How to find the joy anyway
I watch the movie Groundhog Day every year on February 2 with the same devotion as those people who watch Love Actually every Christmas (which we also do). The older I get, the more philosophical the plot feels — that on some level, we're all stuck repeating the same day over and over and over again, until eventually [spoiler alert!] we break free.
This year, I realized Groundhog Day is the perfect metaphor for the stages we go through as we're becoming stepparents.
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Feeling trapped as stepparents
We start out thinking we know exactly what we're in for. We're Bill Murray, on our way to do a quick news segment and then head back home. No big deal. Even the unexpected snowstorm that keeps him trapped in Punxsutawney isn't that big a deal — it's a complication, sure, but hey... he'll just roll with it and leave in the morning instead.
Only in the morning, on what should be the next day, it becomes clear that things are not quite right in Punxsutawney. Bill Murray is reliving the same exact day all over again. He hangs out in denial for a bit, then wastes a bunch of time trying to figure out why the day is repeating. When he can't get any answers, he tries to game the system so the day stops repeating instead.
In his cynical moments, he takes full advantage of the time loop however he can; in his darker moments, he despairs. He uses the time loop to learn everything he can about Andie MacDowell so he can con her into falling for him. She never does though, even though he wrangles his way into checking every single box on her wish list.
And then, when nothing else has worked and he remains stuck in February 2nd and probably will be forever, he just... starts living life. He reads everything he can get his hands on. He learns to play the piano. He sits back and enjoys the time loop, learning how to strategically plan every single day to live his 24-hour life to its fullest each cycle, even doing good deeds along the way.
Not until he's content with this inexplicable, frustrating, nonsensical situation does he actually become happy. And not until he's happy does he finally wake up to February 3.
Our misconceptions about stepparenting keep us stuck
I never thought dating someone with a kid would be a big deal, but I figured hey... I'd just roll with it. How complicated could it really be, right? I think it took me about 6 months of dating Dan before I realized this whole stepmom thing was shaping up to be way trickier than I thought it would be. I wasted months (okay, years) trying to figure out the why behind everything. Why was HCBM so intent on destroying our lives? Why did my SD hate me so very much? WHY WAS BLENDING A FAMILY SO HARD??
I tried my damnedest to game the system, too. I kept thinking I'd eventually find the solution that would get everyone else to act differently so I could finally be happy. Once SD acted less sulky and we were buddies, once Dan started parenting more and standing up for me more, once HCBM respected that we were SD's real family too and backed the hell off... once all those things happened, then we'd feel blended.
I listened intently to everything SD or Dan or HCBM said was a problem, then diligently went about fixing those problems. SD says she's unhappy with us? Okay, nothing but her favorite meals from now on! Dan says he wishes he had more time with SD? Hey, no problem — I'll spend hours and hours going over your custody paperwork line by line till I know your parenting rights better than you do! HCBM says SD doesn't have enough structure at our house? I'm on it! From now on, SD, you're practicing piano for an hour every night. And I'll supervise!
I checked off every single box on everyone's wish list, yet doing so only made everything worse. With each demand I successfully fulfilled, 7 more sprung up in its place like a never-ending hydra. Undaunted, I kept slashing away, kept trying to be everything to everyone, telling myself the whole time that this was the way to break free from the bullshit. To create a family. To become blended.
To say I gave myself empty would be an understatement. And even then, collapsed and depleted, I still didn't feel like we were a "real" family.
So yeah, there was definitely a bunch of cynicism and despair around that time. Not gonna lie.
And then came this beautiful aha moment, a moment where the clouds broke open, the sun shone through, angels sang in the background, and I said fuck it. Because I realized if nothing I could try was making anything better, then I didn't have to keep killing myself trying. I could let go of trying to hustle my way to being the best stepmom I could be. I could take a step back and just... be.
The situation didn't change, not really. SD kept right on being unhappy. Dan still didn’t really have my back. HCBM continued making outrageous demands.
But I changed.
I stopped asking how long I was gonna have to wait until things got better. I stopped waiting for the absence of drama to call ourselves a family. I tried and I failed a million times, making a million ridiculous mistakes again and again and again... but I stopped holding them against myself. I stopped believing perfection was what was going to save me — that really nailing the stepmom role was what would finally make us click. And only when I stopped fighting my way forward with everything I had did the way forward finally open.
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Becoming blended
I don't know why stepfamily life works this way, but it does. For every single stepparent who has found peace, that is how they found it: they stopped beating their fists against reality, and found the joy in that stupid goddamn brick wall anyway.
Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote "It's not true that life is one damn thing after another — it's one damn thing over and over." And boy does that ever apply to stepfamily life. We just keep fighting the same fights again and again. We keep arguing the same arguments, we keep bringing up the same sticky conversations that have no resolution. And because no one likes going in circles, we keep right on doing this again and again and again because we want to get to the next day, dammit.
What if we try something different instead? What if, instead of playing tug o' war, we drop our end of the rope and go look for snacks? What if, even when all evidence tells us that joy couldn't possibly exist under these circumstances, we made up our minds to find the joy anyway?
And then, what if we actually found that joy?
