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This is one of over 150 articles focused on building
high-nurturance
family relationships
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?
This page outlines the ninth of
12 safeguard Projects to help typical
stepfamily co-parents build high-nurturance stepfamily relationships - despite five potent
re/marital
hazards.
PROJECT
9: Co-parents merge
up to 16 aspects of three or more biofamilies over several years, and resolve
many conflicts!
Why
This Project?
Because typical divorced or widowed bioparents fall in love again, (usually) re/marry,
and choose to live together with resident and visiting stepkids. Each stepchild and
co-parent has a
web of genetic and legal relatives that they
have varying degrees of bonds with, ranging from none to intense.
A
stepfamily couple's serious dating and relationship commitment triggers the complex blending of the partners'
biofamilies and the biofamily of their stepkids'
"other parent/s." If each re/marrying partner has prior
children, and each of their kids' "other parents" re/marries, then
there are three couples and six merging multi-generational families related by
kids' genes and ancestry, memories and tokens, rituals, names, legal documents, history,
needs and emotions, and finances.
The
60 to 100+ members of their combined biofamilies work to "get along together"
after each co-parent-couple's commitment announcement.
Adults and kids must merge
up to 16 sets of things over several years before and after any
re/wedding/s:
family "scripts" - what and who our ancestors decreed we must/will be
This is like three or more small
companies merging, and negotiating new roles, rules, common goals, and priorities
in an accelerating, ever-changing world. Typically these complex mergers take five
or more
years after a re/wedding to really stabilize, depending on many factors. Some
never do.
During
these years, this multi-level merger inevitably causes significant conflicts within and
between stepfamily members. Bioparents and stepparents' shared challenge is to
learn to effectively resolve many
conflicts over values, resources, and priorities or
loyalties
together, in ways that leave everyone involved feeling good enough.
Part of this challenge usually involves divorced parents resolving major
co-parenting
barriers between themselves, and their kids and relatives.
Couples who have progressed well on
Project 1 (assess for and
begin healing
false-self wounds) and
Project 2 (learn and use
seven thinking/communicating
skills) are the most effective at resolving their and their kids' clusters of concurrent
innerpersonal and interpersonal clashes. In real life, most psychologically-wounded
co-parents haven't
done these and the
other five re/marriage-prep
projects. Many eventually re/divorce, despite prior breakups.
Others elect to
endure in
daily misery.
Project 9 Goals: Over four
or more years after re/wedding, co-parent couples...
Coordinate, manage, and
pace the merger of their several biofamilies' roles, rules, rituals,
priorities, debts, belongings, values, and goals with other stepfamily members.
This
includes ex mates (kids'
"other parent/s") and their biofamilies; and...
Learn to effectively resolve several types of inevitable innerpersonal
and interpersonal conflicts that result; while...
Preserving their balances, and enjoying this challenging, rewarding process often enough!
Questions...
Before re/wedding,
do
average stepfamily adults really understand how complex and conflictual
merging their three or more biofamilies will be? My experience since 1979 with over 1,000 typical
stepfamily co-parents (including me and my former wife) is - no.
Many
psychologically-wounded, unrecovering
stepfamily co-parents have said to me "If
I had known how hard this was going to be, I probably wouldn't have re/married." I've
heard a smaller number of satisfied women and men say "Yes, it's been rough - and
we're making it, and I wouldn't trade this for the world!"
What's
the best thing that
courting co-parent couples can do to prepare for this merger/conflict-resolution
project? Invest significant time and effort doing the seven pre-re/wedding
projects together!
But what if they haven't?
Then start doing them today. First do
Projects 3 and
4 together, to legitimize "We are a stepfamily, so
we're at high risk of re/divorce, unless we get motivated to do this series of
stepfamily-building projects together." Once your stepfamily
identity and
membership are clear, then focus on projects
1, 2, 5, and 6 in order.
How
can busy multi-role
co-parents find the time to do this and the other complex stepfamily
projects without
sacrificing parts of their career, finances, and friendships? They usually
can't. Building a
high-nurturance stepfamily inexorably requires co-parents to get clear
on their short and long-term
priorities and decide where they're going to invest their
time and effort to harvest the best old age years they can. Co-parents living
reactively a day at a time have the lowest odds of long-term contentment and
wholistically-healthy grown kids and grandkids.
Are
there one or two things
among all these confusing projects that typical couples should give top priority to?
Yes. True (vs. pseudo)
recovery from
false-self
wounds
is the key. Close behind that is men and women intentionally replacing
unawareness with
accurate
knowledge about relationships,
effective communication, good
grief, and stepfamily
basics.
How
can re/married
couples achieve the four Project-9 goals?Together, partners take some
version of these...
Project-9 Steps
1) Prerequisite: all
your three or more co-parents make significant headway with
Projects 1-8. If some or all of you haven't done that, the following steps will yield stunted
benefits at best.
2) All co-parents
solidify a core
attitude of
teamwork and a
long-term vision. Acknowledge that you're
all partners in a complex, challenging family-building enterprise with a common goal: grow
and bequeath wholistic family and personal health, security, and warmth to your kids
and their kids. Help each other keep a shared perspective: this merger project is one of
up to 11 concurrent efforts that all co-parents will need to do and
balance together as a team over many years, in a
dynamic, accelerating world.
This step implies that divorcing parents commit to reducing any major
co-parenting
barriers
for their kids' sakes.
3) Co-parents seek to
agree
that the paradoxic way to put dependent stepkids
first,
long term, is to often rank them lovingly
third - behind co-parents'
wholistic personal and re/marital healths. That protects
kids from
low nurturance
wounds
and
re/divorce trauma. If one or more adults
disagrees or is ambivalent on this, expect ongoing stress and mental-health expenses in
this complex multi-year merger project.
4) Co-parents learn
together the
16 types
of tangible and invisible things all your
scores
of adults and kids will need to combine and
stabilize in this enterprise, over many years. Consider teaching this knowledge to older
kids and other stepfamily adults, and discussing their reactions. This is a specific way
of combating the powerful re/divorce factor of
unawareness.
5) Learn more:
All three
or more of your co-parents read and discuss all the pages in this
Project 9 series. Give copies to older kids, other involved adult relatives, and any
current professional helpers, and ask their feedback. Note that the
guidebook Build a High-nurturance Stepfamily
(Xlibris.com, 2001) includes and integrates most of these
articles and worksheets. It continues the seven Projects in Stepfamily
Courtship (Xlibris.com, 2001).
6)Assess your
co-parents' problem-solving knowledge, and improve it as needed. You're
probably ready and able to resolve stepfamily conflicts together if each co-parent can clearly
and accurately...
Review
these slides, and answer
these communication-basics quiz
questions;
Define a
Prosecutor - Victim - Rescuer
relationship triangle, and how to
(a) avoid or (b) dissolve them;
Describe what
E(motion)-levels
and
R(espect)-messages are, what an "=/=" interpersonal attitude is, and
why
it's
essentialfor effective relationship problem-solving;
Describe the difference between surface needs and
primary needs,
and how to
identify
the latter; and...
Describe at least ten of these
30 common blocks to effective interpersonal communication (more is
better), and what to do about them. Finally...
Review and discuss
these
questions
and answers
co-parents ought to research.
My
clinical experience with over 1,000 typical co-parents is that
few
typical adults can describe these communication
(Project 2) fundamentals well. This is one of the key facets of couples' unawareness that contributes to
epidemic U.S. (re)divorce and low stepfamily (psychological) nurturance.The good news: these links
take you to clear, realistic answers.
More steps to co-parent Project 9 - merge and stabilize three or more
biofamilies...
7) NOW - evolve a merger plan together. Stepfamily leaders agree on what you want your 16-level,
three-or-more biofamily merger to look like when you're "done" enough - e.g. -
"We'll be 'done' when all our adults
and kids honestly feel we've really resolved all significant conflicts over our merged
multi-home stepfamily roles (responsibilities), rules, rituals, goals, priorities,
membership, assets and liabilities, names, titles, and expectations."
Once
you agree enough on your groups' merger goals,
then forge co-operative strategies
to achieve them. This requires you co-parents to evolve an way to
resolve conflicts effectively - ideally by using compatible versions of these
seven skills. That hinges on you
co-parents assessing and starting to heal any significant
false-self wounds - keystone
Project 1. Effective resolution strategies clearly answer
questions like these:
When one of us identifies a loyalty conflict
and/or a relationship triangle in or
between our kids' homes, what do we do?
If we can't agree on what we should do, what do we do?
If one or more of our co-parents or key relatives can't
agree that when win-win compromises don't appear, re/marriages should often
come before everything but personal wholistic health - what do we do?
How can we tell if the
pace of our merger is OK enough for all our
adults and kids?
How do we know when we need professional help with our
merger conflicts and triangles? How can we find
effective professional help together?
What's the best way to teach our relatives, friends,
and kids about...
our biofamily-merger goals and strategies,
how to spot and resolve values
and loyalty conflicts and relationship triangles, and...
how the kids can ask for help with
these common stressors?
8)Initially and periodically (say around New
Years, or another meaningful anniversary), co-parents and old-enough kids fill out the
loyalty-conflict worksheet ("How We Handle Loyalty
Conflicts Now") and discuss your results.
9)Enjoy heartily affirming yourselves and
each other (including kids!) as you evolve an effective way to accomplish this
challenging
stepfamily merger project together over several years!
If you're part of a co-parent or
other family-support group, consider introducing participants
to the communication-skill and
loyalty conflict
resolution (and other) ideas here. Imagine several sets of (unrelated) stepfamily
co-parents supporting each other in resolving their stressful values' conflicts!
+ + +
Notice how you feel now. Pause and
reflect on what you just read, and what it means in your and your kids'
lives, short and long range. If helpful, refresh your wide-angle perspective by reviewing
the summaries of co-parents'
five hazards
and all
12 co-parent Projects.
Note that the
guidebook for co-parent Projects 8-12 is Build a High-nurturance Stepfamily (Xlibris.com,
2001). The companion
guidebook for Projects 1-7 is Stepfamily
Courtship (Xlibris.com, 2001). They're part of the Break the
Cycle!divorce-prevention
series which integrates most of the Web
pages in this site.
Next - overview
Project 10: co-parents (a) learn the normal
developmental needs, and the up to 62specialadjustment needs that your stepkids must
satisfy; and (b) patiently reduce common
barriers to forge an effective co-parenting
team to help them each (and you) succeed, long term.
The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/09/project09.htm
PROJECT
9: 
Next - overview