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This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing
psychological
wounds,
building
high-nurtur-ance
family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness]
cycle,
and
preventing
divorce. This introduction
describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its
resources. Eacharticle is part of a
mosaic of ideas, so the more
you read, the more sense they'll all make.
These articles augment, vs. replace, other
qualified
professional help. The "/" in re/marriage and
re/divorce notes that it may be a stepparent's first
union. "Co-parents" means both bioparents, or any of the
three or more
related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home
nuclear stepfamily.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
need?
In this
ninth Project, co-parent teammates confront and master an
inevitable stressful challenge: merging
and stabilizing over a dozen facets of three or more biological families,
and resolving a stream of inner and
interpersonal
values and
loyalty
conflicts
and associated relationship
triangles among 50 to 100+ adults and kids. The
core conflict is: who’s needs,
preferences, and feelings come first with each mate, when re/marriage
and cohabiting forces choices that seem to have no compromises?
My clinical research and experience with over 1,000 stepfamily co-parents since 1979
(and my own stepfamily) suggests that stepfamily
mates who don’t evolve an effective way of resolving their inevitable
loyalty conflicts
(and other disputes) often break up
legally and/or psychologically. The tragedy is that most re/divorcers
are
unaware
of the resolution options you’ll see here. These options work best for
co-parents who are well along with the
prior eight projects.
To lay
the foundation for mastering your loyalty conflicts and associated
relationship triangles together, scan 16 sets of
things that typical adults and kids must blend when co-parents decide to live together.
Sarah McLean and her 13 year old daughter moving into Jack Tilmon’s home after the
adult's wedding triggered a series of complex changes rippling through their three
lives, and the lives of Patty’s biofather Ted, Jack’s
two (non-custodial) kids,
and their biomom and stepfather. Other key relatives’ lives were significantly
affected too. In their many scattered homes, all of these people began to reorder and
rebalance hundreds of things, in groups, like...
1) Physical belongings: Jack and Sarah had to
combine
their furniture, utensils, dishes, beds and linens, pictures, pets, vehicles, appliances,
toys, tools, books, clothes, etc. Because these are tangible and many items are used
often, they’re usually the first things that merging adults and kids negotiate about
("Your couch or mine, in the living room?")
Combining the sets of invisible assets in three or more co-parents’
extended families is just as real and
potentially conflictual. For example…
2) Customs and Traditions:
"Now that we’re a family, you all will join us in saying grace before we eat,
won’t you?" "We never put uncovered food in the refrigerator, okay?" "I file every paid bill and cancelled check. I didn’t know you throw all
yours out…" "We always open presents the night before. That’s not a
problem, is it?" "We’ve gone to the lake every summer for
many years.
You
all will love it!" "We’ve always had salmon at Easter, since I was a kid.
Your mother and sister don’t like salmon?"
3) Priorities:
"We’re used to doing our work before playing, so I think you should do
your homework before TV, OK?" "Well, I think all of us eating together is more
important than your son making basketball practice." "My need to talk with our
lawyer on the phone outranks your son’s need to jabber with the buddies he spent most
of the afternoon with!" "You’re so afraid your ex will sue for sole
custody that you let her blow off child support, and walk all over you."
4) Communications styles:
George D’Amato and his clan are used to all talking at once, and expressing anger,
love, hurt, and frustration loud and clear. Family problem-solving routinely involves
arguing, interrupting, demanding, threats, and sarcasm. Like their staid and stern German
and English ancestors, Margaret Friedrich’s pre-teen daughters have been taught to be
quiet, respectful, and (fairly) unemotional, in public. They’re used to debating
conflicts calmly, and "never fighting." The D’Amatos and the Friedrichs are
about to get remarried, and all six will live in the Friedrich’s home together...
5) Values ("standards"):
"You discipline to teach, but I discipline to punish. Kids won’t obey or respect
you, unless they feel some loving pain!" "No, your phone calls should stop at
10 P.M., period!" "Well I don’t think it’s too much to expect
an apology from her ..." "Ned should have the support check here by the
third, at
the latest!" "Tommy, in this home, we don’t eat dinner without shoes
on." "You guys put things off too often. We’ll all do better if we never
let the sun set on a problem, don’t you see?"
More
invisible
things kids and adults must choose between as their multi-home stepfamily
evolves after (each) re/wedding:
6)Household and extended-family roles and ranks: "But I've always carved the turkey!";
"I feel like a non-person when your son talks only to you at the dinner table!"; "I used to get the best grades,
but now my snotty stepsister does!";
"Since she remarried, my daughter doesn’t call nearly as often.";
"Dad, do I have to buy a present for my step-cousin?"; Could my son like his new stepfather better than me?"
7)
Privacy and space:
"I used to have my ownroom, but now I have to share it with my new sister
Paula." "You mean I can’t have my own bathroom in their (vs.
‘our’) house?" "But where’ll I park my car?"
"Looks like we’ll have to combine your home-office and mine in
here." "I know you’re used to coming into your Mom’s room any time,
but we need our privacy, Nina, so please respect our closed door now unless it’s an
emergency, okay?":
Each of these categories and the others below has scores of individual items that
steppeople must sort out, rank, and compromise on over time, for harmony and stability
in and between their related stepfamily homes. Look for a moment at this three-generational
stepfamily diagram
. Now imagine groups of adults and kids in your
stepfamily map working to blend and stabilize all of these groups of things co-operatively:
1) Some dwellings
and physical possessions
2) Our
communication, parenting, and conflict-resolution styles
15) Our
financial debts and assets, including insurances, investments, and
savings accounts
16) Our family
"scripts" - what and who our respective ancestors declared we must/will be
Did you realize the scope of all the things you all are or will be combining?
Seen together, the sheer number and span of all the many items in each of these
16
categories can feel pretty daunting! How long do you think it takes an average
multi-home
nuclear stepfamily to stabilize blending the hundreds
of things in these categories?
Stepfamily
pioneers Emily and John Visher suggested "In eight (years
after re/wedding),
it’ll be great!" - i.e. your three or more merged biofamilies will probably
be pretty stable. Typical benignly-ignorant, romance- skewed co-parent couples assume
rosily "Things will settle down in several months." Wrong. Their
idealized expectation is usually based on the far simpler two-family merger that average
first-marriers co-manage.
So
what does all this mean to most co-parents and kids?
Implications of Your
Complex Multi-year Merger
As your stepfamily members negotiate sorting and ranking all these many
things, some kids and adults will inevitably feel like "losers."
Those who "lose" invisible and
physical things they value because of your
multi-family merger need to
grieve
over many months or years to regain their emotional balance. If your co-
parents have done their homework on
Project 5, you’ll have
started to evolve and use a
"Good Grief" policy in your homes to guide and support all of you in this mourning.
Most of
you have two or more groups of major prior losses (broken emotional-spiritual
bonds): (a)
major childhood deprivations, and (b) biofamily reorganization from
divorce or
a parent’s death. If enough time has passed so all of you are well along in
mourning these, then (c) the new set of losses from re/wedding and cohabiting will
probably be
manageable.
If any of
your adults or kids hasn’t had enough time to mourn their prior losses enough,
they can feel emotionally
overwhelmed, and "act out" (i.e.
depression, apathy,
"rage outbursts,"
addictions
(including over-eating), illness, etc.…. This is
partly why
Project 7 asks bluntly "Is this the
right time
to re/marry and live together?"
Secondly,
note that conflicts over items in these 16 categories are
often concurrent.
They don’t line up like ducks in a row. This highlights the great value of your
co-parents’ abilities to co- operatively sort, rank, and focus,
as you resolve each significant merger conflict. Co-parents dominated by
short-sighted, reactive
false selves can lack the self-discipline, concentration, and
empathy to do this effectively. Other co-parents' false selves are obsessive and
over-controlling in sorting out this complex, long-term blending process.
Third,
notice the ongoing likelihood of
power struggles vs.
win-wincompromising, between individual family
members. The odds of cycles of fighting and squabbling, and resulting hurts,
resentments, and distrusts, are very high, unless all you co-parents develop
and use these seven
communication skills
effectively
(Project 2). If you partners
began this during courtship,
your efforts will really pay off in negotiating your many family-merger
compromises!
A fourth
implication of your multi-family merger project: acknowledge that some
stepfamily- blending conflicts and
losses that are enormously important
to a child may feel trivial to a co-parent or relative, or vice versa: "We had to give away my cat Midnight
because my wimpy stepbrother is allergic!" Genuine empathy, compassion, and balanced
self and mutual respects are priceless assets in your long, complex
merger project.
Typical
survivors
of low-nurturance childhoods are not famous for having these traits…
Finally,
don’t expect most lay and
professional supporters to understand and empathize with the scope
of this long, complex, largely invisible
biofamily-merger project. Unawareness, media distortions, biases, and
lack of stepfamily experience and realistic training all hinder their ability to empathize
with you, despite truly wanting to. This is one reason for
Project 11: build an informed co-parental support network together and use it.
This
long-term biofamily-blending project is a great chance to put a glass-half-full
philosophy to work for you all. If most of your adults really accept
that you’re all forming a new stepfamily
(Project 3), and that this complex merger project will involve all your adults and kids, for
many years, then your merger can become a true
team effort. The eventual priceless rewards are
increased stepfamily bonding, identity, warmth, security, and pride!
So: talk
about your individual mergers and compromises together, as you go: "Wow! This
(merging) is tougher than we realized. How do other step people get through this?"
Alternatives are to...
Pretend there is no merger, other than obvious
physical things; or to ...
Admit it but don’t talk together about it; or
to ...
Repress key merger
needs, thoughts and feelings;
or to...
Dismiss this project as trivial or "for other
people but not us."
Help
each other congratulate family members who find win-win compromises, and console your
kids and adults suffering broken emotional bonds: "It’s really hard
having to change all your friends and teachers and go to a strange new school, isn’t
it? I’m so proud of the way you’re being sad and angry about all these
tough changes, Nancy! Doing those good-grief things will help you feel better, and enjoy
your new friends and school, after a while."
Key: Evolve a Merger Plan Together
As you know, an effective plan has a
clear, attainable objective, a set of specific steps to reach it, and an estimate of the
resources needed to accomplish each step, and how to get them. The options above can
contribute to your stepfamily "merger plan." Other helpful options:
Encourage each other (specially kids and
males) to name the invisible things you’re trying to merge now;
Co-parents keep your personal, household,
and stepfamily
goals and
priorities
clear, vocal, understood, and steady
(Project 8);
Develop a merger language
that fits you as people and as a unique stepfamily ("We have a new invisible
standards
clash here, gang…");
Consciouslymonitor the
speed at which you're merging. Be alert for changing too many things
too fast (for someone), and causing major
inner-family and physical-family uproar, confusion, loss, and stress.
And...
Discussing
and doing these will take much undistracted couple time, and probably many
well-led, focused meetings with stepfamily adults and kids. Hindered by shared
unawareness and
their unseen
wounds, re/wedded
mates Jack and Sarah Tilmon did few of these things. Neither did the other
three adults in their kids’ two other co-parenting homes. This generated a growing
mosaic of stressful confusions, hurts, resentments, and distrusts in their home and with
others in their multi-generational (extended) stepfamily, which increasingly stressed
Jack and Sarah's remarriage.
Recap
Until
co-parents become effective at
pacing their complex merger and creating win-win
compromises, all their stepfamily members experience a relentless stream of stressful,
divisive values and loyalty conflicts. This page hilights
16 groups of hundreds
of tangible and invisible "things" that typical steppeople can feel conflicted
over as they combine their
three or more multi-generational biofamilies over many years.
The
complexity, scope, and importance of this merger justifies courting co-parents starting to
evolve a merger planbefore re/wedding. The
five re/divorce
hazards
usually inhibit this.
See the guidebooksbased on this Web site for practical help!
Pause, breathe, and recall why you read this article. Did you get what
you needed? If so, what do you need now? If not - what
do
you need? Is there anyone you want to
discuss these ideas with?
Who's answering these
questions - your wise resident
true Self,
or
"someone else"?
ContinueProject 9
by exploring what stepfamily
values and
loyalty conflicts
are, how they develop, why they can corrode your re/marriage, and how to prevent
that!
The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/09/merge.htm
Continue