One of the biggest fights (shall I say wars?) in blending families and bringing his kids and hers under one roof breaks out when negotiating who owns what space. This is a common cause of tension, and it makes a lasting impression on the child who feels left out or misplaced in his step-parent’s home.
So, if money–and the subprime market, of course–permits, I strongly suggest that the new husband and new wife sell both of the homes they lived in before this marriage, pool resources, and join to buy one ‘our’ house. This can forestall a number of territorial feelings.
If that’s not an option, and the house where the children will be sharing time is big enough to allow for each child to have his or her own room–or the family is small enough–that can forestall some of those feelings.
However, what if you can’t forestall the territorial emotions through either one of these options, as many families can’t?
Well, now you’re in for a ride, and how you maneuver here will make all the difference in how the family gels during the times that they’re all together under one roof.
In my youth (when divorce hardly occurred at all as clearly everyone had blissful marriages back then), children of divorced parents usually stayed with mom, and dads got visitation rights. This stayed true even as my generation divorced, although it became more common for the children to actually leave the mom’s house and stay with the dad for a certain amount of time each week. Despite many societal changes, I find that this model still holds true the majority of the time–although we are certainly seeing a significant number of dads who are much more pro-active about time with their kids, and, of course, dads who have residential custody.
And I’ve now had plenty of experience with the latest trend, where kids do their time half-and-half, and, as far as I can tell, have no place to call home, and many reasons why their homework isn’t in on time, as the protractor was at Dad’s, the textbook at Mom’s, every pencil thrown across the classroom at the cute boy the given math student is actively pretending to dislike–and the math brain itself unaccounted for since puberty hit.
But let’s assume for now that Mom has kept her house where she lived before the divorce, and Dad’s new wife–let’s call her Wife 2 for simplicity reasons–has also kept her house. No matter how good you are at event planning and shuffling kids in and out, it seems that at some point in time there will be Dad’s children in Wife 2′s house at the same time as Wife 2′s children, who reside there.
And it stands to reason that the children who grew up in Wife 2′s house (really just known as ‘Mom’ to them) are going to have feelings about having to share what they see as their space–and Dad’s kids will have feeling about staying in a place that does not feel like their home, and where they stand a chance of being treated as interlopers.
Like it or not, depending on how age and gender of the step-siblings breaks down, the kids are likely to have to share sleeping and playing arrangements–and sometimes it isn’t all that pretty.
So–how do you divide the space?
I’ll address this question in my next post.
Gloria Lintermans
February 8, 2012
As a step and biological Mom, and the author of a book on stepfamilies which included not only my own experience but research with stepfamily authorities and other stepfamilies, I am aware, all to often, of the high rate of divorce among these families.
One reason is that there are no understood guidelines for these families. Society tends to apply the rules of first marriages, while ignoring the complexities of stepfamilies.
A little clarification: In stepfamilies the child(ren) is of one co-parent; in a blended families, there are children from both co-parents, and virtually all family members have recently experienced a primary relationship loss.
The Landmines
Three potential problem areas are: Financial burdens, Role ambiguity, and the Children’s Negative Feelings when they don’t want the new family to “work.”
Husbands sometimes feel caught between the often impossible demands of their former family and their present one. Some second wives also feel resentful about the amount of income that goes to the husband’s first wife and family.
Legally, the stepparent has no prescribed rights or duties, which may result in tension, compromise, and role ambiguity.
Another complication of role ambiguity is that society seems to expect acquired parents and children to instantly love each other. In reality, this is often just not the case.
The third reason for a difficult stepparent-child relationship might be that a child does not want this marriage to work, and so, acts out with hostility, since children commonly harbor fantasies that their biological parents will reunite. Stepchildren can prove hostile adversaries, and this is especially true for adolescents.
Stepmother Anxiety
Clinicians say that the role of stepmother is more difficult than that of stepfather, because stepmother families may more often be born of difficult custody battles and/or particularly troubled family relations. Society is also contradictory in expecting loving relationships between stepmothers and children while, at the same time, portraying stepmothers as cruel and even abusive (Snow White, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel are just a few bedtimestories we are all familiar with).
Stepfather Anxiety
Men who marry women with children come to their new responsibilities with a mixed bag of emotions, far different from those that make a man assume responsibility for his biological children. A new husband might react to an “instant” family with feelings which range from admiration to fright to contempt.
The hidden agenda is one of the first difficulties a stepfather runs into: The mother or her children, or both, may have expectations about what he will do, but may not give him a clear picture of what those expectations are. The husband may also have a hidden agenda.
A part of the stepchildren’s hidden agenda is the extent to which they will let the husband play father.
The key is for everyone to work together.
The husband, wife, their stepchildren, and their non-custodial biological parent can all negotiate new ways of doing things by taking to heart and incorporating the information you are about to learn—the most positive alternative for everyone.
One Day at a Time
Now you have a pretty good feel for what everyone is going through. How do you start to make it better — a process that can take years? First you must be very clear about what you want and expect from this marriage and the individuals involved, including yourself. What are you willing to do? In a loving and positive way, now is the time to articulate, negotiate, and come to an agreement on your expectations and about how you and your partner will behave.
The best marriages are flexible marriages, but how can you be flexible if you do not know what everyone needs right now. And, this may change over time, so there must be room for that to happen as well.
In flexible marriages partners are freer to reveal the parts of their changing selves that no longer fit into their old established patterns. You couldn’t possibly have known at the beginning of your new family what you know now and will learn later.
Spouses may feel the “conflict taboo” even more than in a first marriage. It is understandable that you want to make this marriage work. You might feel too “battle-scarred” to open “a can of worms.” And so, you gloss over differences that need airing and resolution—differences over which you may not have hesitated to wage war in your first marriage. Avoiding airing your differences is a serious mistake. It is important for you to understand your own and your partner’s needs because society hasn’t a clue how stepfamilies should work. Unless you talk about your expectations, they are likely to be unrealistic.
Living Well
Since roughly one third of stepfamilies do survive—even thrive—we know that stepfamilies can grow the safety, support, and comfort that only healthy families provide. Consider the following for living your step/blended family life well:
You must assess, as a couple, how well you accept and resolve conflicts with each other and key others. Learn and steadily work to develop verbal skills: listen with empathy, effectively show your needs, and problem-solve together. The emotional highs of new love can disguise deep disagreement on parenting, money, family priorities, and home management, i.e., values that will surface after the wedding.
Together, accept your prospective identity as a normal, unique, multi-home stepfamily. You need to admit and resolve strong disagreements, well enough for positive results.
You must balance and co-manage all of these tasks well enough on a daily basis to: build a solid, high-priority marriage; enjoy your kids; and, to keep growing emotionally and spiritually as individual people.
Know and take comfort in the fact that confidant stepfamily adult teams (not simply couples), can provide the warmth, comfort, inspiration, support, security—and often (not always) the love—that adults and kids long for.
Gloria Lintermans is the author of THE SECRETS TO STEPFAMILY SUCCESS: Revolutionary Tools to Create a Blended Family of Support and Respect, Llumina Press, 2011