The Web address of this page is
http://sfhelp.org/Rx/kin/favoritism2.htm
Common primary problems,
continued...
If one or several of you adults are
ruled by
and don't yet know it, you're
vulnerable to...
5) One
or more adults or kids are blocked in
grieving prior losses from childhood, earlier divorce, and/or
re/marriage and cohabiting. The problem beneath that is
co-parental (a) wounds, and unawareness of (a) the levels and phases of
(b)
mourning gets
blocked, (c) the
and
(d) once identified, how to
Can you answer these questions?
Co-parents can learn the answers by working at
together.
This is best begun before re/marriage,
but can be done any time.
In this case, a powerful symptom of the stepfather's blocked grief was the
alcoholism that he was courageously working to manage. I believe because both
he and his wife (or wives) were seriously
they were each
unaware of repressing a group of painful broken emotional/spiritual
His explosive
was another probable symptom.
If these co-parents were blocked in grieving, that raises the odds that one or more
of their three girls were hindered in processing the many losses they
had each sustained. Kids absorb grieving values and permissions
- or
inhibitions - largely from their primary caregivers and key ancestors. Do you
agree? It's probable here that the stepfather's parents, his sister, and a
geographically-distant
brother, had never fully "processed" (felt, expressed, and
discussed), their major losses from their parents' breakup many
years ago.
What did you learn from your childhood caregivers about how men
(husbands) and women (wives) react to major losses?
|
Summary premise: the
primary
problems commonly underlying stepfamily
relatives' favoritism (and other) conflicts
net out to some mix of these: one or more stepfamily adults...
|
Are controlled by
a protective, short-sighted, false self, and don't know it; and...
Don't accept their stepfamily
identity, or know what it means - i.e. they have unrealistic expectations
about stepfamily roles, rules, and relationships. Part of this core problem is adults and
family supporters not understanding
the awesome complexity of how to
their co-parents'
biofamilies without
guidelines, on top of other daily responsibilities and
activities; and/or family adults...
Are unaware of the seven
that promote effective inner and interpersonal problem solving; and one or
more adults...
Are blocked in grieving
significant losses from childhood, prior death or divorce, and/or
from re/marriage and cohabiting.
Whether you agree with this proposal or not, mull these questions:
Who's responsible for
resolving favoritism conflicts among stepkin? And if they don't get
resolved, who's at risk? Of what?
|
If you're struggling with some type of stepfamily favoritism problem,
note that it's usually one of many concurrent
stressors. For all family-members' sakes, mates should
develop
the habit of (a)
concurrent problems (unmet needs), (b) prioritizing them, and
(c) focusing
on resolving one at a time - as
not opponents! Often easier said than done - specially if well-meaning false
selves dominate your lives. |
Note the overlap between stepfamily
conflicts and favoritism conflicts. The first occurs when people
disagree internally and together about who's needs, feelings, and opinions
will be included in family events and decisions. The second says "Once we
agree on who's included - who's needs, feelings, and opinions come first
?" Identify, prioritize, and solve one at a time, where possible.
Implementing the Suggestions
If you and your partner were the couple sketched above and now understood what was
really
going on, what could you do to improve things? Options:
First - attend your personal emotional + spiritual +
physical + mental balance and tranquilities. One way of doing that is for
each mate to get quiet, and list mentally or in writing: "What do I need
right now - specifically?" (relative to this situation). In the
example above, the mate's
lists would probably overlap, with some differences. For example, a partial
list might look like...:
This is only a partial list. Note that the items are fairly specific, vs.
generalities like "I need to feel better about this situation."
With two individual lists like this, the couple could compare and discuss
their respective needs and evolve a common list, which could look
(partly) like this:
We need to agree on
regular times in each of the coming weeks to (a)
whether either
of us is ruled by a false self, (b) study and practice the seven communication skills, and
(3) evaluate the four of us for blocked grief. This week, we'll start with
the first of these. We agree that this won't interfere with (the
husband's) AA program times.
Because there's so much to do,
we need to help each other to pace ourselves and prioritize, and
keep a long-range perspective.
We need to explain to
the girls that we're a stepfamily, so it will take time for all of us to
get to know and like each other. We want to help them understand that as
we all spend more time together, their step-grandfather will probably
"be nicer."
We want to buy
and try playing the "The
Ungame"
as a family group, including all three girls, Dad, and my sister, to help
us all know each other better;
We need to
remind ourselves and each other how important it is that we mates make enough regular time to talk,
to each other, and problem
solve!...
We need to agree that
delaying conceiving a child together is probably best for now, because our
plates are full!
(more)...
Evolving and blending your two personal "I" lists of short-term
needs into one "we" list starts to implement a
second option: after identifying your current personal surface and primary needs, then
nurture your re/marriage. Paradoxically, by doing that you're putting
the security of resident and visiting minor kids
first by protecting them against another traumatic family breakup in the future.
An essential part of this second option is helping each other
shift any "1-up," or "1-down," attitudes
toward
genuine
The three lists also provide for part of the
third option: avoiding
guilt, and promoting (long-term) stepfamily
by recognizing and respecting the needs of the key other people - in
this case, each of the three girls, the step/grandfather, and the
sister/aunt.
These "R(espect)-attitudes" will constantly shape your thoughts,
emotions, and communications, and implacably mold your
relationships. People dominated by a false self often have great trouble
respecting their needs and feelings and those of key other adults and
kids equally.
Another part of this vital third option is keeping your personal, re/marital,
and household
clear
- i.e. respectfully giving other able adults responsibility for filling
their own needs without
guilt or anxiety. Doing that requires time,
,
compassion, trusts (faith), and inspirational guides like
Reality check: Do these three options seem reasonable and useful?
That's a different question than are they practical? My experience is
it that takes an extraordinarily aware, dedicated couple to care enough
about their long-term welfare to prioritize and focus like this. How about you
and your partner - can you see doing some version of these steps together as
teammates?
An implacable reality: millions of American couples re/divorce
psychologically or legally because
(I
believe) they re/wedded the wrong
(plural), for the wrong
at the wrong
If you act on these three options, you may discover that one or
both of you partners has made one or more of these wrong choices. Working on
together
before re/wedding protects against this tragedy.
The alternative is taking many stressful, unhappy years to let that reality
surface on its own, when you're middle-aged and sadly wiser. Life
on planet Earth seems to decree - we can run (repress, deny), but we can't
hide from what's real.
Recap
This article focuses on resolving one or
more stepfamily members feeling hurt, resentful, and angry about
relatives' preference for some member/s over others. Favoritism
(loyalty and priority) conflicts are more likely in average stepfamilies than intact biofamilies for many reasons. When they
occur, co-parent couples can choose to (a) ignore them, (b) focus on surface symptoms,
or (c) assess the underlying primary problems and (d) work patiently together to resolve them.
Favoritism conflicts add to other common concurrent re/marital
and household stressors:
and interpersonal clashes over stepfamily
identity, membership, loyalty, values, priorities, traditions, ownerships,
roles (responsibilities), rules, and boundaries.
This article uses a real (complex!) stepfamily favoritism
example to illustrate the common surface elements in such
battles. Then it outlines five primary problems often underlying
typical surface symptoms, and suggests three specific things co-parent couples can
do about them together.
Reflect - did you get what you needed
from reading this article? If not, what
you need
now?
+ + +
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