One Blended Family, Please. Shaken, Not Stirred. (Part 1)
If one were to ask the recipe for a good classic martini, the response might be:
2.5 ounces of gin
½ ounce of dry vermouth
1 green olive
And then, in a very British accent, one might add “Shaken, not stirred.”
Blended martinis are very easy, especially when compared to blended families. Based upon my personal experience, the one part they hold in common is that last part: shaken, not stirred.
I am no expert in either, but I have some experience in the blending of a family. I knew going in it was going to be difficult. That’s what all the experts say. Plus, I had seen with my own eyes some of the ways that it could go awry. It is very seldom anything like the famous Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda movie, Yours, Mine, and Ours. It’s never like The Brady Bunch.
In fact, in my experience, there was quite a bit more door slamming, quite a bit more tense talking through gritted teeth. Mostly, there was quite a bit more anxiety – never knowing the right thing or the best thing to do.
My divorce was finalized in 1991, though it had been coming for a long time. My two daughters were 6 and 8 when it was official. I knew that I wanted to remarry – I wanted more children; I longed for a real partnership. So it wasn’t surprising to me to find myself entering into a new marriage a mere two years after the divorce was final.
Enter: Bill.
As a husband, he is everything I could have wanted. He is supportive and emotionally present. He is loyal and involved. He does laundry and even buys tampons when requested of him. Why, just last weekend, he helped me with a very necessary suppository. (I don’t want to talk about it except to say: now THAT’S love.)
When people ask me about the blended family thing, I always say that we never solved it, we merely survived it. I believe this to be true.
It is all years behind us. The older girls have long since moved out from under this roof and we all have good relationships with each other. There are no grudges, no hard feelings. I think each of us knows that it wasn’t easy for the others in the situation either. In fact, in preparing for this very article, I had the chance to open up the topic with my girls who are now 25 and 27. They are exceptional women, oozing with maturity and intelligence. I’m sure that having them apply some of that to the hind-sight has tempered their memories a little. I’d guess that had we gone down this road several years ago and delved into the topic, it would have been a lot more acrimonious.
I don’t mean for it to be a situation of alls-well-that-ends-well. I mean, if I could go back, I would do some things differently. I have spoken to quite a few people in blended families, both adult children of them and parents in them now, and there appear to be some common themes. As such, opening the dialog, sharing the difficulty of it, might prove helpful to someone else. At the very least, it might make them feel less alone inside of it.
I am hoping that writing this out, in part, will be healing to my own family. I, as a mother, did not do everything right – far from it. Perhaps putting words on paper and sharing them with the world is a small way to take responsibility for the parts I did not do right. I am grateful more than I can say that my girls bear me no ill-will over the sins of my past.
What I find intensely interesting is that we all experienced it so differently! Lesson number one: compare notes; early and often. The responsibility for communication is so much greater in this situation. As a parent, I felt so very caught-in-the-middle. The two sides pulling were this: was I primarily an advocate for them? Or was I primarily part of a cohesive marriage that led them in unity?
I was both. When there was familial disagreement, I tried to mediate and keep a united front for the kids. I didn’t want them to see my indecisiveness. I didn’t want them to know I didn’t have a clue what I was doing navigating these choppy waters. But when I was alone with my husband, I was a vocal advocate for them, for the girls. I wanted to coach him on parenting techniques. I wanted to smooth out his rough edges.
The problem, I know now, is that my daughters did not see me advocating for them. They needed to – during this time of upheaval more than ever. They needed to know I was on their side, even if it was on their side standing against my husband.
Part 2 will post on Wednesday.
Linda Doty wears many hats: wife, mom, sister, friend, daughter, boss, employee, jester (because jester hats are cool!). She’s been married for 25 years (to two different men – but wants credit for all the time served!) and has five daughters who range in age from 6 to 27. She works full time out of the house (she tells everyone she’s an astronaut, but that is simply not true) and travels quite a bit for her job. She writes because she enjoys it, and while she has been published in several local publications, her personal website is where she does most of her writing. (http://www.justlinda.net) Find her on Twitter at @JustLindaSTL.
*Picture found on www.thehipstermom.com
I kind of disagree with you on standing on your daughters side even if it was against your husband.
I was there in reverse. My husband stood with his step-son against me. Boy, I can tell you I truly thought about a divorce and for two years nearly everyday him standing with his son and not with me, just
made me feel like a paycheck (since I was working a full time job and a part time one too), I felt like a taxi driver driving his son to everything he wanted to join and the school he wanted to attend that wasn’t close to where we lived.
I felt defeated. If I wasn’t a Christian I think I would have, but I relied on God to get me through one day at a time. Then when my stepson was older he started doing some of the same things he did to me to my husband, his dad. Then a light went off in my husband’s head. He was pissed that his son was doing and treating him the way he was, and I brought up how he stood with his son on those same things when he did them to me. I got an apology, one I had waited for.
No, I disagree. The union is between the Husband and Wife, they are the two that should stand together. The parenting is between the parents and children because you are in fact their first line teachers of the facts of life. I think one of the fastest ways to
ruin a blended marriage is for that line to be blurred or for the
children to take the bond that should be between the married couple
and disrupt it and said parent by playing into the child’s wants over
the need of oneness in decisions that the marriage partners should be striving for.
This is just my opinion. You don’t have to print this on your page as I know it differs from your opinion.
I appreciate your comment. Thanks for sharing another view.
I suppose that I still maintain my position. Yes, the primary union may be the husband and wife, regardless of a step situation or not, the truth is that not all parenting is created equal. Parents are not infallible and they make mistakes, they use bad judgment.
Even now, where the three children we have are both of ours and there are no step parents, still each of us will occasionally overreact or levy a punishment that does not fit the ‘crime’. Having the other parent silently support that does not let the child know the truth of the matter – that one parent does not always agree with the other.
I know that some common thinking is that this is showing a chink in the armor, and the kids will exploit it. I know I have heard and read about the united front. This, then, is probably why I struggled so much. I tried to honor that. What I know now is that my daughters would have benefited greatly from knowing that I DID disagree with some tactics.
They felt rather isolated in a situation that was already emotionally difficult on children. I had the means to help mitigate that and didn’t. Because I tried to “stand united”. So I protected one at the expense of the other.
And while I respect your right to feel differently and choose a path other than the one I am advocating here, I still feel this was a lesson learned for me. We continue to raise children, though none of them are step-children. The challenges are different but there are still challenges. One thing I’m not terribly concerned about is letting the kids see the chinks in the armor. They know that we sometimes make mistakes and disagree, and that’s OK.
As one of the STFL writers also living in a blended family situation, Linda beat me to the punch in writing on this topic. It is a subject that is difficult for me to think about, much less write about. It has been fraught with a lot of pain but I may still tackle the subject.
When we had issues with his two sons, my husband was their advocate, just as I am still our children’s advocate when I feel they need one. The children need to have a voice. When we choose to marry into this, the kids are forced into a situation that is not of their choosing. Someone needs to hear their side. Having said that, kids can manipulate and cause division. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory and using wisdom and discernment is necessary. I totally see both sides. The Bible does say that the husband-wife bond is supposed to be stronger than the parent-child. I just wonder how many families really live that way when the protective instinct as a parent is so strong. Sadly, I think no one ‘wins’ in a blended family–it seems like both sides get hurt.
To be clear, I should say that it IS about balance. I’m not suggesting that one parent should ever throw the other under the bus. We don’t do that now, and that’s not the model I’m trying to say is a “lesson learned”. It’s about balance, I think. It’s about letting the kids in on the fact that I/we were also struggling. My husband hadn’t had kids nor had he been around kids so having him join a ready-made family OF COURSE meant challenges for him and us. There is no shame in admitting that, even to the children themselves. That we were all going through adjustments and those were often difficult.
I think if my daughters had heard more of just that from me – the fact that he and I were trying to find our footing, to learn to coordinate these dance steps, that we knew we weren’t always executing like synchronized swimmers, perhaps they would have been more accepting of it, even more cooperative. At the very least, they might have felt less isolated (and that’s no small thing right there).
The blended family path is a difficult one for all involved. I applaud all three of you ladies for having the love, courage and determination to continue on when these relationships (with not just spouses but kids) get difficult.
And thanks for sharing your perspectives. This is something that defintely needs to be explored more. Linda interviewed her grown daughters in order to write the article. And it was tough for her to hear some of their comments. I think she showed alot of courage in writing.
I enjoy the dialog on the topic. I shared one-person’s perspective – my own ‘lessons learned’. I acknowledge that it’s not the only way nor is there a definitive ‘right way’ regarding this. I mean, parenting in general is full of different approaches, and parenting in a blended family has all that plus its own nuance and challenge. I’m sure someone who had very different blended-family experiences might well come out with very different lessons learned.
I suppose that’s part of what is so difficult – there are no clear cut or easy answers. But like with other difficult situations… just keeping the lines of communication open might help the parties overcome.
Thanks for the comments. I think it’s something we could discuss more openly. The one universal experience I’ve heard from anyone who has experienced it is “it’s way harder than we ever expected.”
[...] 1 is HERE and part 2 is HERE. There are no comments on part 2 and you know how angsty I get about [...]
Subscribe
Categories
Twitter
Powered by Twitter Tools
Recent Posts
Most Commented
Most Viewed