Anyways, time moved forward with no "I love you" from Charlie, but we were growing closer and closer and his actions spoke louder than those 3 words. My time lines are fuzzy but somewhere mid to end February I was at the mall on a Saturday afternoon with some friends and while walking past the food court, I saw him. Charlie was there with his friend and his daughter and Charlie's 3 kids, there was really no avoiding him so I walked over to say hello. It was awkward and I was trying to be very friendly, the boys said hi and went about eating their fries, his daughter looking over the top of her glasses, said nothing! the encounter lasted all of 10mins but felt like hours, days, years. I made my escape and thought this will be harder than I thought. A few years ago Bethany wrote a story about "Family" for school, she actually mentions the above meeting and her take is pretty funny, I am going to ask her if I can share her story so you may see it later in the blog.
Then one night when Charlie was at his soon to be ex-wife's house with the kids, she came home from work and they had a conversation about the kids meeting the "significant others". Then he and I had a conversation about it, he wanted to know if I was ready for that, if it was what I wanted. Of course I loved him, and the few brief encounters I had, had with the kids I was already smitten by them. They were adorable and very easy going kids. I asked him to let me think about it, this was a big step. Growing up I wanted 5 kids, I couldn't wait to be a mother, OK so getting ahead of myself he just asked me to meet them, but obviously I had to think about what this meant for me.
If our relationship was going to continue I did have to think about the undertaking, it wasn't just him, I was going to be in a relationship with his children.
I had never been closer to a man, he was everything I had ever wanted, at times our relationship was so simple. Adding the children would change this. At this time he was still pretty close to his soon to be ex-wife, it was different, their whole divorce was different. It wasn't nasty, I am not gonna speak too much about their relationship/divorce as it isn't my place and I respect that. Truth be told I only know Charlie's side of the story so it really wouldn't be fair anyway. I know he was torn at staying friendly with her, but life, parenting styles, and our relationship was getting in the way at times. Somewhere down the road it became my fault that their friendship ended, I am okay with taking the blame.
What did being a stepmother mean, they weren't my kids, what would my role be? Could I handle sharing my relationship with Charlie, with them? Would they like me? Would his ex-wife like me? These and a million other question swirled around in my head. No one grows up thinking "hey can't wait to be a stepmother" and no woman going through a divorce thinks "hey, can't wait to share my kids with the other woman" again, all he asked me to do was meet them. I needed to relax enjoy what was happening and figure the rest out along the way.
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