Marriage, Step-Parenting, and Life

Marriage is great. It is crazy and hard and beautiful. Add a step-child to the mix and, look out! You've got yourself a daily rodeo. Believe me, this is one thing I know. "I do" changes your life. It isn't just because you are legally bound to another being. That one little phrase changes who you are, how you think, and dictates your every move.

All marriages have their "getting to know you" phase. You find yourself thinking, "If I had known that he made that weird noise in his sleep, I never would've married him!" Of course, this thought comes at two in the morning when the odd cadence of your groom startles you out of a dream about Fabio and chocolate. That's never good. We women are not without our quirks either. While you are despairing of his weird noises, he is wondering why in the world you insist on uncovering your feet and, incidentally, uncovering his feet, twenty times a night.

It is all about give and take in a marriage. The hard part is learning what to give and what to take. For instance: No man likes sleeping in a pink, frilly bedroom. If he says that he loves the new dusty rose duvet and shams, he is merely trying to appease you into ignoring his tattered Longhorn's sweatshirt. While you are hanging Priscilla curtains around the bed, he is having night terrors about being trapped in a spider web. But he agrees with your decorating tips because he loves you and he's smart. Give him a break and resist putting a doily under each of his eagle statues.

Sometimes, you wake up six months or six years or six minutes after uniting in holy matrimony and realize that you've married more than one person. The other person is "daddy's girl." Daddy's girl is the apple of Daddy's eye and the cause of weekly migraines. Being a step-mother is at times the most trying task in the world. Not only are you expected to live with your husband's nuances, but every move you make is watched by little eyes. Initially, it is like being stalked by a large cat. You never know when she will pop up and swat at you.

After years of tiptoeing around and trying to be both a parent and a friend, something magical happens. You discover that this third person in your marriage is actually funny and sweet and beautiful. (As an added bonus, she loves the Priscilla curtains around your bed as well as anything pink.) There are still disagreements. You still want her to clean her room and she still insists that just closing the door is a solution that will make everyone happy. She still argues with you about how to do a simple Algebra problem and you still have to make her brush her teeth. The difference is that you have each made a bit of room in your life for the other.

After ten years, you look at what your life has become and have to smile. It is a great accomplishment to reach ten years of marriage. It is an even greater accomplishment to raise a child to adulthood. There have been sacrifices made along the way. (The bedroom is now sage.) You find yourself unable to sleep without your husband's strange noises and you wouldn't let him throw away that old sweatshirt last spring because it smells like him. Change is inevitable. You should be grateful for that.