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This is one of a series of lesson-7 articles
on how to evolve a high-nurturance stepfamily. This series extends
the concepts in Lessons 1-6, so study them first. 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
related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear
stepfamily.
A WIDESPREAD HAZARD that promotes unwise re/marital choices and much
family heartache and conflict is...
This puts members at risk of assuming stepfamilies and intact biofamilies are "pretty much the same." Paradoxically, that's
in some ways, and not
true in over 60 ways!
This hazard promotes stepfamily adults' using up to 60
unrealistic (biofamily-based) expectations as
they
merge their
multi-generational biofamilies, work at their
many merger-adjustment tasks, and forge
complex new family
roles, rules, relationships, and
rituals. Unrealistic
expectations cause and compound many other stepfamily
The antidote is stepfamily education and
(Lesson 7).
This article
summarizes the key things that
membership in a typical
stepfamily means to the
adults and kids who comprise its
See how many of them
you already knew...
Belonging to a typical stepfamily usually means that...
1) Co-parents, kids, and relatives can potentially satisfy
all the normal
needs that
cause people to live in families, and gain the special
advantages that average
stepfamilies provide - if all adults...
2) These stepfamily
facts apply to all members, supporters and
friends;
3) One or more
of their family adults is probably from a
low-nurturance childhood, and is
denying
up to six major psychological
Until identified, accepted, and
substantially
these wounds will combine and...
-
degrade communication
effectiveness,
-
hinder healthy
grieving and
bonding,
-
stress all family relationships,
-
eventually impair co-parents'
health, and their wounds ...
-
will
to their kids
despite the co-parents' best efforts.
And
belonging to a stepfamily usually means
that...
4) Both stepkids’ bioparents, and any
present or future new mates of theirs (and any step and "ours" kids) are
full emotional, legal, and financial
members of the
whether they’re active or not, or dead. If
new mates discount or
ignore ex mates' dignity, values, needs, and opinions, they risk
complex webs of stressful family-membership, values, and
loyalty conflicts
and relationship
over many surface disagreements, as long as the
ex mate/s and youngest stepchild live. And your
stepfamily identity also means…
5) Each
minor stepchild needs informed help
from all their adults to fill their unique mix of over 60 concurrent
developmental
and family-adjustment needs. To nurture
(fill needs) effectively, stepparents, bioparents, and family
supporters need to...
-
want to proactively reduce any
to building an effective
co-parenting team, and...
-
accurately
assess each
child's status with all these needs, and negotiate...
-
which co-parents are responsible
for helping each child fill their mix of
over time.
And being in a
multi-home stepfamily means that...
6) Typical
co-parents and their kids and kin will never encounter a
stepfamily composed like theirs, because there are over
100 types of
nuclear stepfamily. This often promotes feeling alien, strange, and alone, which
can increase normal new-stepfamily anxieties and discomfort; and...
7) Average stepfamily
co-parents and supporters also need to
learn, accept, and adapt to...
-
~40 environmental differences between
traditional bioparenting and stepparenting,
and...
-
~20 environmental differences between
traditional biofamily
child discipline and typical stepfamily
child discipline; while they...
-
admit and resolve significant
over co-parenting; and...
-
help each other mesh their communication
styles,
and develop effective communication skills.
And
stepfamily identity and membership typically
means…
8) All adults
and kids need informed support to grieve sets of
special
losses
(broken bonds) from prior divorce, relocation/s, and/or death + single-parent family
dissolution + re/marriage + stepfamily co-habiting. Often,
psychologically-wounded co-parents and kids lack inner and social
permissions to grieve well, so typical
co-parents need to study, discuss, and apply
here...
9) Co-parents
must learn and master
~30 family-merger tasks and a set of
relationship skills with
their other
caregivers. This means co-parents must learn to
and assert
their primary needs
and boundaries respectfully, listen empathically, negotiate and
problem-solve effectively for many
years - i.e. co-parents need to help each other progress on family
To sample what they need to
learn and apply, try this communication quiz.
And
accepting your stepfamily identity
("We are a normal stepfamily") also means that...
10) Typical
co-parenting mates will need to consciously...
-
value and
nourish their relationship,
while they...
-
patiently merge their biofamilies
and build a co-parenting team,
and they...
-
find qualified help to manage all these complex sub-tasks
Stepfamily membership usually means
when co-parents seek help, they can't find any
informed classes,
media programs,
books, and
support groups - so they often feel on their own.
Or if they don't know how to evaluate
stepfamily help. they may rely on well-meant, uninformed or even harmful
advice. And...
11) Co-parents
need to stay balanced enough and enjoy
working patiently at all these concurrent family-building tasks and goals
while they
any
false-self
wounds, manage careers, friendships and socializing, assets and debts, maintain their home/s and appliances,
adapt to unexpected changes
and opportunities, grow personally and spirituality, and
play, relax, and
rest often enough.
Together, these
11
meanings imply that if courting partners choose to form or join a
stepfamily hoping for long-term "happiness," they'll need...
-
all three or more co-parents'
(capital "S") solidly
guiding their
other subselves (inner families),
-
education in stepfamily,
relationship, communication,
grief, and
co-parenting
-
a genuine wish to define and cooperatively
live by a clear
stepfamily
mission, and a knowledge-based, consensual
biofamily-merger plan; and...
-
special
and
resources, and...
-
considerable resilience
+
a sense of humor + a willingness to learn, prioritize, and
change + a clear vision of
what they hope to build together
over many years.
Pause and notice your
thoughts and feelings. How many of these
11 stepfamily meanings could you name before reading
this? Do all these things seem do-able over many years, or overwhelming and
impossible? Can you better appreciate why many U.S.
stepfamily unions fail psychologically or legally?
These typical
stepfamily tasks are daunting, complex, and most of them overlap. So are the requirements to graduate a four-year
college or trade apprenticeship, yet millions of average people
succeed at those. They have motivation, goals, a long-term plan, patience, and help along the way.
Stepfamily adults who are motivated to study, discuss, and apply the topics
in these Lessons can succeed long-term
- and protect their vulnerable
descendents from the epidemic lethal [wounds + una-wareness]
Recap
This article exists because many adults and supporters don't want to accept normal
stepfamily identity, and/or learn what that identity
means. From
full-time research and clinical experience since 1979, this article proposes
11 specific meanings that typical step-adults need to study, accept, and
adapt to fit their unique circumstances. Key meanings include...
-
remarried mates and their ex mates and kin
are probably psychologically wounded and unaware;
-
conventional intact-biofamily norms often do
not apply to multi-home stepfamilies;
-
without adults studying the 8 Lessons in
this Web site, the odds of significant personal and stepfamily stress
and eventual psychological or legal re/divorce are probably over 50%.
See also...
This perspective on stepfamily
identity,
These
steps to evaluate whether key people have truly accepted their
stepfamily identity;
These articles about
mates and
relatives who don't accept their
step-family identity or what it means, and...
The
practical, unique guidebook
Stepfamily Courtship - how to make three right re/marriage decisions
(xlibris.com, 2001).
+ + +
Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get
what you needed? If not, what
you need? Who's
these questions - your
or
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