(no subject)
THE CHILDLESS STEPMUM IS DIFFERENT
The following is the *truth* about non-custodial childless women with step-baggage such as myself.
We are special. We are generous, giving women.
We are likely to be giving up some of our premarital standard of living (on the other hand, Divorced biological mothers tend to increase their standard of living when they marry).
We don't have the barometer of our own children or sometimes any previous experience to measure by (resulting in total confusion. “Why me? Why this punishment I am receiving?”)
If we complain about the kids we are instantly put in the wicked-stepmother category not only by people who don't know us but sometimes by our own friends and family who say 'you knew he had kids when you married him'.
We have the whole childlessness issue to deal with - alone.
Some of us want children but can't have them Grieving childlessness happens throughout a lifetime for women who want to have children and can't. Many of us have to do it over and over, peeling off another layer of the onion at each milestone in our lives or sometimes unexpectedly when a relative announces her pregnancy or the women at work start exchanging childbirth stories. Doing this while married to a parent doesn't make it easier. For many of us, it can be experienced as almost inhumane. Especially difficult seems to be the case when we marry a father who doesn't want any more and refuses to have any more. We may respond in kind, wondering how a man who claims to love us could deny us something that so painfully seems to be necessary to our identity and fulfilment.
We have to cope with everyday sadness that we can NEVER have a 'normal family' in the way we had always envisioned.
We may have to live with the fact that we cannot give our partners a very substantial gift that another woman has, which ties her to him and to us for possibly a lifetime.
The following is the *truth* about non-custodial childless women with step-baggage such as myself.
We are special. We are generous, giving women.
We are likely to be giving up some of our premarital standard of living (on the other hand, Divorced biological mothers tend to increase their standard of living when they marry).
We don't have the barometer of our own children or sometimes any previous experience to measure by (resulting in total confusion. “Why me? Why this punishment I am receiving?”)
If we complain about the kids we are instantly put in the wicked-stepmother category not only by people who don't know us but sometimes by our own friends and family who say 'you knew he had kids when you married him'.
We have the whole childlessness issue to deal with - alone.
Some of us want children but can't have them Grieving childlessness happens throughout a lifetime for women who want to have children and can't. Many of us have to do it over and over, peeling off another layer of the onion at each milestone in our lives or sometimes unexpectedly when a relative announces her pregnancy or the women at work start exchanging childbirth stories. Doing this while married to a parent doesn't make it easier. For many of us, it can be experienced as almost inhumane. Especially difficult seems to be the case when we marry a father who doesn't want any more and refuses to have any more. We may respond in kind, wondering how a man who claims to love us could deny us something that so painfully seems to be necessary to our identity and fulfilment.
We have to cope with everyday sadness that we can NEVER have a 'normal family' in the way we had always envisioned.
We may have to live with the fact that we cannot give our partners a very substantial gift that another woman has, which ties her to him and to us for possibly a lifetime.