I Ruined Date Night

We haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth. I promise. We haven’t run off to join the circus (is that still a thing), and we haven’t suffered any major catastrophes (knock on wood). We’ve simply, yet complicatedly, been swept up in the flow of life. For better or worse, our journey over the past several months has done nothing short of forced our authentic presence. Rather than bog you down with a detailed list of what that has entailed, as a cyberspace ice-breaker of sorts, I’m going to share a little anecdote that I would say illustrates the last seven months pretty well.

I’m going to call this story, “How I Ruined Date Night,” subtitled, “I Gave it the Good Ol’ College Try.”

Andrew and I have been in this fairly persistent state of flux. Doing our individual inner work, trying to raise the best children possible, maneuvering the day-to-day necessities, trying to be a good husband and wife to one another, and starting a business together. Because, why not. Creating a business from scratch with your spouse is the least stressful thing you could possibly do, right?

We actually work quite well together, professionally. We both enjoy “creating,” so being able to work in that zone with someone I care about deeply and have the utmost respect for, in a creative field that we both find exciting, is a win-win. In the past, we’ve connected in much the same way while working on projects around the house: renovating rooms, decorating, yard work, etc. It was invigorating to realize we could find the same connection on a professional level. Here’s the catch, though...we were finding it at a PROFESSIONAL level. While that is all well and good, Andrew and I are excellent compartmentalizers (which isn’t really a word according to spellcheck, but I’m running with it)  when it comes to our work life and our personal life. We needed to learn how to bottle up that passion when it came to our marriage, and honestly, we weren’t being very intentional about our time spent together as husband and wife.

Enter date night.

Amidst the whirlwind of activity surrounding our business, running children back and forth to extracurricular activities whilst attempting to guide them through their own social and emotional growth (with extraneous drama from a certain birth parent, the chronic can of worms), and working on ourselves, Andrew and I had let our time of connecting as a couple fall to the wayside. Our days were full of activity, by the time evenings rolled around, one or both of us were exhausted, and our weekends were equally jam packed.

Andrew resolved to plan an evening out in Chicago, complete with dinner reservations and a comedy show. Before we go any further, I need you to take a little trip back in time with me, about three decades or so, to a time when I was still a young girl. A bright and fiercely independent child, I was painfully shy. At least that’s how the adults in my life would have described my behavior. The reality was that what I was feeling ran deeper than shyness and stage fright. The truth was I was struggling in almost any social situation that involved a large-ish group of people. Even large family gatherings made me anxious. If I was under an exceptional amount of stress, the anxiety would become worse. Once I grew past the angsty, self-conscious teen years, the anxiety became less overwhelming, and as I hit my thirties, I really started pushing the boundaries of what had formerly been uncomfortable social situations. I was, dare I say, becoming fearless.

So, here I am, 40-years old, and my husband has planned a somewhat elaborate evening for the two of us. We’ve had our noses to the grindstone with work and family shenanigans, and were due for some much needed grown-up time. We arrive perfectly on time for our dinner reservations, and the restaurant is packed. It is packed, loud, and like so many city restaurants, has a communal layout where patrons are essentially sitting on top of one another. I immediately feel my throat tighten up as we check-in with the hostess whom says it will be a couple of minutes. We scoot toward a small, open area near the bar, not so patiently waiting to be seated. Twenty agonizing minutes tick by. Being the empathetic husband he is, Andrew can sense I’m becoming frazzled and suggests we head to an Italian restaurant next door. Immediately seated at the new restaurant, I try to to recover, but the damage was already done. The Italian restaurant, while not nearly as busy, was equally noisy, and it took every ounce of my being to attempt to rest in the flow of the evening. It wasn’t working.

By the time we arrived at the venue for the comedy show, I’d managed to get my bearings...or so I thought. As we made our entrance, we quickly found out that the stage, one of several within the building, was on the opposite side from which we entered. The scenic route, meant zigzagging through a maze of other stages, clusters of people, and a walk down a staircase lined with comedy revelers. Insert cliched idiom here. We were definitely swimming upstream. Saying I wanted to crawl out my skin would be a gross understatement. Ooooh another opportunity for an idiom. A deer in the headlights. A fish out of water. Did I mention that I also have an underlying fear of water? I was precisely that, a fish out of water, and I was quickly suffocating. When we finally reached the end of the line for the actual show we had tickets for, I was at the end of my line, and the look on my face must’ve said everything, because the first thing out of Andrew’s mouth was, “Do you want to leave?” After that everything blurred together and became hazy. The heaviness of it all was so...heavy...and irrational. That’s probably the worst part of it all. Through all of the anxiety I was feeling, my rational brain was telling my body it was being completely irrational. The competition between my analytical thoughts and the sympathetic system of my body were duking it out, and no one was winning. There was a stop at the theater box office, a quick refund, and we were back in our car, headed out of the city.

The car ride home was quiet. I waited for the fallout as we pulled onto the highway. The pressure of the imminent waterworks was building behind my eyes. I didn’t want to cry. I had been an ass. I flaked out, and I had no right to get upset about it. I expected my husband to feel the same, but the verbal retaliation never came. He simply said that he knew I was having a hard time, and that he was there to listen when I was ready to talk about it. True to my hard-headed, falsely stoic form, I sat the rest of the car ride in silence, fighting back the tears that wouldn’t be contained.

We silently went to bed that evening. We've been there before. I'd imagine most married couples have. Those tense endings to evenings that aren't really endings, leaving the next morning's direction up for question. However, the next morning was different. Rather than passive-aggressive silence or being overtly disappointed at how the previous evening had played out, Andrew was gentle. He reminded me that I had been there for him and shown him kindness and grace, that in my support for everyone else, I hadn't had enough space for myself, and he could understand how I would have felt overwhelmed. No shaming. No unloading of guilt. He was pure grace. I was humbled.

We learned so much about each other and ourselves over the course of that incident. Hope. Grace. Love. How to break so that we can come together again, individually and as a couple. We're learning more and more that a successful partnership means that sometimes someone will need to bend, to be able to show kindness to the other in the face of adversity. Admittedly, in the past, we've found it much easier to offer that space to those outside of our intimate circle instead of directly to one another...

So, that’s how I ruined date night. It’s how I completely lost control, yet saw that love, grace, hope, and understanding will always be the answer in a meaningful marriage. Even when one of us has lost all of her marbles.

~Stephanie

Six Minus Four Equals Two

School starts this week...sigh. We’ve recently returned from a quick family vacation in northern Michigan (fun video soon to follow), and I will officially have two high schoolers and two fourth graders. Truthfully, I'm looking forward to getting back some of that structure we've missed over the past few months of summer break. I love my children with all of my heart. I know that so much of who I am centers around being a mother and a stepmother. I sometimes tell myself that having an eldest child with special needs set the standard for the entrenched mommy lifestyle, but if I’m being honest, that’s probably who I would have been all along, regardless. I desperately want to be a good steward of the children that I have been blessed with. Some days I feel like I’m knocking the mom thing out of the park, some days I’m “ok” at that job, and some days are, well, some days.

Generally speaking, all is right in the universe when we have a house full of the laughter, boisterous play, and sometimes even fighting that comes with having four kiddos. Andy and I spend a lot of energy around raising our sons and daughter, managing day to day comings and goings, and all of the other shenanigans life tends to throw our way. So much, that we recently had quite the reality check when we happened to have a rare 5-day stretch without kiddos. Our teenagers are at home with us most of the time. With the exception of a couple of weekend days a month spent with their dad, we see Lora and Parker every day. This month Lora and Parker were gone on a weeklong vacation with their father. With Will and JJ at their mother’s during her parenting time, it was just the two of us for five days. Alone. Together. As a couple.

You would think, “Woohoo, no kids! Time to ourselves! Let’s do everything adult thing we can think of!” Right?! Yep...nope. I’m pretty sure Andy was seeing this as an opportunity for some quality husband and wife time (*wink* *wink*). I was fantasizing about an entirely different activity involving our bed, afternoon naps. While Andy was elbows deep in nurturing the beginnings of his new company, I was doing what any mother with an iPhone would do while her teenagers were on a Disney World vacation with their father, stalking them via friend finder (thank you, Apple, for making stalking your children’s GPS location socially acceptable), as well as grumbling to myself, and Andy, about how my children weren’t texting me with every exciting vacation detail. Well, maybe I wasn’t expecting a play by play, but I was so excited that they were able to take such a big trip with their father, I wanted to be able to experience just a piece of it with them. Early on in Lora’s diagnosis with autism, Disney was often our way of connecting with her. Much of her early verbal skills were imitations of lines from Disney movies or songs. Even at 16-years-old, I wanted so badly to see the expressions on my sweet girl’s face as she experienced Disney World for the first time.

I had my small, bedroom breakdown about midweek while they were gone, briefly shed my tears behind closed doors, dusted myself off, and let go. Because at the end of the day, they were having an incredible vacation with their father, something they all deserved. I did not need to insert myself into their memories. We have plenty of our own memories, and plenty of opportunity to make more. I relished my one phone call from each of them while they were gone, and I let them be. I let go only to realize that Andy I had some work to do as a couple.

We are a great team when we are busy. If we have a project to accomplish together, a big idea to discuss, parenting, management and organization…we are good. We are a well-oiled machine. These are the areas where our relationship truly shines. What we haven’t turned our energy toward is learning how to play as a couple, how to be lighthearted together. We need to rediscover what genuine joy between the two of us looks like. Creating a playful space that breathes freely between the two of us, allows the soul of who we are as a couple to grow in a gentler, sweeter way. When we came into this relationship, we were already all business. Navigating parenting, daily to do lists, paying bills, divorces…our noses were to the grind, and we knew how to do serious (darn that baggage). It’s funny, playing with our children comes so much easier. Even the teenagers aren’t nearly as self-conscious as we are. I don’t think there’s a textbook answer for what being playful with your spouse looks like. We clearly really have no clue. We know it’s an area we need to work on, and for us, I think the first step is recognizing that childlike spirit within one another. We are going to have learn how to drop the ego, the judgement for ourselves and one another, the expectation, and just be. And to laugh. And smile. And breathe.

Maybe the next five day stretch we’ll have it all figured out. Maybe?

~Stephanie

Unpacking Baggage, Making Space, and Creating Boundaries

Or three easy steps to making your second marriage work. Hahahahaha…ha...ha...kidding.

Actually, in a sense, it is easy. The concepts seem easy enough, the execution not so much. People in your life are going to be difficult, YOU'RE going to be difficult, circumstances might become challenging, and sometimes, life just isn't fair.

First Step, unpack your baggage. I have baggage. Andy has baggage. We ALL have baggage. We have baggage, because we are complex human beings. Our life experiences, our DNA, our emotional and psychological make-up, all impact how we perceive and anticipate not only our present environment, but how we think our future will play out. Andy and I went into our first marriages with a boatload of baggage, everything from identity development problems to dysfunctional family issues. To top it off, we were very young and very plastic, far too young to possess the crucial self-awareness of our own brokenness.

Needless to say, all of those underlying issues, coupled with our youth, went unchecked. They slyly shaped not only who we decided to marry, but what those first marriages evolved into. While we crawled out of those relationships, licking our battle wounds, we were both blessed with beautiful children, annnnnd a semi-truck load of life lessons. But here’s the thing, those life lessons aren’t worth a squat, if they aren’t fully embraced. Every jagged edge, every dark corner, every misstep, has to be acknowledged. This is the part that hurts like hell, but it needs to be done. It needs to happen, so you can officially move forward from that part of yourself. Our accountability has to be given a name, an identity. Our “darkside” needs to have a spotlight shone upon it at full force, so that it is no longer allowed to hide in the background, waiting to strike at the worst time. We need to be able to show ourselves the sweet grace in saying, “Hey you, Darkness, I see you there. I know you exist, but I’m not letting you run the show.” Because the more we fight that part of ourselves, the more we try to pretend that it doesn’t exist, the harder that part of us will fight back.

This may become a daily exercise. Andy and I certainly did not have this mastered going into our relationship together, and we continue to work on it, regularly. We are constantly unpacking our baggage, sifting through it, deciding what is worth keeping, what needs to run through an extra spin cycle in the washing machine, and what needs to be tossed in the trash. Going through this together is a delicate and messy process. There are days it takes all the restraint in the world not to press each other’s buttons, letting our own egos get the best of us, and wallow in our baggage. We’re learning to be sensitive to one another’s triggers and working on communicating through those moments from a place of love.

Step Two, make space for yourself. What in the world is making space for yourself, and what does that look like? Coming out of my first marriage, I was not at all familiar with this concept. As a mother and a wife, I made so much of my life about the people around me. As a husband and father, Andy had done much of the same. During the beginning of my separation from my first husband, I thought creating space meant running amuck on my kid-free weekends, trying to make up for my twenties. Um, yeah, not so much.

Giving yourself space is a mindset that allows you to turn inward from a place of love and grace. While wrestling with our baggage gives a name to the darkness within us, creating space for ourselves lets the light in. The most critical aspect of this, is understanding that YOU ARE WORTHY of this space. Processing all of the wonderful parts of ourselves takes space. Whether it’s meditation, exercise, yoga, a walk in nature, or reading a book, find that space for yourself. Honor it. Allow that space to become a tool for healing. Space becomes the breath after the darkness. I haven’t been great at holding that space for myself. Those moments early on in my relationship with Andy when I told him I was suffocating? Yeah, that definitely was not me holding space for myself. Space doesn’t let you suffocate. Space grounds you and allows you to just, be. Space clears out the mental dust, pulls you away from day to day grind.

Creating that space for yourself, you’ll soon be able to truly honor that space within another, and amazing things start to happen. You communicate more openly. You become a better listener. You respect yourself, and in turn respect your spouse, your children, everyone you encounter. Carving out space for myself has an effect that trickles out beyond my own little bubble. When I don’t take the extra effort for myself, I’m a hot mess, and the people around me suffer. I become anxious, I let my hang-ups get the best of me, and that suffocating feeling returns. Create space. Do it for yourself, and do it for those you love.

And then there’s possibly the trickiest step, establishing boundaries. Not to be mistaken for building emotional walls, this can be extremely difficult as a people pleaser. If you've already watched our "Let the Blend Begin," video, you are very aware of the many players in our blended family game. Planning a simple family vacation can become a monumental task comparable to building the Parthenon. Feelings get hurt. People become angry. Guess what? We have no control over how others will react. I'm sure you've heard the latter said time and time again. Inspirational internet memes preach it for a reason. It's true! At the end of the day we make decisions based on what is best for our marriage and our children. This may mean that, at times, hard lines are drawn. Boundaries have to be clearly defined. We attempt to handle conflicts with sincerity, dignity, and honesty, but at the end of the day if boundaries are needed to maintain the sanity of our marriage and the well-being of our children, then boundaries are created.

Boundaries don’t end with extended family and other individuals in the outer-ring of the blended family hierarchy. Andy and I also need to establish clear boundaries between each other, as spouses. When it comes to parenting, first spouses, in-laws, and work related stress, we hold each other accountable for 1) not overwhelming one another with our own issues, and 2) respecting one other’s space when it comes to areas like parenting, first spouses, in-laws, etc. We constantly experiment with the balance of supporting one another without overstepping boundaries. Sometimes we fail miserably, but when we do fail, we fall, we communicate, and we recover. Some days we can recover in a matter of minutes, some days it takes 24 hours.

I know, life is far more complex than three silly steps in a blog post. Shoot, Andy and I really are still in the infancy of this blended family marriage, but the next time things seem overwhelming in your blended family, give it a shot. Unpack your baggage (but don’t live in it), make yourself some space, and yes, boundaries are not only ok, sometimes they are absolutely necessary.

~Stephanie

Going Live!

Andy and I met in October of 2013. And when I say met, I mean we “found” each other on the internet. According to a sophisticated algorithm compiled by a fairly well known online dating site, we were 89% compatible. It was fate! After Andy messaged me on said site with a quirky message involving Scooby Doo, I was hooked. We messaged back and forth, met face-to-face, fell in love, and now are living happily ever after. The end. 

Annnnnnd, if you’re buying that version of our love story, I have some ocean front property in Nebraska I would like to sell you.

The truth is, when Andy and I met online, I was newly divorced from my first husband (as in, my divorce had just been finalized, that week), and Andy was separated from his first wife, in the midst of the divorce process. My separation/divorce had been long and drawn out, Andy’s had been short and volatile (both stories for another time). Full disclosure, we were breaking all of the relationship rules when it came to dating after a failed first marriage. We weren’t waiting a set amount of time to delve into a new relationship following a divorce. Remember, Andy’s divorce wasn’t even yet finalized. We probably weren’t following any of the caveats relationship experts would recommend for healing and successful, healthy relationships post divorce. I was coming into the relationship with a preteen son and teen daughter of whom I had primary custody. Andy was bringing 7-year old twin boys of whom he had joint custody. Can you see where this could get messy? What Andy and I found as a couple, however, were two people looking to grow individually, in spite of our baggage and flaws. It is that drive that has been a saving grace both for ourselves and as a couple. 

Upon the finalization of Andy’s divorce, we decided to move in together (again, breaking “rules”), and a little over a year later, June 2015, we were married. Over the course of those 20 months, Andy and I took a crash course in building a meaningful relationship, blending families, step-parenting, managing working co-parenting relationships with former spouses, the list goes on and on... The one thing I found while navigating through this crazy adventure, is that there is a huge gap when it comes to finding information, support, and resources as a blended family. A simple Google search of support for blended families returns abysmal results, and the truth is, the blended family is becoming more and more common. That’s where this little project called The Blended Family Experience comes in. As a team, Andy and I hope to generate a space that will provide insight, advice, and simple “me too” moments for other families. 

At the risk of sounding cliche, we understand that blended families come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors. In other words, blended families can look like our family, they could consist of same sex relationships, or they may look like a remarriage where one of the spouses does not have children from a previous relationship. Most of what we discuss here, will come from a perspective centered around our story, but we hope what we share becomes a springboard for discussion, thoughtfulness, and love within your family.

So, here’s to the future and where this journey takes us. We look forward to sharing this adventure with you!

~Stephanie