By the Book

On the eve of my lapsing internet dating membership, I received an email from ‘Soul Man’. He wrote well, made me laugh, said he was recently separated, handsome, self-employed, lived on ten acres and had six children. Six children? Man oh man! Who’d want to get involved with a father of six? Not this ‘Wonder Woman’, that’s for sure. But I replied anyway.

From his emails, Soul Man sounded like a great dad: dedicated, committed, and fully involved in his children’s lives. To me, any father who chucks in his city job to spend more time with his children is indicative of a well-intentioned and loving dad. Plus, I liked his ‘self employed’ status… as long as it wasn’t a euphemism for flogging Amway.

After writing to each other for about a month, we decided to meet at a small café in Warrandyte, a place familiar to us both. A tall, lean man with blue eyes and Sean Connery hair walked towards me. This was Soul Man up close and personal. His name was Steve and he was yummily handsome.

I’d bought him a small gift: a book of my father’s poetry. Steve also had a gift for me: a Dr Seuss book. After a moment’s embarrassment and awkwardness, it only took a short time for us to be at ease in each other’s company.

A few months on, our mutual attraction only served to complicate our feelings for each other, given his six and my three. You don’t muck around with each other’s hearts when there are so many children to consider. Besides, the idea of nine children in my life was a ludicrous one anyway. I’d only ever planned on having two children, but the birth of my twins five years earlier put the tally up to three. But then the inevitable happened: Steve and I fell – cascaded, tumbled – in love.

One year after that first meeting in Warrandyte, we decided to join forces. It made logistical – if not numerical sense – that me and my children moved in with them, into their family home. We were sure we could make it work with some minor juggling and major lateral thinking of space and bedrooms. Besides, Steve still hadn’t finalised matrimonial settlement, and with looming financial and custodial disputes, D-Day could be some time off. And given my business was easily transportable and his wasn’t, it just seemed to make sense for the four of us to uproot, in preference to the seven of them.

With pragmatism, logistics and lust aside, Steve and I were determined for this relationship to be better and different from our past relationships, so went into the merge with our eyes wide open. We surfed the internet, joined on-line support groups, signed up for newsletters, and read every book available on step parenting, all of which were either bursting with bright optimism, or full of forecasts of doom.

The experts warned us that the fantasy of ‘happy blending ever after’ was naïve and short-lived, that the dream of us all living together in perfect harmony was unrealistic, and to remember that ex-partners – good or bad, happy or sad, friendly or mad – were going to be around for a long, long, time. Like Nostradamus, these author-ly experts also predicted challenging dynamics of step-siblings: of the jostling and nudging to re-establish pecking order, plus the resentment, anger, never-ending disputes and constant compromises.

They also cited statistics of stepfamilies taking, on average, five years to equalise and to become a solid and unified identity – five years? – and that we’d most likely live in denial, not wanting to know about these statistical, evidential challenges of stepfamilies. And finally, the clincher: ‘Never move into the family home’.

Steve and I were confident that these negative sweeping generalisations wouldn’t apply to us, and opted for the more positive outlook, convinced that our love was strong enough to endure any obstacle that might present itself. Besides, our children weren’t carved from horror stories, and we both had enough self-awareness and resourcefulness to ward off any possible disasters.

We were wrong; the pessimists – realists– were right. Riding the waves of emotional turbulence, adolescent adversity, with the strong undertow of ex partner wrath, was tough and exhausting. It seemed that whatever bad and horrendous deeds we had obviously committed in a past life had returned in full karmic force, as every possible curve ball was thrown and every Jerry Springer-like scenario bombarded us and our supersize family.

Steve’s ability to withstand the constant challenges thrust upon him without losing his dignity was admirable. I constantly strived to do the same, although many times I wailed to the sky 'What have I done?', and longed to return to my peaceful and quiet house in the mountains. However, we did as best we could, keeping our relationship connected and strong, and making sure we remained focussed on the children’s safety and wellbeing, no matter what was thrown our way. Despite our best efforts, there were casualties, nonetheless.

Eight years on, I can look back and know that the books were right on all counts; a stepfamily has its good, bad and ugly times, just like any regular family. As in any kind of parenting, nobody can predict the future of your family, nor of its dynamics, challenges, victories or disappointments.

You may read others’ books on the topic, but you can only write your own as you go.