Another - Blended Not Shaken
Cart Before The Horse...
So…you’ve met and fallen in love.
He’s so wonderful.
She’s so wonderful.
Life again seems oh so wonderful.
And it is – all so very wonderful with one, two, three or perhaps more other considerations. And those are? [So glad you asked.]
Those other considerations are his kids, her kids, one or two ex-spouses, a few lawyers, court ordered arbitration, therapists, concerned teachers, nervous employers – and – a parade of friends and relatives trying ever so diligently not to take sides.
Far too often after a divorce [single-again] parents get the proverbial cart before the horse.
Typically, when second-marriage-couples first envision their new life together they are far too euphoric. They feel anything is possible with no issue too great they can’t strive to overcome. This is the Fantasy Stage.
The Fantasy Stage: begins with the second marriage proposal and can end as soon as all offspring and ex-spouses are told of the impending new nuptials – or – the day after everyone has moved in together.
When day to day living together brings reality colliding with those euphoric and ever so slightly flawed daydreams, comes the Panic Stage.
The Panic Stage: sets in with just about everything we had envisioned as being wonderful in the Fantasy Stage scattered around us as if we’d left the lid off a blender. We begin to overanalyze every event, blow simple incidents out of proportion and generally act like ninnies.
When balance between Fantasy and Panic is established and life slowly evolves to a place where the new players have begun to know each other. The kids discover they don’t have a wicked-step-mother. The parents discover there’s no deviant child, or ex-spouse bent on destroying the new marriage. This is the Reason Stage.
The Reason Stage: arrives when we realize that neither our fantasies nor our panic had any foundation. Then we begin a pro-active approach that focuses 5 seconds on the problem and 55 seconds on a solution – not the other way around.
At the Reason Stage respect and consideration begins to grow. Photo albums emerge with pictures that include everyone, reminding new family members of shared events that become shared memories for the new unit.
These three stages and their time frames vary as much as the people involved. But generally speaking, the average blended family goes from Fantasy Stage to Reason Stage, between two and four years.
A small number of families go from Fantasy to Reason in as little time as a year. However, far too many remarriages never evolve from Panic Stage with those relationships ultimately ending in another divorce.
For us?…We pitched from Fantasy one day to Panic next and back to Fantasy so often our first year together it was like trying to play tennis with the wind blowing your shirt up over your face. We got our ‘serve’ over the net more by accident than design.
But while we were living through these stages [actually touching Reason now and then] we were also working through new standards and methods for balancing order with fun.
‘Fine’ – you say, ‘I get it. But just what were all those wonderful months of healing-solitude about?’
When I finally found the courage to end my marriage, I vowed by all I knew to be certain – which was taxes, Hockey Night in Canada and rain every time I set out my patio furniture – that I would not marry again. I truly didn’t trust my judgment.
With that, I began to put a life together for myself and my two children that would not have in any of my future plans another ‘I do’. I wasn’t bitter just road-weary. I wasn’t angry just cautious.
Between work responsibilities, my kid’s activities, writing assignments, the odd book to read, house upkeep and random events with family and friends my weeks were full.
I accepted no dates. Oh, there were well meaning friends and encouraging family, but I just smiled and kindly but firmly declined any and all intentions anyone had of introducing me to someone nice.
I didn’t want to meet someone nice. My ex-husband had been nice, I had been nice, but nice was not enough. Until I discovered what else it took, I spent a great deal of creative energy dodging the dating-line-of-fire.
Dating new people with new faces and new names would not have contributed to any form of healing - it would have contributed to a form of masking.
Early on when my kids were away at camp or for a weekend with their father I had moments of doubt, or a few hours of panic or days now and then of worry. But I learned to acknowledge what I was feeling, and I went-with-it.
Each time, doubt or panic snuck in I tried to look-at those feelings. I didn’t attempt to block them with a glass of wine or elbow them aside with food or shopping or detour them with busy activities like time with friends as a diversion.
Don’t get me wrong friends and family are and should be a resource, but not every day or even every week. Our recovery of our-self is our personal journey. Don’t fear it.
Face what you fear – to move beyond it.
What I discovered [along with enough hindsight to fill a large honey wagon] was the downfall of my marriage to Don was – as many errors in omission as commission. That is, not saying something when I should have, or not doing something when I should have.
I also discovered that I had married at 24 on the rebound of the break-up of a long-time relationship from high school that itself had been more habit than love.
Amazingly the personalities I had gravitated to, both times was trait-familiarity and totally wrong for each of us. And I hadn’t selected romantic partners who were anything like the friends I picked. Why?
Immaturity? Sure, there was some of that. But if we are to move on, we can only hide behind that excuse in the short term unless we join Peter Pan’s-Lost Boys. [The operative word being – lost.]
The seeds of failure in my previous marriage were not planted in a base of one extreme introvert partnered with an extreme extrovert. Don and I were both introverts. However, we approached our life-fears and life-dreams from opposing angles.
Don’s system to control any situation that left him unsure was to retreat under the disguise of personal self-control. He just didn’t respond. Truth was he could not respond if he was overwhelmed.
Then to avoid making a mistake, or risk losing his mask of knowing what to do and when – inaction was his cover. This pattern was partially learned [his father functioned much the same way] and partially a personal wall of emotional defense.
Growing up in a Catholic family, sent to a traditional parochial school run by nuns and priests, Don was the responsible child, the perfect child on whom his mother relied.
He was the younger of two children only thirteen months apart in age and his mother’s only successful pregnancy. His older, adopted sister was a free spirit who from early on questioned structure and routine.
By our 2016 standards Don’s sister Lydia was no more disruptive than someone running across a picnic blanket pulling a kite. But in the late 1960’s pushing the envelope of accepted lady-like behavior was even less tolerated in the Catholic Community.
Don feared loss and feeling vulnerable – yet yearned for a full life. However, in accepting a simple path of limited risk – he settled. He was most critical of and kept at arm’s length the very people he cared for the most to avoid getting hurt. But that very treatment of those close to him actually ensured his worst fears would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Inadvertently, I added fuel to his smoldering fears by expecting Don to embrace change faster or take greater risk. I didn’t approach Don like the skittish colt he was. Instead, I bounced at him in my usual style – of how I dealt with my own fears which was usually full steam ahead. I would leap right into the middle of any problem with both feet – then evaluate.
Effectively, I scared the hell out of Don.
So as the first several months of our marriage tumbled into years, I became convinced Don believed he had married an intellectual gadfly. While I thought I had married a stump.
And the more I poked the more he resisted until I gave up. Then we slowly drifted away from each other, developing separate lives – connected solely by our two children.
The last three years of our fifteen years together was like wearing a comfortable pair of well-worn slippers. We made few demands on each other. Twin beds resolved any nocturnal tension. Our children witnessed no arguments, no anger – and positively no affection between their parents. And our children were growing up thinking this was what a marriage was, and we were participating in a lie.
It’s odd how reality finally hits us.
The beginning of my awakening came one morning while I was once again rearranging the living room furniture. Besides writing - redecorating became another avenue of creative escape that helped to distract me from what was not happening with my marriage.
Every piece of furniture had occupied every foot of wall space, corner, straight, or angled several dozen times since we had moved into our third house. I had also become a wallpaper-junkie. My younger brothers joked that my redecorating calisthenics should be a workout video.
Anyway, as I sat there on the floor in that living room pondering whether the two wing chairs should be placed on either side of a table in the bay window or on the opposite wall – my soul-truth surfaced. Pop! Just like that…
I realized that moving the furniture was a subconscious expression of a conscious frustration. ‘I could not move Don, but I could move the furniture. I couldn’t seem to change my marriage, but I could change the wallpaper.
The moment was a very sound metaphoric palm-of-the-hand thump to my forehead – in a literal awakening.
Stubborn pride for my part and duty on Don’s part continued to bind us under the same roof. To remain together was absurd. Just as absurd as taking medication that merely numbs pain but does nothing to cure the cause.
I knew then I couldn’t stay for the sake of the children – I needed to ‘leave’ for the sake of the children. If nothing else, but to show them we have choices in this life and that making a less than productive decision is not a mistake unless we continue to repeat it.
The realization was one step, the follow-through took preparation. Facing life as a single parent slowed my impulsive side. I was no longer willing to leap, with both feet and both children, as I had in my early twenties before children arrived.
So, from that initial insight while sitting on the living room floor to the evening I met Keith was, six years.
My children needed me. My new job needed me. ‘I’ needed me! I relied on crying it out, or talking to close friends, or relatives those early months.
During our discovery time we can resurrect old hobbies, start a new one – start reading the classics like War And Peace… But - seriously please trust me on this one – you are not stable dating/romance material at this time – mostly you’re just a wreck.
Typically, too soon the person you date is a transitional focus, or you are theirs. Neither you nor your children need transitional relationships. Or worse you’ll begin a cycle of one meaningless association after another that erodes your emotional reserve even further and may cause cynical and/or disrespectful behavior in your children.
When I was eleven and fell off a horse, I was exercising my dad encouraged me to “get right back on the horse”. For conquering a fear of falling that was sound advice.
And that analogy for tackling setbacks we experience in life holds true for just about anything except for, say – rushing back into a burning building, or re-boarding a sinking ship – or for anyone recovering from the loss of a long-term significant relationship.
And it’s really not enough to ‘just’ get back on the horse which is only part of the issue. The other part is:
· How did I fall in the first place? What brought us to the brink of any crisis takes investigation. When you identify the ‘fingerprint’ of your actions then the pattern of your behavior is also identified. When we identify our behavior then so is our new direction.
· How do I prevent a repeat? Once we have identified our new direction comes the effort required to replace old-habits that didn’t work, with new habits.
We truly aren’t ready to return to the [dating] field – yet. We just ‘think’ we are.
………
Jill left Hank for reasons of emotional and verbal abuse after twelve years of marriage. Meanwhile across town, Leonard moved out on Debbie for reasons of chronic credit card and spending abuse for their entire seven years together.
Jill had two children sharing custody with Hank. Leonard who had three children did not share custody of his children. He had limited visitation from Friday at 6PM until Sunday at 6PM – every other Weekend.
Soon Leonard discovered rather swiftly just how much clout his ‘court-ordered’ visiting rights carried. Some Fridays his ex-wife wasn’t home, and neither were his children when he arrived to pick them up at 6PM. Other Fridays, his ex-wife didn’t answer the door.
When she was home but didn’t answer the door Leonard called the police then his children were traumatized because his ex-wife cried. If he returned to court to force his ex-wife to comply, then it cost him more money in legal fees which jeopardized his already fragile financial resources.
He felt at an impasse so to interrupt ‘her-game’ he stopped calling his kids after school or coming to the house to collect them only to discover his ex-wife told old friends and his children he didn’t care.
Jill discovered she couldn’t count on her ex-husband to show up when he said he would to share time with his children. Jill would make plans with her sister only to cancel them because her ex-husband did not arrive on time, or at all – too late to arrange for a sitter.
At other times when Hank took the kids, he’d bring them back two hours late, or half a day early. Both of Jill’s children soon became a discipline problem [particularly with Jill] because they felt their father’s rejection.
What was actually happening to all five of the offspring in our two bewildered families is a classic case of one parent using their children to ‘punish’ their ex-spouse. Neither of the offending parents understood that their dangerous ‘revenge-game’ though intended as a direct hit at their ex-spouses caused their children to suffer from the fall-out.
In a divorce,
There are no good guys
Or bad guys -
Just casualties…
Into this leaky-boat of frayed confidence and flawed intentions climbs a friendship that grows all too quickly into a needy-love that was expected to ‘patch’ this boat in too many places.
Jill had returned to work outside the home after ten years raising her children and community volunteering. Her new job was at the same insurance agency where Leonard insured his former car and house. When he came to the office to have his name removed from both policies, Jill and Leonard struck up a conversation…
Soon they began dating, seeing each other nearly every day – allowing their newfound attraction to ‘mask’ the unfinished emotional-dust still under the rug of disappointment – from their first marriages.
In less than eight months their relationship began to ‘fly-apart’ like loosely fitted bolts to an old washing machine. They parted in a storm of anger and renewed pain that rippled across the feelings or their respective children.
If we wouldn’t consider a night dancing on a recently broken leg, then why in little-green-apples would we consider dating on recently broken emotions?
MY NOTES…
· In the early stages [12 to 18 months] of any separation and divorce our emotional wounds [and those of our offspring] are open and vulnerable;
· Searching for a new love does not help us to heal faster. Allowing romance back into your energy-circle actually inhibits the personal growth we so desperately need,
· Certainly, resist dating before your divorce is final – and then when it is final ‘if’ tensions have been high the healing process has been delayed – so as my grandmother used to say “let four seasons pass” [You have time, nothing but time.]
· Let yourself ‘relish’ your new freedom: go where you wish, when you wish, wear what you want [at home] snitch that bowl of ice cream with a late-night movie, whatever…
· When you meet someone who seems like a possibility ask: ‘would I choose this person as a trusted friend?’ Be cautious. Be picky. And take it s-l-o-w-l-y.
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