Remarried Families

There are many, many books about how we can be successful parents and have a strong marriage but there is not as many books on how to be a good step-parent. Even though divorce is a devastating event in the life of a family that is not the end of the story. Many people choose to get remarried after a divorce and the result if children are involved is a remarried family. Sometimes these families are also called mixed families or step-families. These families can have many struggles and challenges similar to a nuclear family as well as extra challenges unique to this new family structure.

As you can imagine one of the difficulties unique to remarried families is the complexity of the families. I know my sister who is from my dad’s first marriage (she was only 2 at the time as well) never had contact with her birth mother and my mom adopted her so you might think cool there will be no affect from that other parent. Wrong. My sister struggled growing up knowing she had a mother leave her and she had an especially hard time as a young teen telling my mom that she loved her less that her “real” kids. That was hard for my mom and our family.

It can be very discouraging for newly remarried parents who believe that their second marriage will be just like a first marriage, and their new spouse will love their children as if they were their own and that’s not what happens. The fact is, it is different to be remarried and your children will most likely treat your new spouse differently. It can be hard to feel like your family members do not like each other. It is also much different discipline children in a remarried family because you can easily run into this situation: the biological parent loves their children and wants them to their new step-parent. The new step-parent tries to discipline their new children and the kids are very upset. The biological parent now feels like they must protect their children and fighting happens. This creates a hard cycle of one very strict “evil step-parent” and one overly permissive parent.

Although it seems like it may be hopeless to be in a remarried family that does not have to be the case. After all the people who get remarried are nor horrible, awful, no good people. These are people who really love their families but are now in a very difficult situation. One research group suggest that just because a remarried family is different doesn’t mean that it has to be a failure. This Jewish society says that first of it will take at least 2 years to achieve normality in this new family. That is what is the new normal for them. And then they give some amazing advice for these families especially the parents who are struggling with the new kids.

The first step of advice they give is that all heavy disciple should always be given by the biological parent. To make to that situation above does not happen. They suggest that the step parent should be like a really good aunt or uncle. Someone who helps and reminds of rules but is also very fun and happy and kind. Even this small step can make a huge change in the life of a remarried family. The second thing they say is that the parents need to talk to and council with each other even more than normal couples. Being remarried doesn’t mean that there is no hope for our families we can still find happiness and hope together.