Blissfully Blended Bullshit

by Rebecca Eckler

  It’s heartbreaking when you realize you aren’t as important to someone as you thought you were. Or when you know you were extremely important at one time in your relationship, but you don’t know how to get back to that happy place.

  The merry-go-round of attention in blended families is a cyclical hell, and as time goes on, it seems to go faster and faster, like a carnival ride that spins so fast you don’t know if you’ll be able to hold on. Your second spouse wants your attention, your children want your attention, you want your spouse’s attention, your spouse’s children want your spouse’s attention. There is a finite pool of attention to go around, so it is likely that someone is going to feel neglected at one time or another.

  At some point, everybody is going to get dizzy, lose their balance, and lose their grip. It becomes a ride that was super fun when it wasn’t broken but no one is enjoying anymore. Now that it is broken, everyone wants to get the fuck off and run away, arms flailing.

  “I still love you very much and I really want us to be great again,” Boyfriend writes to me in an email, years after we’ve blended, after another wicked “discussion” that we never resolve. When we are angry with each other, it’s sometimes easier to write out our feelings, because we usually get off track when we argue in person. Lately, I’ve been feeling like we’re never going to be “great” again and that perhaps we should call it quits.

  Ironically, I happen to be out with one of my closest friends, who is also thinking of splitting up with her husband and who also wants relief from all the blended family bullshit behind her closed doors. They eventually will break up, and she will go to court to fight to have her son 60 percent of the time, because her son doesn’t like staying with his father, who also has two other children from his first marriage and now has a new girlfriend, who has kids of her own.

  Because the message arrives when I’m with my friend, I read the rest of it aloud to her:

  I realize relationships take work from both sides and I am willing to do my part. I do understand that you need to feel and hear that I appreciate you and the things you do more than I do. I am not belittling that nor am I saying that I cannot try harder. What I was trying to say earlier is that I know why it has been harder for me to do or show this. We both need and want each other to be the way we used to be. I am confident that we can get back to that. By remaining confident and positive I think we can get there. You are by far the person I have loved more than anybody else in my life.

  I wish I could be the type of person who is confident and remains positive about relationships when they turn sour, but I just can’t let things go that easily or start fresh. Honestly, how many times can we start fresh? I’m just waiting for a simple “I’m sorry,” not an entire runaround about how we can get back to the honeymoon phase or how confident he is about us, while my confidence in us is waning. I truly don’t believe that we can get back to “be the way we used to be.” This relationship, and, in turn, this blended family, has drained me emotionally. I’m out of fuel.

  Still, I have proof that we are, in fact, trying. At the same time, the proof shows that we are falling apart. Boyfriend wrote that we need to try even harder. But what does trying harder actually mean? How much harder do we have to try? What does he think I have been doing all these years? Not trying?

  Many of us, like my friend who used hard drugs and slept with men with hard abs, self-medicate, which is what I’m doing tonight with my girlfriend. I have one goal tonight and that is to get stupid drunk and not have to think about whether it’s ever going to get better between us or if this life I’m now living is the life I’ll always be stuck in. I’m not usually a drinker, but tonight I understand what exactly women mean when they say, “I need a drink!” at the end of a long day.

  I now have a regular prescription for Clonazepam, in my purse, to be used, as the directions state on the plastic bottle, “as needed.” Well, fuck. I think, given the state of my family and my relationship with Boyfriend, the directions really should be more like, “whenever the hell you want to take it.”

  My friend also has a prescription for Clonazepam, but she finished hers almost a week earlier than she should have and can’t get a refill for another five days.

  “Clonazepam is my lifesaver at the moment. I know I need to cut back. I’m using way more than I should be,” she says, also telling me she, more often than not, feels left out in her blended family. The stress of blending has gotten to her, too, and she is self-medicating to keep calm, ignoring the “as needed” directions because, fuck, in a blended household, it’s always “needed.”

  In fact, when I need something to calm my nerves, all I have to say to my doctor is that I’m stressed out because of blending and fighting with Boyfriend. She is very sympathetic to my lot in life. Eventually, my “as needed” directions turn into “twice a day.”

  My friend and I also agree that we don’t know how or when the hell we became — What’s the opposite of enamoured? That word! — in our blended families.

  “How did we become interlopers in our own homes?” she asks.

  “I have no fucking clue,” I respond. We are not just out tonight because we are friends but also because we both need a night away from the stress and arguments we’re having within our respective households.

  And so we drink and laugh together over the insanity of how much we need our bedrooms to hide out in and our prescriptions on us at all times, and how great it is that we can ask each other for pills when we run out before our refill is due. At least my girlfriend and I are on a good schedule when it comes to our drugs. Just as she finishes her prescription, I get mine. Just as I’m running low, she gets hers. We have the ideal custody schedule when it comes to our prescriptions.

  The night with my girlfriend feels both liberating and cathartic. Maybe my dermatologist was onto something when she said the only way her blended family works is for her to get the hell away from it once a week to party with her girlfriends. I can’t remember the last time I had a good laugh with Boyfriend. I don’t remember the last time I smiled so hard. I needed this night with my girlfriend. I needed to remember how to laugh.

  Before we part ways, my girlfriend and I decide to do one more shot of tequila. We hold up our shot glasses and make a toast.

  “Here’s to hiding in our bedrooms,” I say.

  “Here’s to prescription drugs,” she says. We clink our shot glasses. After we pay our bill, I hand her a few of my Clonazepams. Survival drugs.

  · SEVENTEEN ·

  “I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes. I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” The internet says Marilyn Monroe said that, but the internet is probably wrong. Whoever said it, though, is one smart person! That particular quote really resonates with me, especially after Boyfriend and I argue and he accuses me of going off on too many tangents.

  Something has definitely shifted in our relationship, but I still don’t think it’s unfixable. Even though I’ve been thinking of calling it quits, I’m not a decisive person. I don’t honestly know what to do. I’m not happy with him, and we fight a lot. That being said, I still think about him all the time. We are still very sexually active. Plus, certainly, if many of my married friends can remain married to their spouses for fifteen to twenty years, obviously with ups and downs, Boyfriend and I can as well. There is no one single thing that’s happened that’s led to me hiding out in my bedroom or to my unhappiness. It’s not just the Hi/Bye Fight, or the unfairness I see when he grocery shops, or the fact that I do not feel like I’m his priority and feel unappreciated, or that I’m not welcome at certain family events. I’m simply just not happy anymore. I know, I know. You can only make your own happiness. But if I were to “make my own happiness,” I would probably break up with Boyfriend. I expect — await, unfairly — Boyfriend to make me happy again, as he has promised. Meanwhile, I sink deeper and dee
per into a depression about the state of my life.

  This was not what I signed up for, I think. I try to be easy on myself, because just like no child chooses to be in a blended family, no one I know ever said as a child, “I can’t wait to grow up and live in a blended family so I can tiptoe around like a tightrope walker, trying to please everyone, only to realize I can’t.” This life was not a childhood dream.

  Maybe, just maybe, when things seem to fall apart, they will eventually fall into place? At least that’s what I’m hoping for, or convincing myself is possible. Maybe the better comes after the worse.

  Before blending, I never imagined just how many emails I’d eventually get from Boyfriend with the subject line “Us.” I start getting almost as many emails with the subject line “Us” as I did ones with the subject line “Poem” when we first started dating. Obviously, I much prefer the subject line “Poem.” I know, before even opening the emails with the subject line “Us,” that Boyfriend will promise to change and see things from my perspective, and, also, that he’ll say he loves me “more than anybody.” Still, there’s never a simple “I’m sorry.” There are a lot of promises, always broken. And there’s no “I’m sorry!” when I bring up his broken promises.

  In one email he sends with the word “Us” in the subject line, he writes, after an argument in which I say something nasty to him,

  To say this is extremely upsetting would not do justice to how I am really feeling. We have been through more in five years than most have in a lifetime. I know you don’t think we are a family, but we are. There are lots of blended families that work, but it takes some give and take. I understand why you are upset about some of the things, but they are things that can be fixed and made better if everyone was more conscious of each other. It may never be perfect, but it can definitely get better. I vowed to work through things with you through the good and bad and I am willing to continue to fight … I know people say love cannot conquer all, but I think it can. Love still requires work, but without it there is nothing. I am willing to go to all ends of the earth to make us great again, because when I say you are my heart, “you are my heart.” It feels broken right now and it does seem clear that your heart is in the same place … We have a lot to lose and I don’t want to lose you. If you do not feel the same way anymore and don’t want to be with me, I will walk away gracefully. I think we can get back to “great again.” It just needs some effort to do it. I love you and you are my heart.

  Sure, the words are lovely. But actions speak louder than words, and the only action Boyfriend seems to be doing is sending me more and more emails with the subject line “Us.”

  Yes, even when we threaten each other that this is “just not working” and we should call it quits, we keep making up, fighting to make our blended family and “Us” work. By now, I’m like the girl who cried wolf. I’ve threatened to kick Boyfriend out numerous times. It doesn’t seem to be getting better. Even after we talk things through, I now know that within days we will be fighting about something else. I don’t even know anymore if it has to do with blending, or if we are just two people who have changed. I hate feeling like a lost dog that just needs some love and attention. I hate having to wonder if it’s better to be alone than feel lonely in a relationship. I hate that I have reverted to begging for attention. I don’t recognize myself anymore.

  Having these “discussions” — I call them fights, regardless of what Boyfriend wants to call them — is like texting with someone who types faster than you. Before you can finish one thought, you receive another text about another issue. Sometimes our discussions get so far off track, it’s like missing your exit on the highway and you’re in the next fucking town before you realize how lost you are. I hate to admit how often we forget what we’re fighting about in the first place.

  Sometimes I am so depleted by all of the arguments that I’m left feeling like a turtle who has just smoked a joint or like I’m running with bricks on my feet, not actually getting anywhere. Sometimes I do wonder how he puts up with me, especially when I’m depressed. But then I remember that I put up with him and his broken promises and his inability to apologize, and in that sense, we’re even.

  The stress of our relationship, and my depression, is getting to Boyfriend, too. My therapist says that my depression is situational and suggests that I go on an antidepressant. But is being in a blended family situational? Isn’t it just my fucking life? I don’t take the antidepressants. Still, I know Boyfriend, who likes to say things along the lines of, “I live for today and tomorrow and don’t dwell on the past because I can’t fix it or change it,” is becoming more than frustrated when I tell him I’m down and I don’t really know why. I don’t expect him to rescue me, but I do expect that he at least be empathetic because he’s my partner, he says he’ll do anything for me, and we are for better or for worse — or for better or for blended.

  Boyfriend doesn’t understand what it’s like to be depressed, so he gets frustrated when I just want to be left alone. He’s not meeting my needs, although I have spelled them out, again and again, and he has promised that he’ll fight for us. I’m not meeting his either. It’s almost as if our relationship is like a dropped phone call. We are disconnected from each other. I start sending Boyfriend articles in hopes of him understanding that much of my irritability is due to my depression, to show him that many who suffer from depression also have feelings of isolation that can be crushing. While I hide out in my bedroom or car, Boyfriend is probably experiencing an internal battle over what to say or what not to say, wondering if something he says or does will set me off, and starts making plans with “friends” so he doesn’t have to deal with me. That’s how I feel anyways.

  I think I can speak for both Boyfriend and myself when I say we are so very tired and frustrated by the merry-go-round of fighting over the same issues over and over again. Now, every time we fight, he blames it on my depression, but he never quite understands what has put me into a depressive state. I miss the person he used to be. I miss the person I used to be. I miss how he used to treat me and look at me. I think I still love him, but I no longer recognize him. I’m both happy and sad when he makes plans to go out. When he’s out, we don’t argue. But when he’s out, we’re also growing apart. I start to accuse him of not wanting to be with me.

  Later, I will learn how he really feels about our relationship when I receive a text that oozes with annoyance: “Here we go again, with you accusing me of something, which was what I lived with for years with you. It was either taking money, not paying rent, hiding your pills, not treating you like #1, blah, blah, blah.”

  Well, yeah, I want to scream, because it’s all fucking true. He didn’t pay rent. He did try to hide my pills. He most certainly didn’t treat me as number one. His dog got more attention than I did. So, blah, blah, blah to you too!

  I think, at this point, we both feel that we are putting overtime into this family, like a job, but without additional pay or benefits. Who the fuck would we even invoice for all this extra time and effort we’ve put into working on our relationship and our blended family? Apparently, in my eyes, Boyfriend cannot handle me at my worst. But, again, he gave me Baby Holt, so I should be eternally grateful.

  So, what exactly are our issues?

  Money

  The division of chores

  Money

  I feel unappreciated

  Money

  I feel he treats his daughters, and even the dog, better than me

  Money

  Boyfriend feels he does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the baby

  Money

  Boyfriend doesn’t like feeling like he’s stuck in the middle between me and his children

  Money

  I’m no longer a priority

  Money

  He can’t say he’s sorry even if he knows I deserve an apology

  He may lack the empathy gene

  I start to type into my laptop things like, “Signs your marriage is
falling apart”; “Is my marriage falling apart quiz”; “My marriage is falling apart and I don’t know what to do”; “Marriage falling apart after baby”; “How to stay positive when your marriage is falling apart”; and “My marriage is falling apart and my husband doesn’t care.”

  This is never a good idea. When I read about “signs your marriage is falling apart,” I realize that, yes, there are some signs our marriage is falling apart, but not all the signs apply to us, so maybe there is hope. For example, we may not have sex everyday anymore, but we still have sex a couple of times a week. So, instead of reading articles on whether my relationship is over, I take a quiz, meant for teenagers, to see if I’m still “into” Boyfriend. These are bullshit quizzes, not meant for those who are parents, but the results are not good.

  So, yes, I have proof that we both aren’t as happy as I thought we were. The division of money, always an uncomfortable topic, is a big problem — the main source of our unresolved issues — but it is not the only problem. As Boyfriend did, maturely, text, “blah, blah, blah.”

  I know things have gotten really bad when Boyfriend and I no longer head up to bed at the same time, which is one of the things we have always done and once promised each other we would always do. We used to enjoy watching Netflix together, and we used to wait to watch new episodes of our favourite shows together. No longer. Now I head up to bed earlier, and Boyfriend watches “our” shows downstairs. This is truly a modern sign of a relationship falling apart.

  So, yes, I still find him incredibly attractive. But are we happy? And am I an evil person for wanting to stab a knife in the eye of a so-called expert on blended families, while I’m on my Google hunt for help, when I come across an article saying how important it is to determine right from the start how you plan to share your money with your new partner? Fuck. Right. Off.

  Like I said, we didn’t discuss even how much closet space he needed. We decided to have another baby after Boyfriend played a round of golf. He met my daughter on our first date. So, no, we did not fucking discuss financial decisions. We are a family with two piggy banks. And, now, two Netflix accounts.