Dear Snarky,
My ex-husband of seven years has just gotten engaged. I’m happy for him because we’ve been divorced for a long time. What I want to talk to you about is his fiancé.
We got divorced when our daughter was three and for the past seven years, we’ve had what I would call a perfect divorce. We get along great and have 50/50 custody.
Once my ex got engaged his fiancée reached out to me via text to say hi and to let me know that she thinks my daughter is amazing and that since she works from home as a graphic artist, she’s always available to help out with school pick up or drop off etc.
My response was to not respond to little Miss Merry Sunshine. Things have worked out great for seven years and I don’t want to have anything to do with this woman – ever. I’d like to keep things totally status quo. My daughter likes her dad’s fiancée and that’s great but other than that I don’t want to know anything else about this woman.
How do I convey this and not sound like a bitch? My thinking is why mess up something that has worked perfectly for seven years.
Signed, Happy with the Status Quo
Dear Happy,
Are you really happy? Because it sounds to me that you want to bury your head in the sand and ignore the fact that your ex-husband is going to get remarried.
You can’t make reality go away by insisting it doesn’t exist – so you need to acknowledge the fact that your ex is getting married and your perfect divorce will in all likelihood stay perfect but it will definitely be changing because your daughter will have a stepmother and this stepmother will be helping to raise her.
I’m going to implore you to open yourself up to this new normal and do everything you can to help your daughter transition to having a stepmother and one of the best ways to do that is to form a cordial relationship with this woman.
You don’t have to be friends, you, in fact, rarely have to see her, but you should acknowledge her and if need be communicate with her about your daughter.
You need to realize you’ve got a new person on your team – the team called Doing What’s Best for Your Child and the more people that love her the better. What you don’t want to do is transfer your feelings of “we should stick with the status quo” onto your daughter. She needs to know that you’re okay with this woman and that she shouldn’t feel guilty for having her in her life.
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Epic yard wars (Because it’s always a good day when you call tell the HOA to suck it.), a PTA take down (Spoiler alert – lice is a great way to clear a room), bizarre goings on at a Parents Day Out program, Little League intrigue (Apparently, you don’t know real power until you become “Commissioner” of your local Little League.), a tale of Vacation Bible School taking an, ahem, rather unfortunate turn, how to get kicked out of the Junior League (It was harder than you might think), a science fair stalker and turning Christmas inflatables into a revenge plot
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Snarky in the Suburbs 