Its probably not surprising to you that remarriage is not always welcome to our extended families, ex’s, or children. In my case (Sweetie) there was much fear involved in whether or not I would remarry. My children were young when I divorced, 3.5 and 6.5, and I had weathered a rough hard road in the divorce….moved nearer my parents a year later….and had re established myself as a teacher in a nearby community and settled in. Remarriage to my parents presented fears of financial stability, emotional/physical abuse of myself or the children, and concern that I would once again forever marr my children’s life by introducing them into a world that might not be positive for them. His parents were none too pleased either, though more publically accepting. In our case, both had been divorced and left behind by others long before we ever met each other.
In our case, we were talking about his children moving a state away from their mom (six hours) and extended families, my stepdaughter coming her senior year and my stepson moving away from his one close friend. The children had choices, but did choose to be with us from the beginning. Daughter chose to stay at her natural Mom’s for six weeks before joining us. From the beginning we had a full plate…..
The logistics were interesting, recreating my two bedroom home historic duplex into a single family home, figuring out how to transport 5 of us to public school where I taught in my Honda Civic with 4 backpacks! How to change recipes from 3 servings to six plus servings. The budget was a whole new ballgame as my new husband accepted a lesser job to come to our area the first six months….house payments until another house sold for 9 months….well, lets just say before we ever got out of the starting gates, the deck was loaded.
I laughingly say that every month we were married we should get 1 year’s credit with starting out with 4 children ages 5,8, 12 and 17. We literally celebrated each month on the 14th and still do! We had little money for date nights, so we often took walks, slid off to sit and share a Sonic drink and five minutes of parental time down downtown alone, and worked hard to try to hold onto the fact that despite the complications around us we were still newlyweds.
We live in the South and in the Bible belt. Divorce is not as uncommon as it once was, but our reality was that few, if any, divorced and remarried families attended church in our area. We chose to make that a priority. Little did we know that that choice alone at times would add to the discomfort of the remarriage. People weren’t trying to be unkind, they simply had no experience with remarried families in the church there. We had children who had visitation every other weekend, so some silly things like attendance requirements for activities made it impossible for stepchildren to fulfill requirements, often knocking them out of activities. Or in a church that had 20 couples on the rolls for blended families, only 2 attended, and the other 18 were graphic about sharing why and when they stopped trying to come…..almost all perceiving a non forgiveness of their sin of divorce. Divorce is often a publically witnessed sin….and while no sin is different in God’s eyes, they are forgiveable, when a family seperates in a public way, it is often the branded D that carries pain for all of them.
We were fortunate that first year to connect to Ron Deal’s http://www.successfulstepfamilies.com/ website seminar and book. He’s an excellent resource for stepfamilies. Ron has gone full time with this ministry to families and his work is very realistic to what happens in stepfamilies. Its like going through divorce recovery workshops, he gives you some heads up on things that seem to be the “pattern” for new stepfamilies and blended families and will help you recognize some tried and true methods for succeeding!