MY STORY

I became a wife, stepmom, and mom in one calendar year. Talk about manifestations happening quickly, right? Life quickly changed. While I had thought I was “prepared” for this huge next step, I quickly learned that nothing can really prepare you for becoming a mom. And what about becoming a stepmom and wife at the same time as becoming a new mom? Nothing can prepare you for that.

While creating the biggest and most rewarding things of my life, I have faced the biggest, most trying challenges of my life. I have learned, grown, and reframed over and over and over again. I’d like to tell you it was because I was just so emotionally and spiritually advanced that I just did it and was grateful while it happened.

Far from it.

The lessons, growth, and reframes have come through the throes of postpartum, grief, resentment, and feeling as far from “me” as I’ve ever felt in my life. I hit a “rock bottom.” I started realizing how personal and unique my journey was, but not just my journey- the ones of all stepmoms. Soon after that realization came more waves of doubt and anger. “Why am I in this incredibly hard position?”

It finally dawned on me– the raw, real, living reality of being the matriarch of a blended family. It hit me like a ton of bricks, somewhere 6 months postpartum… not a good time to feel like you royally fucked up your life. It felt like I accepted a life sentence of living in brokenness that I didn’t even create. And, well, when all the weight of that “life sentence” came crashing down, my husband and I almost didn’t make it through.

Like, really, life was a shitshow.

Holy fuck.  

Who is serving stepmoms? Who is helping stepmoms acclimate to the statistically common phenomenon that is a blended family?! Clearly not much of anyone because… you want to know one more statistic?

Two out of three second marriages end in divorce.

I used to shy away from these statistics. All of them. They were too sad. Too dismal. Too scary. But now? I see them as a call to action. I feel compelled to let step moms and moms know they can empower themselves to help themselves feel better. It is not your fault, you bad bitch stepmama you, that your marriage is on the rocks and you feel like you are drowning in your blended family reality.

Stepmoms are underserved, under appreciated, and misunderstood. A lot of us are trying to do our best with difficult legal agreements and a difficult biomom. (Insert more of my righteous anger here– if you want to talk about “being the best for your kids,” don’t make your kids’ lives harder by wreaking emotional havoc on the other part of your kids’ lives that they live at their dad and stepmom's house, bio mom!)

Stepmoms aren’t going anywhere.

So, stepmama, take up space, be big, be yourself. Nothing and no one in your life will be better off when you stay small. You have the power to rewrite the narrative. 

Before We Thrive was born from the throes of my journey and created to be your space to come back to you in your journey.

The divine light within me recognizes and honors the divine light within you.