>The Ex Files

She likes candlelight and often skips lunch. She loves the movie “Pretty in Pink.” She knows a lot about knitting and she’s learning to paint. I know more about the mother of my stepdaughters than nearly anyone, yet we’ve hardly ever said more than a few words to each other.

If you live in a blended family, there’s no escaping the ex. She can be a little like Nearly Headless Nick at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, hovering over conversations and events to the point of irritation, unseen but intensely felt. And you have two choices in how you deal with her. You can complain about her to everyone you know… or you can keep it to yourself and just deal.

I’ve chosen to stay quiet, not because I’m some kind of stepmother saint, but because I’m a stepdaughter, too, and I know how it feels to be caught between first and second wives. Growing up, I felt like the fragile center of a web spun by my various parents and stepparents, so that when one said something about another, no matter how small, I felt it. I fretted over it. I worried that I was somehow responsible for it. I still do, to be honest. I feel like my parents still try to provoke me from time to time to say something bad about the other one. I don’t ever want my girls to feel that way. I keep my mouth shut.

The payoff of resisting the urge to badmouth is huge. I’ve gone five years now without trash talking the ex and you know what? It feels really, really good. It’s one thing I’ve done right for my stepdaughters. They feel comfortable talking about their mom to me and I feel comfortable listening, not as the second wife, but as someone who’s been in their shoes and knows a little bit about how they must feel.

Equally important is the fact that when I’m not talking about the ex, I’m not thinking about her, either and ultimately, the less time I spend thinking about her, the better. I can’t change her and I can’t change her interaction with my husband or stepkids. That’s not in my job description. Of course there are times when I can’t avoid discussing her (when the girls aren’t around, of course), but I do try and keep it to an absolute minimum.

I feel uncomfortable writing even this much about our situation, but I’ve checked out many of the messageboards and forums for stepmoms and I’ve read an awful lot of bitching about exes. I know we all need to vent, but does the Internet really need to know every word of every conversation your husband and his ex have on the phone? Or what time she brought the kids over last weekend?

I didn’t think so.

So you won’t find that kind of thing on this blog. Blended families are hard, much harder than most people realize. The children are inevitably dealing with the trauma of a fractured family, the stepparents are trying to figure out what their roles are in the mix, and the fathers and mothers are dealing with guilt that things didn’t work out the first time around. My responsibility as a stepmom is to bloom where I’m planted. Laugh as often as possible. Choose my battles. Make my home a place where my family wants to be. And if you’re new to the whole blended family thing, know that it all gets easier over time, even dealing with the Ex Factor. Unless you’re the one your husband left his ex for.

Then, girlfriend, you’re on your own.