Okay, it’s that festive time of year again:  THE DREADED  BREADED HOLIDAYS.  

Remember when the holidays were exhausting and hard when you weren’t in a second marriage?

It’s time to hold on to your hats, change your expectations and try to imagine this…ENJOY YOURSELF during the holidays.

 Here’s my 4 tried and true tips to actually thriving during the holidays:

 TIP #1:  CHECK YOUR EXPECTATIONS

 Remember that EXPECTATIONS = PREMEDITATED RESENTMENTS.  I’ve worked with many couples in therapy who battle over their holiday traditions as if Satan himself has landed on their doorsteps.  

 In the name of “good will and cheer”, these couples denigrate, tear apart, and mock one another’s holiday traditions ad nauseam.  It’s enough to make me want to eat an entire fruitcake rather than listen to the smallness and meanness couples can foist on one another.

And, as life often loves to do, I have to hold the mirror up to my own face and look at myself to see if I do the same to my husband.  The first several years of our marriage, I expected that MY traditions would take precedent over his.  After all, I had 4 children and he only had one.  Mine were older and therefore more attached to their traditions.  

What I wasn’t counting on was the logic of my husband and he wasn’t buying it.  Not only did I need to check my expectations, I needed to let them go which leads to Tip #2…

 TIP #2:  TWEAK OLD TRADITIONS

Be open and flexible (remember, you’re in a second or more marriage—being open and flexible is mandatory). Re-look your holiday traditions and tweak them enough to accommodate all the members of your lumpy family.  Get creative.

TIP #3:  MAKE NEW TRADITIONS

This is a great way to subtly re-enforce the structure of your newly combined system, even if it’s only for one day.  Get everyone’s input on what this new tradition might be, and above all, make it fun.

TIP #4:  DON’T FORCE COMBINED FAMILY TRADITIONS ALL AT ONCE

Nice and easy is the ticket here. Strong-arming any family member, especially teenagers, is sure to meet resistance.

A new family tradition my husband and I instituted was, instead of serving the traditional Christmas dinner (you know…the usual turkey or prime rib), we lined the dining table with newspapers.  We steamed crab legs and artichokes and served heaping bowls of melted butter, french bread and warm damp cloths.

Utensils were not allowed!  We let everyone have at it—no worries about  table manners and etiquette.  Also on the table were bubble makers and Silly Putty.  Everyone had a blast…from my husband’s 10 year old to my teenagers and even us “adults”.

Finally, when considering the holidays and family traditions, just ask yourselves:  What would Jesus do?  Or Buddha or Abraham or the Tooth Fairy or the Man in the Moon.

Keep your joy and especially your sense of humor.

October 14th was my 8th wedding anniversary.

In second marriage years, it’s really more like 15.

For any of you in second marriages (or more), you know exactly what I’m talking about.

When my husband and I married, I had 4 teenagers and he had a 5-year-old daughter.  We had a Wedding Whoop Dee Doo for 3 days in the magical hills of Boulder so that family and friends could get to know one another.  

We were sure we were going to be the poster “blended” family.

Off we went for a month long honeymoon to England, Scotland and Ireland where they were having the worst weather in written history.  It was a grand adventure of a honeymoon, but the weather should have been seen as a precursor for times to come.  When we got home, we had 5 children waiting for us at the airport and all hell broke loose.  

Nick and I had different parenting styles…my teenagers were being true teenagers and totaling cars and getting under aged drinking tickets. Nick’s daughter was young and having a tough time going back and forth between homes.  

After about 5 years of attempting to “blend” our families, my idealistic husband and I put up the white surrender flag.  We started to realize how ridiculous and unrealistic it was to expect children who had been raised in completely different family systems with parents who were alive and well, and integral parts of their lives, to become one big happy family.  

 In fact, it was downright arrogant and insensitive to our children and their other parents.

 I also realized how unhealthy the whole “blended” family concept is.  It’s not like we were Osterizer Blenders and could all be thrown into a plastic pitcher and swirled around to become as one.

When my step-daughter was 10, she was not a happy camper.  We sat her down to talk about it.  Finally, after 45 minutes, she looked at me and said boldly, “You are not part of my family!  You will never be a part of my family!  I don’t like you, in fact I hate you!  You are not my mother and you will never ever be a part of my family!”

My heart was pounding as she said this, but I was also relieved.  She was acknowledging the part about remarriage that many adults just don’t want to see.  This is not our children’s choice.  They are powerless over these merging families, and our insistence on being the Brady Brunch just wasn’t working for her.

I looked at her and smiled and reassured her that none of this had been her choice and that she never had to like me or accept her as part of her family.  That all I was to her was her father’s wife, nothing more and nothing less.  I told her that I was sorry she had such little power and that there were no expectations from me for her to ever change her mind or her heart.

Her little body sank in relief.  I then told her the only thing I expected in our home was kindness and courtesy.  I went upstairs to my office.  Later, when she was getting ready to leave, she came up to habitually hug me goodbye.

I put my hand up with a smile.  And I told her, “Let me teach you something woman to woman.  Don’t ever hug someone you don’t like.  Don’t ever give yourself away like that.  And I don’t want to be hugged by someone that doesn’t like me.  And it’s OK.”

Several days later, she came back and ran up to me.  She said she was so sorry for what she had said, that she did love me but that it was all so confusing.  I hugged her back tightly and told her I understood…that it must be crazy difficult to go back and forth between homes, rules, and parents.  Our relationship changed for the better that day.

Boundaries connect.

I don’t have a blended family, I have a LUMPY family.  What this means is that we have created a home where there is mutual respect, kindness and acknowledgment of the unique ways each of our children functions and lives in the family and in the world.  And the reality of that is it just doesn’t come in a nice neatly wrapped package.  The humanity of that is the true beauty of families.

Mary

www.challengingtransitions.com

“You gotta love the crust of a person”.

The brilliant and insightful Chris Rock, as most comedians are, said this in one of his comedy routines.

He also wisely said that when you first meet someone, you don’t meet him or her, you meet their representative.  How true is that.  He goes on to say that in order to be with a person for a long time, “you’ve got to love the crust of the person.”

This is where the rubber meets the road.

In my early 40’s, I met my “soulmate”.  A ruggedly handsome spiritual man who “saw” me.  He was a carpenter and I remember thinking as I was getting to know this deep quiet man, “He’s a carpenter.  He’ so wise…he’s just like Jesus!”

There’s nothing like falling in love in your 40’s, when you finally have an actual idea of who you are.  When the amorphous you of your 20’s has solidified into the crystal of self-knowing.  My life became a river of melted butter.

When my husband and I married, we were true romantics.  There were Scottish bagpipers and drummers coming out of the forest, the men were in kilts, and a sideways snow by a clear blue lake melted into the bright sunshine that only a Colorado fall day can provide.

Then reality hit.

“Blending” families…I had 4 teenagers and Nick, a 5-year-old daughter.  The onslaught of reality broke all semblances of perfect harmony and oneness.  We spent the next 6 years, tussling, fighting, protecting, blaming, alienating, and the worst of all…threatening to leave.

Where had that synchronicity gone?  Where was the music?  Where was the happy ending?

A couple of years ago, we took a class on Intimacy in Relationships.  There were 30 of us in attendance.  We were excited and ready to hear all the juicy wonderful things about falling in love that had brought us together.  

The teacher started out by saying, “Intimacy is a series of disillusionments.”  There was a collective groan in the class.  He said again, firmly, “Intimacy is a series of disillusionments.”

This is not what we wanted to hear and we wanted our money back!

Then we slowly began to learn, that when we could accept our partner’s darker sides, the “crust of who they are”, as we began to see our own shadow sides…the icy shelf of resentment, disappointment, and blame broke away…making room for deeper acceptance, understanding and most of all compassion.

And ultimately…intimacy.

A wise client once told me, “Expectations are premeditated resentments.”

How true.  But the road to get there is one that takes a departure from fairy tales, Hollywood movies and romance novels.  

My husband and I will be married 8 years next month.  In second marriage years…it amounts to about 15.  

Loving ourselves, and loving another is not for the faint of heart, the naïve or the unconscious.

But it’s a journey well worth the peaks and valleys and an adventure worthwhile for the children to see.

THE NEW OZZIE AND HARRIET’S

About 43% of all marriages are remarriages for at least one of the adults.

About 75% of remarriages involve children from the prior marriage, thus forming “stepfamilies”.

The 40’s may be the new 20’s, so while we’re going out on limbs, let’s say that remarriages are the new “Ozzie and Harriet’s”, or at least, opportunities for such.

This past April, I took a trip to Costa Rica with my husband and good friends.  While there, we spent some time at a hot springs located at the base of an active volcano.

The perfect metaphor for remarriage and stepfamilies.

The frequent spewing that seems to be a natural occurrence of combined families wasn’t on my mind when I stepped into a hot springs where another couple was soaking the lazy afternoon away.

We began small talking and the couple shared that they were there for the wedding of his daughter.  My “married with baggage” radar went up as I was curious as to who else was coming to the wedding.

My curiosity was short lived as family members joined us in the hot springs and one of them was the MAN’S EX-WIFE’S CURRENT HUSBAND.

Let me say that again.

One of the family members was the MAN’S EX’WIFE’S CURRENT HUSBAND.

Everyone had smiles on their faces as they told me that they were all staying together at the same hotel…he and his wife, his ex-wife and her husband and their children, his children, his ex-wife’s children and he and his current spouse’s children…I needed a chalkboard to diagram it out.

They were spending the days before the wedding together…going on wild zip lines, rafting, hiking and horse back riding.  

In the middle of our conversation, the bride stopped by, and was radiant as any bride should be.

Her ease with her father and stepfather was as natural as our surroundings, and my heart was filled with love and hope.

I realized that I was with actual GROWN-UPS who had all traveled to Costa Rica from New York and other parts of the country to celebrate the wedding of a beautiful daughter who was also a stepdaughter.

The bride and groom didn’t have to split their time between her mom and dad and the various families that have sprung up from all the family systems.  

The groom’s family was there as well, and the focus was right where it should be:  on the young couple and their upcoming special day.

Unfortunately, for the majority of people in remarriage, this type of maturity and graciousness are as rare as many of the endangered species living in the jungles of the Costa Rican rain forests.

What does it take to be a grown-up?

1:  Clean up your side of the street:  Get real honest and own your part in examining whether or not you contribute to any tension when your children are around you and your ex.  You can’t change anyone else, but yourself.

2:  Stop expecting other people, especially your children, or magical thinking to take care of you.  You are the ultimate mother/friend/lover to yourself.

3:   You don’t have to fake feelings like love or respect, but you can continue to remain open, kind and compassionate.

4:  You can make the focus your children’s comfort, and not on how difficult the situation is for you.

5:  You can accept that people move on with their lives, and this may include your ex-spouse remarrying and actually being, God forbid, happy.

When it comes to marriage and mixing up these lumpy families, the gift of being a grown up is the best gift we can give our children.

Mary

*I am available for in-person sessions and telephone coaching for those in remarriage, marriage or going through the challenging transitions of divorce.  You can contact me at marytkelly@mac.com or go to  http://www.marriedwithbaggage.com./

TAKE THE “PARENT” OUT OF STEP-PARENTING

When you year the word “step-mother”, what immediately comes to mind?  Be honest… even if you’re a stepmother.

Evil, wicked, manipulative, selfish…destroyer of children…just a few descriptions that come to my mind.

Mythology has not been kind to stepmothers and this underlying belief is alive and well in the 21st century.

Stepfathers are better off.  The day they say “I do”, they don’t turn immediately into green scary monsters.

However, many stepmothers and stepfathers have learned the hard way, that the word “parent” should not be a part of step-parenting.

Thus the oxymoron.

THE OXYMORON THAT IS STEP-PARENTING

Studies show that children resent parenting attempts by their parent’s new spouse, even when one of their parents is deceased.

Like many, I learned the hard way when I married my husband over 7 years ago.  He came with a 5-year-old daughter who was not thrilled with the prospect of having to share her father.

I didn’t take it personally.  I came from a home with parents who loved one another and shared close to 40 years of maritalhappiness before one of them passed away.
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It’s hard for me to imagine the type of resiliency it takes to go from one home to another, adjust to new stepsiblings, different rules, and seeing your dad with another woman—all at the tender age of 5.

It’s taken a long time for my stepdaughter to accept me and I don’t blame her.  She lives primarily with her mother, and has been witness to a parent struggling from time to time running a household without a partner.

Coming to terms with the notion that I had to take the “parent” out of stepparent has been humbling.  I thought I would make a great stepparent.  After all, I was a family therapist and the mother of four great kids.  

DON’T BE A BUTINSKI

I was constantly giving my husband advice…well, the truth be…I was constantly in his face shoving my opinions and “expertise” his way trying to be helpful.  Besides, between my professional and personal experience, I knew I was RIGHT.

One weekend when my stepdaughter was visiting, I offered what I believed to be helpful advice (and it really was).  An hour after she returned home to her mother, my husband got THE phone call.  I had shamed her daughter.  The ex-wife was mad at me and then my husband was mad at me.

I thought to myself, “OK, I get it.  I finally get it.”  I knew there was nothing shameful about my advice, but I was being put on notice that when something went wrong, I was going to be the first one blamed.

It’s when I decided to let go of my end of the rope.   I needed to respect that I am not the mother, this is not my child and there are two active parents involved in her upbringing, whether I agree with all of their decisions or not.

Things became a lot smoother after I decided to drop my opinions and my ego, and just let things be.  After all, I didn’t marry my husband so I could be mother to his child.

INVITATION ONLY

The one exception to this rule is if the child actually INVITES you into their lives as a parent.  This would mean, and I mean this, they literally, vocally ask for your opinion and advice.  And I’m not just talking the occasional request to hear what your view is.  This is an implicit request that looks like:

—Will you be my parent?

—Of course, you are my parent.

Never assume because your step-children asks your opinion about something that this means he/she has invited you in to the world of parenting.  Tread very lightly.

Also remember, the choice is ultimately yours.  An invitation is just that—and it can be respectfully declined.

Recently my step-daughter, who is now living with her dad and I for a year because her mother is recovering from complications of surgery, told me that I was now going to be one of her 3 parents during this time.  

I told her carefully and graciously that while her mom was in the hospital, she was alert and conscious as was her father.  I would be here to offer my opinions and support if she wanted, but that was it.

Shortly after telling me she wanted me to be one of her parents, she declared that she wanted “belly piercing“.  She is 15 years old, and if she was my daughter, it would be an adamant no (I’d already been through this with my own daughters at that age).

I asked her what her mom thought and she said her mom was fine with it, as was her father.  This is when I told her the difference between a parent and an ally.  Her parents were fine with the belly piercing while I was not.  And there is no way I was going to walk on that mine field!  

Their daughter—their decision.

NEW RULES  

Sure-fire formula for step-parents:

1.Don’t parent.

2.Don’t try to be their friend but—be their ALLY.

3.Do try to see them, hear them, and be an adult they can come to value and respect.

4.Always model an environment of kindness and respect.

5.Keep your personal boundaries intact.

6.If you are invited to be a parent, think long and hard before you agree to it.  Ultimately, you are the only one who can decide what you are comfortable with and what you are not.

Mary

www.marriedwithbaggage.com

I’ve worked with many couples in remarriage who come to therapy wondering why their “blended” family is not so blended.  They’ve been trying as much as possible to be one big happy family and the kids (who we seem to forget may have an opinion about this) just aren’t cooperating.

These couples want to know why it’s so hard.  Like Rodney King, they wonder, “Can we all just get along?”

One of the first things I tell them is that there is nothing wrong with them and the blame needs to be placed with the “blended family myth” that has been perpetuated for way too long.

The long and short of it is this:  Families are not Osterizer blenders.  

It is unrealistic to believe that you can take children who come from a completely different family, rules, traditions and history and expect them to blend with other children from another equally different family system.  Even in families with the biological parents and children, it is unrealistic and unhealthy to expect children to be clones of one another.

The goal is not to emulate the Brady Bunch but rather to create a home where there is mutual respect, kindness and acknowledgment of the unique ways each individual functions and lives in the family and in the world.

Mary

www.challengingtransitions.com
www.marriedwithbaggage.com