I'm anxious.
I'm happy.
I'm everything in between.
Being married for the second time has been anything but easy. Meshing my new husband with my three children has been painful a lot of days as they try to figure out how to bond.
Even two years later, we are still trying to figure out how to blend together some days. But thank god, it is SO much better than it was summer of 2023 or Christmas of 2022. Those points in time are stuck in my memory and probably will be forever because my anxiety was high and I wasn't sure what to do or how to help the people in my family to get along and understand each other. We spoke of divorce a few times during those dark days because of how difficult it was to blend our family.
Edward, my husband, has worked through so much in therapy over the past year. From feeling inadequate to learning how to be a more gentle parent with the kids, he has overcome so much. He was diagnosed with depression when we were dating and I started pointing out signs of his mental health not being as great as he thought it was. But when you're 32 and you have lived alone a lot of your adult life, you don't always recognize the times your depression shuts down your body.
Enter a new girlfriend - that's me - and Edward started to recognize a lot of things he wanted to work on to start loving himself more. I'm so proud of him, even though our marriage has had so many rough spots. He has changed so much in the past year of parenting and continues to improve as a partner and father.
In fact, in the near future, he will be adopting Cubby. Watching their relationship flourish over the past three years has been beautiful for me to witness.
My oldest, Jane Darling, is 16 now - not the tiny 5-year-old she was when Peter left our family. She is a beautiful teenager and the biggest helper to her brothers and step-dad.
Over the past two years, she has struggled with depression, self-harm, and trying to figure out her identity. Watching her struggle through her relationship with Peter, refusing to go a few weekends with him last year, and serial-dating new boys for a while because she was trying to fill a void left by her dad was so painful.
She finally seems to be in a much better place and has a lot more confidence this year in high school.
My middle son, Danny Darling, is 15 now - a stark contrast from the small 4-year-old boy who wasn't even in preschool when Peter moved out. He is now in high school and, between him and Edward, is probably the reason I am finding myself typing on this blog today.
When Edward and I started dating, Danny begged to meet him and loved him instantly. When we got engaged, he asked permission to call Edward his dad and called him that name on and off after our wedding last year.
But then came the summer of 2023, when everything between two people I love sort of blew up in my face. Edward has struggled to parent Danny and Danny has struggled to accept Edward as a father figure. On our family vacation to Disneyland last summer, they fought day and night. Danny pushed back on every single thing his step-dad would say to him and disrespect him any chance he got.
We had a sort of "come to Jesus" moment when we got home, where Edward and I had to decide if being married was the best thing for Danny or if we should split because of the divide between the two of them.
And we decided to stay together but Edward took major steps back from parenting Danny and that seemed to help a lot.
My older kids have so much trauma about father figures in their lives.
Just this past week, both of them had a high school choir concert and Peter PROMISED to be there but then during the concert, their step-mom let them know that he picked up a shift at work. Usually, this bothers Jane the most but this time, Danny cried through a good portion of the concert and then cried again when we got home. I don't often see him get like this with his dad but he was so hurt.
To me, it's the same old thing and I'm used to it. Peter was never consistent and does not show up to watch them in their extracurricular activities more than maybe once a year for end-of-year concerts.
The night of the choir concert, Jane called Edward "dad" for probably the second time in our three years of being together and I think she was testing it out because she was hurt that her biological father didn't show up but that her step-father never misses a concert or recital.
We've never pushed them to call him dad and honestly, it seems foreign to me when they do because their dad is active enough in their lives but we also won't tell them NOT to call him dad if they choose to do so. I've left that entirely up to them over the years and will continue to do so.
God, blending families is harder than I thought.
I love Edward. I really do. But over the years, I have learned a softness with my kids that he hasn't grasped yet. He grew up in a very traditional and strict religious household, similar to me but different religions, and hasn't had years of growing with these kids like I have. So it's hard for him to not be so authoritarian with them. But compared to a year ago or two years ago, he has come a LONG way in parenting them softer.
We've had so many changes over the years and more to come in 2025. Edward and I have been trying to expand our family but due to some health diagnoses for myself, that has been put on hold while I undergo a major surgery in February to take care of some health issues.
We also both want to foster and open our home in that way but that will need to wait until we get my health settled.
But all things considered, when I look back at my life five years ago and I look forward to now, our lives are beautiful and we are figuring this new life out, day by day.
I am grateful for new beginnings and being able to start fresh every day to make our home a safe place for our kids. They deserve all of that and more.
