How Do I Make Him See?

Jason doesn't understand. Anything. I've been trying to explain how I feel - taken for granted, left out, ignored, hurt, insulted, unappreciated. He doesn't get it.

He sees that I don't have to do what I do. But he doesn't think I do much. He doesn't see that welcoming people into my home half the time who are rude and nasty to me, then paying half the rent for the house I'm not welcome in, half the food for 4 people, tidying up after them, cooking and washing up when required, entertaining when required, helping with homework, buying gifts then making myself scarce when not wanted whilst always being nice, never complaining in front of anyone, never telling anyone off, never being short or angry or upset in front of anyone; and all this with no say in what goes on in what is supposed to be my house - no say in when the kids come over or for how long, how they get to treat me, what they do, most of the time no warning even... He doesn't think that amounts to anything.

Does it really not? If it doesn't then what's wrong with me that I feel like this?

And if it does amount to something - how do I get him to see?

When I first met Mark I thought he bore an uncanny resemblance to Damien from 'The Omen'. I know - not pleasant, and probably not the sort of thing you want to share, right? Except, I figured that with this kid, it probably was. And he thought that was great. He loves those scary kids books with monsters and vampire pirates, and he does a great impression of a zombie.

So it's become an in joke between us.

Except.

Secretly, I have this tiny fear that he really will turn into Damien. After all, it's not like his sister's that far off. And he is a teenager. So when he pretends to be 'evil child' there is occasionally a nervousness to my laughter.

Now this is not entirely fair. He is a fantastic child, and his enthusiasm for practically everything on the planet is pretty infectious, as is his hyper energy level. However, Jason has mentioned that he has changed an awful lot since he started coming to stay with us, a little over a year ago. Once upon a time he was showing signs of becoming more difficult than Angelica is now. He would suddenly go into rages and was liable to stomp off, no matter where they were, with no regard for his own safety, and then get impossibly lost. Jason thinks this was the testosterone flaring for the first time, but he is still impressed by the transformation that Mark underwent. Surely the hormones must still be there surging away when the lights go out?

And that's what I'm worried about. Mark has never behaved badly in my presence. I walked in on the remnants of a strop about a year ago, and my presence must have made him decide it wasn't worth holding on to, as he snapped out of it pretty quickly. Life's far more fun when you stop sweating the small stuff (who moved my cheese?) and concentrate on enjoying yourself.

Nevertheless, I have, on occasion, watched the seeds of a strop appear, looking for a place to germinate. When his sister is winding him up, when his father is teasing him just a little too much, I can see him beginning to get angry and then change his mind at the last minute. We had one of those at the weekend - Mark and Jason were chasing each other around the house as I was cooking. It resembled a school playground very closely - underwear was yanked into cracks, wet fingers were poked into ears and I would hear sporadic roars followed by Mark shouting 'nipple cripple!'

Men.

Anyway, Jason got the last one in and as Mark recounted the attack to me, I could see his righteous indignation swell and the frown he wore grew darker. I got scared - he didn't seem to be clearing this potential storm. So I asked him about the number of times *he* managed to get his father.

That worked. The clouds cleared and he delighted in revealing the minutiae of his attacks.

I love this boy. But I am afraid that a horrible hormonal teenaged nightmare might yet reside within that cheerful, mischievous heart. After all, as Smirking Cat rightly pointed out - teenagers aren't fun. Certainly not 24/7, anyway.

So I'm a little apprehensive. I really hope it doesn't happen; but isn't that whole Jekyll and Hyde thing kind of inevitable for teens?

Whipped

I'm giving Jason some time on the Angelica issue. He's decided to take them to his parents for a series of talks. I'm leaving him to it for a while - after the ear-bashing he's received from me recently I imagine he needs to go away and think about what he's been doing (I think I was a primary school teacher in a previous life).

In the meantime, he dropped the kids off on Wednesday and was told that he'd be taking Angelica to a university open day in Notts on Saturday, because it was his turn. They've decided to alternate so this is his second, and BM's done one.

This kind of scuppers his plans for the weekend. Well, actually our plans, as we were supposed to just have Mark over, which is always fun. Now Mark will be babysat by Jason's parents, which I'm sure he'll enjoy. They have a terrier that Mark loves to torment. However, I know that Jason was also looking forward to the things he'd planned to do with his son. Still, he'll get Sunday.

We were discussing the change of plans when he told me on Thursday, and all the little details, like whether they would be back for dinner, would they be eating together, should I fend for myself, could I invite someone over or would he be bringing Mark back and expect dinner? In the past I've not asked any of these questions, have been told to expect them home for food and then not eaten myself because they didn't get back till late, ate elsewhere and didn't call to tell me.

Not anymore, Sweetheart - that woman is outta here.

Jason's quite laid back - he doesn't do plans. He had no idea what he wanted and couldn't understand why I wouldn't just wait and see what happened (see previous experiences, Sunshine). Not that this is a big deal, but I'm starting small with the training him to think about the position he puts me in.

He eventually said, 'Hey, it's not my fault - this was dumped on me last minute too!'
Apparently the word 'no' is not a part of his vocabulary. I'm familiar with this. For New Year's last year we had long planned to go out together for a special evening, just the two of us (Jason had had the kids the year before). The day before New Year's eve he tells me that 'We're taking the kids to London for the fireworks'.

I'm sorry, what?

This is after a particularly nasty Christmas where I had worked my backside raw for them, earning money for gifts, organising outings, making and embroidering stockings, cooking until the oven was gasping for mercy and cleaning the house practically daily after the kids and, occasionally, dog, left their mark on things. That wasn't the nasty bit. The horrid part was Angelica's treatment of me - which meant that I was left out of all the celebrations and had to clean the house all over again afterwards because she decided it would be hilarious to throw glitter, shredded paper, sequins and foil everywhere. Literally, everywhere, it was like Tinkerbell had vomited after a frat party and we still find glitter in the carpet pile and foil bits down the back of the couch.

Ok, I didn't mind too much about the work (except for that last bit, I swear she knew exactly what she was doing when she did that); it was the being left out that really hurt.

Anyway, I'm digressing. When I pointed out the lack of short notice and that I wasn't sure spending New Year entertaining Angelica would be pleasant after Christmas, Jason said:
'Well, you don't have to come.'

No, I'm sure I can make other plans with ONE DAY left to go. After I've turned down other invitations and lost the opportunity of a lift given that everyone I know has gone away and I didn't think I'd need to go with them. Sure, I could stay at home on my own and get sozzled on port while I beat myself at hangman. Or maybe just beat myself.

I found a solution. I'll tell you about it another time.

Basically, the point that I lost somewhere back there amidst the foil and fireworks was that Jason has a hard time saying no when the BM says 'jump'. He admits this. I can understand, it just bugs me sometimes that I'm expected to constantly work my life around them. Obviously only when it affects me too. Is a little bit of notice too much to ask?

Personally, I went to all my university interviews alone - even when they were technically in a different country (as I'm sure the Scots prefer to think). But that really wouldn't work for Angelica.

'I'll only get a phone call when she's in Glasgow,' Jason points out.

Can't argue with that.

To the Easily Offended... Please Avert Your Eyes...

Somewhere in the bush behind our house, there is a garden. Or so I've heard - it's been quite some time since I saw the evidence.

I commented to Mark that soon it would be time to get out the shears and trim things back:

Me: I really hate that part of gardening. I get scared of the garden spiders waiting to ambush me, and I always emerge covered in lethal scratches, even when there's no thorn in sight. Bushes have it in for me.

Mark: That's ok - I'll do it! I like trimming bush!

Me: !

Your Halo's Crooked...

Jason has been 'Trying' to talk to Angelica about her behaviour for a while now. Apparently. He has had the 'Don't you like Medea?' conversation, the 'what you did really upset Medea', conversation, the 'Why did you do that?' conversation, the 'When you treat her like that it's really upsetting for Medea' conversation, as well as a few others. Her responses have been of the form: 'Of course I like Medea', 'I didn't do anything wrong', 'You misunderstood me' and 'I didn't mean to, I was upset because of you/Mark/xyz' etc.

Her behaviour has remained unchanged. Actually, no, that's not true: it has actually been getting worse. So the contract on our house is coming up for renewal and I told Jason that I would no longer be paying for a house in which I did not get to live. I was moving out. And boy was I looking forward to it.

That lit a fire under him. So he has decided that he's definitely going to do something. I'm not quite sure what. Anyway, he made his first move by taking the children to his parents' place (neutral ground, apparently) and sitting down to talk with Angelica.

He explained to her that the things she'd been doing were unacceptable. He wasn't brave enough to point out any of the things she'd done that were really nasty, just talked about her ignoring me, talking over me and generally being rude. I think that was a bit of a cop out, really, but I guess he's trying.

Angelica denied all of it. Didn't happen. She doesn't do things like that.

At this stage, Jason's sister came in to say that actually, she had seen Angelica treat me this way the last time I had joined them all for dinner.

Angelica claimed to have no idea what they were talking about. Apparently, I must be making it all up. I must be over-sensitive. I misunderstand her. Maybe it's just that I talk too quietly and she doesn't hear me. It's because I'm so short.

(WTF??!)

I can't say I'm overly surprised. It did blow the wind out of Jason's sails for a bit, because he didn't know where to go next. So he gave up.

I tried pointing out that there were plenty of occasions that he could specify individually, some of which I've detailed here, others that I haven't - when she arranged for me to be left out at Christmas, when she complained about Mark being nice to me, when she suggested that I left all the chores to Jason after I had spent the day cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, when she suggested that I was lazy when I was so ill I was on thirty pills a day just to function without pain, when she told me to get lost after I brought her some hot chocolate, the weekend when she consistently left a room if I entered it and insisted that Jason and Mark go with her. Oh and not just me - there was the time she slammed her brother's face into a window and claimed he was attention seeking when he went to Jason with tears pouring down his face, looking for justice. He didn't get any. Jason just left Mark with me and took Angelica to spend the day with him (in order to separate them you understand).

I'm thinking of taking up smoking again. I need some way of dealing with the frustration without going nuts. I should find a healthy outlet - oh hang on. I have a blog ;)

I am quite happy about that fact that not once have I taken out my frustration on the children. I haven't said anything horrid, I've not shouted at them, I've not berated them. I have vented here and tried to talk things through calmly with Jason. I just wish men wouldn't wait until the last possible minute to do something when things are going wrong.

He doesn't have them again for a couple of days. At this rate, I think he'll still be 'working on it' by Christmas, because in three years, I've never known Angelica to ever admit to doing anything wrong.

Let the games begin.

Hardwork + Dedication = Snow Leopards

So I think I've been letting Angelica get to me an awful lot recently. So I've decided I'm going to try to balance things out. I'm going to try to remember a time when she was nice, in an attempt to convince (remind?) myself that she *is* a nice person, deep down, somewhere; and that her behaviour is not personal.

Oh, but it so feels like it is.

Stop. Not going to fall back into that trap.

Ok, lets see. I know. Once upon a time, Angelica and I used to spend a lot of time together. She was struggling in school and had important exams coming up. I teach maths and science in my spare time and have quite an impressive success rate, so when Jason mentioned Angelica's ongoing issues and that she was worried that she would fail badly, I desperately wanted to help. I genuinely believe that no child can ever be 'useless' at maths or science if they get the right attention and approach to learning. You need to tailor the teaching to suit them. If they want to learn - and Angelica really did, then it should be rewarding to watch them flourish.

And you know what? It really was. We did need to start pretty much at the beginning. Angelica had been left behind over the years as the course went on at a pace that was just beyond her. Nobody took the time to make sure she'd understood before moving off topic - and it really didn't take much time. In the end, I taught her two years worth of maths in six months. Plus a bit of science, literature and French thrown in. I loved puzzling out the best way to explain things so that they would make sense from where she was sitting. She thrived - she would come to see me with evidence of hours of extra work she'd put in to a subject she used to hate that she now saw as just a series of games and puzzles.

Plus we were getting on really well. In between discussing the number of prada purses a girl could by with 600 euros (In my world a prada purse costs about the same as a hardback book), we talked about the things we loved to do, the people we knew, hobbies, friends, our families and our pets - everything you could imagine.

She had been predicted an E in maths. Six months later, she got a B. I was incredibly proud, and very impressed by her hard work and determination. So to reward her, I started saving up for a particularly special birthday present for her. Angelica loves animals, and had wanted to be a vet (at that stage). So for her 16th, we got her a day looking after tigers, lions, jaguars, cheetahs, meerkats, red pandas, snow leopards, coatis and pretty much every other animal you can imagine at a wildlife conservation park. She got to climb into enclosures and feed racoons, monkeys and birds of prey. It rained all day but nothing could wipe that smile from her face.

Oh, and the park-keepers were great at including Mark whenever possible too. It was a fantastic day - and she really deserved it.

Fair D'income

I have been devouring every scrap of literature on step-motherhood and dating divorced daddies that I can find in the somewhat vain hope that one of them will contain the magic spell I can whisper to make things better: to stop being the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong with the family, to stop being crapped on from up high by Angelica and occasionally other family members when they need someone to take the blame for misbehaving children and general unhappiness (because, of course, it's always the step-mother's fault eventually, because everything would be better if things went back to the way they were before she came along - but hang on, that's another blog for another day).

Anyway, in the midst of one of the many books I've been pawing through like a teenaged boy on his first date was an article on finances. Now this was something I thought I had sorted. I'm a scientist, I've taught math, I can handle the finances. Yet recently I've realised that I'm beginning to sense potential problems, just around the corner. They haven't made their presence felt yet, but I suspect it might happen sometime when I least expect it.

Let me elaborate. The article was about a woman who moved in with her partner and his two boys - although he was the non-custodial parent, so they weren't there for more than 40% of the time. When it came to the bills and rent, he happily divided things up 50:50 as he thought was equitable and fair. Meanwhile she had other ideas and pulled him up - she wasn't going to pay half of everything when she didn't use half of everything. Does everyone get this? I tried to explain this to my partner a while ago and he didn't get it. Let's put it this way - two people live there all the time. Two littler people live there half the time. So you could say that three people live there all the time. Or something.

Regardless, she didn't use half. So in the end she paid about 40% of the mortgage bills, a third of the utilities and some fraction of the food costs, I forget exactly what, but you get the idea.

I have to say, this is not something I ever thought I could contemplate - it would be so unfair to Jason to have to pay for the majority of everything when I knew his responsibilities to his children before we moved in together.

However, recently, secretly, there has been a tiny grain of dissension burrowing its way past my morals and into that part of my brain that's in charge of self-righteousness. I'm a little ashamed of it actually. I don't want to do this. But I would like for it to be acknowledged that I don't have to do what I do. I don't have to pay half the bills, when I don't use half the utilities; I don't have to pay for half the food when I don't eat half the food; I don't have to pay the phone bill because I rarely use it - it's there so the kids can call mum whenever they want to and get in touch with Jason without paying extortionate mobile bills - I don't have to buy gifts and organise outings that I then pay for - why should I buy birthday and Christmas gifts for every member of his family when he doesn't have to because I don't have any family - it's not fair! It may only be money but it's MY money and I work silly hours to be able to pay for you all! ARGH!

Sorry. Bit of a rant there. I'm calm now, I promise. Well, calmer.

So. Why this now? Why is this becoming an issue for me now, when for so long it hasn't been something I'd have contemplated? Well, partly because other people have been saying things like 'Why are you paying for that?' etc. Which is something that other people do, who haven't been in the situation you're in and couldn't contemplate loving a man enough to take on both his physical (two kids) and fiscal (child support, loan repayments, feeding, housing, clothing and entertaining of two kids) responsibilities. Partly because I read this article and it got me thinking. Mainly, actually, because I realised that Jason, his children and his family expected me to do this. Of course I would - that's part of the package. But I'm also expected to disappear from the house - my house and my only home - when the kids decide that they don't want me around. I'm expected to provide gifts but not be allowed to the parties as they include BM, and certainly not expect anything in return. I'm expected to understand when I'm excluded from events I helped to organise and pay for due to the churlish whims - usually - of a 17yr old (guess who?).

This became an issue because we tried to address Angelica's behaviour towards me. I made the mistake of going down the 'look at all the nice things I've done because I care about you and why do you treat me so badly?' route. I really should have known better than to head down there. Obviously it didn't work. Her response to 'why do you think we did those things for you?' was to turn round (she'd insisted on having her back to me while we were talking) and spit into my face: 'Because he's my father!'

Everything I've ever done for them negated in one phrase. Nothing I do will ever count because it's the least that's owed to them. I owe them because I'm with him, and he's their father. Don't get me wrong - I can see the reasoning - but it made my stomach drop. To my knees. Where it sits today as though I ate a bowling ball. Anyway. Moving on - again, another post for another day.

If I have to leave every time they're here - should I really have to pay half of everything? Doubtlessly, I know I'm not brave (stupid? childish? selfish?) enough to suggest to Jason that he ought to be contributing more - though I know he probably spends more on them when I'm off trying to give them space. Still, what's fair?

Eventually, the pretty-sounding lady in the article concluded that it's simpler (and nicer) in the long run to split everything down the middle. But then she married her guy. And she got to live in the house she was paying for.

Maybe I'm just bitter because I had to wander the streets once too many times this year, waiting for the children (Angelica) to go to bed so that I could go home. I promised myself I wouldn't be bitter.

Must try harder.

If Angelica Ruled the World...

At dinner the other night:

"Did you hear about that woman whose son was stabbed in London? She said she forgave the people who did it! What kind of mother is she??? If it were me I'd never do that - I'd go out there and find out who it was and stab them back! Only a terrible mother would forgive someone like that. If she was any good she'd be asking for blood right now! Some people!"

Yes, dear.

It wasn't the least bit admirable. Just what the world needs - more vengeance.

I'm sure your remarks don't offend and invalidate her grief in the least - or disrespect her right to offer forgiveness and understanding for the children drawn into gang culture.

Yes, Angelica, I'm sure you know best.

Again.

Later that evening:

"I'm never having children - who'd want to? They're so ungrateful and selfish."

Jason and I just stared at each other, open mouthed.

Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dogs' Tails...

For the first time in ages, we had Mark on his own. He was bubbly and excited and more talkative than ever. There were no mood swings and no arguing. Jason cooked while Mark and I played. I taught him to play a new tune on the piano. He got it in five minutes and put me to shame.

Then we made cupcakes for dessert and sat down for dinner. The atmosphere was light and comfortable and fun. Afterwards I washed up and Mark whupped his dad's ass at a boardgame. When it was time to go, he didn't want to leave.

Is it always the daughters that are the cause of all the trouble or is it to do with the fact that she's the eldest here? Either way, I wasn't the only one who noticed how different things were to usual, when Angelica comes too.

Everyone had a great time; though I can't help but wonder - are boys really best?