The Stepparent Errr ... Issues ... ??? ...

Okay, so this is going to be a hard post for me to write ... but I feel like I need to write it ... my lemon man is basically a stepparent ... two of my most faithful readers are stepparents ... so I am going to do my best to not be offending or disrespectful in any way ... and I am also going to say up front that my situation may be very different from other people's ... and other moms and dads may feel very differently than I do ... okay ... so that's my disclaimer ...

My kids have a new stepmom ... that's okay ... that I can deal with ... not a big deal ... for a long time through my ex's and her engagement we got along perfectly ... things were going well ... I figured she would be easy to co-parent with ... until the first issue actually came up ... my oldest daughter hadn't completed any of her homework the first month that they had custody of her ...

So, I emailed my ex ... and I could tell that there was some influence from someone else in his responses ... and these conversations are difficult ... it's hard when someone is

Cutting the Cord ...

I am still getting used to not having my kids with me ... the breaks can be nice ... but it's hard sometimes because since I've had them I've almost always been the sole person in their lives that was constant ... and in many ways I still am ...

For the first seven years I was a mother I was a stay-at-home mom ... so I was with them constantly ... I basically continued as such after my ex and I separated four years ago ... only I got a few breaks here and there ... some weekends ... some weeks ... and then I moved and the only time they were away from me was every other weekend ... which wasn't enough time to miss them really ... unless

Broken Hearted ...

This was a blog that was coming regardless of the events of my last few days ... but it's also one of the reasons I decided I needed to move to this blog ...

It breaks my heart when I drop off my kids with their dad and/or soon-to-be step-mom and my son begs not to go ... my daughters (mostly the younger one) fight me as well ... but they don't do it in front of their dad or step-mom ... my son does ... and it's getting worse ...

Today I dropped them off ... my ex wasn't there ... so it was just their step-mom ... my son clung to me ... he cried ... he said he didn't want to go ... he wanted to go home with

Decisions ...

I am stressed out ... I can feel it everywhere ... and then there are the physical manifestations ... I hit a curb ... I ran a stop sign ... I almost ran a stoplight ... I forgot the code to the copy machine at work (which I have had memorized for ten months) ... I forgot little things while I was at work ... and I was only there for four hours ... I stopped for fast food ... which I have done lately, but I've been good, I'm on a grain free and dairy free diet and I've ordered things without cheese and eaten them without the bun ... today I ate the bun and the special sauce and even had a few fries and a soda ... I'm normally not a stress eater, but today apparently I am ... I'm not sleeping ... and I'm snappy ... definitely stressed out ...

But in all that stress I reached a decision ... well more like a plan ... I took everything that different friends and experts in my life had to say ... which varied greatly ... although most of the experts kept in line with each other ... so after feeling completely violated ... I decided what to do about it ...

I "confronted" my ex in an email last night ... simply asked him to explain when and why he did what he did ... he told me that he did it four years ago ... and seemed to think it

Violated ...

I'm hoping that writing this down will get it out of my mind so I can focus on what I need to do ... homework ... a lot of it ... all due tomorrow ... but I'm scared ...

I'm unbelievably, horribly, awfully and completely fucking scared ... probably the most scared I've been in maybe my whole life ...

I came home today after being mostly gone from my house (aka my hole in my mom's basement) for basically three weeks with a few exceptions to feed cats and check on some things ... I've been at the lemon man's house ... I went over and put some stuff down on my bed and looked up at the mirror ...

I could see it clearly ... but I couldn't read it ... I could read "was here" .. but that's it ... but from the far side of the bed ... reflected in the mirror ... something was clearly carved in the side of my bed ... I knew it hadn't been there before ... so I walked around to read it ... and there clear as day was "(insert ex's name here) was here 99-08" ... my instinct was to rub it ... something I regret now as fingerprints will probably be taken ...

I called the lemon man ... I begged him to tell me it was some kind of practical joke he played on me ... he assured me it wasn't ... I went and told my mom ... I questioned my

Anonymity ... An Introduction ...

I decided to start a new blog ... where anonymity makes it possible for me to write anything I want to write ... my lemon man (that's what I'm calling my boyfriend here for now) pointed out that in order for this to be truly anonymous I shouldn't tell anyone it's here ... and I understand his point, but at the same time there are people in my life I trust implicitly ... and I think they need to be part of this as well ...

I will hopefully be blogging enough that any readers I gain will learn through the course of my writing who I am and where I come from ... but I will say a few things to start with ... I married young ... had children young ... two girls ... and a boy ... their father and I separated just shy of our nine year anniversary ... and I feel like I've been handed a lot of lemons since then ... I was a stay at home mom ... I had a