How To Live With Other People's Children
A stepfamily is created when two adults come
together to form a new sexual relationship in which one or both have children.
Long before marriage, when still dating, get the information and support you
need.
Couples often feel the problems as a personal failure
rather than a situational crisis.
Two things help: getting information and talking
with other stepparents.
Living with other people's children brings us
face to face with ideas about family; not usually a stepfamily. Adults struggles
with enough time to create their relationship together. Children try to find
places in two families. Some information and a chance to talk with others can
help everyone find a new picture for their family. One of the important issues
for people in stepfamilies is feeling isolated.
Stepfamily Associates provides workshops and
groups to understand this interesting and stressful process. Find a new language
to talk about the real family connections rather than the connections you think
you're 'supposed' to have.
"We all
have a picture of a family. It is not usually a stepfamily."
Since 1980, when Stepfamily Associates began
doing business, we've been using these sentences on our brochures and booklets
to catch people's attention and introduce what we do. Back then, we had just
come out of what some refer to as the "decade of divorce" and most of
us still thought of stepfamilies as a relatively new way to live. Many were
curious, watching this cultural phenomenon gather force. But if you were living
in a stepfamily, struggling to create bonds with someone else's children or
laboring to like, or love, a new parent, you might have regarded stepfamily
living as not just curious but kind of crazy.
A lot has changed in 20 years, in terms of
how our families are structured, and how we talk about what that means. Still,
people creating new families struggle with the same things: feelings of loss,
guilt, love, anger, hope, jealousy and frustration.
Everyone's talking about families: stepfamilies,
single-parent families, blended families, gay and lesbian families. Open any
magazine for any given day, week or month and you're likely to find an article
about coping with ex-partners, stepmothers who feel used, stepfathers who feel
trapped, custody questions, finances and how to "do" holidays and
vacation.
When you close your eyes and think
"family," what do you see? Maybe you still see mom and dad and two
kids and a dog. But more likely, you see something else, some strange mix
or what you've had and what you want and how you imagine other people live.
There's no such thing as FAMILY anymore, there never was. There was and is
always only YOUR family, whatever that may be. And no matter how that family is
structured, there's a lot to learn about how to live in it and live with it.
In our work with families, we've found that a
family which works well for all its members has three essential qualities: a
sense of predictability about one another and how things work, empathy for one
another, and humor. Often these are the very qualities missing at the beginning
of step-relationships. People in stepfamilies need to develop understanding and
coping strategies to begin to feel safe and comfortable as a new family.
Stepfamily Associates offers group and workshops to help people learn new
ways to talk and better understand how to establish predictability,
empathy and humor in their new families.
Each member of the stepfamily has a powerful
point of view. Stepmothers tell of feeling used and used and used. Stepfathers
tell of feeling like strangers in their own homes. Stepchildren feel they never
really belong and, at the same time feel tugged in so many directions. Parents
with children living with them in stepfamilies, feel split between children and
a new partner. Parents who visit say they sense a loss and powerlessness over
their children's growth and development.
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