The following is an extract from: A Bit on the Side: Reflections on What Makes Life Delicious by Virginia Trioli.
At the age of thirty-six, I became an accidental stepmother. The man I'd fallen in love with had three children from his previous marriage.
I only realise now how alarmingly unconcerned I was about stepping into a new family, about interrupting my life and Russell's children's lives by becoming a partner to him. Now I can hear the warning tones in the voices of those who love me as they gently inquired about how serious this love affair was, but I couldn't hear their concern at all back then. A thumping heart can drown out so much.
But I do remember thinking very early on, after realising that this relationship was important to me and that, despite all the odds, we had chosen each other, that I needed some kind of working approach for my unexpected new role. I was going to become a quasi-parent to three young people who had no need of a new adult in their lives, and I had to figure that role out quickly. When I was with them, and if circumstances tossed us into a moment that required a parental choice, then I had to know what I was doing and why I was choosing to do it in that way. I had come from a very large family and didn't so much leave home at eighteen as flee it, desperately seeking a calmer, quieter environment. I think that's why I spent so many years living on my own.
Listen to Virginia on MID below:
I was not a child of divorce, but I was a daughter of unhappiness, and I hated the thought of being the author of any more of that.
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