Last night I learned that Barb, whose kids are finally out of the house, is thinking about getting a divorce. Her husband doesn't want to do anything, ever, and she's ready to live. She made the bargain, right? Have the kids, devote every lovin' second to them, and when they fly-be-free you get to fly-be-free. That's the deal, isn't it?
I need help. I'll start off by saying that in the small town I live in in Colorado, I have often complained (quite loudly) that there is nothing to do. In fact the hub has often stated the same and said that all I like to do is go shopping. New flash for him... If all I liked to do was go shopping, I sure as hell wouldn't live in a small mountain town, as I'd be in NY or LA or Minneapolis at the Mall of America.
I spend the long, drawn-out Minnesota winter dreaming of those nights that you can hear the crickets and frogs outside your window. When I unpack the summer clothes, I get excited for tank tops and flip flops. And for the first month, I'm usually obliged. But if the temps crease 80, the windows get shut and the frog sounds disappear. My tank tops get covered and I curl up under the same blanket that I use in Janaury to watch tv. It pisses me off.
My husband and I have six kids between us, three his, three mine. His are older, and are all moved out now, though his youngest son has one more year of high school and left our household on fairly rocky terms (our rules are too strict, his mom gives him more freedom, etc.). I would say that though we survived the most intense years of having all these kids together under one roof, and there WAS a lot of love in between the shouting, co-parenting six kids in a household that blended two very distinct sets of ideas about parenting and family life was not easy, and it definitely challenged our sense of ourselves as a couple. I know looking back that it's easy to tick off at least ten ways we could have done things immeasurably better. Shouldn't there be a VERY EASY TO USE and highly realistic guide out there, with the most important advice for stepfamilies? Is there one already?
The list is long. We thought it culminated with NY Governor Spitzer a week or two ago. Now it seems the new governor of NY and his wife also had affairs. That's not remarkable. What's remarkable to me is that the wives stand stoically by their famous husbands at the press conference. Why?
