Blissfully Blended Bullshit Read online

  This was our life before we moved in together — emails from Boyfriend trying to find a sliver of time in our ridiculous lives to see each other.

  Our relationship has progressed so far (and accelerated so fast), it just seems dumb not to take the logical next step at our age: sharing real estate. Like I’ve mentioned, there is a huge reason he’s really moving in, which I’ll get to in a minute. But, now, we can see each other every day! We can wake up next to each other and go to sleep together. I am genuinely euphoric that Boyfriend is moving in, with his children here 50 percent of the time. I’m overjoyed that I’ve found my soulmate, or at the very least someone who I actually want to live with full-time. I’ve lived in this house, alone with my daughter, for about five years. Boyfriend is the only man, after my split-up with my daughter’s father, I’ve ever even entertained the idea of living with.

  And so we are blending households. But my high spirits are overshadowed by fear and a little bit of dread when Boyfriend opens the back of the U-Haul and I can see all that he’s brought — an entire fucking household. I am aghast and alarmed. Is Boyfriend a hoarder? I already have a fully furnished, clutter-free house. I take in all the stuff he brought from the house he had been renting and had fully furnished after his separation, and I feel my heart start to pound madly, as if I’ve just finished a half-marathon. Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe. Where is all his stuff going to go? Where is all his daughters’ stuff going to go? Do we really need three microwaves and two kitchen tables and eighteen spatulas? Does anyone?

  While Boyfriend and his mom figure out the logistics of blending two households, unloading and unpacking box after box, I make up a lame excuse to get the fuck away from the madness of moving. I’m riding on a roller coaster of emotions — from excitement to fear, delight, and worry. My mood seems to swing faster than an Olympic gymnast on the high bar. Even though this is such a monumental day — blending families is a big fucking deal and I should probably stick around to help — I know I have to escape and leave Boyfriend and his saintly mother to figure out where to fit all his stuff in my house, which now will become our house.

  To be honest, “my” house is really only half mine. The other half belongs to my ex, who pays the mortgage, it being his daughter’s primary residence. I’m sure Rowan’s father would prefer that we were moving into a house that Boyfriend and I paid for on our own. Why, after all, should my ex pay for Boyfriend and his children to live in a home that is half his? I may have been romantically challenged in the past, but I know this much about men: they have egos, especially when the issue is tied to money. Let’s be honest. How much a man makes or has in his portfolio is directly tied to his self-esteem, whereas a woman’s self-esteem is often tied to how well her relationships are going.

  Except, oddly, for Boyfriend. He doesn’t seem to care that he’ll be living in a house he doesn’t technically have any rights to and never will. I mean, we never signed a cohabitation agreement like our friends did. We will get around to it, but do we really need one? This relationship is for keeps!

  Long after he moves in, we will both realize that you can never truly be the king of someone else’s castle, even if it’s just half a castle.

  Figuring out how to fit two fully furnished houses into one house is beyond daunting, like having to sit on a suitcase while someone else zips it up because you couldn’t help but buy too many souvenirs on your vacation and you’re not checking your bag, no matter what. My emotions simply can’t bear witness to what Boyfriend and his mom are going to do. So I disappear — not admitting to Boyfriend that I’d rather chew on broken glass than watch this — and head to a coffee shop. For the first time it hits me that this really is going to be a huge change. It probably should have occurred to me before now, but … love!

  By now, Boyfriend knows I’m not exactly good with change, so he understands my need to escape. So, yes, Moving Day is harder than I thought it would be. For a person who resists change, this is a lot to take in. Blending our families, with new routines to follow and new people in my territory, will not just involve an adjustment period. Change will open new wounds, which will have a ripple effect on everyone else involved.

  Still, we are blending households. We are blending families. We are throwing a shit ton of random ingredients into a small appliance, pressing the “on” button, and crossing our fingers and toes that it doesn’t turn into shit. Although Boyfriend has not yet proposed and we haven’t walked down an aisle or made any official vows, we are in this for the long haul, from this day forward, for better or for worse, to love and to cherish. We are now for better … or for blended. Plus, I’m pregnant. So, of course, we want to live together.

  My ex, because he’s the father of my child, needs to know about this huge life development that’s going to affect his daughter. Oh, and he should also know that I’m pregnant. I might not want to forget to mention that. I can only sit in this coffee shop for so long without feeling antsy. My emotions are all over the place, and my life feels like that dream where you show up to an exam having never attended a single class. I’m flying blind, and I could really use a cheat sheet. I’m both beyond excited to start this new chapter in our lives and, I admit, also terrified. Not just about how my life is changing. I’m also terrified of the fact that other people’s lives are changing. And they don’t even know it yet.

  I need to call my ex. I need to call Boyfriend’s ex.

  I have been procrastinating over making these two calls since the day Boyfriend and I made this decision for everyone. I’ve always worked better under deadlines anyway, even if it’s in a deadline-induced panic. Now the deadline has arrived, like seeing “Final Notice” on a bill. I’ve put it off as long as I can, but once I get home, it will be official. I have to break the news to my ex that another man is moving into his daughter’s house, along with two other children.

  Long before “positive co-parenting” became part of our societal vernacular, Rowan’s father and I have practised it from the day we parted ways. We are way ahead of our time. I often join them for dinner when he’s in town to visit Rowan, and we sit beside each other during her recitals and graduations, even saving seats for each other. We have always made our daughter our priority.

  This should be interesting.

  I sit in my car, which I’ve parked on a quiet side street. I’m nervous as fuck. Thanks for nothing, Ativan. I have no clue how my daughter’s father will respond to my call, but I hope he takes it better than I did when I saw Boyfriend’s entire house jammed into one large truck and had to leave for fear of having a breakdown.

  Much like the bulge of fat that has started to form around my midsection thanks to the baby growing inside me, Boyfriend moving in is not something I could have hidden much longer, anyway. Nor do I want to. I love my daughter, and by extension I will always love her father. He deserves to know. Besides, it’s happy news that Boyfriend and I have decided to blend families and are having a baby! But I feel like puking, and not because of morning sickness. While I’m thrilled to have found someone who I actually want to live with, who I’m having a baby with, I worry Rowan’s father may have a different opinion on the choices I’ve made. I almost feel like I should have asked his permission before Boyfriend and I got knocked up and decided to blend. Not actually, but kind of, which is ridiculous since I’m an adult and we haven’t been together in nearly a decade. My loyalty to my daughter’s father will irk Boyfriend after we blend houses — it undervalues my relationship with Boyfriend, he will imply — but for now he is just happy to be with me.

  Fuck it. I need to just press the call — Oh shit. It’s ringing. I should have prepared a speech or at least some talking points.

  “Hey, Beck, what’s up?” he asks.

  Deep breath, Rebecca. He’ll be thrilled. You have nothing to worry about, I tell myself.

  “I have something to tell you,” I say, and then I immediately blurt out that Boyfriend is moving in. “I’m also pregnant,” I add, like it’s an a
fterthought, attempting to play down the hugeness of this announcement.

  If there is a better or more ironic time for a pregnant pause, I’m not sure when that would be. A deafening silence follows. It feels like a lifetime before he finally responds.

  “Wow, Beck. Um, congratulations?” he says, sounding shocked.

  I’m pretty damn sure this was not the phone call he was expecting to get at eleven in the morning while he was working in his office. I hear a catch in his throat.

  “I don’t know what else to say,” he says.

  Fuck. Neither do I.

  I can tell he’s choked up, and not with tears of joy for me. Of course, blending families is also going to affect him. A million thoughts are probably racing through his head right now. There will now be another adult male in the house, a man who will, unlike her biological dad, see his daughter every day. How could this not affect him? How could he not worry that another man may form a bond with his only child? His daughter will also have a new baby sibling in a few months and two sisters living with her part-time. This is a big deal for me, but it’s a big deal for him, too.

  “You’ll always be Rowan’s father and she loves you so much and that will never change,” I say, not only because I believe it, but also because there’s no fucking manual called How to Tell Your Ex that a New Man Will Be Living in the Same House as His Kid and You Are Also Pregnant with That Man’s Child.

  I don’t know how to protect him from this. This is a choice I’ve made for him. The last thing I want is to hurt him. So why do I feel like I’m the one who got sucker-punched? It’s that damn catch in his throat. I think I’ve crushed him, and it’s killing me. I blink back tears. I’m pretty sure he’s doing the same.

  Ex doesn’t ask about the logistics or if Boyfriend is chipping in to live in the house that he half owns. I’m kind of grateful for that, given that I don’t even know the answer yet. I’m not totally irresponsible, though. I did have my lawyer draw up a cohabitation agreement. So I have one, hidden away in one of my purses, high on a shelf in my closet. I said I have one. I didn’t say Boyfriend knows anything about it. I asked my lawyer — the lawyer who handled my divorce, who is the human equivalent of a pit bull — to draw one up because isn’t that what people do nowadays, whether it’s a first-time marriage, a common-law marriage, or a second-chance relationship?

  It seems a growing number of divorced men don’t seem to mind moving into a woman’s house when blending, because our self-esteem is also based on how well our partners treat us.

  “No, we did not discuss money before we blended,” one of my male friends admits when I ask him why he and his kids moved into his second wife’s home instead of finding a new house. “I don’t know. Given that my wife came from a very wealthy family and a very bad first marriage, her focus wasn’t on my ability to provide financially, as much as on my being a good father figure, a good husband, and someone who had a stable job.” Being a healthy role model for her children and a good husband were much higher priorities for his new wife. He admits, too, that from a financial contribution standpoint, for the lifestyle that she was used to living, it would be unreasonable, if not impossible, for her to expect any man who isn’t also very wealthy to be her equal when it came to finances in their home.

  When my lawyer sent over a draft of the cohabitation agreement by email and I didn’t immediately respond, she wrote back and insisted I get Boyfriend to sign it. I promised her I would get it done. That was weeks ago. Now she’s stopped reaching out to me. Her accountants, however, have not.

  I think the ex needs to process all this information that I’ve just thrown to him out of left field. “Okay, well, thanks for telling me. Congratulations,” he says again. “We’ll speak soon.” I can tell he is eager to end this conversation, as if I were suddenly contagious and he could catch a virus from me over the phone, four thousand miles away.

  After the phone call ends, I allow myself to sob — the ugly kind of sob where tears seem to be coming out of your ears and nose, and after you look like you’ve been punched in the face and also have pink eye — even though I think my ex is genuine with his well wishes. I should be overjoyed that he reacted so well. If he was upset, or angry, or anything other than happy for me, he spared me from knowing. Ex went easy on me, and for that, I am grateful. Many others can’t say the same.

  Blending families affects people you’d never think of instantly, like our exes, the other biological parents of our children. Yes, it’s a little late for this lightbulb moment, yet here I am, more concerned with Rowan’s dad’s feelings than I am about the changes Boyfriend is about to face as well.

  I cry because Rowan’s father is a great dad and I don’t want him to feel, even for a second, that there is a risk he will be forgotten, or less loved, by his daughter. I cry because I think the fact another man gets to see his daughter every day must sting, and I’m empathetic to that. I cry because I am reminded that we didn’t work out, because I was young and stupid. I cry because, in many ways, I still love him. I cry because four hundred times the normal amount of estrogen is coursing through my fucking body, and things that would never have bothered me pre-pregnancy are now sending me into full-blown meltdowns. I cry because by now, that ugly brown leather chair has probably found a place in my house. Mostly, I cry because I’m relieved Ex now knows.

  It’s not just that three more humans (oh, and one dog), all complete strangers to him, moving into my house affects my ex. Boyfriend and I have been planning this move for a little while now, but today, right now, at this second, it has hit me like a ton of bricks — the gravity of what we’re doing. It’s not just a U-Haul filled with crap. It’s not just a house that is being shared. It’s our lives. And those lives started before we met. There were partners — partners who we share children with.

  Even though I’m allergic to change, I’m ready to take this challenge on, blaming my pregnancy hormones again for getting irritated over a chair and not being able to handle watching the process of Boyfriend moving in and for bawling uncontrollably in my car. Anyway, it’s a little too late to turn back now. Still, I can’t stop thinking about that catch in my daughter’s father’s voice. It will haunt me, not just in the following days, but for years.

  The only people Boyfriend and I have told about the baby are our children and our parents (and now Rowan’s dad). We want to keep it a secret until we’re out of the first trimester. I’m superstitious, like many women. We’ve asked the kids to keep our secret, though when we are all together we spend hours deliriously discussing potential baby names, wondering if it will be a girl or a boy, talking about whether we want a girl or a boy, and planning how we should decorate the baby’s room. Boyfriend and I, it turns out, are fucking living in a delusional world, one where young girls can actually keep secrets.

  Since I’ve already made one uncomfortable phone call, I figure why not make ’em all?! I had asked Boyfriend for his ex-wife’s phone number, explaining that I don’t just want to tell her about the pregnancy. I also think it would be a kind gesture — an olive branch, if you will — to invite her over to the house where her two children will be living half of the time. I figure that would be the respectful thing to do. She should hear that I’m pregnant from me first. It’s better than coming from Boyfriend, who can barely remain civil when talking to her these days.

  It doesn’t occur to me that news of me being knocked up by her ex might not land well. Unlike my daughter’s father and me, who managed to work out a separation agreement via our lawyers over lunch, Boyfriend is still in an ugly battle with his soon-to-be-ex-wife. My pit bull divorce lawyer is the one who first suggested that I call his ex, in the hope it will move their divorce along quicker. She thinks if I call Boyfriend’s ex, it may make things better, if she and I can at least be civil to each other and on the same page about raising her children. I should have remembered that the advice came from a lawyer, not a therapist. Ugh.

  I want Boyfriend’s ex to know that if she
ever has a problem, she can always call me to discuss it. And, if she’s ever worried about her children when they are with us, she is welcome to reach out. Now that I’ve got telling my ex out of the way, you’d think I’d be well practised and more confident making this call. I’m not. When she picks up, I say my name, knowing I sound like a bumbling idiot. She knows exactly who I am.

  “First, I just want to let you know that I’m pregnant,” I start. Seems like a reasonable way to begin the conversation, no? Radio silence follows.

  “Yes, I know,” she responds.

  Another pregnant pause. I hate pregnant pauses! So I continue with my speech.

  “Also, I wanted to know if you’d like to come over to the house to see where and how your girls are living when they aren’t with you,” I continue.

  My voice wobbles. I’m nervous as fuck. My heart is beating a mile a minute. This is the same feeling I get when a police officer pulls me over for speeding or because of my outdated sticker on my licence plate. As with any dealings with the police, I feel the need to immediately say I’m sorry, agree with everything they say, and cry. I just know the rest of this call is gonna suck. This woman, after all, has the power to make our lives hell. Why do I feel like apologizing? I didn’t steal Boyfriend away from her. I just hooked up with him and am starting a new life with her ex-husband. But she sounds … I’m not sure. Pissed? Annoyed? Aggravated?