Family- Biggest Support or Biggest Detriment

This is a tough one for me. I didn't think it would be because of where I have gotten to in my boundaries and acceptance but as each unavoidable situation comes up, I relive the disappointment in what should have been. You see, I married into a family that prides themselves on the words "we don't do step". They are a blended family that both parents, step or not, were called Mom and Dad. My father in law was a genuine, sweet man who would answer to one name for his biological kids and another for his wife's children and never miss a beat. From the outside, one would have no idea which kids were which or maybe I should say whose. My mother in law was a tiny whirlwind of a woman who was always the biggest, strongest personality in the room. Her love for all was the same, fierce. When my husband and I married, she accepted 4 more grandchildren with a love that could only be considered pure and thorough. I never thought to tell her what it meant to be taken in as completely as we were, maybe because I didn't realize at the time that there was any other way, or that our time together would be so short. She passed away less than a year after our marriage. I wish now I had told my mother and father in law thank you for so many things but most of all, for loving me and my children and making us feel loved and a part of them when they did not have to.

As a young bride, most of the time we dream of the wedding, followed by our new life and new family. My husband is my second spouse and I am his third. Nobody plans for that to happen but these days it is more common than not, especially in a world of bi polar and other mental illnesses. I am happy to say I have lasted longer than his first two wives, which one might think would earn me a solid place in the family. It does not. At least not in the eyes of my sisters in law. Family dynamics are a strange thing and when broken down can explain so much. To say that all of my sisters in law do not particularly care for me would be to open. After almost 20 years, they really don't know me. My husband and his one sister who is the same age as he, have kind of been cast out as the troubled black sheep. His sister knew it for years but sadly, he is just discovering this plight.

He has been diagnosed for over 15 years and this still goes unaccepted? I don't know. Un-discussed and un-participated in most definitely. His biological sister falls as the oldest of the two of them and in the middle, age wise of all of them. She has a strong personality but not in the same way her mother did or her brother does. She has a hero's complex and will insert herself into situations that will allow her to play that role. From the outside, this can appear to be completely random acts of kindness and sometimes that is exactly what it is. Other times it is inserting herself into situations that she has no place being, for the spotlight as the "communicator". But the most dangerous times are when she doesn't have the control that she wants over someone because that is when she will create a need for it. I will say this, she loves her brother tremendously but when she sees him in a weakened state rather than help him, she will make sure he feels like she has to save him. There is no acceptance nor denial of the illness because there is no real discussion. She has funded him three times so that he could leave us. The most humiliating time being the last, when she opened a Go Fund Me page for him and put our business out in our darkest time and sent it to members of our church, casual friends and the general public. She even sent it to my sister in law by my first husband, with whom I am still close. This was our first experience with a failed discharge from a hospital and knowingly dealing with psychosis. I will say this, it was profitable and because it went straight into his hands during the throes of mania, in a moment it was gone. Then when the cycle has run its course, he comes home and now he has to pay back the money he spent when manic. Three times. Only once, when her mother was still alive, did she ever reach out to ask what was going on and that was when I told her about the diagnosis. I was still learning about it and so much had not happened yet that I didn't know how to ask for help or how to put up boundaries. When I would follow what the counselors would say and let him face consequences, she would bail him out and drop him off on my doorstep. Never did she come in even to question why I was letting him spend the night in jail. She would ask him pointed questions about the kids to get him worked up about them and then hang up knowing that she would get a call in a few days from him needing to vent or comfort because he was upset with everyone in the house. She tells other family members all of his issues and isolates him from even his other sisters so that when a situation arises that they are all together she can tell the family that she will take care of him and make sure he behaves. The manipulation goes on and on but when the accusation came that I tried to overdose my husband, I found out where my line could be drawn. His other sisters pretty much just keep to themselves. They live their own lives and let others live theirs. I wish we were closer but I cannot overcome the stories and no longer try. We just had a memorial for his one sister, the other black sheep of the family. Sadly, she was the one sister in law that would sit with us at the family gatherings, as uncomfortable as we were. We didn't see much of each other, but I will miss her.

So now that we have covered the tip of the iceberg of how a family can be detrimental to someone with bi polar disorder and believe me that more will come on that later, lets go to the polar opposite (no pun intended) and get to the way family is a blessing. We have six children and yes the word step is used as a description. I came into the marriage with four and he had two. Three boys and three girls, we rivaled the Brady Bunch and even had the theme song played at our wedding. The kids were 13 down to 3 when we got married and are now all in their 20's except the oldest who has just turned 30. As I said, we did do step. My husband was involved in a nasty game of tug of war with his children when we met and I was known as "flavor of the month" to my step children. My oldest three children had little to no relationship with their dad and were hurt by the fight they now got to witness of a father who wanted to see his kids. The youngest is the most fortunate as her dad and I always got along and being the youngest by six years, she was automatically aged out of the sibling rivalry. We had many trials to overcome along the way but I am happy to say that today my relationship with my step kids is one that I wouldn't trade for the world. We have allied together, bonded by a love for the man that would give his life for any of us. When my husband starts to cycle it is one of the three of us that will call the others in concern and warning. Sometimes to say pick up the phone and sometimes to say not to. But we are there to support each other and to keep the man we all love safe. We protect him by letting him vent but only to a point and always turning him back towards health, towards his life that

he works so hard to keep stable.

It is harder to sum up this angle of my four. They genuinely love their step father and recognize that he stepped up and stepped in where their dad stepped out, but they have watched not only how the cycles have affected me, but also each other. Their instinct is to protect They have stepped in financially when he wasn't working and I couldn't take care of all the bills that month. They have stepped up when I needed to remember what it was to smile. They have stepped between my husband and another sibling when his mania came on without warning. I have guilt for all six of them and what they have had to see and while they are not unscathed as adults by any stretch, they are the best people I know. They have huge desire to correctly love their dad so that he can find joy again one day. They know what it is to feel isolated and know that if family is all you have, it can be enough. I genuinely could not do this life without any of them.