When you’re not a step mom anymore

I thought of something funny earlier this morning and it was something my step daughter, Marina had done many years ago. My instinct was to text her and get a good giggle out of her, but the hour was too early and I would have to wait.

Later that morning I was retelling the story to a co-worker. Seeming confused she asked, “I thought you were single?”
I quickly explained that her father and I weren’t married any longer, but she would always be my step daughter.
It got me to thinking about the terms of being a step parent.

There is no question that she’s my step daughter, but when are divorced parents not step parents anymore?

My first husband has a son.  Ryan was born the month before I turned 19 years old. I became an active “parent” in his life when I was 20 years old.   Every other weekend, holidays and summer breaks were spent being a step mom to him and then I became a full time parent when I gave birth to my daughter, Kara a year later.
I look back now and wonder how I did it.  The stress of a newborn coupled with being a wife and a step mother who was dealing with his insecure mother.  As difficult as it was for me, I can also see how difficult it was for her. It doesn’t make the mental anguish I suffered any better for the younger me, but it made round two of step parenthood a little easier.
Ryan began slowing moving out of our lives before my first husband and I started to drift. The truth of step parenting Ryan was, we never got very close. I was his caregiver, his dad’s wife, the woman he spent car rides with that would make him laugh. I was technically his step mom, but we never had a lifelong bonding.  I love Ryan and always will, but he had a ‘mommy’ and it wasn’t me.
When Tyler and Marina came into my life full time it felt so natural. To my second ex-husband’s credit, he did a fabulous job marrying our two families.
My relationship with Tyler was a fun one. He was at that age where was learning about who he was and wanted to become. He was a blast to be around and we always had fun together on our senseless shopping trips.
Marina was a little harder to get to know.  She was stubborn, shy and wouldn’t tell me what she was really thinking. Her trust level was very low.  There wasn’t a day I can remember when it changed, but it did. I truly became her step mom and I would wake up in the morning to find her messy, blond hair sticking up out of the covers next to me.  She would do ridiculously nice things for me and she allowed me to see her for all that she was. The good, the bad, the ugly.  We fought, but there wasn’t a time I could say I didn’t love that little shit head as if she was my very own.  She was my daughter’s sister and my baby girl.
Being a step parent is the hardest job in the whole world because no matter how much of your heart you surrender, there is the chance that it can be ripped away at a moments notice.
This is what happened to me.
Watching my step kids leave was hard, but never knowing if they would come back, not physically but emotionally…was heartbreaking.
Marina came back, but it took time and a new relationship had to be built. The “ohana” we always had would come with new ground rules on her part. She had been hurt too and that fear of loving me came with great consequences.  Would she be loved back? would she feel like she was betraying her father, or even her own mother?
I can’t imagine the turmoil she went through and probably still does.

The lines are blurred on step parenting a child that doesn’t live with you anymore.
My love hasn’t changed. My concern for her well being hasn’t changed. My level of respect I give and expect in return hasn’t changed.
That leads me to where I am today. I’m dating someone who has older children and a younger child.
Are my years of being a “step parent” over?
My role as Marina’s step mom as I see it now is a life long one. It’s an honor that I love and sometimes causes pain.  As much as I want nothing more to have my life 100% 2nd husband free, I also know that being there for her means I have to occasionally hear things, see her happiness that is intermingled with his or comfort pain that is caused.  There is nothing I can do but be there for her. it’s a trade off I am willing to accept.
My role as a step mother outside of Marina are over though.
I’m blessed to have the friendship of my boyfriend’s older daughter.  She is a beautiful, smart, loving, open hearted, stubborn pain in the ass woman who has a step mother already.  Her step mother was there for her through some really rough times and no one, and I mean no one, has earned the badge of step mother, quite like she has. It was hard earned that came with fighting, tears and tugs of war.  I believe that she is the woman she is today partly due to the fact that her step mother didn’t throw in that towel that would been so  easy to do in this thankless role as step mom.  They both stood their ground and because of it, each one of them are better women because of the relationship they have.
I’m just dad’s girlfriend and I am more than OK with that, no matter if it lasts a year or a lifetime.

So the question is, When are not a step parent anymore?
The day my divorce was final I texted Marina and told her that it was official, I wasn’t her step mom ‘legally’ anymore. She texted me back, “You’ll always be my step mom.”
The tears came and didn’t stop for awhile.
Would Ryan or Tyler still classify me as their step mom in conversation? Probably not.  I hope they know I love them dearly and would never hold it against them. They are grown and living their own lives and not a part of mine any longer.

I got a text as I pulled into the driveway today, “When are you going to be home? I’m here.” It was from Marina.  I walked into the house to find her curled up under a blanket on the couch.  She was waiting for her friend to come pick her up. She said she had been there and watched a movie with Kara before she left for night school.
We sat around and talked about this very subject and others, we watched TV and then her friend showed up.
As she left she gave me a hug and called out to her friend to drive safely.  I locked the door behind her and grabbed her spot on the couch. As I pulled the blanket up around me I could smell her sweet perfume and it made me smile.

When do we stop being step parents? For me, hopefully never.