I didn’t dislike her; she just seemed to be the classic midlife crisis exploding before my very eyes.

It was interesting to watch her physical transformation, one that was catered to please Brendan. She started out a pretty normal Mom, for lack of a better description. I think you can picture what I mean. Just sort of normal. Then she started dressing up, wearing skirts and stilettos to daycare drop off. Which wasn’t a big deal, but I could see how her outfits would please Brendan. It just honestly looked awkward on her. The most memorable outfit was when she she showed up dressed head to toe in Lily Pulitzer. Brendan always dresses like he’s stepped out of preppy 1982 (stand-up polo collars and all). It was perfect for him, just terribly awkward on her.

Then she moved on to dying her brown hair blonde. Brendan loves blondes. That one was tough to watch, because she really was a brunette. And while all of these changes were rather innocent, they grew. The minivan was traded for a BMW, the purses became Coach and Fendi, and the A-cup was traded in for brand new oversized Cs. It was literally like watching a cliché unfold.

And I know people could shrug and say that maybe she was finding her true happiness. I would never argue against the pursuit of happiness, and recognize that for some it lies in material things. But the part that made my heart absolutely break, the part where Jean lost me, was when she didn’t fight for the custody of her kids. She was perfectly happy having her one-day-a-week and every-other-weekend schedule. She didn’t even ask for custody. And that told me where her priorities were. As a mother, that was something I just couldn’t get my arms around. How do you not fight for your kids???

As Brendan announced they were moving in together, all I could think was that my children were going to have to spend every-other-weekend with her, with them, a terribly selfish duo. And I recognized that all I could do was hope they rose to the challenge.