It’s been too long…
I realized how much time has passed since I last posted. Geez! And it’s not that I didn’t want to write or didn’t have the time – I just didn’t want to post anything that wasn’t a true reflection of our new blended life together, but I was too scared to share any details of the past couple of months publicly. We have fought, made up, fought again, and made up again. The happily-ever-after blended family we thought we would be under one roof, was delayed. Ever the hopeless romantics, we both thought it would be so much easier. And, as long as it’s just the six of us, it still is. It’s when other people feel the need to get involved that sh*t hits the fan. So, we are working to keep ourselves from being shaken and stirred, while trying to stay perfectly blended.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to attend an event with Janine Driver. If you have never heard of her, go check out her facebook page or The Body Language Institute. She is a wealth of knowledge on how to read people and even I learned some new things about myself and others during her presentation. You see, my father would call himself a scientist (he actually did get a doctorate degree in Chemistry) and a little hobby psychologist (he knows how to observe and evaluate and, I suppose, my brother and I gave him plenty of opportunity). He has taught me an incredible amount of body language clues growing up and I always felt confident that I could spot phony behaviour from miles away, so no real big surprises in that regard during her presentation.
But the main point I took away from her presentation was the following: “Be YOU. Unapologetically YOU.”
It’s something I’ve always done subconsciously. I’ve made many friends with that behaviour, but I’ve also lost friends over it. And very often, as an empath, it tore me apart. Not only did it hurt to be rejected, but also people generally turn away from an empath because he unwillingly mirrors what they don’t like in themselves back to them. He picks up on feelings around him and often takes them on as feelings of his own. Everyone who knows me will tell you that I just cannot lie. I think that’s mostly due to the fact that my parents never let me get away with a lie as a small child (we ALL try to lie as kids, let’s not lie about that!), or with even a white lie as I got older. Therefore, I never became good at it and I have absolutely no poker face, so all my feelings are right there on my sleeve, at all times. What Janine taught me that day was that it’s okay that people don’t like you because of who you are. Then they’re not your people, and that’s okay. Unfortunately, that includes quite a few people from James’ family and circle of friends. Which is not all too helpful when you are trying to blend a family under one roof, with all the stressors the packing and moving, cleaning and adding on, putting away and storing, etc., in and of itself, brings.
We started the month of October beautifully. All of our kids were loving their new schools. They had all made new friends. They were all doing well academically. It could have not gone any more smoothly. Until about mid-October. From the time we moved into our blended house in the first week of August until the time Halloween came around, we had James’ kids for exactly ONE weekend. His ex took every vacation provision available to her and, combined with the fact that Labor Day fell on her weekend as well, was able to score almost every weekend between the start of school and Halloween for herself. Which put his children at a bit of a disadvantage, because my two kids had the reign of the house for several weeks without having to share everything with their step-siblings.
Well, on that weekend in mid-October, his Ex had the kids to take them out-of-state so they could be part of the entourage to support her in one of her long races. Hey, no problem, right? She had put in that request back in April, so we all had time to prepare for that week. The problem came when my “step-dog”, whose custody gets exchanged to one parent’s house with the kids every Sunday night preceding the weekend that particular parent has the children, got dropped off on the wrong Sunday. Ummmm… no. There is more fun to the story; the details, however, are less important than the final result of that Sunday evening: James’ father and step-mother ended up being the ones who jumped to the ex’s aid and took the dog, to save her the money of having to put up the joint dog in the $60/day kennel where her other dog stayed during her 5-day trip.
When James found out via the kids that his father offered to take the dog, after his ex called the police on him for playing by the rules of the divorce decree, he was hurt. As a fellow empath, I could see the shadow of hurt cross his face. Anyone else, I would have hugged and told that, yes, this sucks and no, it wasn’t right of them to do this. But with this man, who is one of the most giving and selfless people I know, while being so strong and stoic even if others hurt his feelings, my sense of justice overpowered me. So I called his step-mother, with whom I thought I had had a decent relationship until then and whom I respected because of how openly she spoke with me. I honestly thought she was an empath like James and me and that she would call James and apologize to him upon hearing how much their actions hurt him. They are HIS parents after all, not his ex’s. They should be supportive of HIM, not HER!
Needless to say, that conversation didn’t go well at all. Clearly, the ex had told them a nice long sob-story and, even if they weren’t siding with her, they weren’t ready to admit fault, either. Menschlich, allzu menschlich. Totally normal human behaviour. We didn’t fault them for that.
Where it becomes interesting is when I got blamed – on different occasions, in various ways – for creating this problem. This post is getting long, so I’ll be re-addressing those ways in another post. I will just conclude that, since we’ve been together, James is both more pensive and more outspoken at the same time than he has ever been before, and it’s messing with everyone’s head because he is no longer just sitting there and taking any abuse. It’s amazing how – with an equally strong woman at his side – this sweet guy no longer feels like he must make everyone around him happy, but that he can choose to make others happy. He is independent not because of me, but because he is intelligent, witty, handsome, and empathic. And he knows that. And so it makes people uncomfortable.
Ashley@Shakenstirredandblended
Hi, I'm Ashley and I am a freelance writer and editor for one local and one national publication. In my spare time, I teach foreign languages and manage two households. Oh, and raise four children. It's a crazy life that I chose and I love every second of it :o)
