breathe

I hate this overwhelming pressure in my chest. Its like I cant even think certain thoughts without 

a tightness in my stomach, shallow breathing, heart pounding. 

I dont want my step daughter to call me Afton in front of my kids... if I have them.

I didnt know my mom's name for years, I was young and naive of course, but that shouldnt matter. I dont know why it bothers me so much, I dont have kids and wont for a while. But something about it frustrates me, saddens me, lessens something about being a parent.. About me someday being a Mom. It makes me feel like once again, The Ex gets everything and I get her broken left over world.. She is pretty much starting over, and I will be left to deal with her decisions forever.. How do I tell my husband that?

I cant imagine having children right now.

Every time my husband see one he lights up. 

I am taking that light and joy out of his life, until he sees his daughter. 

Its like he is finally happy again, it looks like I keep him from being truly happy. He LOVES children, he laughs and plays with them. Its obvious to me that he wants one more and more. 

I am holding him back from being happy.

How can I explain what it feels like to know without a doubt that he isnt really happy and complete until he talks to his daughter. To know that YOU dont do that for him. I am the one who makes him stressed and worried, and she is pure bliss and cuteness. 

I dont want a girl... ever.

I grew up with all brothers and I loved it. I have always gotten along with boys better than girls. Even before I met my husband I have always wanted a baby boy.

Now I cant imagine ever wanting a girl.

Will mine be as cute, smart, pretty, or perfect as his is?

Will her hair be as long and naturally gorgeous as his little girl's is?

Will she be as quick witted at such a young age?

Will she talk and walk before most babies like his did?

Why do I fell like it is a competition? It feels so wrong and yet I cant help think about it. Oh, thats right, cause if my child isnt as cute, perfect, etc as his then we will know that it was Him and his Ex wife who made better children.. Namely his Ex being beautiful and that transferring into her beautiful daughter...

I am sick right now. I feel a little out of control of my emotions and have completely distanced myself from everyone today. They are all upstairs watching a movie.. August Rush. I cant watch it, I am too sensitive to the children, the need and desperation in the mother's eyes as she tries to find her child. That passion seems to burn me, I cant seem to be around it, I react to it. I am angered and repulsed by it. Why? 

Why do I write these things into cyber space..

no one will hear me, there are no answers to be found.

I thought that writing might relieve me, but it just makes my anxiety stronger

the unanswered questions that much harder

the loneliness that much deeper 

the conflicts so much darker..

How much times does it really take to make it through? Things are looking up in our relationship, going to counseling and seeking help. Trying to find a new way to look at my life and my emotions that are tied to my step daughter and her mother.. There is so much about being a stepmom that scares me, makes me believe that my life will never be my own. I have often felt like a side note to his relationship with his ex wife and their little girl. Jealousy has taken a hold of me in the worse ways. I want to be his one and only and I know that I come very short of that desire. Often I realize that if he had been able to stay with his ex, he would have been happier and more fulfilled. He wouldnt have been ripped form his daughter, from being a father, from a marriage that would have been first. Isnt it interesting how much worth we put on the first marriage... I cant imagine how OUR marriage will ever been as good as his was. He was blissfully happy with her for almost 4 years before she left him. The ties that they created, having a child, marrying in the temple, etc, are still lasting! They arent the same as they were obvioulsy, but he lost so much in that divorce.. Here we are trying to recreate something that was 'right' the first time. 


My own past was hard, at best. I thought I was doing everything right, mostly.. I became too physically attached to my ex husband, and that made me believe he was the one for me. How stupid I was. Three years of sadness, longing, heartache, rage, self loathing, and suffering. I always wanted more, more love, more attention, more sweet moments. I was married to a man that had checked marriage off his list and was moving on to the next thing. I was blinded, I discovered that the man I had married wasnt who I thought he was. He was distant, self contained, driven, seemingly emotionless, and unable to show love through physical touch. I felt like I was barred from the life that I had always dreampt of. Lost in a marriage that I had committed my life to, and was trapped by. When I left, after years of trying, raging, crying, sinking, I finally felt like the sky was the limit. I had learned what I needed and wanted from life and especially marriage. How is it then, that I couldnt see what I was getting into with my Husband? I thought I knew all the pit falls, which is a joke. He has a child, a BEAUTIFUL ex wife and then me. I know those things that he fell in love with in me. Many seem to be fleeing, in light of all the trials and expectations of not only a step mom but as the second wife. I am clinging to him and in doing so am pushing him away. He needs a confidant woman, full of fire and beauty, an independent woman who can go off for a night with the girls or be fine at home while he goes out with the boys, a woman who loves children, a woman who is strong spiritually and knows where she is going in life. Not a woman who doesnt want to be left alone for a day, who gets jealous when he is out with his friends as she sits at home alone cause she doesnt have girlfriends, a woman who has no idea what she wants to do with her life, who doent want kids. I cringe when they are around me, sometimes out of fear and other times out of stress. Why, I dont know, I never LOVED kids but I didnt get such anxiety around them like I do now... Does this sound like the kind of woman he wants to be with? No. 


I feel less and less like I should be with him, and obviously its destroying my self confidence. Thankfully counseling is helping our marriage in the whole step family area, calming my fears with his daughter.. a little. However, I begin to sink again into self loathing, and its not attractive. How can I expect him to love me like this? How can I ever really feel like a part of his life around his daughter. How can I possibly survive hearing about his past before me? How can I be ok with hearing from his Ex all the time, from either family members or his daughter, or just having to deal wit her? How can our marriage possibly be as important as his first? It was lovely, ours is dysfunctional. 


I am jealous and angry, good at beating up myself and raising his Ex on a pedestal. Now what?  

Tumbling down the Rabbit Hole....

Does it ever seem funny that when you begin most journeys you usually know exactly where you will end up. Some people plan their trip down to the minute and calculate the miles it takes to get from point A to point B. Many will let the winding road drag them through vastly different terrain and marvel and the hidden treasures the untraveled path is. Still others stand in the middle of their path, looking around themselves and wondering where they are or where they were going. 'How did I get here' they will wonder, 'why am I here all alone and with no direction?' they might ask. How are they to know if it is better to go forward on this road, or backwards. Maybe the best course is to take another path, or wait for someone to come along to give aid. 

I am stuck in the middle of a road, one that I was not really warned of. Perhaps friends and family whispered warnings and advice, but I wonder where I was during those times. I only heard two singular voices in my mind. My own, madly in love and oblivious to all but HIM, and HIS voice of love, reasoning, and support. HIS voice of logical answers and mumbled encouragement and hope, fighting my fears away.. I heard myself shrug away the fears and jealousy, the whatifs in favor of HIS strength and my undying love. 

I am 25 years old. Divorced and remarried to my high school crush. I am tall semi athletic, tall, blonde hair blue eyes. I was a model at 17 and quit to go to school as a horse trainer at 19. I was married for 3 years to a man that didnt know how to love me, though he enjoyed pornography behind my back.  I left him when I was 23. I didnt have children with him because I knew our marriage was failing since the day we can home from our honeymoon. I was married in the LDS temple. Three years of heartache I left and was ready to try and find my fairytale ending.. the one I had been cheated out of. I am married to HIM, my soulmate. I didnt believe in finding THE ONE. Yet he found me. HE was married for 3 years. SHE is beautiful, the ex. They had a fairytale life, or so it seems to me. They had a child, a daughter fairly soon into their marriage. She is 4. I am married to a man with a 4 year old daughter, HIS little girl. EX is beautiful, and HIS daughter is beautiful, just like EX. I dont like children. I dont know if I will ever have children of my own.. especially not now. I feel second to HIS past, HIS EX, HIS daughter... I HATE HIS daughter for being first. I HATE myself.. she is only 4 years old. I want HIM all to myself. I told HIM I would try to be a good STEPMOM. I do try, but most often I hide. HIS daughter clings to him. I want to cling to him. HE is in between two forces that will pull him apart. I should be stronger then this. I am ruining our marriage of only 9 months. 

When do you decided to change who you are inside? How do you decide to change how you feel at the most basic level of your heart and soul. I want HIM. I love HIM. I dont know how I could live without HIM. However this is what is in the makings.. A life without HIM and HIS past, EX, daughter, and all. I dont know how to try. A couple of hours is all that I am capable of, and its not enough for HIM. HE wants to talk to her all the time, visit all the time. We dont have the money right now, so if HE cant do these things HE is guilty and miserable. I want to be enough for HIM. I am not soft towards HIM when he talks to HIS daughter. It sets me off when he calls her HIS little girl... why?!?!?! I hate hearing HIS EX's name.. I see HER face in HIS daughters eyes. I hear HER voice when HIS daughter speaks. I will never be first with HIM.

HE is a good man. Kind, thoughtful, loving, dedicated, As a man HE is all I have ever dreampt about my whole life. I thought I gave up on fairytale ending.. I should have. One day we are on cloud 9, so in love and ready for the future and our life together. We make plans and have dreams and we laugh and live to the fullest. Then, SHE rears her ugly head and sends an email about wanting an adoption for HER new hubby, or documents for child support, or that HE must sign papers so HIS daughter can have a passport to move to Canada with HER and HER new hubby. SHE continues to chew HIM up and spit him out. HE is no longer dad to HIS daughter, first name basis now. I get to weather all this with HIM.  I am so very protected of HIM but it was HIS choice to be in this situation, to be a father that is there for everything when its obvious HIS EX is trying to erase HIM from the picture. It would be best for me if SHE could but I cant let HER do it to HIM, HE would die. So would I...

This road I travel is scary and I dont know what in the world I am doing. I dont know what I want, not really. I feel the battle of two desires raging inside me. I wnat HIS daughter gone from my life so I can start a family with HIM. No, I want HIM to have connection with HIS daughter, cause without it he would never be happy with me. Where is the balance... and why does it have to be within me?! Why do I have to live through his past, day after day after day? How do I divide the light from the dark? I made the choice, knowing full well HE had a child. It has changed somehow within me. This knowledge now festers in my heart. I brought this upon myself. Upon HIM, HIS daughter.. He says it will always be there, HE doesnt give me support or uplifting words of encouragement anymore. We both know they are hollow now... So I will continue to trudge down this darkened path and search for light, within myself, within HIM, anywhere.. before the end finds me.