Mothering & Stepmothering

Second Wife Rollercoaster

by QueenB

Funny, the only thing I like to do at an amusement park is play games (okay, and eat junk food). Severe motion sickness prevents me from any ride, even the carousel. So tell me how I found myself on a permanent roller coaster?

Oh, I know I did it to myself. I did what I said I would never do –- date a man with children. I swore I would never add to the complications of my already-complicated life and trust me, I was living a soap opera at the time. And then it happened. I met HIM. The ONE. I went out for drink to meet a new friend. One look and I knew. A drink turned into dinner, which turned into dancing, which turned into amazing conversation. It was love at first sight. I knew there was no going back.

There’s a saying about not judging a man until you’ve walked in his shoes. How about the life of a second wife? It’s like wearing spiked heels on a cobble stone path. No one but one of “us” could truly understand. My friends don’t understand how my emotions rocket from one extreme to the next. Why a hair clip found in an old couch makes me bounce off walls. Why a house that was “theirs” bothers me -- after all it is "only bricks." Why it is so hard to feel whole as a couple sometimes.

They never experience the blissful moments of being wrapped up in the arms of the man you love, feeling safe and warm and secure and then a little slip of the word “we” or “us” that has nothing to do with YOU and everything tumbles down. The joy of being in the florist picking out flowers for your wedding and a cell phone ringing for some innocuous reason that has to do with the children and suddenly the joy is replaced by the feeling that you don’t come first. Seeing forms that list someone other than you as the spouse. The list goes on.

The joy of being a second wife means that we are constantly reminded that you and he are not an island. And of course there are always those blissful intimate moments that either a telephone call or a stray thought that won’t leave your brain can make you feel like not only are the two of you not an island, but you might as well be on a desert!

One moment I can be happier than I ever thought possible and in the next sadder and more broken hearted than I’ve ever been. But is the ride turbulent enough that I want to get off? Let’s see. I look at the issues I have to deal with, and while for all of us they are different, for all of us they exist, but I balance that with the joy of the situation I am in. The joy of finally knowing what true love is. The joy of having a best friend who I can say anything to, no matter how insane sounding, and that my thoughts and feelings count. The joy that my beautiful daughter can know what a loving relationship is. The joy when a child who is not "mine" tells me he loves me and buries his sweet face in my shoulder when he’s sleepy.

But I think the reason that no matter how high up this roller coaster gets or how scary it is to look down, nothing can compare to those moments when a smile from the man I love reaches his eyes and I feel his love shining upon me and somehow, for that one split second, I know that everything is right in the world.

Members only: Talk about it at the cafe!