I now have two. Both my natural parents are now married and divorced twice. I was the child of my parents’ first, brief marriage, and both stepparents functioned through my formative years as quasi-parents, and were very important to me. Now they’re just people my parents once happened to be married to.
Do you have ex-stepparents? What are they to you now? Did they disappear or do you still stay in touch? Do they still consider you a stepchild?
I hope you get good answers. This is less intense than a step parent & hope you won’t take it as insulting to compare it.
I had an Aunt-by-marriage who was like a second Mom to me growing up. I won’t bore with it, just say she was there every other weekend and at all my games, events, dances, rites of passage etc.
She divorces my Uncle, who I am not nearly as close to, but who I to whom I am biologically related. My sibs and I have had her at graduations, weddings, sent and recieved b-day and x-mas presents and just generally kept in our lives. We still call her Aunt. Some iciness on the subject with the Uncle, but we all have a tacit agreement not to discuss it. At weddings they are both there. At T-giving, X-mas we call her but don’t have her over.
It IS weird.
Although my mother divorced my step-dad almost a decade ago, I still have a very close relationship with him and I still consider and call him dad. I mean, this is the man who was my dad for nearly 20 years (my mother divorced my bio-father when I was two and married my step-dad when I was five) and although legally he is no longer my dad I would never be able to think of him as anything else. I also maintain contact with his family and consider them my family as well and vice versa.
What’s interesting is that I have, over the years, come to know and love my bio-father as well. In my mind and in conversations I identify them by calling one father (bio) and the other dad (step). shurg Kind of a strange quirk, if I say so myself, but that’s just the way it, err, evolved in my head.
One ex-stepmother, who was married to my dad from when I was 18 until I was 22 or so (I’m 32 now). I have no idea where she is or what she’s doing, and might not even recognize her walking down the street.
I have two brothers (both halves, but emotionally, we have no halves in our family) that were raised from toddler-hood by my father. When my parents divorced in 1985 (bros were 18 and 14 respectively), my mom actually moved out and left us all living with my dad. They still talk to their biological father all the time, but both call my dad on a weekly basis and call him “dad” and all that. In fact, they both came back to visit for my dad’s 60th birthday with their babies. He was as much (if not more) of a father than anyone else and will always be so.
I have had three stepmothers, the last of whom is my father’s widow. I never really got along with the first one (although God bless her for having to put up with someone else’s preteen children during the first years of her marriage), but she’s the mother of my (half) brother and sister, so we’ve stayed in touch. I always liked the second one, who had the good fortune to come along after I was grown, and I was sorry to see her go. We don’t see each other often, but we’ve always at least exchanged Christmas cards, and now that she’s back in the same city as I am, we get together every now and then. My brother and I went to a party of hers last week, as a matter of fact. I’m also still in touch with my last stepmother, who was married to my dad for the shortest time. Overall, I’d say my dad had good taste in wives, and I’m happy to know all of them.
I like what interface says about not having “halves” in the family. When it comes to stepparents, our family doesn’t have “exes” either.
Oh, I feel for ya.
My situation involved my husbands brother, M. M married and divorced K. I was good friends with K before, during and after the marriage and divorce- and M, too, of course. They have children together.
I was told by some family members that I had to pick one and that I can’t invite both parties to holidays, birthday parties, etc. I was told by some that I had to pick ‘family’.
I refuse to play this game.
While I have opinions about who was wrong and how things were handled, I don’t voice them. It’s really not my business. And I refuse to pick.
I said I will always invite both and let them sort it out.
At first one would skip so the other could attend. Later, they took shifts and one would come early, the other late. Now they can be in the same room without animosity, although they do tend to avoid one another.
I hold my ground firmly on this. I’m sorry things didn’t turn out well for them, but I won’t ‘divorce’ either of them just because they were divorced, and I did not appreciate the pressure to pick placed on me by others.
My parents divorced when I was 13, and my mom, brother and I moved out of state. My dad married a women, “I”, who he divorced about ten years later. He then marries “B” whom he divorced three years later. Shortly thereafter, he gets back with my mother for three years (no marriage, just living in sin this time around), and then they break up. He’s now remarried to “B”, but I neither communicate any longer with “I”, “B” or my father.
I do, however, still talk to my mother and she’s invited to every holiday get together. 
I had a step family. For quite a while.
When my dad died, many years ago, my stepfamily kept me in the fold. Thanksgivings and Christmas were spent here, with them. The Fourth of July was the annual family reunion, and my stepmom always made accounting for me. She had a family ring made for me, and kept me on her Christmas list. Although it was a huge PITA to deal with, I respect her motives behind her efforts to engineer a rematch with my ex. My bio-sibs weren’t on her list, but they all live elsewhere and were never that connected to my other family.
She died a few years ago, and, while we (me and the steps) kept up for a little while, that’s fallen into disarray. I do get the feeling that she was the hub, and without her presence, the family’s drifted apart.
But my eldest step-niece has made a point to stay in touch with me. She’s a 31 year old architect who lives about a half-mile from me (coincidentally in the very same house I lived in during 1981-82). We email and get together every few weeks.
Considering the circus her own nuclear family has become, I think she gets some sense of stability, or continuity, from her relationship with me. I’ve been around for all of her life. She’s seen to it that all of her friends know me as her uncle, and I can say that I feel towards her much the same as I do towards my bio-sibs’ rug rats.
Well, heck, she’s been around for a good deal of my life. Probably does me some good, too.
I had three ex-stepfathers. They were married to my mom from four to six years each.
I never attempted to contact any of them after they left, and never felt much of a loss at their departure. To be fair, this lack of contact had more to do with disinterest on my part than any coldness from them.
During much of my early years, I lived with my Grandfather and Grandmother, and the comings and goings of the various hubbies weren’t important to me.
Ah, modern life…
Well, I am sporadically in touch with my former stepfather. We do Christmas cards and perhaps a small gift exchange, nothing else. He is remarried with children I have never met … I often get the impression his occasional contact with me is a secret from his “real” (current) family, and I doubt I am wrong …
Whereas my former stepmother is forever the mother of my half-brother, with whom I am close. And (speaking quite frankly here) I blame my father more for the dissolution of that marriage than I blame her, not that anybody is really to blame … I feel still connected to her, and (since I’ve known her since she was a blushing girl of 18) I think she feels fairly close to me.
But I’m done with stepparents. My mother’s boyfriend is no stepfather to me. And when my father marries for the third time (he will) I will, I fear, have to avoid emotional attachment with his new wife.
Jesus and St. Paul were right. Marriage is for life. I’m sick of this crap.
I didn’t get a stepmother until I was in my 30s when my father remarried after my mom died.
I gave the woman the benefit of the doubt. I tried really hard. Ultimately, I just didn’t like her.
After my father passed away, I decided to no longer communicate with her. As far as I’m concerned, my parents are dead and it’s time to move on.
My Dad’s 2nd wife is now his widow, and we keep in touch.