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| Successful Stepfamilies
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Quick
Divorce.us
How
to create a happy, functional stepfamily.
Perhaps you're
getting married to someone with children from a previous relationship, or
else you have children and are getting remarried. Are you (or your new
partner) ready for an instant stepfamily? To make it work, you need to let
go of any preconceived notions you may have about the situation -- and
make room for adjustment and compromise.
It's not uncommon for at
least one of the spouses to have children from a previous marriage, and
this can create awkwardness and even upset. Children are often the most
affected by a divorce. It's traumatic enough to see their parents break
up, but how do they feel about you (or your new partner) suddenly
appearing in their lives as a "replacement"?
If you're marrying
somebody with kids, it's vital that you understand that the children are a
major factor in his or her life -- which makes them one in yours, too.
Similarly, if you're a parent marrying a non-parent, keep in mind that
your partner is jumping straight from having no children to being a
stepmom or stepdad -- an awkward transition at best. And if both of you
are parents, you need to find a way to "blend" your respective families.
"The first couple of years are usually chaotic, because the family
is reassigning everyone to new roles," says Margorie Engel, MBA, Ph.D.,
the president of the Stepfamily Association of America. "Everybody's
jockeying for position in a new family. The order changes: the baby may no
longer be the baby, or the eldest child may no longer be so. Everybody has
to figure out where he/she fits." The challenge of a stepfamily is to make
order out of chaos: all family members need to learn their respective
roles, and to work/play together as a team, if not a family.
Are you ready?
Creating a stepfamily is a huge
decision -- much bigger than getting married without dependent kids from
earlier relationships -- because of the obvious baggage. It's not enough
just to love somebody. You have to make sure your love is strong enough to
share your partner's family life -- and even if you're sure, you can't
just jump into it without preparation.
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