Another - Blended Not Shaken
Bridling The Unicorn...
As positive and as light as I try to present much of the material in this [& my book] there are issues that are extremely complex, disturbing and difficult to resolve either quickly, blithely or even wisely.
Some of the problems individuals struggle to overcome have a source that may go back three or four generations. Alcoholism is one, patterns of physical, sexual or mental abuse are others.
But, some causes for radical behavior are a complete mystery. They are a mystery because key relatives die, or children were adopted or placed into foster care with their family history and records lost or destroyed.
Regardless of a family mystery or an obscure reason behind behavior you wish to identify – our resolution begins with us. I’m the solution to my own problem. I’m the answer to my own question.
My stepfather adopted me when I was eight years-old. I loved him with all my heart and felt his unconditional love in return. I was raised by the only Dad I knew, who is still the only Dad I know.
For decades my mother kept the accurate identity of her first husband a secret. Bowing to her wishes no other family members spoke of him either. As a kid I imagined he had robbed banks and was sent to prison. But after my children came along I asked my mother for more information. Even then what she shared was vague and limited.
I didn’t find my biological-father until I was 48 years-old. I had decided to look for him not because I had any unresolved yearning. I wanted to know for health reasons what my children may have inherited that I unknowingly passed onto them. No he hadn’t been a criminal he had retired as a distinguished naval officer.
Sometime between the age of ten and thirty, [hopefully] most people have been able to learn personal resolution skills developed by means of various life experiences… Hopefully.
Developing-personal-resolution-skills growing up in a fractured home environment [wealth versus poverty not a factor] will be fractured. Then our ability to absorb teaching moments becomes splitered.
If I had grown up feeling unwanted and unloved my, self-image could have been warped, handicapping me. Insecure, I might have lived my life focused entirely on every perceived slight, every roadblock, every failure, every sadness, every hurt - taken as a personal afront.
A teaching moment arrives when we are able to focus thought and attention to why something happened, not solely a reaction to what has happened.
Be aware that the spirit of a child can be crushed in a nanosecond by a thoughtless look, word or gesture.
When I started grade one, my mother whose surname had changed with her second marriage registered me with a ‘given’ first and last name that was different from my ‘legal’ first and last name.
At the time my given names - the ones I’d been taught so carefully to spell - didn’t correspond to either the Canadian immigration documentation or my official birth certificate. At six-and-half, truly the only documentation I had any awareness of was the finished pages in my coloring book that I proudly showed to my Grandma Todd.
Everything went well for my first few days in school, until the kids in Mrs. Grey’s class had to complete a required Provincial Education form number/letter/color test. When we were finished, we were to turn in our paper to the teacher - with our full name printed on the upper right-hand corner.
Feeling sure I had aced printing the numbers from one to ten, each letter of the alphabet and correctly labeling all primary colors, I returned to my chair at my designated table.
That morning I had aced everything, except my name.
Suddenly Mrs. Grey towered over me spitting, “Stupid Sherrie! You spelled your name wrong!”
My paper was shoved in front of me with orders to, “Fix this, now!”
I had no idea what she meant, so naturally I burst into tears.
Mrs. Grey had crossed out Sherrie Todd with Sherry printed in its’ place. Mrs. Grey tolerated Sherry as my nickname only. However, since this paper was an official provincial placement test for all grade one [then not every child went to kindergarten prior to elementary school] my ‘legal’ name [Jerrie King] was required.
Later in an empty classroom, I remember looking up at both my mother and Mrs. Grey while my mother did verbal battle with a teacher who insisted on using my legal name. In the meantime, I thought I was stupid. Two months after that we moved, I resumed grade one in a different school with a cheerier new teacher and Dad began formal adoption proceedings.
As an adult we may be able to rationalize away a particular incident more easily if it only happened once, but our prisons are filled with grown-children who endured repeated and routine crushing.
Addiction
No one, I repeat no one lives in isolation, except in our own mind. Even someone who is the only child, of only children who have passed on, and they live on an isolated farm outside of a small town. If - someone gets mail [even junk mail] they do not live in isolation.
What we do and how we do what we do has an effect – the residue of which can reach into other generations.
My mother was a child of an alcoholic father. Her childhood experiences became the residue experiences of her four children.
Growing up my siblings and I had no concept of the shadows that hovered around our mother. Much was kept from us because we were children. It wasn’t until years later when the bits and pieces of her behavior that hadn’t made sense at the time - still didn’t make sense, but at least we understood its’ source.
What is cruel about addictions, [shopping, gambling, chemical dependency, etc…] is they contain a double-punch component. Besides the physical/mental high or escape – there is a deep seeded emotional-wound that triggered the onset of the debilitating habit to form in the first place.
With any unresolved addiction, forming a blended-family is adding kerosene to a bonfire – almost literally.
For a time, there may be enough of a distraction that masks the wound of a parent or teen, but with the unique stresses of a blended family, even a small, obscure incident could act as a trigger for a relapse.
Anyone who has ever flown on a commercial airline knows that standard preflight instructions are: if a plane loses cabin pressure ‘you’ put on your oxygen mask first – then – help a child or anyone else who may need assistance... Please, please, please get help for you.
When struggling with addiction, a destructive habit and/or compulsive behavior remarrying is not your solution. Remarrying is not even the beginning to your solution. Remarrying will only add more people to complicate the process of identifying the source-cause of your behavior.
And – do not, do-not, do-not marry someone you met in rehab, because only they understand you.
Instead, please wait until any minor offspring in your circle are grown and both of you have graduated from keeping a houseplant alive to caring for a parakeet.
Addictions are serious and until someone has reached the sponsor-level for any rehabilitation, it’s not selfish to work-on-your-self it’s crucial.
Abuse
There are numerous forms of abuse. All forms leave wounds, seen and unseen. All words, acts and deeds remain as a deep scar for the one who receives the abuse – and – for the one who was the perpetrator. Sadly, perpetrators are often acting out because they were once abused - which does not excuse the abuser – but it does explain the source-cause.
Verbal abuse hurts. Sarcasm and ridicule is not an attractive trait. It’s a subversive, cruel form of put-down used by those who are insecure. [Insecure people can be dangerous.] Sarcasm is often disguised by the abuser then when someone calls them on their conduct they use the excuse, “I was only kidding. Can’t you take a joke?” [Sound familiar?]
If you grew up with a form of acute abuse that caused you to enter into a similar relationship in your first marriage, then seek help for your-self before even dating again after a divorce.
Without the ability to identify the abuse you’ll unknowingly select the same personality ‘type’ because there was a dependency, an affection between you and your abuser, or unresolved anger – a combination or all three.
Abuse traps the target of verbal, physical, sexual, emotional abuse. The trap is a form of helplessness, when the target needs that job, or needs food and shelter, or needs support or something vital from the abuser – and the abuser knows it [or believes] their target is dependent.
You can’t ‘learn’ to heal if you don’t – put your oxygen mask on first – so to speak. With the help of a church pastor, group therapy or individual counseling support, the road back to your emotional balance helps to ‘heal’ more than only you. Your kids heal too.
‘Peter-Pan’
Experiencing a divorce threatened to stretch every brittle fiber of my fragile adult disguise.
I say disguise because early on there were many days that caused me to question if I had matured or merely assumed a temporary part in a theatrical farce. It was a struggle not to respond in kind to every perceived petty, deliberate delay, or annoyance my ex-husband seemed to plot. [He hadn’t of course.]
I may have been thirty-six, but I felt twelve. Some days I really wanted to be twelve, again. When I was twelve someone else made most of the decisions. Finding, that I was the ‘someone-else’ caused a form of childish cowardice to rise to the surface of my conduct like an oil slick. Ugh!
But if we are parents of our own twelve-year-old it’s our duty not to mirror back the immature behavior of others. We need to use common sense instead of sensation.
And what began for me as a feat of learning anti-reactionary self-control [so my children did not live through daily emotional turmoil] slowly became a habit. It became a very miraculous habit and a very positive habit.
As a result, their father became more relaxed with me on the phone and in person. He actually came to the door to pick up his kids instead of honking from the car with the engine running. And because he wasn’t tense or short with them to ‘hurry’ – our kids left for their time with him - happy.
I once worked with a woman who cheated on her husband and when he filed for divorce, she acted surprised, vowing to make-him-pay for leaving her. Everyone ‘paid’ especially her two young daughters.
Even now I shake my head. Anyway – when my children mentioned something that had happened during a weekend with their father that upset them, I bit my tongue. Their father wasn’t comfortable connecting with his feelings, but his avoidance made them feel shutout.
Instead of reacting, blurting a negative comment I learned listen to get more details. With more facts I began to help them develop a different approach with their father [on their own] next time if they were faced with their dad’s distant behavior.
Parents can’t always be there for their children, but the true purpose of parenting anyway is so that our children can survive [in the wild] without us…
The lesson in this for my children [even as young as they were] was the ability to face difficult communication issues and look for a solution.
I learned to resist planning a personal social outing that couldn’t easily be cancelled on the Friday evenings their father was to collect them. In case he was late or couldn’t come at all, I always had a backup plan for the kids and me.
What the children learned then was that plans might need to be cancelled or just postponed, however cancellation of the first plan did not mean an alternative idea could not be fun. I generally found a plausible, positive excuse for their father, so they would not take any changes to indicate they were somehow not worthy.
I made excuses to protect the kids, not to protect their absent parent.
· The positive that evolved in all of this for me, was as the months past I realized my nerves had become calm, my stress level dissolved, and ‘I’ benefited tremendously by this approach.
· I was able to resolve potentially touchy issues with my ex-husband quicker and easier. He always returned my phone calls because he realized our conversations were not going to be nerve-splitting verbal battles.
· The other surprise that evolved as an offshoot to how I dealt with my divorce [and aftermath] was I began to handle my work associations and other people the same way.
When what I was accomplishing with its’ positive effects finally hit me – I was quite annoyed for not approaching my life like this sooner. Paraphrasing, Dr. Bradshaw: …humans appear to learn best from mistakes. We don’t seem to be bright enough to do it any other way.
Shelve the anger and forget plotting any form of revenge. [Regardless - if the behavior of an ex-wife or ex-husband is part of their nature or a trivial game.] Payback in any form tends to function like a boomerang that can return to hit you.
If your ex-spouse is the most unreliable parent imaginable, there is a light at the end of your irritation tunnel, and you’re it.
· Problem: habitually or deliberately late by more than 40 minutes… Response: a] confirm the day before they are still coming, b] stress they call you if their plans change, c] after waiting for 60 minutes you and the kids leave the house for the library, run errands, get ice cream – whatever.
· Problem: habitually or deliberately cancelling an evening, a day, or weekend etc…last minute. Response: a] plan an alternate diversion for your kids, b] make a calendar record of the pattern emailing a copy to your ex-spouse, on the off chance an Ex may not truly realize their pattern, c] if after a year this trait still persists, some parents I interviewed had done the following: 1c]no longer initiated any communication, 2c]took a job in another city and moved, 3c]came clean with their kids about the other parent’s behavior and the kids did the reprimanding.
This does not mean you give the conduct permission, or it is condoned. The other person’s behavior is simply relegated to a mental file box in storage. The problem is metaphorically handed back to the offending parent and you and your kids [your new spouse and blended family] get on with your [new] life.
After you’ve remarried, planning around the whims of one or perhaps two ex-spouses will ping-pong you between holy-saint and pond-scum so often you’ll feel dizzy from the effort it takes to remain lucid. Do not get discouraged if some weeks your scum-score seems much higher than your saint-score.
As I often say blended-families are an elusive social entity that exists like fingerprints and snowflakes – no two are alike. Which is why getting a handle on their needs for counseling professionals is like trying to net-the-wind.
Blending a family can bring strength to both remarrying partners and their children that was lacking before they consolidated. But for the first three years the blended clan is vulnerable to outside forces, [deliberate and accidental] that attempts to unravel what remarrying parents wish to knit. They’re fragile internally as well, because each member brings any number of historic unknowns to meld in with new promising dynamics.
Blame
As much as we start with a clean slate as an emerging new family unit, events will arise that can still trigger negative responses that resonate among everyone. Because of this it is important to know as much and be as candid as possible [without malice] about the previous marriage to a future spouse.
· Why did the previous marriage dissolve? If you have a feeling the focus of your romantic affection may be holding something back – an Ex may not be the best source for unbiased candor. However, a former neighbor or in-law could help you avoid or at least postpone your final commitment.
· What has occurred in the ensuing years since the divorce of your intended? How we conducted ourselves as youthful college singles should not be the same activities that return after a divorce with children. I expected that Keith had dated over the years before he married me – not to would have been unrealistic – but if he had routinely dated pole-dancers, I’d have avoided him to enjoy his second childhood.
Regardless of who thought who was at fault and for what reason – there is an automatic assignment of 50% responsibility to each divorced party. So don’t even try to justify any more or less to either side.
Fifty-fifty also applies to extreme ‘cause’ for situations of abuse, addiction, crime, adultery... It’s too easy and too simplistic to hide behind victim-mode when a more accurate picture is provided by choices-mode.
Perhaps our initial choices are embarrassing to confront. There’s a ‘pride’ we can’t quite seem to move beyond which is totally understandable. But nurtured blame and hostility corrodes not only the core of your offspring, it can filter to grandchildren as well.
Remarrying parents who still harbor deep-rooted resentments will certainly affect how they form a blended-family.
Coming to terms with blame and dealing with overwhelming hostility is an exercise to test the angels and then some. Don’t berate yourself too harshly if your halo slips – just remain aware of its slide.
And sometimes it is permissible to react badly losing all resemblance of self-control when provoked. If an ex-spouse is blatantly unreasonable ‘pushing-back’ defending your legal and moral rights may sometimes be the only response an abusive narcissistic person can understand.
However, discovering a hidden pattern of abuse, or unaddressed addiction, or unresolved blame might still be a factor - means – that we don’t go through with a second wedding. Wait - even if, what you discover is the day before, or an hour before the ceremony.
The second time around our ultimate goal is ‘not’ to repeat what didn’t work before.
If we remain aware regardless of roadblocks and detours, we don’t lose sight of our destination - then bridling the Unicorn becomes doable. That mythical creature from a mythical place - becomes reachable.
MY NOTES…
· There’s the warm and fuzzy in life running parallel to the bad and ugly. We get to choose, we really do! Being born into poverty and abuse doesn’t mean that sets our life path, any more than being born into wealth and abuse does – it means we rise above it;
· Ask why? Why did I choose to remarry? Why am I choosing to remarry? Did I choose?
· Searching for a whole, functioning blended family is not like searching for a unicorn.
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