My problems with blogs has always been that I want to start at the very beginning ... and it's just not possible ... so I never get anything written. I guess that says something about living in the present.

So, today I joined StepTalk and today I'm starting this blog. With the here and now, the rest may or may not get filled in in time, but the important part is getting it out.

My ongoing issues with BM is that she pushes my buttons, I know that part of it is my baggage and I am responsible for my reactions - that does't change the fact that those buttons are there and they are hot buttons for me. Selfishness, self-absorbed, unwilling to accept responsibility, blaming everyone else, boosting her own poor self-esteem by beating others down, accepting no responsibility for anything but the good things.

In one breath the other day she told BF that she couldn't ask for a better SM for the boys than me, and on her exhale she accused us of being more concerned with my bonding with the boys than with the boys relationship with her and that as the BM she will always come first and I am just a girlfriend and something fleeting in the boys lives. She flips so fast and changes tunes on whims it's impossible to keep up with. We are constantly walking on egg-shells around her, and trying to not stir up drama that the idea of even seeing her for 10 minutes gets my blood pressure rising.

The latest is that SS4 was invited to a school-mate's birthday party at a bounce party place. The party is on our weekend with the boys. I asked SS4 if he wanted to go on by his self or if he wanted his brother to come also if he could - he said he wanted to go on his own because his brother doesn't know this friend (and I know it's a special friend of SS4, they give each other HUGE hugs every morning when we drop him off at Jr. Kindergarten!) so I thought that the best thing to do for SS6 was to see if BM could do something with him during that time. She went ballistic, in the middle of a retail store, when BF started to tell her about it, I don't think he even got past that it was on our weekend and that SS4 said he wanted to go by himself, and she started attacking him (I was talking to a salesperson) about how we weren't going to take her son to his first birthday party without her, we're trying to shut her out and that it is her right as a BM to go to the party with her son and our responsibility to pay for a sitter for SS6, or since I wasn't a biological parent and just a girlfriend that I could watch SS6 while BM and BF took SS4 to the party.

If this had been brought up in a reasonable way, instead of an attack on BF, I would feel okay about finding options, I would be able to see where she's coming from as far as wanting to be there with SS4, but because of her attitude, I'm having problems letting any of it go. I know I need to look at what is best for both boys, but part of me feels like a very wounded child that wants to strike out and be mean back, and part of me really hates that I have feelings like that. I haven't reacted to her, I haven't responded to her, BF and I have talked it out some, but I really want to get rid of the anger it brought up in me.

You know what? Just getting it written out lets me release some of it and start the healing that I need to be able to start a discussion with BF again that will lead to a strong, loving decision.