What is a normal stepfamily?  Is there even such a thing?  I am woefully unprepared due to a massive lack of resources and community for stepfamilies.  I’m dealing with meeting the ex-wife/mother-of-SS in two weekends.  What started off as a positive sounding “family” time for SS and the rest of us to get to know one another has digressed into the ex backing off and saying she’s just not ready for it and she just simply wants to meet me then take SS off for some of the weekend (cutting into my husband’s summer time with his son) by herself. 

Believe me, I was less than thrilled at her coming down.  Originally it was to be this weekend for SS’s birthday.  It would have been DH’s parents, my parents, SS, me, DH and our baby.  And then her.  Originally she was also coming down with someone that she is seeing (yay she’s moving on), but then he couldn’t make it.  Then she decided she couldn’t handle the group and thought she’d come down a different weekend. THEN she books the flight without asking us for a date confirmation.  But it was ok because she was planning on doing some “group” activities so SS could see us interacting as a “family.”  Now its just digressed into, I’m still coming, I want to spend time with my son, but I can’t handle anything more than a quick introduction with you. 

So…what’s the point?  Why does she now need to make a special trip to eat into our time with him?  Why come at all?  If she were driving, most likely she’d back out.  Now that she’s booked the flight, she’s kind of stuck unless he wants to pay to get out of it.  While I think she and I need to meet (its been almost two years for heaven’s sake), we can do that when we return SS. 

I guess you could say at the very least we’ve had civil email conversations and have gotten better about that.  We’ve “met” over the webcam.  But seriously, if I were divorced with a child and my child was staying with my ex and a new wife, I’d sure as HELL want to meet her and check her out.  While I wouldn’t like the new wife’s place in my personal life, I’d be making as much effort as possible to get to know her so I know who my child was spending time with.  But that’s just me. 

Again, I ask…what’s normal here?