The DHX: The Doughtie Houses Exchange

A little history from Lori at the real world:

“Part of what I felt in the marriage and after, was abandonment. Not where he would leave for days on end or anything, but rather that he was constantly at work. It seemed to me that he did not want to make time for me or that I was not important enough. (again, this was my perception of how things were) These feelings were magnified when I saw that he had started taking off days of work to be with her and the kids.

It left even worse thoughts of ‘why was I not good enough to do this for’ etc… I don’t believe that I disliked her or tried to be mean on purpose, or out of the simple fact that she did anything wrong, but rather she took my place. She was getting what I had so longed for. She had the relationship that I should have had.

I then had the fear that my ex would want to take the kids away so that they could be one big happy family. (without me) Because why would I need to be in the picture, I’d been replaced. This brought out the very basic instinct to hold onto my kids tighter then I had ever done before.” (Read the whole post here)

Today over at the real world Lori shared some of the things she realized she had to work through years ago on the mom side of a new mom-stepmom relationship. This is such a helpful post in beginning to understand and empathize with the pain some moms feel in these situations.