Outside the door, the teenager stood among her belongings – clothing jammed in tied up boxes, a red plaid bag, a grocery sack stuffed with high school keepsakes. Between nibbling her nails and twisting her red hair, she glanced toward the road, hoping her boyfriend would come soon to pick her up.
In yet another act of defiance she had not come home the night before and had not let her father know of her whereabouts. When she finally arrived, he kicked her out. Stunned by his reaction, she turned to her stepmother and tried to apologize. But the stepmother screamed, “No more. I’ve had enough apologies. I am not your mother and I don’t want to be. Don’t ever call me Mom again. Never.” She never did.
That woman was me, and the youngster was my stepdaughter – once a favorite child. That day I felt callous and cold and empty. And relieved.
“After my stepdaughter left home in this tumultuous way, much of my guilt was rooted in my belief that my being a stepchild should have prepared me to deal with all of the challenges facing a stepmother. It was at this point in my life that I realized there had been no help for us to figure out this mess,” says Elizabeth Einstein, a marriage and family therapist, author and workshop leader. Since then, she has spent the last 18 years of her life traveling across the United States and internationally teaching people how to strengthen stepfamilies and do it differently.
“I had made many typical mistakes of uninformed stepparents and now I am teaching families and professionals that there is a better way. Years ago, when I went through this situation there were no resources. There were no educational meetings, no stepparent classes, books, or support groups to help,” says Einstein. “Most of us went into it thinking that with love and good intentions the second time around would be easier…of course it wasn’t.”
In her Strengthening Stepfamilies seminar, Einstein helps people understand the complicated dynamics of stepfamily relationships. Her goal is to provide information that will instill hope that stepfamilies can be healthy if they are willing to deal with some difficult issues. There is no question that examining these issues before remarriage is the best scenario. However, Einstein says even if a stepfamily has been in existence for a number of years, it is never too late to tackle the tough stuff and move forward to creating a successful stepfamily. Sometimes it includes backtracking, cleaning up issues from previous relationships and one’s family of origin, and juggling the many different facets of stepfamily life. Einstein illustrates this point in her seminars by having people juggle scarves, which represent those facets, in front of the audience.
Stumbling Blocks
People have a tendency to jump into relationships far too quickly following a divorce or death of a spouse, according to Einstein. They do not understand the need to grieve these serious losses and to help their children mourn many losses. In our culture there are traditional rites of passage that a family goes through to grieve the death of a loved one, but such a grieving process does not typically occur in situations of divorce. As a result, the unresolved grief and anger is carried into the next relationship as “emotional baggage.” Subsequently, the potential for problems in remarriage increases significantly.
People who remarry have a 60 percent chance of experiencing another divorce, usually within the first three to five years of remarriage. Researchers, counselors, and marriage and family therapists realize it usually takes four to seven years to adjust in a remarriage--under the best of circumstances. In too many situations, however, people give up on the remarriage before it actually has time to come together and be successful.
Is there hope for those couples who are planning to remarry or for those who have already said “I do” before they were really ready emotionally? Definitely. These people need counseling, closure, and a way to create some type of ritual to release the loss and move forward. Divorce feels like a storm to children when parents don’t handle it well. There are tools that couples may want to consider using to help the family through this painful time. The first tool is counseling with the goal of forgiveness, and this process involves letting go of regrets and resentments. When forgiveness doesn’t take place—of one’s self or of one’s partner, then a great deal of baggage gets dragged into the new marriage.
The second tool is divorce mediation. When a couple knows that they cannot make the marriage work, the mediation process can help them create a document for shared parenting and resources that reflects their own wishes and not those of an uninvolved judge. In Hamilton County, divorce education, mediation, and developing parenting plans have shown a decrease in return court activity among divorcing parents by 50 percent.
Research shows that children of divorce can do very well socially, emotionally and academically when their parents have healed properly. Einstein suggests counseling for both parents and children because stepfamilies are different from any other kind of family. When parents model that counseling is a positive opportunity to work things out, children are much more likely to participate.
Born of loss, everyone in the stepfamily comes with loss and emotional baggage, not to mention feelings of blame, sadness, abandonment, confusion and anger. In many cases families need help to remove the blindfolds that have provided a false sense of protection in order to work on the real issues stepfamilies face.
Through family counseling children learn that while their parents may not love each other any more, their parents still love them, support them, and want to keep them safe. This prepares children that one or both parents may remarry some day. Well-adapted children will be able to bond better with their future stepparents. One goal early in the stepfamily journey is to help move people from unrealistic expectations to realistic expectations. It is unrealistic for a stepfamily to think that within a year or two there will be no problems. Couples need to recognize common stumbling blocks that they may encounter as they prepare for remarriage. Einstein suggests that stepfamilies address the following areas prior to actually becoming a stepfamily:
• Too little time between divorce and remarriage,
• Denial of the loss,
• Unresolved emotional issues,
• No awareness of the challenges the children face following a divorce,
• Relationships with biological parents or grandparents,
• Remarriage resulting from an affair, and
• Young stepparents with no children of their own.
All of these issues should be addressed before moving forward with marriage.
Developing Strong Bonds and Boundaries
As in all marriages the bond of marriage is the most important relationship, and it must be nurtured throughout the stepfamily journey. People take their bodies in for an annual check up, and they should do the same for their marriage even if there doesn’t seem to be a serious problem. Also, family members should discuss and negotiate boundary issues early on in the process of becoming a stepfamily. Boundaries include things such as:
Membership: Who are the real family members? Do we include grandparents as part of the family? Are there unresolved issues from previous relationships that need to be addressed?
Space: What space belongs to whom? Where do I belong when I am at your house? Who is allowed in my space?
Authority: The issue of discipline is a huge area of tension in stepfamilies. Children act out for a reason, so it is critical for stepparents to understand the motivation behind a child’s misbehavior. Parenting classes can help parents determine the style in which they want to parent.
Einstein suggests that the biological parent should discipline at the beginning of the stepfamily relationship. This gives the stepparent the opportunity to assume a nurturing role and allows time for the children to develop a bond with the new adult in their lives. More importantly, both parents should agree on the parenting process and function as a team. A good way to handle discipline when the biological parent is absent is for them to pass the baton of discipline to the stepparent in front of the children—when it is appropriate for both the parent and the stepparent to be involved in the discipline process. From that point forward they must support and back each other in every discipline situation. For a united front to be strong, disagreement between the adults should take place behind closed doors.
Time: It is important to remember that coming together as a stepfamily takes time—a lot more time than most people realize. Research shows that stepfamilies pass through a series of normal stages before they stabilize and develop a sense of ‘we.’ Don’t expect to become an instant family. In the journey toward becoming a strong, healthy stepfamily there will be hills and valleys, but the end result is worth it.
Bringing the Family Together
There are other ways to help the stepfamily in the early stages to feel more like a family. The Family Medallion ceremony is one example. This is a special service, which can be a part of the wedding ceremony that recognizes the children of spouses in a meaningful way. The five-minute event includes a discussion of the crucial role of existing children in remarriage, a formal commitment on the part of both spouses to care for all the children in their new family, as well as the presentation of the Family Medallion.
The medallion represents family love in the same way the couple’s ring symbolizes conjugal love. It is an attractive, but inexpensive piece of medal with three raised circles on its face. The first two circles stand for the man and the woman while the third circle encompasses all the children either parent brings to the remarriage. This public ceremony acknowledges how important children are to a marriage.
Once the remarriage has taken place it is important for the family to create their own family traditions. For one family, melding all of the differences into one house seemed like an impossible task. After arguing over how to decorate the Christmas tree they decided to divide the tree down the middle and each side of the family would decorate their half of the tree—a house divided!
While not all remarrieds have such trouble, most share a similar story about their first holidays together, whether it is Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Christmas. “Whether the scenarios reflect differences about food, present choices, or visitation schedules, many agree that what was to be a first time of love, joy, and great expectations became more terrible than terrific,” Einstein adds.
“Planning is the key to getting your holiday off on the right foot,” Einstein suggests. The remarried family’s widened sphere of relationships creates chances for more strain because children may be expected to spend the holiday with Mom’s family as well as Dad’s. Everyone wants a piece of the children and as the deals are struck and dates are set, the holidays become both exhilarating and exhausting--especially for the youngsters.
Roots, memories and traditions are important to all families. During the holidays, remarried families have two strikes against them. Roots are fragile and memories are few. They share no common history; indeed their traditions may be quite diverse. As new stepfamilies forge their futures, they can create new traditions. Often during the breakdown of former families, the absence of continued activities with both parents and holidays without love became especially stressful. Building new traditions provides good chances for the new stepfamily to gain a hold on intimacy.
“Remarried families must acknowledge that certain things about their holidays are going to be different,” says Einstein. Focusing on what good remains and the stepfamily’s strengths is most productive. Looking at what’s special can make a difference in lifting spirits during an otherwise difficult time, when feelings of sadness surface.
Emphasis should be placed on creating realistic holiday expectations. When hopes and dreams are tempered with reality, a joyful exchange of sharing old traditions while making new ones can provide a foundation for the future. With these blessings, almost anything is possible for the remarried family.
Although not all stories have happy endings, the story of Elizabeth Einstein’s relationship does. Three years after her stepdaughter left home Elizabeth made contact with her and together they began to rebuild their relationship. They have continued to keep in touch over the years. The book The Stepfamily: Living, Loving and Learning, Elizabeth continues the story. Even though her father and I ultimately had to divorce, we had made an investment in the girls. The relationship is something that was not going away. Last year, Einstein did a training piece in Eugene, Oregon, where she asked if she could introduce her stepdaughter– she said no. After lunch, the stepdaughter did the juggling piece. They are still in touch and have a warm relationship.
