The Big Small does not like Boynotquiteonthenetheredge. 

This is a situation I have basically been avoiding, because I don’t really know what to do about it. 

But I think I need to do something, and I need to do something because I’m ill. 

I’ve been ill for nearly a month now, and being ill and being alone with two kids is really bloody difficult. 

Whether this is true of all children or just my Smalls I don’t know, but they have literally NO empathy. 
I had to go to the Dr the other day and they had to miss a swimming lesson, and they complained I had ruined their lives, and that this was therefore the worst day EVER. 

I’ve had to get a babysitter on two other occasions, both for medical appointments, and both times one or other of them has been hysterical, and then proceeded to guilt-trip me for days afterwards. 

All of this is part of the same possessiveness problem that’s ultimately behind the Big Small’s dislike of Boynotquiteonthenetheredge. And has meant that he feels further off the edge than ever...

God, it would have been so nice to have someone to look after me. 

To take up some slack. 
To make a dinner. 
To put a wash on. 
To do a school run. 
To be in charge for a bit. 
To have a cuddle and tell me it’s all going to be okay. 

In many ways I’ve kept Boynotquiteonthenetheredge at arms length over the last couple of years for my own reasons, and not just the Big Smalls’. 

Some of them are practical. 

He lives a good way away. His kid-care schedule is complex. We only really cross over WITHOUT  kids for one day twice a month... and that’s not a lot of time to build a relationship. 

And that’s been okay because some of my reasons have been personal, too. 

I haven’t WANTED him too close. 

I’m still so raw, and so cautious, and so protective of my freedom, my space, my independence - protective of myself - the bit that got lost in someone else - and protective of my relationship with my girls, our little family of three. 

And I’ve poured everything into making that three work, into making up for the break-up. 

In many ways I suppose Boynotquiteonthenetheredge has only ever had the bits not quite used up by them. The bits left over. The bits at the edge. 

Our rule has always been that the children (all four of them) come first, and that we maintain their lives and their stability as a priority. 

It’s a good rule. 

But as a result I live MY life in two different halves that I struggle to reconcile. And I am always either half lonely for him and for the me I am with him, or for them, and for the me I am with them. 

One of the Big Small’s biggest complaints about Boynotquiteonthenetheredge is that I’m ‘not the same when he’s around.’ 

And she’s right. 

I’m not. 

Partly I’m different in the catch-22 of knowing I’m different and being weird because I’m conscious of it, and weird in general, obviously. And partly I’m different because he feeds different things in me. 

Partly that half of my life - the half of ‘me’ that’s not a Mum - just IS different to what the Big Small sees.... because I AM her mum. 

Probably, I’m actually a bit different with ALL of my friends for similar reasons - only she doesn’t see that because when I’m with them she’s usually off playing with their kids, or in bed because it’s night time, or at her Dad’s. 

And of course we’ve had so little interaction with people over the last year anyway she’s forgotten what it’s like, and what I’m like in ‘public’. I’ve forgotten that, too, if I'm honest. 

I suppose the real truth is I’ve never known how to reconcile the different parts of me with ME, let alone with or for anyone else. Different bits just... come out. Largely at random. Or stay in. I don’t know anymore. It’s been a long 18 months. 

Despite this, I think the real crux of the matter isn’t actually ME at all - or in fact the Boy. Who’s really very nice (despite breaking her cat’s leg, see previous blogs). 

It’s her Dad. 

He’s conducted his relationship very differently, at a speed and rate of integration I’ve always found difficult, and I think the Big Small has, too. (The Small Small doesn’t care one way or the other). She doesn’t get time on her own with her Dad, and they’ve never done ‘just them’ as a family of three. And that’s made her more possessive of me, and my time, and my consistency. 

Basically if the kid could wee in a circle round me to mark her territory, she would. 

It’s got to the point where she doesn’t even like to HEAR about my time with Boynotquiteonthenetehredge, because she’s so jealous of it. And the hysteria and emotional backlash I get - often late at night as she cries herself to sleep with imaginary scenarios I can’t combat with logic - are more than I can manage. 

Particularly right now. 

In some ways I think maybe my ex has got this whole shabang right, by living one single authentic life - and by not entertaining this level of drama. And in a great many ways I’m jealous that he’s got the whole - the 2.4 family life I wanted - picked up where I exited with someone new. Someone who I bet brings him a cup of tea when he’s under the weather, and maybe puts the kids to bed. 

God, imagine that. 

And I’ve realised this last month that actually that’s what I want. Or at an approximation of it - two halves of my life slightly less regimentally separated.   

I know I deserve this - and to have my own life beyond my children. And I know I NEED this, because they will go. The Big Small in particular is already starting to fly further and higher away from me... But she still needs me to be there, where she left me. 

EXACTLY where she left me. 

Sometimes she needs that so violently it scares me -  like she’s had so much change in her life she can’t bear any more. 

So I’m stuck. 

(And ill). 

And very open to experiences and suggestions from ‘blended’ families who’ve been through this before and maybe even figured it out. 

This is it - the biggest lie we were ever fed, and are continually fed - in movies, and books and social media: The lie of Happily Ever After. 

Boy Meets Girl, The Substantially Less Engaging  Sequel. 

Because the bit after the happy ending is bloody hard, isn’t it? 

Maybe the best we can hope for is ‘Authentically Moving Forwards’. 

And maybe somebody can help me work out what the next step here actually looks like, so I can start moving forwards again. 

xxx