What's Really In Our Heads

*disclaimer- this is a long one.*

The biggest thing to deal with in a new/second/subsequent marriage isn't the blending of families. It's not traditions, or menu planning differences. It isn't which side of the bed you sleep on, or which sink is yours in the bathroom. And when you argue, it isn't even walking away to save yourself from delivering an unwarranted tongue-lashing or staying put and planting your feet while you yell it out. No talking to death. No silent treatments. The biggest issue isn't about how to parent your children, or how to parent THEIR children. These are all variables in every relationship.

But in EVERY relationship, there is always one constant. In some way or another, everyone has 'the other'.


The Ex Factor,
or The One Who Stole Your True Love Away,
or perhaps The One Who WANTS To Steal Your True Love Away.



Don't we all have at least one of those? But what do you do when both partners in the relationship realize that ONE outside person embodies ALL of those people above?

I had determined not to talk about Sarah on this blog. THIS blog was for my new life. Daisyhalos had to deal with it, but NinePeas did not. Truth is, NinePeas is a blog about *MY* life with Will. And by having Will as part of that equation, Sarah comes with it. She is The Ex Factor. Not because we invite her in, or because we need her there, or because we want her there. The simple truth is that she *IS* there... in person...or in remnant... or in shadows of our children's hearts.

You see, after everything that happened last year, Will and I both took a step back, and realized how much pain she had caused us individually. In his case, there was love once. But the prominent feeling leftover from his relationship with her is not joy. It is not peace. It is hurt and manipulation and deceit and mistrust. This is something that, as a couple, we've had to work through because those traits in past relationships sometimes carry over-- even when they are uninvited. I have my own trust issues leftover from my relationship with Chris, and Will has to deal with that too. And so, because I am somewhat dealing with 'retraining' Will on how to have a productive argument, how to deal with disagreements reasonably, and how to express yourself without resorting to name-calling and such, this is where we feel Sarah fits the description of The One Who Stole Your True Love Away. Will had been broken before meeting Sarah, and we kinda feel like she then stole further parts of him that she shouldn't have. And I'm lucky enough to be in a position to be able to 'steal back' the real Will while leaving the hurt Will behind.

It isn't, and hasn't been, an easy road. We were both so hurt. And we only know one surefire way to deal with that hurt; by giving it over to someone else. So, we've done what we thought is best- from the moment we were married, we have spent every night on our knees, together holding hands, praying to love her. Praying for her happiness. Praying for ourselves to forgive.

It's tough for me to write things like this, because, in spite of her promise to me that she would stop reading the blog, she has never stopped. She currently reads it on a nearly daily basis. Which, believe it or not, is fine with me. I don't talk about you on this blog, Sarah, because I don't want you to think we hate you. Or that we spend hours thinking about how we can hurt you back. Sure, I want to vent sometimes, and the natural instinct in a defensive being is to attack back, but that's not who I want to be.

The other problem with this situation is that we believe that she also fits a bit of The One Who WANTS To Steal Your True Love Away. We don't fear of her achieving this, but we are aware of it. In fact, apart from Sarah, there are no other people who know her, who do NOT believe this to be the case. Well, the people we talk to, anyways. She has no further ties with Will. No children, no property, no necessary connection. Will walked away from their relationship when she kicked him out for the umpteenth time, leaving everything, and everyone behind, in pieces. He is passed done. So, she is the only one who sees a need to stay in his life. And she does this through his children, using them as a way to get him to communicate with her. She sent a message recently to Will that asked if he would let her take the kids for a week or so in the summer. WITHOUT Will. And, obviously, without me. The answer, understandably, was no.

If she had only realized that Will comes as a package deal with those children. If you can't love the father, then you don't get the kids. (by love, I mean in the Christlike way) And as of last September, Will is now a package deal with me and my children. The NINE PEAS IN THE POD are just that-- together, and as one. WE are the package. And Will and I would honestly love to have a friendship with Sarah that is new and respectful- and, surprisingly to some perhaps, we would have seriously considered her invitation were it for the entire family.

The thing is, Will's children loved her dearly. She was a GREAT friend to them. But even they admit that she was not a 'mother' to them. She had the title, but did not claim the role. They did not live with her. They did not see her at her worst. She complimented them. She made them feel like she loved them. But she didn't discipline them. She didn't put their needs above her own. She chose to stay close to her Ex's family over moving closer to her NEW family, where her import-children were. She chose her Ex over her spouse under the guise of her daughter's needs. And in doing that, the import-kids felt less important to her than her own biological children... something that mirrors what our daughter Em is realizing with her new StepDad: blending families doesn't work when you pick some children over others. There is no "MY kids are going to be like this, even if you guys aren't!"

In conversations lately, Em is also realizing that Sarah has not finished grieving her past relationship with Will, and possibly her other 3 husbands. And she is still hurting. And, for what it's worth, our hearts grieve for Sarah's pain. We understand it. We were there once. We were sooooooo blessed to have the chance to heal faster than we expected. We found a love unlike ANYTHING else we've ever felt. I honestly can't be anything but somewhat thankful to her, even though it meant that my happiness came at her expense.

The kids of ours didn't get closure. They didn't get to say goodbye to Sarah. It is like a death to them. Only, the ghost isn't gone. And, once again, Sarah has chosen her own needs over the needs of these children-- they need closure.

Closure (klo'zhur)

1. The act of closing or the state of being closed: closure of an incision.


2. Something that closes or shuts.


3. A bringing to an end; a conclusion: finally brought the project to closure.


4. A feeling of finality or resolution, especially after a traumatic experience.

I have encouraged Em specifically to contact Sarah if that made her happy, but we have all witnessed how much more UNhappy Em has become since doing so. Sarah claims to love her, and I think she truly does. But, real love is unselfish. And Sarah continues, perhaps unaware, to twist the dagger in Em's heart. Having contact has not brought her closure- not in ANY sense of the above definition. And it pains us to watch Em stuck in a teenagers mind, unable to figure out how to get rid of the pain without losing the love.

In this, I am reminded of EF, from my previous blog. (EF was the 'estranged friend' who had the affair with Chris). I LOVED EF. I really did. And, truthfully, I still do. But I realized that moving on in my life meant I would have to release that pain completely. Sadly, there are times when you need to remove the good along with the bad- like when a weed is wrapped around a flower. Sometimes they both have to go. I had to say goodbye to someone I loved, so that I could feel TRUE love again. Not that I don't still think of her, or wonder where she is or how she's doing... But I am now able to feel JUST the love, and the pain, slowly but surely, fades away.

And so, we teach these lessons to our children. Because, as we've been taught by OUR goodly parents, and by our ecclesiastical leaders, and by our own hearts, we know that being a teacher is our biggest role as a TRUE parent. As a mother, it is my job to love, nurture and teach. And, just as a mother bird sometimes has to watch her chick endure some pain as he is learning how to fly, sometimes we will have to be there to watch our own children deal with their pain, if it simply means we're giving them the power to use the wings they already possess.