"Mommy has been gone a long time"

I briefly mentioned my husband's first wife, here, and have since avoided mentioning her existence.  There is a reason for this.  The first wife is currently an unfelt presence in our lives.  Why is this?  Well it's because she's not here right now.  She joined the military reserves and has been in training since May.

I just deleted a fairly lengthy entry detailing the difficulties we have had with the first wife in the time that she has been gone.  Why?  Because even in trying to be as fair and generous as possible, I found that I had very little to say that if found by the girls one day, wouldn't destroy their opinions of at least one of the two of their moms.

The first wife will graduate and return home in a few weeks, and I've got some anxiety about it.  And by some I mean A LOT.  I don't have any idea what is going to happen when she gets back. I hope that she decides to be an involved, supportive member of a 3 parent team but that hasn't been the case in the past.  The past has been a combination of nonexistent mis-communication, missed appointments, "forgotten" events that occurred in front of/around/to the kids, attempts to reconcile with MY husband, public Facebook rants when these attempts failed, and a whole host of other awkward/tense/upsetting situations that don't even include the checks "that must have gotten lost in the mail because I know I paid that last month".

There I go again possibly influencing future opinions, but I really can't find a better way of expressing my fears/nervousness at this point.  Believe me I've tried, this is actually the 5th version of this post that I've written today. I just deleted another whole section that took me an hour to write and a minute to reread and realize I should not publish.

Lets just say I have a few things to be concerned about...  lets not forget that the girls started calling me Mom AFTER the first wife left for boot camp.  I absolutely adore being Mom, but I am so not looking forward to the first time they call me that in front of the first wife.  I foresee scratching, biting, hair-pulling, and perhaps a few eye gouges...wish me luck!