Awkardness

I talked to my step-kids’ mom yesterday. I suppose I could say I talked to my husband’s first wife.

But we like to just call her the kids’ mom.

She’s a nice person. She wants the best for her kids and even though they’re grown, you can tell she worries about them. She’s a mother, no matter how old her kids get, she’s always going to worry.

She called so we could talk about J, my step-daughter, her daughter. J isn’t doing so well. She’s not done well for years. We all want what’s best for her but now that she’s almost 25 years old, her decisions are her own.

It makes us all sad.

Then the conversation moves from J onto more mundane things, like how my girls are doing, how the grandkids are doing, etc.

And…in another life, this woman and I might have been friends. She’s not a bad person. She’s quite lovely, actually.

Except for the little fact that she hates my husband with the burning passion of a thousand suns. She detests him. She can’t talk about him without getting angry.

I am glad that she and I can talk civilly about the kids she shares with Tom. I’m glad that I can be the filter through which communication goes from him to her.

J is still covered under my insurance, so really, her business is more with me than with Tom anyway.

But it can get awkward to be chatting with someone and suddenly have to dodge a hate-filled comment about one’s husband.

There was a time, back when J was seventeen and things were especially bad that I had to step back and tell Tom and his ex-wife that I was done being their go-between.

I came into his life five years after their divorce. I had nothing to do with their marriage or their divorce and I was so tired of the anger, the ugliness.

Things have calmed down over the years.

But she’s still angry and so is he at times. He does thank me for being the one to talk to her about insurance issues, so he gets credit for that. But since he’s the only husband I’ve ever had, he has no idea how awkward this can be. He doesn’t get that I don’t necessarily want to talk to the kids’ mom any more than he does.

But I’m less emotionally invested, so I deal with the awkwardness. I know that it’s what J needs right now and she is more important than my own comfort with these issues.

Tis the season to be merry, bright and to forgive and, well, maybe not forget.