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- evolve a high-nurturance stepfamily |
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How Typical Stepfamily
Life
Cycles
Differ from
Intact-biofamily Cycles
What these Differences Mean
By Peter K.
Gerlach,
MSW
Member
NSRC Experts Council
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The Web address of this article is
https://sfhelp.org/sf/basics/devel_cycles.htm
Updated
04/29/2015
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This is one of a series of Lesson-7 articles
on how to evolve a
stepfamily.
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 in a divorcing biofamily, or any of the
related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear
stepfamily.
This article illustrates the extra
developmental stages that typical stepfamilies traverse over time, compared
to intact biofamilies. These stages add to over 70
structural and dynamic differences between these two normal types of family.
The article assumes you're familiar with...
Comparison
While every family is unique,
they all move through common developmental stages over time.
Family life-cycles start when couples commit and end when the last mate
dies. If they have children, the adult kids choose mates and begin their own
family cycle before their parents die.
Each developmental stage can cause significant changes, conflicts, and
losses ("stress") for all family members.
The summary below shows that a typical
stepfamily's life-cycle has many more stages to negotiate - and more chances
for stress and loss - than intact biofamilies.
Key
intact-biofamily
life-cycle
events |
Key
stepfamily
life-cycle
events |
-
Every
minor child negotiates a series
of developmental tasks - or doesn't;
-
Each child develops a unique
personality, shaped
by the wholistic health, knowledge,
and resources of their caregivers. Children...
-
go to school/s and learn how to learn
-
(usually) leave home
to live
independently
-
start work and a career
-
acquire and maintain a dwelling, assets, and debts, over time
-
form friendships
and trial relationships
-
court > commit > wed
and/or cohabit
-
(often)
bear children and adapt to many lifestyle adjustments
-
evolve and stabilize
family goals, roles, rules, rituals, and boundaries, and...
-
form and stabilize a social network
|
- each committed partner
(mate) goes through a version of
the events to the left. Exception:
one partner's first marriage may be to
a divorced or widowed bioparent.
|
|
-
marital problem-solving
over time > possible counseling and/or breaking adult denials of childhood neglect
and psychological wounds > begin personal recovery (uncommon before
mid-life)
-
psychological > legal
divorce
> many child and adult losses, adjustments, and conflicts
-
(maybe)
begin
grieving
divorce losses
-
new relationships > courtship/s (one or both ex
mates)
-
re/commitment > re/wedding > cohabiting
-
co-parents
negotiate, and stabilize new
rules, boundaries, and routines with ex mates,
kids, and relatives
-
co-parents help each other grieve
re/marriage
and cohabiting
or repress and deny them over several years;
|
- middle-age shifts
in goals, priorities, and activities; death becomes more real > possibly plan for retirement
|
-
middle-age shifts in goals, priorities, and activities; death
becomes more real > possibly plan for
retirement
-
co-parents try to resolve stepfamily conflicts,
frustrations, and
disillusion-ments - or they repress,
avoid, and deny these over some years;
-
possible:
partners get in/effective
-
re/marriage
stabilizes and grows, or decays - the children are affected either way
|
-
kids leave for college
or independent living > many "empty-nest" losses (broken bonds) and
adjustments, which stress and/or relieve the
marriage
-
adult kids experiment with
relationships, work, careers (ongoing)
-
adult kids court
> commit > cohabit
-
adult kids conceive and give birth to
grandkids; all members evolve new roles, rules, and
rituals and adjust, over some
years
|
-
kids leave for college or independent living > many "empty-nest" losses
(broken bonds) and adjustments which stress and/or relieve
the re/marriage
-
adult kids experiment with
relationships, work, and careers (ongoing)
-
adult kids court > commit
>
cohabit
-
adult kids conceive and give birth to
grandkids > all members evolve new roles, rules, and rituals, and adjust over some
years
-
possible: one or more ex mates
re/weds, with or without stepkids > many adjustment tasks take four or
more years to stabilize
-
possible: re/marital or stepfamily counseling: effective or not > family
relationships and bonding improves or weakens over time.
-
probable: psychological or legal
separation and re/divorce > grieve many new losses and
adjust roles, rules, and rituals.
|
-
each mate's
parents retire > may relocate > become infirm, and die somewhere in
mid-cycle; > adult children and grandkids grieve, accept, and stabilize - or
they don't
-
old-age stresses, losses > grieving or
repression > many adjustments
-
one mate dies, and surviving
family members grieve
and adjust (or don't)
- the other mate becomes infirm and/or
dies, and the surviving members grieve and adjust (or don't), and continue their
|
-
each mate's
and ex-mate's
parents retire > may relocate > become infirm, and
die somewhere in
mid-cycle; > adult children and grandkids grieve and stabilize - or
they don't.
-
old-age stresses, losses > grieving or
repression > many adjustments
-
one
or more ex mates die, and surviving family members grieve and adjust (or
don't)
-
one mate dies, and surviving family members grieve and adjust (or
don't)
-
the other mate becomes infirm and/or
dies, and the surviving members grieve, adjust, and continue their life
cycles...
|
The order of some events varies between families,
but the events are common to all families. Ceaseless personal and
environmental change throughout each multi-decade cycle forces the whole multigenerational
to
constantly adjust and restabilize its goals, roles, rules, rituals,
membership, identity, and boundaries.
Pause and notice what you think and feel now.
So What?
This comparison shows that
typical
have many more life-cycle events to negotiate than peers in average intact
biofamilies. Though every family is unique, some universal
implications are that average stepfamily members...
|
Have more
changes to adapt to in
their life spans. Change promotes local or prolonged stress (anxiety,
confusion, frustration, conflict, and losses) in persons and groups - specially
if many changes occur close together, and/or people are unable to adapt well.
And typical step-people...
have a higher need to
communicate effectively
to help each other negotiate their extra development tasks and stages
effectively over time. That's why self-study
exists here, though
all adults and kids need these
relationship skills!
need to
grieve more losses
(broken bonds) more
often than typical intact-biofamily members. American society
discounts the importance of grieving, so
incomplete grief is
one of five common family
That's why
self-study
exists in this site;
And also...
typical minor
stepkids may have a harder time filling their developmental needs, because
several sets of concurrent family-adjustment
needs are imposed on them. That raises the odds that without
informed
adult and professional help, they may (a) grow up to make unwise marital and
child-conception
and (b) spread their
ancestral
of low family nurturance and
psychological wounding. And...
because these many
life-cycle events affect more people (three or more biofamilies),
average stepfamilies have a higher need than intact biofamilies to develop...
-
effective,
leadership with...
-
achievable long-term family
and...
-
effective
teamwork among all adults and their supporters.
This usually requires all co-parents
wanting to admit and
significant
psychological
and
divorce-related teamwork
provide
perspective, options, and effective resources to do this together.
Collectively, these implications mean at least two more things:
It's essential that
stepfamily
co-parents, relatives, and supporters
(a)
that they are a
stepfamily, and
then (b) learn what that identity
Otherwise they risk
trying to negotiate these complex extra life-cycle events using unrealistic
(biofamily-based) role and relationship expectations. Whether co-parents do this or not,
the overarching
implication of all the above is...
...typical
stepfamily co-parents and their dependent kids
are at higher risk of
eventual psychological or legal re/divorce
and
ancestral unawareness and
wounds than first-married
mates. |
Recap
This article exists
to help correct the common misconception that average
stepfamilies are "pretty much like" intact biofamilies. In
they are.
In over 70 other ways, they're as different as a camel from a
house cat.
This article illustrates how average stepfamilies have to negotiate many
more life-cycle phases across their years than typical intact
biofamilies do. This means most stepfamily adults and kids will
experience more significant role and relationship
than their biofamily peers. That means that
without informed education and
healing, stepfamily members are at higher risk of psychological
and legal (re)divorce.
Based on
36
years clinical research, the free self-study
in this Web site can help stepfamily adults avoid stress, loss, and
re/divorce; and guard their descendents against inheriting the
lethal [wounds + unawareness] cycle.
+ + +
Pause, breathe, and note your
reactions
to what you just read. Then recall why you read this article. Did you get
what you
If not, what
you need? Is there anyone you
want to discuss this article and its implications with? Who's
these questions - your wise
(capital "S") or
For more
awareness, study this companion article about how typical
stepfamilies evolve toward one of three
possible outcomes. Then continue studying
Lesson 7.
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