Another - Blended Not Shaken

Those Old Lingering Loyalties...

In planning a second wedding only two people have fallen in love. However, dozens of other people may very well be on the verge of mutiny or complete civil-war.

It is at the altar for the second time around that the words “for better or for worse” carry far more impact.

In the glow of our perceived good fortune [to have been given a second chance at love] we are in danger of blocking out some major realities.

When Hero marries Damsel, he says “I do” to Damsel with her extras – who are not optional. This is a group-tour.

And when Damsel says “I will” to Hero she says it to everyone who calls him Dad – with input from others who may [from time to time] call him something rather rude.

In the movie “Yours Mine And Ours” [based on a book written about an actual family] Henry Fonda played the father character. In one memorable scene he stood in the doorway of the church just before his second wedding ceremony [to the mother character, played by Lucille Ball].

As he scanned the guests he uttered some very immortal words, “Well, here we were. Enemies of the groom on the left. Enemies of the bride on the right.”

This simple observation is a hefty slice of wisdom every remarrying parent must keep on their plate when they consider a second trip to the matrimony table.

Though they may be happy for us, and they may really like the new spouse mom or dad has chosen – our kids may still struggle with feelings of perceived disloyalty toward the missing biological parent. And this is often all part-and-parcel of merging the cast of players in a new blended-family.

When Keith and I met, our blended troops were ages 11 to 23 years. And – each of them acted out their confusion in slightly different ways so we responded to each of them with slightly different approaches.

·         If there are mood-swings between offspring and blended-parent from open acceptance one moment to open annoyance the next, sit down with your teen/preteen/child and let them know the ‘loyalty-conflict’ they feel is okay. They may not understand themselves why they react the way they do. Giving their conflicting feelings a label helps them.

The divorce disrupted their security. The split-visitation disrupts their life. The new-parent disrupts their focus of original bonds.

·         When you sit down for this talk [and please do] it helps our kids if they are given a familiar frame of reference in which to settle their loyalty dilemma. For children who have strong ties to relatives or other adults like a teacher, coach or neighbor – a simple comparison of how they came to care for these other people gives our offspring ‘permission’ to care for their new blended-parent, without the guilt.

·         Not easy – but the new wife or husband must give the kids plenty of ‘space’ in which to regroup and sort their emotional knots. Don’t push, don’t rush. Relax and let the events of day to day living piece themselves together with one [new] memory at a time. Soon enough trust and history will build a [new] natural bond.

·         Understand that teens and young adults may take months, perhaps a couple of years, to come around fully. Because of their age when we remarry – the older offspring must be allowed to work through change in their own space.

There is no excuse for rudeness or disrespect from our offspring, however, total acceptance may very well be a long way down the road.

Through your actions as a new blended-parent make it clear you are not attempting to take the place of their biological parent – you simply wish to make a-place-of-your-own.

I will qualify the above points by saying: ‘if’ children know or perceive their future additional parent was in any way responsible for the breakup of their original parents’ marriage – the road to acceptance may be paved with a resentment that might never dissolve.

When we actually married, officially creating our blended-family, Keith’s second son, Paul [then 22] and Patrick [my youngest then 12] were both wisecracking and ‘go-with-the-flow’ personalities. Their trusting, curious dispositions embraced new people and change easily.

My daughter Gail [then 15] struggled for several months sorting out her loyalty boundaries. It took her two years before she felt comfortable accepting and showing open affection. Through this process as the weeks then months past, Keith was able to provide her with an idea of ‘who’ he was by his interaction with me, her younger brother and her three older stepbrothers.

But Keith waited. He waited for Gail to indicate when she felt she was ready.

Now they didn’t just sit and stare at one another for 26 months, there was verbal interaction at the dinner table, they went for groceries and other errands together. Keith took Gail to lunch a few times, they shared their days and went to events at her new school. Keith and Gail’s relationship now is etched in stone. She has two dads.

David, Keith’s youngest [then 18] was quiet, cautious and sensitive. By nature, he just didn’t easily embrace people in general. I took my time, was patient and he paid attention when I used humor to reset some of Patrick and Gail’s teen boundaries. Today, he and I would walk through fire for each other. He has two moms.

Reid, Keith’s eldest, was 24 in 1990. Reid was always kind, and polite but distant and didn’t come around until years later when he too was married with a young family of his own. After that, his perspective expanded because his life experiences had also expanded.

Hopefully as a remarried couple you aren’t dealing with an emotionally immature and ‘stuck’ ex-spouse who looks for any opportunity to poison the minds of your children against the new step-spouse.

Generally, all children under five can be absorbed into your ‘circle’ but give them time too. Children aged five to ten can be a little trickier. However, by ‘showing’ them who you are consistently – after about six months they should soften and come around.

From ages ten to fifteen, you’ll need to prove yourself a little more diligently. Then with offspring 15 to 20, just getting their attention and keeping it will be an amazing feat.

But don’t be tempted to try to be a ‘friend’ – no parent of minor children is ever a friend. We stop parenting per say, after the age of twenty-one but our adult-kids will always need us to be supportive and to be someone they know they can come to for important life-advice.

With a reasonably reasonable ex-spouse in your life the vast majority of us actually do have the ability to resolve a considerable number of our own issues provided we have a hint of where we could start looking…

·         Perhaps the relationship your child/blended-child does or does-not have with their [other] biological parent may be affecting your new family’s ability to develop into a functioning, cohesive unit. This may take some very careful, very subtle detective work.

·         Base feelings of our self-worth stem from how our parents responded to us as newborns then it either grew or deteriorated from there. As a new family do more together like yard work, household chores, go bowling or to the movies, cook meals together – or just go for ice cream. If there is some tension, then include a school friend of your kids.

·         If a new step-spouse has never been married before and/or has never had children - the kids of the biological parent may be picking up mixed messages. They often misinterpret the new parent’s uncertainty as an unwelcome sign. This may require a candid ‘roundtable’ discussion with each of the children [at least the eldest] with the childless spouse, to help revive the relationship.

·         Consider behavior problems that may be created by competition. Children accustomed to the sole attention of each biological parent every other week [or weekend] may feel the new parent is intrusive and act-out with behavior that is disruptive. Address this by maintaining whatever special time was shared before the new family came together as often as possible, until new family patterns can move into place to create new special times.

It is important to note that if you are blending two moderately sized families [say three offspring from each] into one larger new family unit – regular one-on-one time with each offspring, from time to time is critical. In that way no one begins to feel ‘lost’ in the merger.

Keith and I were so rarely alone our first six years together that we could count the times that only the two of us went out for dinner – on one hand. No matter. Those few years were a single heartbeat in relative time when viewed with the whole and the rest of our lives.

And – just as we tend to judge other people by our strengths – so too – parents tend to judge the actions of their offspring from the vantage-point of their present age.

Routinely, rushed and tired we forget what is a crisis at the age of nine or twelve – or important at fifteen or twenty – has since changed for us.

However, if we neglect to take that child’s crisis seriously, or not appreciate what is important to each offspring, the layers of respect needed to bind everyone together – breaks down. A sincere respect developed from parent to offspring is even more significant in a blended family.

·         If your five-year-old can’t find her favorite coloring book – respond as if what has been misplaced was your own wallet – because at her life-experience-level the importance is the same.

·         If the mountain bike of your twelve-year-old developed a flat tire causing her to miss a soccer practice – treat the event as if your car broke down and you were late for work – because in relative terms the importance is the same.

·         If your eighteen-year-old is upset because he must take summer school classes missing an opportunity to work – the same parallel of significance translated from teen into an adult world – would be as if you were passed over for a promotion.

Referencing the [original] movie “Yours Mine and Ours” again, Henry Fonda’s character is a widower, with ten children and Lucille Ball’s character is a widow with eight children. Ignoring the obvious [just the sheer numbers alone are remarkable] the loyalties of those children toward their absent parent was a major stumbling block faced throughout the plot.

And – there is also the shadow loyalty [at first] of the parents toward their biological children. I preface this with ‘at-first’ because as time and the new family dynamics work themselves through with new memories and shared experiences this parental-loyalty widens to encompass all offspring as familiarity develops and affection deepens.

However – and this is important – initially for all children/parents that loyalty bond is strong.

Be patient. Don’t rush. While engulfed in their optimistic euphoria this is another common mistake made by too many re-marrying couples. It has actually sabotaged promising relationships that otherwise could have thrived.

So, make no ultimatums that attempt to force a new-parent’s relationship onto a blended-son or daughter. A prime example is that ‘first’ Mother’s Day and Father’s Day for kids in a new blended family. [More on that later.]

I subscribe to the theory that North America does not have unruly children - North America has weak parenting skills, most aptly demonstrated in no other generation before than my group - the Baby-Boomers.

·         Boomers graduated from universities in record numbers;

·         Boomers picketed and protested in record numbers;

·         Boomers ‘dropped-out’ participating in recreational drugs in record numbers;

·         Boomers turned over the raising of their children to others [daycare] in record numbers;

·         Boomers divorced, remarried then divorced again in record numbers;

·         Boomers pursued [things] consumer goods in record numbers, making an artificial GDP based almost entirely on plastic – the credit card.

With artificial consumer buying power, soon the prices of consumer goods began to rise. We didn’t notice initially that our wages weren’t keeping up, because we could still ‘buy’ what we wanted and needed, so long as we kept up the monthly payments. But when those payments became a burden on top of school loans then both parents had to bring home a paycheck.

Having started that cycle in motion Boomers gave birth to Boomer-children [who had children] still trying to ‘have-it-all’ and ‘do-it-all’ not knowing exactly what ‘all’ really meant.

Chasing careers and opportunity, far too many 21^st Century parents no longer have the extended family support of aunts, uncles and grandparents Boomers once enjoyed, because so many of us no longer live anywhere near where we were born.

The number of fulltime moms, or any parent at home is less than one-fifth of what it was when I had Gail in 1975.

The car I drove in 2003 cost as much as the first house Don and I bought in 1974, but there was no room anywhere in that car to put a refrigerator.

The average cost of a house in the college town where Keith and I lived from 1990 to 2012 was considered a comfortable retirement nest egg for my parents in 1980.

As a result, this haphazard progress has left the vast majority of people feeling rushed, tired and struggling with increasing pressures.

The majority of world cultures live in an era of more laborsaving devices and timesaving conveniences than ever before in human history – yet if we stop for too long – we realize we’re quite lost. We continue to lose many of the basic social skills of one-on-one mutual interaction.

There’s twenty-four-hour shopping available via the internet or television. We do more and more of our banking at ATMs, a drive-up port or online. Our home, cell and business phone/computer systems have voicemail, email with button-pressing, mouse-clicking features defined as conveniences however…

And – where the hell am I going with this???

The push-pull of our 21^st Century lifestyle is magnified in a blended-family, making the maintaining of one’s daily perspective yet another challenge.

With this in mind, remarrying parents would serve the present and the future for themselves and their offspring well by paring down. Eliminate [temporarily] as many outside activities, including hobbies and vacations, for at least the first six months – while the new family is learning to live together.

If you [think] you can’t bring yourself, not even short term, to give up bowling night, a weekend round of golf, swimming, tennis, whatever – then allow as much of what you do, to, include as many other members of the new family too.

Adjusting to the comings and goings and additional energy of an instantly expanded family unit will take time. [There’s that word ‘time’ again!] I realize I’m repeating myself often, but I cannot emphasize enough the ‘time’ for adjustment aspect of remarriage with children.

MY NOTES…

·         Consider how you would feel [even now] if your original parents divorced and your mother or father remarried? Where, would your loyalty be directed initially?

·         For the first few months and up to about three years bonding in the blended-family unit is fragile. It is more fragile because of the residue of apprehension each offspring carries

·         Children in a newly formed blended-family need their-space and can be less tolerant of rushed affection because initially old-loyalties are stronger than new-bonds that have not yet developed

·         Because we have taken on the responsibility of additional young, whatever selfish traits we had that may have contributed to the breakup of our first marriage – we must ‘seek-out and neutralize’ or we’ll steer directly into another matrimonial iceberg – crashing even faster than our first

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