I'm writing you a letter that you will never read, and that is okay, because I want you to know I'm writing this not out of anger or to point fingers at you, but to explain where I am at, not that you care, but maybe because if you could know, it would bring down the wall I know you have built so high up around you.

Firstly, I want to sincerely THANK YOU for not being the kind of ape-shit bm we stepmoms have a tendency to read and write about on our various blogging platforms. I have done my share of spitting vitriol out about you, and I have been supported and encouraged by my very good friends, but I don't want to be the woman who writes with such anger anymore.

See, you could have been SO MUCH WORSE, it's not even funny. I was just telling DH last night that really, I am very grateful that you allowed me to be SUPER stepmom of the year, with my incessant attempts to contact you, inform you about your own children, and ask for your advice and permissions on issues when it very well may have been causing you real pain. The way you handled yourself, barring a few extreme episodes, speaks well for your ability to at least restrain yourself. I have not been able to find anything online you've ever said about me on CafeMom or Ivillage or BabyGaGa that was less than very generous. If you feel this way for real or not, I want to thank you.

In this vein, I'd like to apologize to you for basically rubbing it in your nose that you don't live with the kids. I don't even know, this many years hence, if I was rubbing it your nose purposefully or not. I held it against you that you are not the residential parent, but these days I have come to respect your decision, regardless of your intentions for making it this way, because that was your choice at the time.

I may not understand why you have decided to try to make it appear that you are the residential parent, and while it annoys me that you have basically tried to erase the father of the children from your online personalities, it doesn't anger me like it used to. I know the truth, the kids know the truth, and that has to be good enough for me. I am sorry you feel you have to put on airs to your friends. Shame on them if they would judge you for doing what you needed to do.

I will only throw one more barb in your direction, but I must address it: I am proud that you have not propagandized the children against DH for enforcing child support. We both know you averted your responsibility towards the kids. You tried to fight DH in court, but the facts won out. Since then, as far as I know, you have accepted the verdict. I know it has been a semi-major hit to your lifestyle. You are not a low-class woman and I know you have certain tastes. So to take the financial hit, in apparent silence, must mean you accept it. Thank you; your children, if they knew, would admire you for it.

As far as you and I are concerned....ah, well, I guess after all this time, we know that is now a non-issue; the kids are older and don't need Mommy and Stepmom to be best friends in order for them to grow into healthy adults. You must admit, we put on quite the show for them when they were younger. I did try to show you honesty and good faith and I can hope you reciprocated with the same intentions. But they don't need that now. I am sincerely appreciative that you have not forced the issue, as I have not either. I would have enjoyed your camaraderie and co-conspiracy but it was not to be.

But I do want you to know: I don't talk shit about you. I don't undermine you. I have drawn a very clear line in the cement, that even though I love them so, so much, that I am not their mother...I never intended to be a mother, and while they were younger and I was wiping up vomit and such, the line between mother and stepmom was VERY blurred, but I am past lamenting that they are not my children, and I fully accept that they are yours. That may sound like a very rudimentary, obvious statement, but believe you me, as intimate as my care for these kids was, this is a sign that I have grown in my role and have molted off many resentments I once held.

I want to let go of the anger I've been holding on to. At this point, if I continued to be as angry as I have been in the past, it would be an indication that I somewhat needed the anger to fuel me into doing the things I do for the kids. I don't ever want that to be what drives me in my daily life. And despite the way I may disagree with the way you have handled this situation, I must accept that you are making your choices because that is what you just do to survive.

Please know, that despite the past, despite what goes on inside my head, your kids won't catch the brunt of that. I expect to see you at graduations, weddings, and births (hopefully in that order). I may not ask to be in a photo with you or sit with you at certain events. But I will promise that I will let you have the room to be the mother you can be. And I won't hate you for it.

Maybe because of this life I've chosen, I've learned what true sacrifice is about -- something I hear biological mothers say: you don't know true sacrifice or true love until you've had a child. Well, I'm experiencing something like that. And I'm wading my way into forgiveness. If this is as close as I ever get into understanding motherhood, it is certainly close enough for me.

Sincerely,

Stepmom