You did good, Erin.

But I also think it's incredibly indulgent and awful for adults to let their stuff to get in the way of kids' emotional well-being.

This is really so true. Their marriage failed but they still share a child and marrying into that means sucking it up for M, sometimes.

I am really grateful that my stepmom was as welcoming to my mom as she was. Not that I think there was even hidden bad blood there but I know it's hard and I really appreciate that I never felt like I had to listen to Adult Issues.

I know that stepparenting (and all parenting) is really hard and totally vent here and to your friends but you are stepping up for M and that is so important.

OMG. Need to be in bed but just got home after a 13 hr day, so am having wine on the porch. Tomorrow's another long one.

Probably making less sense than cleverbot right now.

I am trying to do good. I try to be empathetic; I try to try not to fall into that tired old women-competing cliche. But it's hard. She was so utterly awful to D., and I have gotten info from too many sources about how awful, and part of me just wants to be better, in every way. Not from any kind of selfless feeling, either -- sheer shallow competitiveness.

And I'm usually a very "Meh, whatev, fuck you, I know I'm fine" so it's kinda weird for me, the intensity of this judging and feeling like I'm being judged.

(So, I guess I'm saying thank you for listening to me work through this, and be bitchy. I do with local friends, too, but y'all are immediate gripe-dump.)

What Cass said. It's super important for you to play it cool in these situations and super-cordiality is an amazing superpower in the face of such tricky circumstances. It's the thing that will help your step-son the most, this forebearance which does not come naturally to you.

Thanks, guys, for helping me not feel like an awful person. Lucky for me, though I dislike fronting, I am very good at being charming and faux.

I would be dangerous if it weren't so damned boring and I am so lazy.

(And I'm all humble, too!)

ETA: It IS made easier by the fact that M is a great kid, and I am falling in love with him.

I want to feed lines form Monty Python's Argument Clinic sketch to Cleverbot.

I want to feed lines form Monty Python's Argument Clinic sketch to Cleverbot.

I want you to feed lines from Monty Python's Argument Clinic sketch to Cleverbot, too. So why are you lying on the sofa?

Erin, you are a good step-mom.

You sound like you are doing awesome.

And hopefully D is doing his part by not rehashing their very over romantic relationship to you. You only have continued contact because they share (and you share now as well) a child. It's not a "who is the better wife" thing, it's raising a happy, well-adjusted M thing.

Though I will admit I now secretly thrill to hear stories from my dad about when he and my mom were together. But I only hear them on the rare chance that he and I are having dinner alone and it's not a wistful thing, it's just we share people that we don't really talk about with other people around. It's also that I am in my mumblethirties and he and my stepmom have been awesomely together for over 25 years, so it's not a confusing message for anyone. Just fun to hear.

Modern families are hard. But modern kids need the adults in their lives to be grown ups and, honestly I think, subsume some of their wants and needs for the kids when it comes to dealing with the other parents.

Erin, you are decidedly not an awful person.

Erin, you are a great step-mom! Your priorities are clearly right: the needs of the child come first.

Here's a weird thing. I've taken no medications today. No antidepressants, no antianxiety meds, no painkillers, no decongestants, no antihistamines. I didn't plan it; I just forgot everything until about two hours ago. Now, I'm not taking this as proof that I don't need any of them, but it's heartening to know that if I skip a day, I don't fall apart.

I'm tapering off my antidepressant. I've done this before, unsuccessfully, but I haven't been in such a good emotional place before, in many many years. Also, the high dose of Wellbutrin I was taking was causing tremors in my hands, and I didn't want to risk that becoming permanent. So I went from 450 mg/day to 300, and now I've gone to 150. My shrink is keeping an eye on me, and thinks that the Deplin may be making a real difference in how much I need. He says that if I'm one of those people who doesn't metabolize folate/folic acid very well, the Deplin might prove to be all I really need. (Deplin is methylfolate, a version of that B vitamin that's already in the form the body needs it to be in.) If my problem turns out to have been a lack of vitamin B-whatever all this time, that would explain why no antidepressant has ever really worked for me. We'll see, I guess. More adventures in chemical enhancement.

Personally, I think Prozac and birth control pills screwed me up completely and permanently in my early twenties, and after twenty years of one unsuccessful drug after another, all I can do now is try to control the damage. Prozac etc surely have saved many people's lives and made many people's lives better, but I don't think I'm one of them.