"I stay with my mom during the week and split weekends between her and my dad. From all appearances, my parents get along well. Sometimes my mom will even join all of us for dinner, and she's occasionally watched my siblings for my dad and Inez. I'm super close with my mom. I get along great with Inez, and respect her as my stepmother, but I don't really share personal information with her."
"The kitchen window was open, and I overheard my mom's friends talking about my dad. From what I could hear, they were not speaking nicely about him, and it seemed to be about something that had happened very recently between my mom and him. One of them commented on how my mom is so much better off without him, and they can't believe she's as nice to him as she is, given what he did."
A 15-year-old's parents divorced a little over ten years ago. Stepmother Inez entered the family quickly, and the father married her less than a year after the divorce, when the narrator was five. The parents sold the house; the father later moved in with Inez, about a 45-minute drive away. The narrator lives with her mother during the week and splits weekends between both parents. The narrator is very close to her mother, respects Inez but shares little personal information with her, and maintains a somewhat close relationship with her father. The narrator overheard her mother's friends speaking negatively about her father and calling Inez "that cheater," which caused emotional conflict.
Read at Slate Magazine
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