She suggested it when we first started talking again after our year of angry silence, and it works for us. For me, it’s permission to speak up and to speak my mind. And it’s an impetus. It’s a “now or never” kind of deadline that more often than not gets me talking. For her, it’s the freedom to know that I’m not harboring grudges that she doesn’t have any inkling about. For both of us, it’s a kind of security in this odd, close quarters set-up. We agree to listen, even if it hurts. We agree to speak, even if it’s scary, to the point of stomach acid and shaking and getting the runs. And we agree to let some things go.

“Maybe she saw us as monsters,” G said with sort of a twinkle in his voice.

Oh yeah.

From the inside when we act out in pain, we see ourselves as victims. From the outside, when we act out in pain, we look like monsters.

Outsiders who haven’t lived through a similar kind of suffering don’t see the pain; they see the actions.

The victim might be pushing back against unfairness or pulling away from being hurt, and they usually think that they are justified in doing what they have to do to take care of themselves or their loved ones. People who don’t identify with the victim’s position just see pushing or pulling. It often looks aggressive and out of proportion.

If someone is pushing or pulling against us, it really seems out of proportion, unjustified and sometimes even unprovoked. What kind of person would hurt us like that out of the blue? We push or pull back. We defend ourselves. We’re trying to make things fair or right or the way they should be. We’re might even say we’re victims, and that we’re justified in doing what we have to do to make things right. We’re dealing with unreasonable people. People who don’t get it.

That’s how the cycle of violence starts. One side sees a threat to themselves or their loved ones and pushes or pulls against it. They don’t see the pain they’re causing — they see the pain they’re trying to prevent to their own side. Side two doesn’t see the threat the same way the first side sees it — what they mostly see is pushing or pulling against themselves or their loved ones. What they see is that they’re being attacked. They push or pull back. They feel justified in protecting themselves or their loved ones. The first side doesn’t see how powerful or threatening their protective actions looked to the second side. They just see the second side’s response, and it almost always looks really, really scary. This confirms that there really is a threat, and that they need take more action to scare away, fight off, freeze off or otherwise keep away the monster that has caused pain and harm and that is likely to cause more. What one side sees as stamping out danger or making things be fair, the other side sees as aggression.

We tend to see our own side as weak and vulnerable. We see ourselves as taking necessary measures against a big, scary, dangerous opponent. We under-see our own power and how much hurt we’re inflicting on the other side. We see mostly our own pain or the pain of our loved ones (victims) and we see what the other person is doing that causes the pain (monster). They see their own pain or the pain of their loved ones (victims), and what we’re doing that causes it (monster).

A person who looks like a monster on the outside is often a person who feels powerless and like a victim.

A person who feels like a victim struggling against a monster can probably pretty safely bet that the “monster” sees things in reverse.

So here’s my theory in a nutshell: when we act like victims, we look like monsters. When trying to fend off pain for ourselves or our loved ones, we often hurt other people. As long as we don’t see the people around us as fully human — people whose feelings and needs are as important as our own — we can’t see how much hurt we’re inflicting or how scary we can be. These hurt people around us then feel like victims and there’s a very strong temptation not to see us as fully human. This can start a cycle of violence. We end up with a bunch of people who see themselves as victims fighting the good fight against monsters. But when we’re on the battlefield, we all think we’re the victims and we all see monsters, clear as day, in front of us. No one thinks they’re a monster.

Sometimes if we have doubts we gather friends around to reassure us that we’re not monsters — we’re definitely innocent victims fighting monsters. Chances are, though, we’re a little of both. Even though we would never, never mean to be.

Inside every monster suit is a victim who doesn’t know they’re wearing a monster suit.

Being a victim is dangerous.

* * * * *

P.S. I am not a Buddha or a saint. I’ve ended all kinds of relationships because I didn’t know how to fix them. I don’t have all the answers. I think the victim/monster understanding of relationships is part of the way the human brain works. Unfortunately. And I think it’s a powerful optical illusion that creates even more problems, all the while dangling out a carrot — just out of reach — that if we keep pushing or pulling, we’ll fix things. And I think having things work out that way — one more push or pull and the monster is vanquished and the conflict is over and we’re vindicated and we ride off into the sunset — is extremely rare. I’m not sure it’s good for us when it does happen. Usually there’s a sequel.

A stepmom blogger recently found from watching her blog stats that her stepkids’ mom was reading her blog, and that she was visiting the blogs of the stepmoms she linked to. It looked like she was following every thread of every discussion in minute detail.

I can imagine it might feel a little bit like being watched by the all-seeing eye of Sauron. Especially if things aren’t good between houses. But it also makes me think about why I read Kathy’s blog so much during those dark days. It was never to intimidate or scare her. It didn’t even occur to me that me reading her blog could have that effect on her. I was more concerned that she’d think I was a big lame loser, hanging around so much reading her every word.

I was trying to understand her. I really, really didn’t understand. Who was this other person who suddenly had such a deep reach into my personal life? I was scared of her. But I also wanted to know who she was and what she wanted. I didn’t get it. It was really important to me. And I was scared to show up in person and try to find out. Really scared. (Of course, this seems pretty silly in hindsight. But then, I had less information, less experience with difficult conversations, I didn’t know Kathy, the kids, G or even myself as well as I do now, and I was kind of afraid of my own shadow in stepfamily situations.)

One day, I don’t know how, I realized that I would never get the answers to my questions by reading her blog. I was still curious about who she was, what was important to her, and what she thought in general, but I would never figure out what to do just by reading her blog. Even when she wrote about stuff between our houses — which was really rare — the answers I needed weren’t there, or her descriptions of the problems didn’t match my understanding of them. I just stopped looking for answers from her writing. I was still interested in who she was, but I stopped thinking she would drop the one hint I needed to unlock the situation in her blog.

Months later, as I finally started working on changing myself — as kind of a last resort — I started to see that the answers I was looking for weren’t in her blog because they were in a quiet, still place inside of me. The number one answer was this: I have to listen to my conscience carefully and act right away on what it tells me. I have to make this my number one priority in life. I can never be happy if I don’t do this. It has to be a life long discipline. I will fall off the wagon a lot, but I need to pick myself up, dust myself off and start over every time I find I’ve stopped. This is the only way for me to be happy in my stepfamily and in my life. I do not answer primarily to G. I do not answer primarily to the kids. I do not answer primarily to Kathy. I do not answer primarily to any outside observer. First and foremost, I answer to my conscience. This was devastating and beautiful. I was undone. I was liberated.

All of a sudden, it did not matter what she thought of me. It mattered what I thought of me. That changed everything.

And when everything changed, I knew — from getting to know her through her blog — what kind of card to pick out for her to start to making amends. I picked out something that I liked, and that I thought from reading her work that she would like, too.

* * * * *

So, why might the moms or stepmoms in our lives be reading our blogs? Here’s what I think:

• To learn more about us in a non-scary way.
• To try to understand the mom or stepmom mentality, challenges, frustrations, hopes, dreams, and maybe blind spots.
• Because it’s really hard not to listen in if we discover someone else talking about us in public. Even if our names have been changed.
• To find out what we really think of them and the situation.
• To try to figure out if we’re trying to hurt them.

Here’s what I think: the internet is public space. What we write on it is public, just like a published book. Unless we’re writing in password-protected internet space, it’s okay if anyone — including a mom or stepmom in our lives — reads it as much as they want to. It sounded like — maybe I misunderstood, but it sounded like this same stepmom had reason to think that her stepkids’ mom was leaving comments in the stepmom’s name. If so, that’s not cool. But reading and commenting under our own names or pseudonyms — or reading and not commenting — that seems fine to me. It seems reasonable. It seems like a normal reaction to finding a public blog about the exact problem we’re enmeshed in written from the other person’s perspective.

When I log into Google Calendar, I see:

• My personal calendar (dark green; visible to me and G, but only I can edit this calendar)
• The G & Jill household calendar (light green; visible to me, G, Kathy, and both kids): here G & I enter household events that affect the kids lives or that might be helpful for Kathy and the kids when they are at the other house to know about when planning appointments or when looking into schedule changes
• The kids’ calendar (pink; visible to me, G, Kathy, and both kids): here all five of us can enter the kids’ events — birthday parties, school calendar items, music lessons, performances, etc.
• Kathy’s household calendar (taupe; visible to Kathy, me, G and the kids): Kathy enters events that might affect the kids’ lives at her place and that might be helpful for us to know about when planning appointments or looking into possible schedule changes.

Privacy

We select the “do not share this calendar with everyone” option, and instead share our calendars just with each other. (“Sharing the calendar with everyone” would mean making it public on the internet and having our calendar items be searchable through Google — which is a great idea for groups that want members of the public at their events, but not for families.)

For each calendar you create, you can decide who to share it with, whether they can edit it, whether they can share it with others, and whether they can see event details or just busy blocks of time.

RSS

It’s also possible to subscribe to a private RSS feed for changes to any of the calendars. I subscribe to the feed for updates to the kids’ calendar in Google Reader.

In real life

Our shared calendar is a central repository for upcoming events we all know about. I use it as my main calendar, and G and Kathy use it sometimes — often as a secondary calendar. Still, it’s helpful for keeping us all on the same page.

Related posts:

• Two houses, one email address
• Two houses, one spreadsheet
• Five gazillion places to go, one map