“Remarriage may look a lot like any other marriage—two people, plenty of hope, lots of love and a desire to construct some form of joint life. But it has its own subversive features, mostly invisible to the naked eye, that make it more tenuous than first marriage. It’s not impossible to make remarriage work, but it takes some concerted action to make love better the second time around” (Hara Estroff Marano).
And that’s especially true when stepchildren are a part of the marriage.
This week we’d like to revisit once again the subject of remarriage—this time concentrating mostly on this state of matrimony when stepchildren are involved. We’ll be gleaning from a piece entitled, “Divided Loyalties: The Challenge of Stepfamily Life” written by William Doherty who is a professor and director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota.
To read the entire article you can find it at www.smartmarriages.com by clicking on “Articles and Information” and then clicking on “Stepfamilies.” The edited version reads:
Stepfamilies enact unique morality plays, with plots involving divided loyalties, betrayal, heroic commitment and Solomon-like discernment. Historically, parental loyalty to children has been seen most often as a “covenantal” commitment as opposed to a “contractual” commitment. The idea of covenant conveys irrevocability: God will always love and do right by his own, no matter how they behave.
Similarly, parents must always love and do right by their children, no matter how they behave. This is as close to a universal moral norm as we have in our world, a norm honored in most cultures. In deed, parental loyalty—the unbreakable, preferential commitment to one’s children—was so taken for granted that it’s not even included in the Ten Commandments.
Loyalty struggles abound in stepfamilies, because of the unbalanced triangles their members encounter. In reasonably healthy families with two original parents, a child’s love for one parent doesn’t compete with the love for the other parent.
And, although new fathers sometimes feel jealous of their wives’ focus on a new baby, generally, both parents are heavily invested in the welfare of their children. If you’re my spouse and caring for our children—you’re indirectly caring for me.
But even in reasonably healthy stepfamilies, claims on loyalty are far from balanced. Tilting emotionally toward one member feels like pulling away from someone else. Children who like their stepparents often feel loyalty binds more acutely than those who don’t. For stepparents as well, commitment to stepchildren isn’t straightforward. Stepparents must accept the reality of children who aren’t theirs and many would admit, if asked for an honest response, that they wish that these children didn’t exist so that they and their spouse could have a completely fresh start.
Time that the original parent commits to the children is frequently a source of conflict, because the stepparent’s personal agenda is less saturated with the needs of the children. And everybody in the family knows that the stepparent’s commitment to the children, at least in the early years, is contingent on the survival of the marriage.
The chief challenge of stepfamily life is these divergent loyalties that manifest themselves in the tension between our responsibility to our children and our commitment to our new spouse; in our courage or cowardice in standing up to our spouse on behalf of our children, or to our children on behalf of our spouse; in our supporting or undermining our ex-spouse’s new partner because that person is important in the lives of our children; and in our trying our best to love and nurture our stepchildren even when their needs conflict with our own.
As a therapist, I’m fascinated with stepfamilies because they illuminate, like no other family form the world of fairness and unfairness, loyalty and betrayal, commitment and abandonment, selfishness and altruism. Stepfamilies inevitably live with dramatic tensions that are never fully resolved.
Original families can have illusions of balance and harmony where moral conflict seems to disappear, but stepfamilies have no such illusions, and they can never relax their vigilance for long.
The challenge of maintaining multiple perspectives adds to the fascination of working with stepfamilies. For instance, I strongly believe that the needs of children who are minors must have priority when it comes to parental loyalty, but original parents and stepparents have claims as well, and as therapists we ignore these at our peril. A case I supervised points this out.
Bob wanted some time alone with his new wife, Alice, who had 3 preteen children who took up most of her time. He was good with the children and supportive of Alice, but felt like a junior parent and not a spouse.
Their therapist described the session in which this issue came to a head. The therapist supported the wife’s obligations to her children and encouraged the husband to understand that as an adult, his needs would have to be secondary at this time in the family’s life cycle, as is true for most families in the busy childrearing years.
Alice wept with relief at being understood and Bob admitted that perhaps he was being selfish. The therapist felt proud of his intervention. A few days later, Bob left the therapist a message saying that they were ending therapy because the previous session had clarified things so well. The therapist was concerned that the plug was being pulled on the therapy, and wondered if he’d missed something.
What he’d missed, in focusing on the mother’s obligation to her children, was the husband’s loyalty claims on his wife. “Children first” is a STARTING POINT for exploring stepfamily responsibilities, not an ending point.
Marital bonds bring their own obligations to love, cherish— and spend time with a partner. In this case, the therapist should have supported Bob’s legitimate loyalty claims even though he was willing to surrender them in the session.
The article goes on to give several other good examples of the conflicts that can arise in remarriage when children from a previous marriage are in the picture. They may be helpful in giving you greater insight into the different viewpoints of each family member.As we stated previously, you can read the original magazine article in its entirety at the web site we gave at the beginning. It makes some very good points. But we don’t want to close this message without stating why we’ve felt so led to cover this subject.
The point we pray we’re able to convey is, “Marriage is just plain hard work and remarriage — especially with step children in the home — is all the more challenging”. That seems like a simple statement which is only logical but so few couples are really grasping the truth behind these words in today’s world.
It’s not impossible to make your home a healthy, loving, God-honoring home, but it is a monumental task which needs the TOTAL commitment and fortitude of both the husband and the wife who are dedicated to God, led by God, and empowered by God. There are so many “complications” that come into the mix that need to be considered.
We pray that if this is the place you’re in, in your marriage, you’ll open your eyes to the complexity of the situation and become dispensers of God’s grace and forgiveness with each other. There’s a huge learning curve that comes into existence when “step” families are put together under the same roof.
We urge you to become “students” of each other. Learn all you can about how to live together in a peaceable way. Stay on your knees in prayer in your heart continually asking God for wisdom from above to guide you to make the best choices in how to “live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1).
Be “like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider each other better than yourself” (Philippians 2:2-3).
Our love and prayers are with you as together we work to make our marriages the best they can be because of the Love of God!
Steve and Cindy Wright
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(USA) I married a man that I lived with first. I went through a divorce and starting dating and having a sexual relationship with this man when I had middle school aged children at home. I did everything wrong. I was (and am) a Christian, but when I went through my divorce and started dating this man, I was about as far away from the Lord as any non-Christian.
But after dating for a year or so, I started feeling convicted more and more and even broke up with this man a couple of times because I felt it would be wrong for me to be with or marry a non-Christian. I took him back because he pleaded with me that he loved me and I needed to give him a chance (to get to know about Christianity). I stupidly jumped back into things with him, but the more I witnessed to him, the closer and closer I was feeling to the Lord.
I went ahead and married him because we had been living together and I felt it was the right thing to do. I gave him many opportunities to get out of the relationship, telling him that Jesus was first in my life and as a Christian I would be going to church and my relationship with the Lord was the most important thing in my life. I told him that things were not going to change in that area, and if he felt this was the kind of woman he wanted to be married to then I would commit to the marriage.
We both have older children, he a daughter and I have 3 sons. The kids are all "good" kids, they accepted our relationship but it has been a very rocky road since our marriage 1 1/2 years ago. In fact, I would have to say that the kids, even though in their late teens and early twenties, are on the verge of causing our marriage to not work. We both have big communication problems with each other’s kids. I feel that he and his daughter are close in a way that I can never be close with them in the same way and I know that this is OK.
It’s just that he wants his daughter and I to be close and we just aren’t on the same page. She doesn’t understand me and I don’t understand her. I have tried to tell my husband that I am through trying to be something I’m not with her and he just argues back that he feels the same way about my family, which isn’t totally true. He definitely has a different and better relationship with my boys. He is just feeling defensive about his daughter.
I am at the point of wanting out of the marriage, but I know that would hurt too many people. So now I just pray that God will intercede and help things get better. There is a lot more going on that I could write about, but that is the main concern at the moment. I would like some comments from any one else who has wisdom in this matter. I read that it takes years for things to get better.
I am 44 years old, I went about everything the wrong way spiritually in the first place. I feel like I’m just reaping what I have sown. I want things to be better, I want to be in love with my husband and to at least have a slightly normal life. My husband still doesn’t trust or love the Lord and that is also very discouraging to me.
I know we probably need some counseling, but wouldn’t they just say that I need to keep praying and we need to work on our relationship with each other? I don’t know if I want to work on it anymore. I think that he just doesn’t want to "start over again" since this is his 3rd marriage and he is not thinking about eternity but what his work buddies will think, and he needs me to help pay for our house and the bills. What should I do? Any advice out there? I know this was a long email.
(CANADA) Hi Jenny, I can understand your feelings, as I too am in a similar situation. It is hard, and it hurts to be misunderstood and for your partner to think less of you for something you can’t change overnight, if ever. Obviously, you would love for things to work the way your husband envisions. Unfortunately, this usually isn’t possible for many years, if ever. But leaving your marriage is not going to solve your problems.
Understanding quite clearly the Christian belief, it is too bad that you feel like ending your relationship which was witnessed by God. “In good times and bad” really means that. You also can’t sit back and do nothing. God helps those who help themseves. It is hard work, and you’re right, how your husband views himself is important. However, men are notoriously famous for having strong feelings and not being able to understand them. I am sure he doesn’t want to look like a failure, and he needs help too, the least of it financial. But he probably does not know how to verbalise what he needs, and is insecure, to the point that he isn’t willing to acknowledge it.
Take some time for yourself evey day. In this way you can stay grounded. Make time for the two of you, at least once a week. You have joined as one before God, whether you share the same religion or not. Just because he hasn’t accepted Christianity as part of his life doesn’t mean that he is Godless. Remember, God is omnipresent. He is everywhere and in everything. God is in your marriage, and he will help, whether you are a Christian or not. He loves all his children. If you can love others as you want to be loved, you have found the answer. The rest will come someday.
I wish you all you hope for, and that all your hard work pays off for you, and your husband. You both have been joined as one. It won’t work if you behave as individuals. Hope this helps. Remember, I know it is hard, I am there too. You are not a wicked stepmother. You are feeling what we all do, and you are not alone.
(USA) I need help! I have fallen out of love with my wife and she knows this because I told her. I also told her that I have cheated on her and she is still here. She wants to work it out. But I wonder why. If she cheated on me, I would have left her a long time ago. I should feel sorry for what I did. I did at first, but after a while the feeling bad just went away. She is hurting and begging me to hug her and tell her that I love her, but I just don’t feel that way anymore. Is this my punishment from God, feeling empty? I want to love her like I used too. I expect the worst on comments, but how do ask God to save us and myself?
Tim,
First, I want you to know I’m glad you found the web site and that you are reaching out trying to find some answers. I can assure you the answers are there if you are willing to “look” in the right place.
You are blessed that your wife “wants” to work things out. She is obviously a woman of great character and has a forgiving heart. I hope you will grow to see this and value her.
Marriage was never intended to be “easy.” Too many people think married love is based on feelings. That is so far from the truth. Marriage is supposed to be a commitment, or covenant, between you, God and your spouse. That makes it the strongest bond on earth. It has to be this way because feelings are fickle. Cindy and I have been married 36 years and we can both tell you there have been…and still are times…that we don’t “feel” love for the other person. But that doesn’t lessen our commitment to our marriage. It wasn’t always that way. But we praise God that He was patient with us (primarily, me) and taught us what “real” love is supposed to be.
Not knowing where you are spiritually right now makes it hard to know how to advise you. If you and your wife don’t know Christ as your personal Savior then I suggest you need to start there. It’s not that you can’t repair your marriage without Christ at the center, but I can tell you from personal experience, I sure wouldn’t want to try to do it without Him in my life. If you go back to our web site and click in to “Spiritual Matters” section, you should find a lot there to help you on your spiritual journey.
Because you said you want to “love her like you used to”, I’m going to offer you something even better…loving her the way God wants you to and the way she deserves. To do that you need to ask God to forgive you for the sin (adultery) you committed against Him and your wife, then you need to ask your wife’s forgiveness.
If you go into the section on our web site called, “Save My Marriage” you’ll find a lot of resources and articles that can get you started.
Tim, there is so much I could “tell” you to do that would all be great helps, but all I want you to know right now is that IF you’re serious about wanting to do what’s right, you just have to start by admitting to God that you BLEW IT BIG TIME! And that you are coming to Him asking/begging Him to give you His love for your wife.
Next, you have to start implementing changes in your life that will demonstrate to your wife that you’re serious about this.
I’d also strongly suggest that when the new movie, “Fireproof” comes to your city, take your wife to it. I believe it would help you both tremendously. After the movie, get your hands on the new book called, the “Love Dare”, (from the movie) and then actually DO IT for the next 40 days. I can almost guarantee if you do that, you will see your marriage renewed and revived beyond what you could even imagine possible right now.
You have a “seeking” heart. God will honor you for that. I look forward to the letter you write in the future that is your personal testimony of what God has done in your marriage.
Blessings!
Steve Wright
Marriage Misisons International