Let's see. I'm in my forties, recently married to a man with a nine-year-old daughter. Notice I don't identify myself as stepmother. In fact I don't particularly refer to her as my stepdaughter. Not yet anyway. Who knows. She's an alright child as children go. We're "friendly strangers" as someone put it on the forum earlier today. That feels accurate and that's okay by me. I don't relish the idea of being a full-time stepparent or parent. I run a successful business, I love my husband, we have a good life.

I suppose what brought me here is my good friend who married and became a stepmother at about the time I did. (She told me about this site though I cannot for the life of me imagine her here. She's the epitome of the happy stepmom.) She dove right in to the deep end and has devoted her life to her husband's children. They adore her. It's rather like a Normal Rockwell painting when we visit. I don't mean to poke fun. My friend is very good at it and sincere. She loves those children as if they were her own. So you can imagine that watching her, watching them, made me wonder. Where is my maternal urge? Am I missing something? Because I don't dislike my husband's daughter but I don't love her either. Frankly, I think it would be odd if I did love her after six months.

So here I am. Wondering what my role is in this situation. Wondering how it will change. Luckily I have a husband who cherishes me and allows me to be myself. He doesn't push me toward his daughter, he doesn't pull me away from her (not that he'd have to). They do their thing and I do mine and sometimes we do something together. He has a cordial relationship with his former wife. (Therein lies the difference between my situation and my friend's: for all intents and purposes, her stepchildren have no mother so there's a perfect empty space for her to fill.) I don't interfere with my husband's communication with his former wife. He's not particularly fond of her and limits their communication to parenting their child. He is a good father. She is a decent mother. There's no need for me to involve myself. I know it would make my husband ridiculously happy if his daughter and I adored each other but I'm not going to force myself on her. I value my own independence too much. And I value my relationship with my husband above all.

I will admit that the only uneasiness in my situation comes from my intuition that my husband's daughter is not trustworthy. There's something not genuine about her, something deceitful. She's a compliant child, easy to be with, easy to manage. But there's a watchfulness about her. She has a way of chirping out just what she thinks we want to hear. It makes me cautious around her. It may sound cruel to judge a child like that, but there it is: I don't trust her. Something tells me that she is not who she seems to be when she's with us. Who knows? She may not be who she seems to be when she's with her mother. That's the sad reality of forcing a child to navigate two homes, two different worlds. They learn to adjust themselves and to manipulate their surroundings. I understand that it may well be a very normal survival impulse but it's enough to keep me on edge. That's what I don't like. Not feeling I can truly be myself in my own home. I assume everything I do is being reported back to the former wife who doesn't seem to have it in for me, but still. I suppose it could just take time. I've not been around children much and it takes some getting used to. I often feel that my personal space is encroached upon simply by her living here half the time. I'm relieved on weeks we don't have her. I breathe easier. And like I said, she's an easy child. I just prefer it when she's not here.

So that's it. Perhaps I'm a stepmonster in the making. Or perhaps I'm just indifferent to children. Maybe I'm missing the chromosome that kicks in the maternal instinct. But here's how I feel: I love my husband, I can live with his child, but I have no desire to be her mother. I don't even want to be her stepmother, particularly. Frankly, I have no idea what that means.