friends come over. I spend a small fortune turning what was once Ex-Boyfriend’s children’s room into a room with a trundle bed, a pullout couch, funky wall paintings, and many fun and colourful shag carpets and pillows to make the new decor “Miami chic.” My daughter loves it and will host many sleepover parties down there.

  It is me, now, who asks my daughter if I can sleep with her or if she can come sleep with me, on days when I’m heartbroken over the breakup and my son is with Ex-Boyfriend. Just because I know it’s the best, and only, option doesn’t mean I’m not mourning the demise of our relationship and what we once had. It doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes miss him. I question if we ever really loved each other, or were just in love with the idea of family and moving forward from our exes. We were each other’s rebounds. And maybe that was all it was ever supposed to be. But, no, I know I truly loved him. I know I once believed in “Us.” I believed we would grow old together.

  One day, about a week after Ex-Boyfriend moves out, he comes over to pick up the rest of his shit. Rowan is at home and in the front hallway. He barely says goodbye to her (again with the Hi/Bye Fight!), which leads her to a sudden outburst of sobbing. Ex-Boyfriend just leaves.

  “Does he not like me anymore?” she asks. “He didn’t say goodbye to me.” I feel sick to my stomach and start to cry too, and I hate him in this moment. Blending affected everyone in the family, so I shouldn’t be surprised that un-blending will do the same. Un-blending is like a death-defying act in Cirque du Soleil.

  Ex-Boyfriend has taken the dog, which I’m happy about, but Rowan wants him to visit. Over the years, she was the one who gave him the most attention. She was the one who fed him, the one who took him on walks, the one who rubbed his belly. I now remember many, many times having to remind Ex-Boyfriend to get his daughters to walk their dog when they were over. Now, Ex-Boyfriend doesn’t think it’s a good idea for the dog to go between houses. I want him to know that he’s not punishing me — I can finally leave the bathroom and bedroom doors open and can leave food on the kitchen table — but that he’s punishing Rowan. Again, because he has let my daughter down, he’s let me down.

  “I feel bad Rowan was crying,” he texts me shortly after he leaves. “I tried and gave it everything I had. Once my mental wellbeing was being affected, I didn’t have a choice. Your day-to-day thinking really differed from mine with respect to what or how partners are supposed to act toward one another. I deserve to be happy. It is more damaging to kids to see that than live between two parents’ houses. I wish things were different, but as I mentioned before, you never listened to reason and the damage caused eventually was too hard to overcome. People have the odd bad day or two or month or two, but this was going on for years. Things were getting worse and worse. We deserve to be happy, and this was the only way to move to fulfill that goal. I don’t think you are a bad person by any means, you just have some shit to deal with and figure out why you were so belittling to me for years.” These words I’ve heard too many times to count, so I’m not sure why he feels the need to continually send me these types of notes.

  Again, he feels bad about Rowan, but he doesn’t apologize for leaving even after seeing her cry. After knowing her for seven years, he could have talked to her for five fucking minutes, I think. And, again, I’m the one who has some shit to deal with? There’s no accountability on his part, but I know him, and I know he will never take any accountability for his actions, or lack of action. And of course, according to him, he has nothing to figure out. Because of his actions, broken promises, and lack of appreciation, I may have been belittling to him with my choice of words. But him leaving my daughter crying, without bothering to talk to her for even a minute, proves again that we aren’t on the same page, especially after he moves out.

  Still, the next day he texts me, “I have to go to Best Buy today. I can get you two HDMI cords for the TVs if you want. Let me know.” I take him up on his offer, although these texts are a mind-fuck to m
e. He also adds in his text, “Also can you get me the money for Holt’s last two dental appointments? Half of both visits is $290.” Jesus!

  For months and months, I will receive a nice text, followed by a mean one. And the same goes for my end. For months, he will continually ask me for money. Worst of all, he refuses to get a lawyer.

  So, no, this divorce is not amicable.

  Still, I have encouraged Rowan to keep in touch with Ex-Boyfriend’s daughters. They do, after all, have a brother in common. And so, right after he moves out, she texts them both: “No matter what happened between our parents, we will always be sisters.”

  All three girls, who share the same brother, agree to keep in touch. But aside from one or two exchanges and one or two Instagram likes, they seem to have forgotten that we once were a family. I do send his daughters texts, once congratulating his eldest daughter for getting a summer internship she wanted so badly and, also, to wish her a happy birthday. I text his other daughter to see how her summer job is going. Months after our breakup, I will send the odd text to them, which I always initiate. But, other than that, we have lost all contact. I’m not sure if I should reach out to them or not. I want them to know that I love them and am here for them, but I can’t think of any reason they would need to come to me. I am sad, too, because while I have closure with my ex, I never had the chance to say goodbye to his daughters, really. I don’t have closure with them. I have no idea if or when I’ll ever see them again. My daughter seems to forget them, and even Ex-Boyfriend, entirely.

  Just as when you marry your partner, you marry their family, when you un-blend, you lose part of your family, the one you gained when blending. Only a couple of months after Ex-Boyfriend moves out, it’s my birthday. I get a one-line text from him saying, “Happy Birthday.” By the time my daughter’s birthday rolls around, five months later, even once-sweet Nana doesn’t text her, nor do her once-stepsisters, the two she shares a brother with. Ex-Boyfriend says he sent her a text. My daughter says she never received it.

  At present, neither my daughter nor I have any contact with Ex-Boyfriend’s mother or his children, aside from the odd text I’ll send his daughters to let them know I’m thinking about them. His mother doesn’t like me. Shocking. She’s the one who actually calls me to ask for the engagement ring that her son gave to me, back. She will always side with her baby, her son. Likewise, my parents are far from happy with Ex-Boyfriend. In fact, I have never seen my dad so angry in my entire life. I have never heard him swear before. But after another disagreement, when I am on the phone with my mother telling her that Ex-Boyfriend refuses to get a lawyer — meaning he refuses to divulge his financials, the first legal step in a divorce — thinking that we can come to an agreement on our own via an agreement he cobbles together off the internet, I hear my dad in the background saying, “Tell him to fuck off. ” Blood, in this case, is thicker than water. And, reflecting, it always was as we blended families.

  The fact that our children aren’t in contact makes me wonder if we ever really, truly blended at all. My daughter will always have a brother in common with Ex-Boyfriend’s children, but when we un-blended she lost a man and two sisters who had been in her life for years. Although “lost” may not be the right word, since she seems not to care at all about keeping in touch with them. Likewise, Ex-Boyfriend’s children have also lost a sister and only see their brother if he’s at their father’s. Eventually, my daughter will even forget about the dog that lived with us for seven years.

  I do want to reach out to them, to say that if they are ever in the neighbourhood and want to drop by, my door is open. I will do this when things calm down. I hope we will eventually have some sort of relationship, though I don’t know what that will look like. In the throes of our far-from-civil separation, I don’t think much about Ex-Boyfriend’s children, busy trying to get my life back on track and getting over the pain of another breakup. Months later, I realize how much I miss them, especially when I no longer know what’s going on in their lives. I also realize that two of my son’s sisters are out there in the world, yet I barely have a relationship with them, nor does my daughter, who they share a brother in common with. It’s fucked up.

  “It took four years,” one of my friends tells me about her ex–bonus child, who refused to talk to her after she broke up with their dad, even though she was also the mother of his brother. “But my ex’s son just reached out to me two weeks ago. He said he wanted to come by my place to see his brother. I, of course, said yes! And it was wonderful! I think, because he saw how their dad acts around his new girlfriend, that he finally realized that I wasn’t The Bad One. I think, too, he’s now just more mature. We had a very nice chat and now we text back and forth.” So yes, it may take years before ex–Bonus Daughters reach out to me. I will wish them happy birthday, but since I no longer know what’s going on in their day-to-day life and am not sure if they are even interested in me reaching out, I’m not sure what else to do. So, mostly, I do nothing.

  Ex-Boyfriend and his children also do not text Rowan before she heads off to camp for a month. I have replaced all the furniture Ex-Boyfriend has taken. I have also, because it is too painful to see, taken down the huge canvas of all the children hanging in my kitchen. I can’t bear to look at it, so I hang it in another room, a room I barely use.

  Now I’m a single mother of two children, who have two different fathers. Ex-Boyfriend is a single father of three, by two different women. No longer will Ex-Boyfriend’s mother speak to me, nor will my parents speak to Ex-Boyfriend. Suddenly, the grandparents, too, even if they weren’t super close to them, have lost bonus grandchildren. Even the dog, yet again, has a new home.

  Maybe all this will change. Maybe it won’t. I will always love and have a fondness for Ex-Boyfriend’s children. I will always care for them. On the bright side, the question, “How many children do you have?” is now easy to answer. There are no more fights about grocery shops or who says hi or bye first, no arguing over the bills or feeling unappreciated. I no longer feel left out. Not only do I have my house back, but, slowly, I’m finding my smile.

  Interestingly, Rowan’s father’s parents now ask about how I am, how my son is, and how Ex-Boyfriend is treating me, concerned, it seems, with all aspects of this contentious divorce. It turns out that they, too, were never fans of Ex-Boyfriend. For years they never once asked about their granddaughter’s baby brother or bonus sisters or bonus father figure. Now, every time we talk, they ask me how the divorce is going, clearly on my side, probably because I’m their granddaughter’s mother. But, like my friends, they only speak up when he’s no longer in the picture.

  · REFLECTIONS ·

  If I had to blend again, would I? To answer the question I’ve been asking myself for a while, and that you’re probably wondering about, I can’t help but think back to what all of us could have done better or what we should have done to make things splendid and keep them splendid despite all the bullshit that comes with blending. I wonder about a lot of things that led our once blissfully blended family to its eventual demise.

  Would we have worked out if we hadn’t moved so fast? Would we have worked out if we hadn’t added another baby to the mix, though he’s such a blessing? Would we have worked out if we’d discussed how to handle our finances and our financial goals before blending? Would we have worked out if we had lowered our expectations from the start? Would we have worked out if, instead of him moving into my house, we had gotten a new place together? Would we have worked out if we’d instilled house rules? Would we have worked out if we’d talked about our parenting styles? Would we have worked out if we’d made more of an effort to do more as a blended family? Would we have worked out if Ex-Boyfriend and I had tried harder to make our relationship a priority? Would we have worked out if we’d discussed what we expected of each other when it came to raising children that aren’t ours biologically? Would we have worked out if we’d recognized that we were more set in our ways than we thought? Would w
e have worked out if I was better at change? Would we have worked out if we could have forgiven each other more and if he’d managed to say “I’m sorry”? Would we have worked out if we could have handled each other’s criticism? Would we have worked out if we could have done what seems like the impossible, and loved and treated children who weren’t biologically ours equally? Would we have worked out if we hadn’t put so much pressure on making it work? Would we have worked out if I hadn’t become depressed after the birth of Baby Holt? Would we have worked out if I had really lowered my expectations and Ex-Boyfriend had shown a little more gratitude? Would we have worked out if he’d offered to chip in for the house and condo? Would we have worked out if our children had really bonded? Would we have worked out if he hadn’t gone to that party? Would we have worked out, as Ex-Boyfriend now says, if I had tried harder to bond with his daughters, which he professes was my responsibility all along and not his at all? I am shaking my head as I write all of the above, because I don’t know.

  I feel an incredible amount of guilt when I think of the would-we-have’s — so much so that on more than one night after Ex-Boyfriend moves out, I am actually sick to my stomach. I know we didn’t make it for better or for blended. But, no, I don’t feel like a failure. I feel guilty about the so many what-ifs. What if I had a different personality and was better at change? What if he had a different personality and was more ambitious and better with money? What if — and this will remain the biggest mystery — we just weren’t meant to be, and our breakup had absolutely nothing to do with blending families?

  I do know one thing. There is never a right time to blend or un-blend. If you’re looking for the right time, look at your phone.