I am writing to talk about what other families do to deal with the feelings that come when a child permanently comes and goes from the home due to split access.

I am with a man who had a 1 year old(she is now 3) and I had a 6 year old(now 8). Together we have our own child who is just new born. We all get along very well. Our children behave as siblings and have from day 1. I have a very strong and positive maternal relationship with the step daughter, as does my partner with my daughter. We have his daughter 3 days and nights every week. When we started dating we did things our own way. We ignored what step parents are 'supposed' to do and we followed what felt right for us. We allowed discipline from the other parent to our biological children, and we did treat the kids as our own. This proved to be such a positive thing. There was resistence and whatnot for a short while, but now it is as though we are all a biological family. It really doesn't feel like we are blended. This is a great thing, and aside from the point of this post, I encourage anyone to do whatever is right for them personally..whatever suits your goals(ours were to be a real family without barriers due to non-biology or regardless of the presence of the other parent. My stepdaughter also calls me mommy and my daughter calls my partner daddy).

My issue is that I had a really hard time transitioning from having part of the week belonging to all of us as a group, to having 4 days where it is just the 4 of us without the step daughter each week. I wonder if anyone else here is familliar with these feelings? I used to just get settled into our nice peaceful life together and then either she leaves or she returns and everything gets awfully disrupted. The disruption does not seem to affect anyone but me. My daughter is fine by it. She is pleased to see her come, and pleased to get to her busy week at school with her activities when she leaves. She misses her, but loves her very much. My partner has always had to do this. He gets moments of sadness when she goes because he wishes she were a part of our lives continually. He struggled with babying her and sort of seeming to favor her when she returned because he wanted to make up for the time lost, but he is working very hard and doing a wonderful job at just keeping our lives normal and treating her like the rest of us, without any compensation. The child has adapted very well to regular visits now that we have set days and looks forward to going to both homes. She does well between homes. But then there is me. I've gone through many stages over the time we have been together. I've struggled with accepting another woman's child in my life. That she is a part of her-her face I have to see everytime she's here; her habits and sayings and behvaiours -has been the most difficult part. I don't find it easy to be so immersed in one of my partner's ex-girlfriends. I know he has nothing for her, but they shared something and this child will always be a reminder of that to me, and probably in many ways to him. THi sis something I continue to work on, and I am doing a very good job at dealing with and defeating. This isn't why I am writing though.

What I am looking to discuss is transitions. My experience is that my perception is my grandest tool when dealing with transitions. I have found that once the stepdaughter leaves, I go back to perceiving our lives as though she didn't exist in it. It is a family formed of 4 of us, and we begin to grow together this way. When she would return, I would have a really hard time. I would feel almost resistent to changing our life to make room for her again. By the last day of her stay I would feel good again and as though she were a part of things, but then she would leave and it would all start again. I found this very very exhausting.
This time around, with this realizatin that my thoughts are troubling me, I am trying something different. THat is, not to perceive her as gone from the family, but just gone for a couple of days. This might sound like common sense to some, but for someone who has trouble with transitions, this is not so simple. THis is my first week of seeing things differently. I did not allow myself to see her as 'gone from our family', but rather, as gone for a few days but still 100% a part of our family. I think I did this as a way to hang on to life without my partner's ex girlfriend in my life. It is almost indulgent of me. This was why her return was also so stressful and hard. I had to re-accept a child into my life and re-experience the feelings of her being another woman's child, over and over, every week. Does this sound familliar to anyone, where by the end of the weekend she is here, I feel better and hope she can stay, and could even love her? So this time I am trying things on a different foot. This week I still see her as a part of it all. I talk about her like she belongs here, like she is one of our children. This also helps me not to see her as the ex's child, but rather as a continuous member of my family. Not allowing myself to view just the 4 of us without her as the whole family also helps.

Really I am sure to some of you this might sound like common sense, but for those of you who understand I would enjoy hearing from you. Do you also have methods you use to cope with transitioning? WHat other struggles do you find you have with transitions?

Thanks for reading my post.