I’m not remotely jealous bizarrely. I can’t wait for all that lovely, noisy, messy chaos.

Such a privilege.

In the “Sunday Telegraph” yesterday was an article about Danielle Lineker and her role as a stepmother. It looked at the negative popular culture view of the stepmother who since ancient times has been our favourite hate figure:- “Better a serpent than a stepmother” said Euripedes and how Danielle and a host of others are finding that it works best to be their stepchildren’s friend rather than their surrogate parent.

It looked at ways to get it right. How to create a life-long bond with a step child and the key appeared to be the co-operation from the child’s real parents and mainly about how getting the support of the real mother is essential.

I am quite sure that it would be in my children’s best interests for me to have a good relationship with their new stepmother, but does that really mean that I have to be involved? Our situation is a little more complex than most.

I got my second text from my X’s new wife today. I won’t bore you with the details – she mainly chose to tell me about Builder Bloke’s flaws, however the main point was that she wants to meet me to discuss the “truth”.

I really don’t think I’m ready to do that. My relationship with my X has nose-dived in the last few months and Builder Bloke thinks that meeting her is the worst idea in the world.

My aim, as ever is to do what is best for my children. I will meet her if I think we can develop a working relationship that helps them, however, to say that I am a little reluctant to put myself in the firing line again is an understatement. The last time I met her was when she inadvertently acquired my X’s number from me and now they are married.

HELP!!

Does anybody out there have any experience of this sort of situation? Does it really help the kids if we get on or would it be just as clear cut and simple if we had no contact whatsoever?

I did reply because I think it would have been rude not to, telling her that I was happy to meet after their honeymoon, once my X and I had resolved our financial dispute. BUT I DON’T WANT TO.

Yet.

It went OK I guess, after my first initial shock. My heart literally sank to the floor as my ex husband sat down. I immediately noticed his shiny new gold wedding ring. A stark reminder of his new status in life – but it wasn’t only that that caused my heart to stop but the fact that he wouldn’t wear one for me. He didn’t like it. Took it off within the first two weeks of our marriage and never wore it again and when we were trying to patch up our marriage he refused to wear it when I asked him to. So. I guess it was just a very hard slap in the face.

The meal went as well as could be expected. We managed to avoid all the hot topics, unbelievably. I think we only talked about what a lot of weather we have been having of late. Although his car got towed away whilst we were eating so it all got a bit stressy at the end.

My birthday boy was quiet when we got home though. Tired and flushed and slightly bright eyed and I just knew how he was feeling and as I sat with him and hugged him before he went to bed, big hot fat tears appeared.

He hates the fact we are no longer a family and birthdays just serve as an additional reminder of his loss and honestly, even after everything, as I held him close, if I could have turned back time at that moment, I would have – just to be able to stop him having to feel that pain. It makes me so very sad. Poor kids – children of divorced and separated families just have so much to deal with. It’s not fair.

I wonder if I made a mistake agreeing to be together as a family for the evening. Would it have been better for him if we’d been “cruel to be kind” and given him two birthdays instead – one with me and one with his dad? I’m just not sure. Neither scenario is ideal.

What a mess.

SO, instead I will tell you about my own “not” wedding party coupled with a BBQ for my friends who are back for a brief holiday from Australia.

We all had such a lovely time and I want to make an enormous public thank you to my fantastic brothers and their wives and all my lovely friends who did so much to make it all feel very special. They made mohitos, pimms, lit fireworks, put up bunting, brought cakes, bought gas, ice, general stuff, more drinks, danced about and generally helped me get through a difficult but positive and very happy day. Close friends who also know my Oz friend came too – so was very small and intimate.

It was completely right that Builder Bloke was with me – after all we’ve been through, it was important that we were together whilst our respective partners tied the knot. Bizarrely, I got my first ever text from his ex – who shall now be known as Wife No. 2 – but I’ll talk about that another time too because disappointingly it didn’t say anything like “your children were wonderful and I hope we can be friends”…..it was a rude rant. Which is not a good start.

Here are a few pictures of our evening – can’t think why but most of them are too blurry to show you:-

Separate “His” and “Hers” “Not” Wedding Cakes – one of Stig from Top Gear and the Other of a ballet dancer:-

and at the end when they were merged:-

The remaining hard core dancers at the end:-

My daughter’s beautiful cupcakes which we saved till the next morning:-

Thank you thank you thank you thank you……..

I am not sure how it will affect my children and suspect that it will have more of an impact on Builder Bloke’s children. They are the ones who live with my ex husband and have had to cope with what has effectively been a very quick transition from 0 – 100 in 18 months. BB’s ex wife told BB yesterday that she felt their youngest child was playing up because he was spending too much time with my youngest son and that when he had the children he should spend time only with them and not with us – pretty extraordinary coming from the woman who instigated the doubling up of time our children spent together – anyway it took my youngest child three years to get used to the idea of BB being around (with many gaps in between) so as BB pointed out to her, I suspect it’s got more to do with getting used to their new, sudden family unit.

Will it be difficult for all the children to readjust? Or are they already old enough not to mind too much? There are many issues around stepfamilies – separation and divorce and how we all deal with it that will affect the health and happiness of children in general. Too many children find themselves caught in the middle and I’m not sure that parents assuming that what is good for them must be good for the children is always the correct approach. Especially when it comes to boys – they are jealous of their mother being with someone else it seems to me.

For me there are the obvious financial implications which I think it’s best to not worry about until the time comes. I saw in the paper yesterday a story about stepchildren who had taken their stepmother to court over their father’s estate. They lost. She got everything. Gulp.

ANYWAY, I don’t want to hugely depress myself. Would love to hear about your experiences of stepfamily aka blended family life.

We went to book her appointment yesterday – “I’m having my hair done for my dad’s wedding” she told them with me standing next to her and it was sort of fine when they looked at me in a puzzled way, but also sort of really really weird. Then she called her dad to tell him that it was going to cost £50 (!!!) and he said “fine, but ask your mother to pay”.

Expecting me to pay for my daughter’s hairstyle for my ex-husband’s wedding to Builder Bloke’s ex-wife just about says everything I need to know about where I stand in the equation.

Precisely nowhere.

Needless to say lovely daughter texted him to say “I don’t think it would be fair to ask mum, she might get upset”.

Thankfully, I’ve got the most perfect day on Saturday for MAJOR distraction purposes….I have to go out early so won’t get to see her looking beautiful for her father’s wedding which is probably for the best because it will kill me and then I’d cry and spoil it for the kids. Instead I’ll be at the CyberMummy Conference (I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation but what are the CyberDaddy’s doing with their day?) where I will get to meet lots of my invisible friends in the flesh and learn what an RSS feed is (yes, I know that after three years I should get all that stuff). Even better for total distraction tactics is that I’ve been asked to speak which means I’ll be shitting myself for the entire day and not thinking about my daughter’s expensive hair style at all……

Just perfect.

Also, I appear to have pre-wedding jitters which is quite funny given I’m not the one getting married….understandable I suppose, given the fact that my husband of 15 years is getting remarried next Saturday. I wish they wouldn’t keep rubbing it all in my face. Obviously it’s unavoidable coming from the children – chat about what they’re wearing, who is going and so on BUT I’ve got lots of Wedding Readings and notes strewn around the kitchen that they have given the children to learn, which I think was a little insensitive.

The dream I had last night was the worst. I was delivering eggs to a huge house in manner of servant girl. Nearly new wife was directing loads of people about the mansion, but it wasn’t even the fact that I was delivering eggs (who bloody delivers eggs these days?) that was the problem, but the fact that my much loved Grandmother who I haven’t talked to for a few years now, (mainly because she’s dead), was sitting in a chair in the sitting room with champagne looking gorgeous and chatting away and was a little disappointed to find that I wasn’t going to see her at the wedding tomorrow. I left and went back home to my parents and Builder Bloke who ALL then announced that they had been invited and that they hoped I wouldn’t mind if I went. No matter how much wailing I did, they ignored my pleas and went anyway….

Because the Wedding Readings are strewn about my kitchen, I cannot help but read them. I think they are having one of the ones we had at our wedding, but OMG they are also having:-

“Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? WTF??

Maybe hereth our problemeth lie… because I even refused to have “obey” in our vows and that was 20 years ago now and would no way in a million years have agreed to be a “subject” to my husband because he is the “head” of me.

Aren’t we all meant to be equals these days?

OK I accept that all the stress surrounding the four “ex’s” in our bizarre little square means we haven’t yet disengaged – I’m not sure it’s possible to entirely disengage when you are attempting to share in the role of bringing up your joint children BUT I do not agree that all the anger really means that we or they are still in love with our/their respective partners. That would be ridiculous.

Indifference is the emotion that is almost the opposite of love, but as I have said it is difficult to remain indifferent to the mother/father of your children however hard you try.

The love/hate issue comes up a lot with us – “oh he is clearly still in love with you” or “she still loves me” and I simply do not believe that can be true. I think it is more about losing control of the situation – about being unable to “let go” and maybe even a covering emotion for fear.

Any thoughts on Love and Hate???

Good grief. I’ve had lots of concerned friends all talking about the “what if’s” that just do not bear thinking about. My friends and I have all got so many children between us, please, please let them all get to adulthood in one piece. Strangely, the only person that hasn’t been able to empathise with me has been his father…..we were obviously both hugely relieved that he and all the other’s were safe, but beyond that there was no emotion or additional discussion between us. How sad is that? I had 1000% more sympathy from the tow-truck driver.

My son and his friend managed several days of sore necks and feeling “disorientated” to persuade the school nurse that they needed to go home and lie down immediately. That worked particularly well around the time of the England game….

I rang my X to discuss the insurance and during the call I said that in light of what had happened would he support my request not to let our son drive our other two children (or Builder Bloke’s children) ANYWHERE. Because I would be terrified at the thought of them in the car with him. He refused to agree, accusing me of double standards and when I hung up he sent me a text saying:-

“I don’t agree with or accept what you have said. I hope it is also absolutely clear to you that I will make my own decisions about our children when they are with me. This is about doing the right thing, about making good, right and fair decisions in everyones best interest. It is not about point scoring or getting your own way”.

All I wanted was a little understanding about how I was feeling post his crash. Not a f*cking lecture.

It’s just so disappointing to find that there appears to be no level upon which to find some common ground. Not even when our son was in a very scary situation. Just rubbish. It shouldn’t be like that.

She writes “Today marriage is a free choice. So what’s the point of marriage? It’s an obvious question. Yet for me it misses the point. Now marriage is no longer compulsory, and the roles of husband and wife have shed their starch, we have an opportunity to custom-fit the marital commitment, to suit ourselves as never before”.

I am always fascinated by what makes a marriage work. Obviously. Because mine failed and I’m still not really sure why. My parents always advocated that “those who play together stay together” concept and Catherine Blythe says the same: “But magic only works if you believe in it, if you don’t simply work at marriage, but play at and relish it. Studies find that the more optimistic your expectations, the greater your demands, the more marriage will give you”. Perhaps I took my marriage too seriously.

The friends whose marriages seem to be the strongest do LOADS of stuff together as a family. Lots of really fun stuff. My friend is also in my opinion very demanding when it comes to insisting that her husband shares the labour regarding the children, ensuring her husband puts the family first but her approach seems to work. I didn’t do that. I thought it was better to let my husband do what he wanted to do and then resented it when what he wanted to do didn’t involve me.

Her advice is “if you seek the best, keep noticing each other, complain well but criticise less, and don’t let leisure slide. (Although husbands tend to enjoy more free time, according to latest research, wives’ pleasures have greater impact on whether a union is happy.)

She suggests trying a psychological trick called ‘positive-sentiment override’. If your beloved snaps at you, don’t snap back or take it personally. No, they’re having a bad day”.

I think that might have been where I went wrong. It probably would have helped when he snapped at me to use “positive-sentiment override” tactics instead of “negative-I-want-to-f*cking-kill-you-sentiment override”.