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The Web address of this article is https://sfhelp.org/sf/means.htm

Updated  05-18-2015

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If you're in a stepfamily, please help improve lesson 7
by taking this brief anonymous survey.

      This brief YouTube video previews most of what you'll read in this article:

      This is one of a series of lesson-7 articles on how to evolve a high-nurturance stepfamily. 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 several related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear stepfamily.  

      Note - a "blended" or complex stepfamily is one where each mate has one or more living or dead children from prior unions. In a "simple" stepfamily, only one mate has prior kids. 

      This article assumes you're familiar with these:

the intro to this nonprofit Web site, and the premises underlying it    five hazards that stress most families these Q&A items about stepfamilies, this stepfamily quiz and these basics; and... this example of a real stepfamily

      A WIDESPREAD HAZARD that promotes unwise re/marital choices and eventual re/divorce is...

• minimizing or ignoring your stepfamily identity ("We are not a stepfamily"); and/or...

• not learning and accepting what that identity means.

This puts members at risk of assuming that stepfamilies and intact biofamilies are "pretty much the same." Paradoxically, that's true in some ways, and not true in over 60 other ways!

      This hazard promotes stepfamily adults' using up to 60 unrealistic (biofamily-based) expectations as they merge their biofamilies and forge complex new family roles, rules, relationships, and rituals. Unrealistic expectations cause and compound many other stepfamily problems. The antidote is stepfamily education and awareness (online Lesson 7).

      This article summarizes key things that membership in a typical stepfamily means to the adults and kids who comprise its several generations. See how many of these things you already knew...

Belonging to a typical stepfamily usually means that...

      1)  Your co-parents, kids, and relatives can satisfy all the needs that cause people to live in families, and you all can gain the special advantages that average stepfamilies provide if all your adults...

• accept that their odds of psychological or legal re/divorce are significant for five reasons, 

• adopt a long-range view and a meaningful family mission statement; and if...

• your adults all commit to helping each other study and apply these 7 Lessons - ideally starting when co-parents court.

      2)  These stepfamily facts apply to all their members, supporters and friends;

      3)  One or more of their family adults probably survived early-childhood neglect, abuse, and/or abandonment (trauma), and is denying up to six major psychological wounds. Until identified, accepted, and substantially reduced, these wounds will combine to...

• degrade communication effectiveness,

• hinder healthy grieving and bonding,

• stress all family relationships,

• eventually impair co-parents' health;

      and their psychological wounds ...

• will probably pass on to their kids despite the co-parents' best efforts.

Lesson 1 in this Web site provides prevention, assessment, and healing-options for, these toxic psychological wounds.

      And belonging to a stepfamily usually means that...

      4)  Both stepkids’ bioparents, and any new mates of theirs are full members of the nuclear stepfamily, whether they’re active parents or not, or dead. If re/married 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 triangles as long as the ex mate/s and youngest stepchild live.

      And your stepfamily identity ("We are a normal stepfamily") 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 barriers to building an effective co-parenting team, and...

• accurately assess each child's status with all these needs, and negotiate...

• which adults are responsible for helping each child fill their mix of needs over time.

      And being in a multi-home stepfamily also 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)  Adults and kids will need to intentionally convert up to 60 common stepfamily misconceptions into realities; and

      8)  As they merge their several biofamilies over some years, typical stepfamily adults 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 complex values and loyalty conflicts and stressful relationship triangles; and they...

• help each other mesh their communication styles and develop effective communication skills.

      And stepfamily identity and membership typically means…

      9)  Co-parents must learn and master ~30 family-merger tasks and learn to negotiate and problem-solve merger-conflicts effectively for many years - i.e. they need to help each other progress on online Lesson 2.

      And accepting your stepfamily identity also means that...

      10)  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 adults and kids lack inner and social permissions to grieve well, so typical co-parents need to study, discuss, and apply Lesson 3 here...

      11)  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 mates seek help, they can't find any informed classes (like Lesson 7), counselors, media programs (like this Web site), 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...

       12) Adults and kids will discover that non-stepfamily people - including many human-service professionals - can't empathize with the web of simultaneous problems typical stepfamily members experience. That can foster feeling isolated,  alone, and discouraged.

      Finally, your stepfamily identity means...

So What?

      Together, these 13 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' true Selves (capital "S") solidly guiding them;

• education in communication, grief, relationship, parenting, and stepfamily basics (this online course);

• a desire to define and cooperatively live by a clear stepfamily mission statement and a knowledge-based, consensual biofamily-merger plan; and they'll need...

• special supports 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 13 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 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.

Recap

      This article exists because many stepfamily adults and supporters don't know what it means to belong to a typical stepfamily. From full-time stepfamily research and clinical experience since 1979, I propose 13 specific meanings that average step-adults and their supporter need to learn and accept - ideally starting in courtship. So...

Keep studying Lesson 7!

      Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you needed? If not, what do you need? Who's answering these questions - your true Self, or ''someone else''?

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