I went from being a single mom to wife, mom and stepmom in what seemed to be a blink of an eye. When I was just "the girlfriend" my relationship with the children was so much easier. I didn't have a parental role, I was just the woman who made their dad happy. I was the fun one, the easy going one; to put it bluntly- I was new, shiny and had absolutely had no authority whatsoever.
My husband and I didn't have a normal courtship because we have known each other since we were just 8-years-old. So when we reconnected, things moved very quickly. I'm definitely not complaining or questioning anything because we truly are soulmates. But, even with how much we support, lean on and trust each other we have battles not just with the children but with the other parents.
The battle I've had with my daughter's biological father is a whole other story that will be its own entry.
It's funny really, when I was the girlfriend, one of the mothers of my stepchildren actually valued my opinion, she encouraged me to have a relationship with her daughter, she even split Mother's Day with me. Then I became the wife and stepmom. Her demeanor and attitude did a complete 180 and I did nothing to warrant it.
I can actually pinpoint exactly when everything changed - we came home from our honeymoon and my stepdaughter had asked her mother if she could call me some sort of version of mother. Not the same thing she calls her own mother, but she wanted to call me Madre or Mueter and her mother put her foot down - hard.
I think the response was, "absolutely not! I am your mother. Not her."
It's funny, I didn't ask for my stepdaughter to call me anything different. My husband didn't plant the seed. It was all my stepdaughter's idea. I remember telling her I was flattered but I didn't want her mother's feelings to be hurt or something along those lines.
It was at that time I went from being someone my stepdaughter loved and trusted to public enemy number one and honestly, it came from her mother not her.
