Would they have been better off if their father had never met me?
Are you even a stepmother if you don’t ask that question occasionally?
The guilt. Good grief, the guilt. It’s one of the many things no new stepmom considers when jumping into this wonky world. The guilt; it’s always lurking.
Over the last several months, I’ve had a lot of folks asking how my eldest stepchild, Amelia, is doing. The short answer, I suppose, is “It’s complicated.”
It’s complicated because it’s been nearly a year since Amelia sent me into a very personal exile, dismissed from her life. For twelve long months, while I bounced between confusion and sadness and anger, I have also bounced between whether to share or when to share, but always opted to hold off because…won’t it be a better story after everything is fixed?
Lately, I’ve wondered if it will ever be fixed. As a sherpa in the stepmom community who tries to be quite transparent, I guess it is time to share. I’m sure this story is not unique to our blended household. In all honesty, I’m guessing it’s a story that lives in traditional households as well. While I often offer up a “You are not alone” to those who reach out to me, convincing myself of the same is not quite as easy.
This isn’t the first time that Amelia has severed ties with someone, but it is the first time that someone has been me. It feels quite different from her usual “Jyl just stresses me out” rants of the last fifteen years. This feels more intentional. Less angry but more permanent.
In addition to simply feeling sad, I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel exhausted. I miss the relationship that she and I worked so hard to build. I was so proud of that, all the hard work. After nearly a decade of struggling, we’d finally found our place in each other’s lives, enjoying the bond for several years. Up until fourteen months ago, those around us noted how we’d finally grown close to each other. Or as close as we could, at least. We were happy.
Thirteen months ago, when my mother-in-law died unexpectedly, our family’s entire script was flipped. That’s a really important benchmark for me to remember, as, if I can set aside the confusion and sadness and anger, it is easy to see that the trauma of her death broke something in her granddaughter, which then broke something in Amelia’s relationship with me.
Twelve months ago, as we started talking about the coming holidays, we got the first hints that something was off. It was going to be an incredibly difficult holiday season as we were still navigating the loss of Rich’s mother, while my mother was declining more quickly. The chatter within our family text focused on the need to be together, supporting each other while honoring each loss. Amelia went silent each time we asked for an opinion or threw out dates on the calendar.
Thanksgiving came and went, with neither of my stepkids coming home, though that wasn’t abnormal, as Amelia and Max typically spent it with their biological, maternal grandparents. With Christmas on the horizon, we all but begged each of the kids to join us in North Carolina, where we would spend what was likely my mother’s last birthday and Christmas with her.
I am still absolutely gutted that Amelia did not show. At the time, I took the emotional high road, telling myself that she was still grieving the shocking loss of her other grandmother. We muddled through, but in the back of my mind, I could not grasp how or why this child couldn’t make the short drive to see my mother for what would be the very last time.
When we returned home from that Christmas in North Carolina, Rich insisted that Amelia come home for at least one weekend during her school’s holiday break. We needed just a taste of normalcy, the whole family together, desperately. We deserved it. Still, she balked. This was not going in a good direction, confirmed by a declaration that her time in our home was over as long as her stepmother was living there.
What?
But this is my home? This is our home.
This is the home where Amelia and I climbed a mountain to our places in each other’s lives. This is the home where we did finally find that place. The home we all built together through blood, sweat, and tears (so many tears). The home filled with relational adjustments and tweaks and hugs and disagreements and laughter and memories (so many memories).
Our home.
And now Amelia wouldn’t be returning because I was in it? What?
Admittedly, neither Rich nor I had the bandwidth to deal with this new entry into 2024’s shit storm. “Fine,” I told Rich, “I’ll spend a weekend away so she can come home and you can figure out what the eff is going on.” It took some convincing as both Rich and Max were adamantly opposed (and angry) to my offer to flee, but if it righted the ship, I was willing to do so. I joked as I packed my weekend that I would be heading out to the edge of town to bed down in the Red Tent. I promised to enjoy a bubble bath, a massage, and all the things I envisioned in those Red Tents of the past when women were sent off once a month to enjoy, well, a pampered purifying.
It’s been nearly a year since Amelia sent me into a very personal exile, dismissed from her life.
Amelia, whom I raised as if she were my own. Amelia, whose hair I braided on our front porch. Amelia, with whom I had hundreds of Starbucks dates, with whom I trekked through Hot Topic week after week, with whom I talked all things body-related, with whom I have cried, with whom I have laughed, and with whom I have shared so many secrets. This child whom I have thrown myself into, fully and unconditionally, from the moment we met her nearly two decades ago.
Amelia, who has now decided that my only role in her life was to provide misery, and who has decided that as long as our home includes me, it will not include her.
I wish it were as easy as washing my hands and saying, “Welp, I tried my best,” but I am grateful that it is not. I know that that is the most telling sign of the love I have for her, the inability to just walk away. And so, the exile continues even as it carries her father and brother along, extending the damage beyond Amelia’s intent. That’s one of the most difficult parts of it all–seeing the extent of the damage. Seeing what my simple existence is doing to our family as a whole.
And so, the guilt.
Would they have been better off if their father had never met me?
Of course, deep down, I know the answer to that question is a firm, “No. Absolutely not.”
We grew into a beautiful family built through because of those many adjustments and tweaks and hugs and disagreements and laughter, and memories (so many memories). And, yes, deep down, I know there is a direct link between the sudden death of Amelia’s beloved grandmother and her need to blame me (again) for all things wrong in her life.
My hope, however, is that, eventually, Amelia will return here, to our home.
I have started working on a new project with Toni, from Raising His Kids. Toni is both a colleague and a friend whom I met through the stepmomming community. We are collaborating on a book called “Before You Blend,” in which we talk about all those things stepmoms wish they had known before blending families. We collected talking points through Toni’s platform, with a simple question to her followers: “What do you wish you’d known before blending?”
Me?
I wish I had known how often I would feel guilty for disrupting the relationships within our home.