Category: Families

It seems in my line of work, themes present themselves. I am coming out of a season of working with a number of blended families. Marriage, after the death of a spouse, or after a divorce, has a number of challenges. Some of these challenges center around the children who are expected to be resilient and as excited as their parent, who has found a new love to share life with.

The decision to marry is an exciting one. For two people who have suffered through a traumatic death of a spouse, or a long suffering marriage, it can be exhilarating to think that this new person may be “the one” they are going to spend the rest of their lives with. Often family, friends and even their kids join in that initial excitement and it seems like the tough times of life might be over. Unfortunately, when the honeymoon is over, there are some common issues that need to be looked at in order for this new relationship to overcome the statistics that accompany second marriages. If you are presently embarking on a new marriage with hopes that it will be successful, here are some thoughts to consider:

You chose your spouse, your children did not.

Whether your children are small or they have families of their own, when you remarry, they are involuntarily signed up for a whole new normal. There may be significant positives surrounding your choice but nevertheless, a lot of change surrounds family expansion. For smaller kids, a new dad or mom often means another authority figure in their lives; another adult telling them what to do. For older kids, even adult children, your new spouse changes a family dynamic that has been in place for a very long time and while change can be welcomed, change is difficult for most people and it is always something that needs to be navigated carefully.

I often share with my clients going through this transition, the surprise I had when my father remarried after my mother died of cancer and he wanted me to interact with his new wife as I had with my mother. I hesitated to call sometimes because the old habit of handing the phone to my mom was rebirthed. Two years of wonderful heartfelt conversations with my dad when he was alone, got interrupted with conversations with a woman I barely knew.  The expectation that family and friends have to jump into the relationship with the same level of commitment is a bit unrealistic. Don’t be afraid to give everyone else a little time to fall in love with the person you are head over heels with.

Parents of young children can smooth this transition by remaining the dominant parent for awhile, most especially in disciplinary practices. While parenting should always be done by the adults living in the home, if it makes the transition smoother for the kids if the bio-parent is the spokesperson, why wouldn’t you try that first? Some parents are very set about setting precedent early on, and while that concept sounds good on paper, it often leads to a very long transition period, filled with push back and tough moments, before the family is fully integrated.

Full integration of a family takes ON AVERAGE, 7 years.

Research has shown that blending families need lots of time to fully integrate. This really should not come as a big surprise to people but believe me, it does. Think about it. Have you ever moved, changed jobs, or done anything that requires you to meet new people and learn to love them as family? It takes some time. Learning people’s habits and idiosyncrasies, learning their love language, learning the family rules and traditions takes time and practice. Communication varies from family to family and misunderstandings can be common when you throw people into a living situation with one or more people they hadn’t intended on sharing a bedroom, bathroom or kitchen.  Unless you are perfect, there might be some conflicts along the way and compromises might have to be made. Being excited that things are going really well at the start of a new marriage or being upset that things are not going as planned is less important than realizing that there will be good times and bad times throughout the process.

As everyone adjusts to the new relationship, it helps if the new normal is established by the whole group. For example, there might be holiday traditions, favorite recreational pursuits or even family recipes that are important to each person. A new spouse or a new spouse’s child might not be ready to embrace something that has been long standing in the other family. It is not so much the task early on to figure out what stays and what goes. The important thing is that the information is gathered and all members of the family feel known. But then, you figure it out as a group. You might be surprised to find that kids are okay with the new idea of celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve or going camping instead of going to the beach or whatever. But they are not going to embrace any new idea if they think it is being forced upon them by the new parent, and life as they once knew it is over. Acknowledge the way things have been done in the past and present all sides of how it might be done in the future.

Realize that all families have problems and blended families have some that are unique to them.

If you grew up with the Brady Bunch on TV, you know that the Brady family knew how to make a blended family look ideal. If you think about it, the whole show was about navigating through life issues but the ending was always just a little too Pollyanna. In real families, conflicts are not always resolved in one family meeting while the maid makes dinner. In real families, there might be deep wounds being brought into the mix because of past hurts. There might be visitation rights and shared schedules that interrupt the work that a new blended family is doing. Many times, there are issues with expenses and hurt feelings when the new marriage takes precedence over something that had once been important to the kids. Two people that thought they would parent well together find that they are triggered by their new spouse when they do anything that looks or sounds like the person they divorced. Blending families can be difficult but when done well, blended families can offer new life.

If you find yourself wishing it was easier, be sure to take advantage of the many resources available to you.

Here are a few books to check out:

The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers by Gary Chapman (2010)

101 Tips for the Smart Stepmom by Laura Petherbridge (2014)

Co-Parenting Works! by Tammy Daughtry (2011)

Helping Children Survive Divorce by Dr. Archibald Hart (1997)

Boundaries with Kids by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

Boundaries in Marriage by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

As always, I am here to help.

Sonia
720.449.2235 (voice & text)
[email protected]

We all have heard that money is the most argued topic amongst married people. Well, when I began my career as a psychotherapist, we were in the middle of a down economy. For the first two years, literally every couple I saw in counseling was experiencing the strain of this, in the form of unemployment, under-employment or overall strain to the finances because of higher cost of living, coupled with lower take home pay. I sat with a number of men and women who had gone to school, worked hard and planned well, but were facing financial strain beyond what they ever imagined. As a result, marriage relationships were being tested.

As I sat with couples, the issue of money and how it was spent in their homes was an ongoing topic in the counseling space. Money, it turns out, has the power to make people feel cared for, provide distraction and contrary to the old adage, bring peace and happiness. When there is an absence of the stuff, people tend to get cranky.

As with most other relational conflict, communication is key to resolving differences. Hiding feelings about how your significant other spends the family cash or hiding the actual spending of the dollars, is never good for the relationship. When things are tight, the communication has to get transparent to make it through the season.

Tips For Weathering the Storm

Have conversations about the non-negotiables

When it is time to tighten the belt, it is important to know what each member of the family absolutely needs to feel like a person. It is crucial to identify areas where cutting back is possible and where the cutting back may cause more conflict. Budgets can almost always be reworked and reworked some more, to accommodate both the needs and a few wants of each member of the family, but this cannot be done if people are not upfront about what they are willing or unwilling to part with.

Keeping an open mind in this process is important since we all tend to think about what should be kept and what needs to go, in terms of our own personal viewpoints. While the highlights your wife has put in her hair may seem like a luxury to you, it might be something she is willing to sacrifice in other areas, to keep. (Hey…I am just keeping it real with a very personal example.) If highlighted hair is more important to her than an updated cell phone, new clothes or dinners out, that has to be discussed with understanding and appreciation.

Studies have proven that during crisis, it is the little things that give hope. For example, in times of scarcity, people will pay as much for something as meaningless as lipstick as they will for food! This is because “extras” make us feel like we are doing better than simply surviving. So, if every member of the family has been forced to identify their nonnegotiable and then has those needs met, you run a much better chance of weathering the storm.

Get real about the sacrifices

For awhile there, it seemed like every time someone was trying to get people to give to a cause, or encourage saving, they would tell us to give up our Starbucks coffee. The truth is, most families in financial crisis are not getting treats at Starbucks EVER! They are trying to pay for soccer and dance and their sacrifices are much bigger than skipping a frappacino. They are already operating without much of the fun stuff that only some people are purchasing on a daily basis.

This is when the sacrifices might be more painful than we would like. When individuals are making sacrifices for the good of the group, it is important for those sacrifices to be acknowledged openly and often. Telling your children that you know they are missing cable TV and you are doing every thing you can to get it back or expressing gratitude that the old car was fixed instead of replaced, is an important dynamic to create. Even when closer evaluation reveals that everyone is doing just fine with the changes, showing appreciation for good attitude goes a long way.

There are very few parents who resent giving up their extras when their children are appreciative and the same is true between husband and wife. We know that relationship is always more important than material possessions, but silence or brooding is not relationship. Talking through the situation and allowing each other to continue dreaming toward a return to good times, is important when a family is in financial crisis.

Utilize systems meant to encourage spending, to save

Whether you are in financial crisis or simply in transition from no kids to a baby, a job change, a new home or even heading into retirement, sometimes finances can become the largest challenge in the relationship. This is the time to put that college education to work utilizing the many resources provided in our capitalist society! I sometimes laugh to myself at the very practical applications I find myself sharing with people who come to me for help with their relationships.

1. Find a credit card that rewards something that your family enjoys and limit all credit purchases to that one card. Whether it is cash back or miles toward an airline trip, it is wise to capitalize on the rewards when possible. Please do not hear me encouraging you to incur huge amounts of debt with this suggestion. But, our family read a blog about how to utilize the Southwest Airline credit card most effectively, and we have a buddy pass and are going to fly free to numerous locations this year because we got serious about working the system.
2. Utilize stores that offer points or membership benefits associated with your family needs. Our local grocery store offered a point system when our daughters were in sports. It is amazing the amount of money we saved in gas, and the amount of money that went directly to our individual account with their teams. It made their “non-negotiable” possible when we were in crisis.
3. Use the numerous online services and phone apps that give instant coupons or cash back for purchases that you already have to make. I literally do not make an online purchase without going through my ebates.com account or checking to see if my honey.com account offers an additional rebate. It seems like a lot of extra steps in the beginning but if a reward check of $100 means that our family can cover each member’s “what-makes-me-most-happy” then it is totally worth it.

As with all relational conflict, if the discussion can change from facing one another and pointing out the issues we have with one another into a dynamic where a couple or a family stands side by side and faces the struggle as a team, the outcome can be drastically altered. Financial crisis should not cause a dynamic of anger or shame or guilt. It should be a time of team building and character growth in a marriage or a family. If you need more assistance, please give me a call.

Sonia