Another - Blended Not Shaken
My Notes Looking Forward...
I have a rather cloudy crystal ball, but after thirty-plus years together our horizon ahead appears for all there is to ‘see’ as haphazard as ever in a family that keeps growing.
Our days and months will continue to be a random hit-and-miss if for no other reason than our family-numbers have more than tripled. With more marriages, more births and more adoptions – there’s more of us. Hence more opinions, and more input. More heads [not necessarily] better than one… Just try to get everyone coordinated to be together for Christmas!
Having shared the gloomy failure stats of 64% for second marriages [72% for third marriages] it is rare for blended families to have reached and then past the eight-year mark only to crumble. It is rare because of the remarkable additional stresses remarried couples must work through.
When they make it, they do it resolute and evolving to a place impossible to tell apart from intact, original families with adult children and grandchildren.
If a second marriage is going to break the signs will begin to show somewhere between six months and the third year. [In third marriages cracks begin to show between the “I do” and the first eighteen months.]
The good news for blended-families is that attempts by some ex-spouses – who routinely lodge a ‘stick’ of disruption between the ‘spokes’ of your new relationship – are inclined to diminish as the years go by. I say ‘inclined’ as there is a small number of ex-spouses who for whatever [fixated] reason cannot seem to move forward. They insist on harboring bitter feelings and ‘look’ for reasons to continue to do-battle long after the last cannon of their divorce has turned to rust.
We can do nothing for these unfortunate souls and certainly even less with them. They blindly won’t allow it. I interviewed a man who literally hired a professional matchmaker to discreetly find a new love interest for his ex-wife to divert her hostile attention away from him.
Ultimately, we hope that each of our combined five offspring can take with them into their future, a broader understanding of the reasons that led to the marriage failure of [us] their parents. Some were obvious and some were subtle. From the vantage point of their own adult relationships, we hope now they can grasp more.
We hope at this stage of their own life they can understand the factors influencing everyone’s continuous learning-curve.
People we meet at certain times in our life are ‘right’ for that moment for where we have evolved to at that point. This is not meant as a judgment it’s a natural cycle. Who is still in your circle from high school or college? Who is new to your circle? Why have some gone away? Why have some remained? Why did some come and go quickly? Why did others stay longer?
Looking forward we must allow learning to continue and for the blended family the assignments are tricky. We accept responsibility we don’t assign blame.
*Looking forward – no blame…
Besides, in which direction do we point a finger? How far back in history do we go? Do we blame our parents? Do we blame our grandparents, the great grandparents of our ex-spouse – the Great Potato Famine, Napoleon’s march on Waterloo…?
Blaming became an ineffective habit formed while we were searching for answers to questions that either baffled us or caused us guilt…
Our children are not reading at their grade level, so we blame all teachers…
We are out of shape and overweight from eating fast/prepared foods high in sugar and saturated fats, so we blame drive-through restaurants and products in the frozen food aisle…
We smoke developing lung/throat/mouth cancer, so we blame tobacco farmers and cigarette makers…
We drink alcohol to excess, take a life in a car crash or damage our liver, so we blame the distillers…
We don’t take precautions for loaded guns where our children might find them, so we blame the manufacturer…
We expect our ‘government’ to fill in several of the gaps in our lives – then blame the same government for high taxes and even higher personal intrusion, due to flawed [self]regulation...
T-h-e-n – we marry.
Our choice may have been made in haste, made for spite, made on the rebound or for some other inane motive …
Our selection may have a quick temper, they may gamble a little, they may drink a lot, but we ignore signs because we’re sure that marriage and [cute] children will lessen those social warts. However, when over time our spouse does not measure up to our expectations we file for divorce. After that – you guessed it – we blame the entire divorce on the [no good] ex-spouse.
*Looking forward – no fear…
Divorce is not a relatively new social occurrence. The most famous divorce was forty-one years after Columbus sailed. It was between Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII of England, 1533. But among both gentry and commoner up to the early 20th Century it was, however, uncommon.
In the United States divorce was a cultural reality before the First World War. It then began its’ slow, but steady climb from the level of unspoken shame in the 30s, to tolerance in the 50s and acceptance in the 70’s with movie stars in Hollywood changing partners more often than square-dancers at a barn raising.
By the 80’s those Baby Boomers had made divorce a cultural institution and remarriage as common as door-to-door mail delivery.
If you’re reading this, feeling stuck in a marriage that no longer [perhaps never] serves the direction you want to move your life – do both you, and your partner a favor, and ‘plan’ to leave. Don’t allow fear to keep you stuck.
Don’t allow fear of the [possible] effects divorce may have on your children keep, you stuck. Instead consider the effects that tense, disconnected parents who stayed together for the sake of the children had on their children.
Through a local church pastor, or a school principal or local hospital, find the name of a therapist. Seek direction for the fear you may be facing to get yourself, and your life unstuck. And understand this may be a process. Counseling someone who is in emotional quandary is like walking through a forest after dark.
It takes a therapist a little longer with one person because only ‘half’ of the problem comes through their door. So, when seeking help expect most therapy may require a minimum of five, one-hour sessions to begin to peel back the emotional layers of your issues both real and imagined.
*Looking forward – expect plenty…
The news most days would have us believe in shortages because there seems no shortage of disasters, pestilence, plague, terror or corruption. Regardless, do ‘not’ buy into that thinking. Mainstream media is going for ratings – we are going for abundance. Abundance is everywhere and all around us.
Expect plenty of support for your decision to divorce.
Expect plenty of support for your decision to remain single.
Expect plenty of support for your decision to remarry.
Expect plenty of support for the energy you’ll need to build your new blended family.
*Looking forward? Well, ‘do’ just that. As my Uncle Fred once said, “No one I know walks backwards.” The past is not a destination. The past serves us only as a ‘tool’ to learn from then not repeat - that which did not work.
Perhaps it was an acquired surrender, but like us, the majority of remarrying parents I interviewed [or met] did look forward. No matter how difficult Monday was they looked forward to Tuesday as either one day beyond that troubling Monday or one day closer to calming grated nerves.
If you remember nothing else – even with the pages where I repeated myself, please:
*MOVE FORWARD
*THINK FORWARD
*LOOK FORWARD…
In his book “The Paradigm Shift” – Thomas Kuhn wrote something that ‘shifted’ me: “…we are not human beings seeking a spiritual experience – we are spiritual beings seeking a human experience…”
Thank you for taking the time to read this and/or buy my book. My sincere wish is that at least one idea, some ideas, any ideas will/have helped in some way.
The Blended-Family’s successful passage is so very important.
If you wish to send me a note, complain, or ask a question please go to: www.patchworkpublishing.com click on the tab heading ‘About Me’ and use the displayed box to send me an email. I shall respond.
Cheers…Sherrie
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