Managing the holidays post-divorce is no easy feat. 'Tis the season for tricky schedules and heightened emotions. Here's how to cope.
I love Christmas. Yup, I’m one of those people: belting out schlocky tunes in the car, searching for the perfect ceiling-scraper of a tree, bawling my way through It’s a Wonderful Life. But the emotional and logistical strain wrapped up with the holidays at our house — courtesy of my husband’s four kids from two exes, in addition to our own two little ones — can bring out the Scrooge in me.
There was the time my husband’s then-five-year-old son called to tell us excitedly about the Pokémon toy Santa had delivered — the exact same one waiting for him under our tree. Or the year a tipsy ex-number-one called in the middle of our Christmas Eve party to shout that there was no way she was driving downtown to pick up the kids the next day. You get the picture.
Even for the most happily married couples, the holidays can be fraught with conflict and compromise. It can be exponentially more complicated for the approximately 776,000 Canadian parents who are divorced or separated and raising kids without a new partner. Then there are the blended families — almost 13 percent of Canada’s 3.7 million two-parent families are stepfamilies, like mine. Negotiating how to share the kids is never easy, but this is a time of year when it can be hardest to let go. “Christmas is a tough time because there is a lot of tradition and ritual around how the holidays are managed,” says Deborah Moskovitch, author of The Smart Divorce, a book she was inspired to write after her own acrimonious split. “But you have to share it. That’s how you have to look at effective co-parenting.”
Here’s how to ensure your festive season is filled with merriment—not resentment — this year.
1. Make a plan
If you haven’t set a holiday schedule by the time you read this, do it now. “You don’t want the kids to have any angst about what they’re going to be doing at Christmas,” says Moskovitch, who also founded a divorce coaching service. Sit down with your ex and bring a calendar (and, if necessary, a neutral third party, like a professional mediator or trusted mutual friend) to figure out exactly how you’re going to divvy up the holiday break, right down to whether the kids are being picked up or dropped off, at what time, and the things they’ll need to pack. “It can be fluid and change, but it gets rid of any miscommunication,” says Moskovitch.
Trevor Pereira and his ex-wife made their Christmas schedule part of the separation agreement they drew up seven years ago. In even years, he has their two kids for Christmas Eve and morning, then hands them off at noon. In odd years, he picks them up from their mom’s house, still in their pyjamas, and takes them home for brunch and more presents. (To help avoid the aforementioned Pokémon scenario, Pereira and his ex go over the kids’ wish lists together each year to decide who’s going to buy what and how much they’ll spend.) “It’s sad either way,” admits Pereira, an IT specialist from Brantford, Ont. “Either you don’t have them in the morning or you don’t have them in the evening. But at least we both still see them on Christmas Day.”
Luckily for Pereira and his ex, they live in the same town. For co-parents who live in different cities, or even different provinces, it’s not so simple. If you have to kiss your kids goodbye for the entire holiday, says Moskovitch, “make sure you can call and talk to them. They’ll want to know you’re OK.”
2. Focus on the kids
Eileen Ailon, a psychologist and mediator in Calgary, specializes in helping high-conflict couples resolve parenting and custody issues. To keep her clients focused on what’s best for the kids, she sometimes places a picture of the little ones on the table during a session and asks: “What do you think they would really enjoy? What would work for them?”
That can be as simple as letting the kids call mom on Christmas eve or attend a special holiday event with Dad. For mom Maureen Palmer, the answer was more extreme. When she and her husband split up, their daughters, then aged 15 and 10, stayed behind in Edmonton with their dad while palmer took a job as a TV producer in Vancouver. She’d do homework with them every night over the phone and fly back to Alberta for four or five days twice a month (a schedule she kept up for a decade).
“Christmas was very, very big in our family,” she says, and her girls weren’t ready to let that go. So for two weeks every Christmas, she would camp out in her ex-husband’s basement—once even with her boyfriend in tow. “I sort of took over and did Christmas the same way we did when we were married,” says palmer, who went on to make the documentary How to Divorce and Not Wreck the Kids. It wasn’t easy being a guest in her former home, and her need to impose her version of “order” on her ex’s household created tension. “But Christmas morning was so kid-centred, and we both enjoyed their joy so much, that how we felt about each other barely registered,” says Palmer. “We didn’t want them to feel any of the tension kids who are pulled between two households feel.”
While you should always keep the kids’ preferences in mind, Ailon cautions parents against giving them too much input into how they spend the holidays. Kids don’t want the burden of choice “because they know it’s going to make one of the parents really unhappy,” she says. “They’ll tell each parent whatever they feel he or she wants to hear. For most children, that’s a nightmare.” What most kids crave is a predictable schedule that both parents seem happy with, even if that means putting on a brave face. Practise emotional restraint, maturity and leadership. “The most important thing is to continue to be loving parents, and to keep the conflict away from the kids,” says Ailon.
3. Create new traditions
Your holiday celebrations may have changed post-divorce, but it doesn’t mean they can’t continue to be magical. My husband’s first three children were five, three and one when they came to live with him full-time after the split. He didn’t have a ton of money, but he wanted to give them something new and special. Stockings belonged at their mom’s house (either on Christmas morning or afternoon, depending on the year). At their dad’s, a new tradition was born: The kids would tear apart the tree before present time, searching for their very own magic wand, which, when waved, would make packages from Santa appear in front of them. (I’ll never forget the first time I watched this ritual—how adorably frazzled he got trying to place the right gift in front of the right kid before they opened their eyes.) Though his children are grown now —the eldest is 25—come Christmas morning, the four of them still hunker down with their little sister and brother and wave their wands in the air, eyes shut tight.
Building new rituals is an important part of moving on—for you and your kids, says Moskovitch. “Regroup and think about how you want to celebrate the holidays together. Your kids’ traditions are changing, too, so get them happy with what you’re creating.” And though it will be painful, be prepared to let go of some of the activities you used to do before the divorce. In the early years after Moskovitch’s split, when her children were with their dad for the Jewish high holidays, “I’d sit at home saying, ‘Oh, they’re not doing this or that—they’re not celebrating the way I want them to,” she says. “But you can only control what happens when they’re in your environment. Don’t make them feel bad that they missed out on something when they come home.”
And no matter how sad or angry you are, never badmouth your ex in front of the kids. Save the rants for someone with no vested interest in your personal situation, like a therapist or support group. Similarly, Palmer recommends pinpointing what she calls your “negative advocate”—the well-meaning friend or family member who is constantly reminding you of what a jerk your ex is—and asking them to bite their tongue. “Your people love you and they want to be in your corner, but you don’t want to have those conversations,” says Palmer. “They just feed the animosity.”
4. Stay busy
If you’re going to be on your own for the holidays, be prepared. “Plan for it. Don’t think, ‘I’ll be OK,’” advises Pereira. “Because when you’re sitting there, watching those movies you’d typically watch with the kids, it hits you.” On his first childless Christmas Eve, Pereira was grateful to celeberate with other family and friends. These days, he indulges in a quiet evening at home: “I treat myself to something I love to eat and take some effort to pair wines.” Then he watches a favourite Christmas movie before climbing into bed early. Another tactic is to venture out: Volunteer at a homeless shelter, go on a trip or do something special for yourself.
5. Stay hopeful
As a kid, Precious Chong knew the meaning of “amicable divorce.” She spent holidays with her mom, dad, her dad’s first wife, and his older daughters. But Chong’s own split, when her son, Jack, was still a baby, was anything but amicable. Never in a million years did she think she and her ex would get to a good place.
Fast-forward six years, and Chong considers her ex, his new partner and their baby daughter part of the family. She now blogs about her co-parenting adventures and is circumspect about the situation. “My ex and I have a more meaningful relationship now that we’re not together than when were married,” she says.
Though they share Jack 50/50 and have regular family dinners together in Toronto, Christmas is still tricky. They’re supposed to alternate years, but Chong usually takes Jack, now seven, to visit her folks in Vancouver for two weeks over the holidays. “My parents are losing out on spending time with Jack, and my ex understands that,” she says. Sometimes she wishes they could just celebrate Christmas with Jack’s dad and his new family, “and no one would have to sacrifice anything.”
It isn’t perfect—no family is. Chong and her ex still squabble, and emotions can run high. (She was a wreck when Jack’s dad had a new baby, and cried when Jack gave his stepmom a nicer present for Mothers’ Day than he gave her.) But for parents bracing for their first holidays post divorce, Chong’s story is a hopeful one. “It sucks, it really sucks,” she says, describing those difficult early days. “Remember that just because things are hard now, it doesn’t mean it has to be that way forever.”
Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be clinking glasses with either of my husband’s exes this Christmas; that would take a Scrooge-sized miracle. But since having my own kids—and trying to imagine how hard it would be to spend the season without them—I’ve learned to be a bit more patient. Though maybe you should check back in after New Year’s.
Source: https://www.todaysparent.com/family/blended-families-celebrating-the-holidays/
Parenting can be even more of a challenge when you have a blended family. Life coach and author Thandi Vellem offers tips on how to tackle the difficulties of forming a new family unit
Blended families are more widespread than ever, and come with unique challenges. Building a harmonious home may be difficult at first but it can be done. Life coach Thandi Vellem tells you how to best approach bringing your families together.
Communication is key
There needs to be an existing relationship among all parties before blending families. Vellem advises against throwing children into such a set-up, and instead encourages talking to them before they live with you and your partner.
“Be cognisant of the fact that everything to do with children is always compounded, so it’s easy for them to feel unloved or compare themselves to the other siblings,” she says.
“Depending on the age, children don’t have the emotional capacity to properly dissect and understand that they are in fact loved, so parents need to make them understand what exactly is happening.”
Also, if the child isn’t emotionally ready, they may see your partner as a form of competition which could create bigger problems.
Ease the children into the new set-up
After introducing your child or children to your new partner, make sure they spend time together so the transition to living together is easier.
“Children magnify everything, so to be thrown into that space without a transition phase can be emotionally devastaing for the child,” she says.
Ensure your partner accepts the child
Vellem maintains that it’s important to have a partner that accepts your child. “Sometimes people think they just need to accept the child and not the biological mother or father. In order for the relationship to work, the partner needs to also accept the co-parenting relationship that still needs to exist between you and your ex,” she says.
Make sure there are boundaries in place
It’s easy to create an insecure space if boundaries aren’t in place between the co-parents.
“Sometimes the people that walk into our lives, who we ultimately call step-parents, walk in knowing there’s a mess in terms of not being able to put boundaries in place or that we aren’t emotionally well, and that there’s still acrimony,” she says. “So they find themselves caught up in the bitterness, and the child falls through the cracks.”
Create a family
Once the parenting house is in order, create a warm, loving home. Acknowledge the challenge that comes with a blended family but don’t separate the kids.
Vellem says she finds that parents tend to “measure” the kids, the thinking being: “This child I got in the marriage; this one I got out, which plays a part in how the child is treated,” she says.
Also remember, before your children join the new family, if they’re old enough they may have questions as to why they haven’t been with you all along. Vellem therefore advises counselling for the whole family.
“Be careful of feelings of unworthiness or ‘I don’t belong here’ from a stepchild. Because there are already family rituals in place, the child may feel out of place because they still need to learn them. It’s important for parents to focus their attention on incorporating the child into this new family,” she says.
It’s important that the other children are made aware of the child that is joining the family because they might “be protective of their space” Vellem says.
Agree on the disciplining strategy
Disciplining the children is probably the most difficult part of blended families. What works for your kids, may not work for your stepchild. Establish ground rules with your partner.
Source: http://www.destinyconnect.com/2017/01/18/challenges-blended-families-overcome/
While the relationship you have with your partner may have broken down, the one your kids have with both sets of parents is for life. Author Bronnie Marquardt provides some helpful tips for making sure they come first in a separation or divorce.
One of the best things about getting a divorce is waking up one day and thinking, "At least I don't have to spend another night with that loser!"*
One of the worst things about divorce is waking up one day and realising, "Hang on, we've got kids together. That loser and I are going to be stuck with each other for life."
Because unless you live on different sides of the country, or there are custody orders that prevent your ex-partner spending time with your kids, you're going to be need to have some kind of relationship with your former partner.
School life, sports, hobbies, play dates, medical issues - they all need to be discussed and dealt with by both parents, to ensure that the interests of your children are met.
And if you can put your differences aside to do so to provide a united front, so much the better.
Talking to your kids about divorce and separation
- In an ideal world, you would tell the children together, having discussed what you're going to say first. Make sure you do this only once you know that your relationship is irretrievably broken down - if you're separating to have time and space, it's okay to tell the kids that.
- You may be surprised at how much the kids have picked up on already, particularly if there have been regular arguments and/or tears. They're also masters at eavesdropping, particularly when they are supposed to be asleep!
- Make your conversation age-appropriate. Young children can be told that Mum and Dad aren't getting along any more, whereas older kids may be able to handle more details. If in doubt, seek advice from a family counselor or their teachers first.
- Try to stay calm and reassuring. Little kids often worry over small details: Will they still get to go on play dates? Who will take them to gym and swimming? Older kids may demand more: Who did what to whom? Does Dad/Mum love someone else? Are you sure you won't get back together?
- Be careful how much you say. You don't have to go into the ins and outs of your entire relationship here, but it's always best to be truthful. You definitely want to stay away from hurling insults about infidelities, betrayals or other issues in front of the kids. But best they hear it from you than someone else. "Mum and Dad have fallen out of love" is always a good one.
- Make sure your kids know the split is not their fault. Many will blame themselves, particularly if there were often family arguments about discipline, school work, going out, and/or behaviour. "If I hadn't been as naughty/broken those toys/stayed out too late, Mum and Dad might not have fought, and then they might still love each other", is how their brains work.
- Ensure your kids know that they are still part of a family. There may be two different houses now, but they still have two parents who love them very much, and who will always be there for them. Children brought up by two happy parents living apart are always going to do better than kids being brought up by unhappy parents who can't stand to be in the same room as each other.
Getting advice from the professionals
However you want to talk to your kids, it's a great idea to get your children's carers, teachers and other professionals involved. You may find it hard to speak about your personal life at first, but it's important they know what's going on at home so they can help your kids cope at school whenever they are in their care. For example, following my split with my children's father, my daughter would often feel teary and emotional at school, especially after drop-off, and her teachers took extra care helping her to settle in.
Children of all ages can have problems coming to terms with their new family make-up, especially if they are going between homes, and even more so if there's an instant step-family to get used to. Consider counselling, if only for the short-term. Often kids feel guilty letting parents know they're sad or unhappy with the changes in their lives, and an independent expert can help them express their feelings. They can then co-ordinate with you and the school if necessary to help ease the transition for your kids.
*I'm talking in generic terms here, not having a go at my ex.
Source: https://www.kidspot.com.au/parenting/parenthood/divorce-and-separation/divorce-and-separation-its-all-about-the-kids/news-story/bcdd0bd30da85bb79fa988f09f089033
Born of grief and tinged with failure, blended families are messy, and complicated, and exhausting.
Last night, as we settled into bed with a glass of wine, my husband shared that my son Caden had recently hurt his feelings. He’d planned an outing he thought my son would like, and Caden’s response was lukewarm.
We’re not new to this experience. Married for the second time later in life, with six children between us, we are often navigating tricky stepfamily terrain. Divided loyalties and missed connections and hurt feelings are standard stuff around here.
Still, my husband was particularly discouraged.
“It feels like nobody wants this blended family we’re working so hard to build,” Gabe said. I have often felt the same way.
We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning working through the problem and identifying ways we could each better connect with the other’s children. We talked about parenting style and discipline and expectations. We talked about stepfamily dynamics and coparenting and child development. We finally fell asleep sometime after 4 a.m.
This morning I woke up knowing my husband was right. No one wants to be in this blended family.
The truth is no one wants to be in a blended family. Born of grief and tinged with failure, blended families are messy, and complicated, and exhausting.
The children didn’t choose this family.
Our household is louder and noisier than it ever would be with three children. Our blended family reduces the attention each child gets. Attention that used to be theirs alone is now divided between them, new stepsiblings and a new adult love.
A stepparent brings new expectations and unfamiliar traditions and habits. A stepparent is a living, breathing grief trigger; an adult whose very presence reminds the child that their biological parents are no longer together. How children feel about the stepparent themselves is a catch-22 of overwhelming proportions: loving them presents loyalty issues with one parent, hating them loyalty issues with the other. The child is trapped in a loyalty bind at seemingly every turn.
A blended family also includes a host of extended family. Extended family that try to include the new partner and children or include the exes or all of the above. Extended family that rushes in with love and attention or stays away for fear of scaring children off. All of it well-intentioned and born of love, and all of it can sometimes feel wrong.
Imagine a child has been given a puzzle to assemble, with a pretty picture on the box. Then, we give the child a handful of extra pieces. Make it work, we tell them. The picture on the box is different from what you have now. Figure it out, it can still be fun.
What child would choose that?
Adults are often wildly unprepared for stepfamily life.
First-family examples surround us, but first-family strategies don’t work in blended families. Studies continually show that stepfamilies who begin their life together with a romantic, first-family approach fail.
The trouble is, adults in blended families typically have only first-family experience. Their friends and extended family have first-family expectations. Movies and books and magazines overwhelmingly tell first-family stories and give first-family advice. We want the first-family fairytale.
Resources for blended families are scarce and the stakes are high.
Adults in stepfamilies are instantly parenting unfamiliar, uncomfortable children ― uncomfortable children related to a person they love deeply. The children have divided loyalties, and the stepparent’s role is nuanced and complex. Intimacy between people takes a long time, and is built over repeated interactions, and develops at its own pace. It can be incredibly frustrating even in healthy relationships between two adults. It can feel impossible between an adult and an unrelated child.
Adults in blended families are given a puzzle too. Their puzzle is missing pieces and has extra pieces from a different set and if you try to assemble it to fit the pretty picture on the cover you are likely to fail. The challenge is to make a new picture with what you’ve been given, smoothing out the bumps and forced pieces as you go. What adult would choose that?
Marrying with children is “a feat of brazen, unadulterated hope.”
Hope. Hope is what kept Gabe and I talking until 4 a.m. Hope that we can keep working together and build a family that is a safe space for our children and for each other. Hope that our love and partnership will be an example for them as they grow. Hope that the children we love wildly will one day be able to freely accept that love, feeling it deep in their bones. Hope that this difficult journey we’re on together will eventually be just the start of our story. Hope that our puzzle, as messy and complicated as it seems now with the frame barely constructed, will one day be a picture we all appreciate.
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-ugly-truth-about-blended-families_us_589363b6e4b0b4d609210569
The learning curve is steep when you merge two families together. If marriage has a blind spot, remarriage with offspring on one or both sides, is like driving straight into the sun. Here’s what nobody tells you about having a blended family:
1. You will have a much more difficult time putting your marriage first. Heidi Klum and Seal were often quoted saying their partnership came before parenting their four children, because it was best to have two solid, committed parents. With their divorce recently finalized, we all see how that worked out. If you are part of a blended family, chances are you’ve already spent time as a single parent where your children came first. Switching up the order is tough and causes hurt feelings. Don’t get me wrong—the order is going to switch practically every minute and if one of those minutes collides with your partner in the same spot, literally and physically, well than that’s just magic.
2. You are more set in your ways than you realize. All it takes is a kid or two (or three) and a spouse to show you just how much you prefer your way, because chances are that you have been the head-of-household adult making the decisions for a while.
3. You will have a hard time not comparing this life to the life you had before. Because this life was chosen so carefully. Because, no matter how you went into your past marriage, this marriage you went into with your eyes wide open. But…having a comparison will often prove to you what a smart choice you made.
4. You will be jealous of the ex. Even if she is the craziest woman on the planet, and the thought that he would have chosen both her and you in the same lifetime makes you question everything that got you here in the first place. The fact that their DNA has blended and formed little humans is a connection that surpasses every level of certifiable crazy.
5. You will love his children. You will even love them well. Maybe right away, maybe it will take years. But you will. You will hold them to the same expectations as you hold your own children. Your heart will break and soar when theirs does. Their accomplishments will provide pride, their setbacks will break your heart. They will be the closest thing ever to your own children. Maybe you will experience a love extremely close to that of the love for your own children. Or maybe it will always be just a bit shy. Either way, you will love them as you need to, as they need it.
6. You will never be comfortable with even the slightest negative comment about your kids, even if it comes from the man you have promised to love no matter what. It may as well be written in the vows, “through sickness and health, til death or you saying something mean about my kids, do we part.” I am allowed to complain about my kids being bratty or needy or driving me crazy, but you, Love of My Life, must find them to be wonderful every moment and if you don’t, best keep it to yourself forever and ever.
7. You forgive easier. Because you have to. There is a whole slew of people requiring your forgiveness on a daily basis. People who haven’t known you long and want to take your patience out for a test drive. And there will be a lot more things that require forgiveness. My 14 year old step-daughter loves my taste in expensive hairspray, jeans, and shoes but lacks the desire to ask me each time one of these is required in her life. So I forgive. It’s much easier.
8. You will be disappointed that there isn’t the big fuss. Because this time it feels a thousand times more real. I’m not saying I wanted to pick out new china. But I did commit to a life partner and the co-parenting of several more children. I think that’s worth at least a salad bowl, if you’re my friend. Better yet, a bottle of wine as we will need it more than most newlyweds.
9. You will become more private about things. If only because it means not having to explain to a complete stranger at Target how five children shot out of your uterus like rapid fire. Or because you get sick of people asking which ones are “yours”.
10. You will have no road map. While there are a thousand books about blended families, none of them will be able to speak to your exact situation. Helpful advice will often be only the bits and pieces you can relate to that you have to fuse together yourself. Every single day you will want to pull out a What To Expect When…… book but instead you will have to make up your own answer on the fly.
But you will. And the best part is, because there are no straightforward and exact answers for remarriages and step parenting, no one gets to tell you you’re wrong.
At least that’s what I tell my family.
Source: http://www.scarymommy.com/having-a-blended-family/
Bonus children, FTW!
When it comes to dating for re-singled (a.k.a. divorced) parents, odds are that the people you're dating will have kids of their own, too. Thoughts of entering into a serious relationship or even remarriage gives many re-singled parents cause for pause if not outright alarm because we've all heard the stories about evil stepparents since we were little (thank you, Cinderella!).
But that's not how it has to be! With a bit of work, It's possible to create successful blended families.
My husband and I met online through eHarmony. The picture he used for his profile was an adorable one of him with his youngest son (now my bonus son). When we had our first date, one of the things I asked him about was his kids.
Boy, talk about a conversation killer! He made it clear that he didn't want to talk about them. I laughed a bit when he told me this and told him that he should probably consider changing his profile picture in light of that! Luckily, we found other things to talk about and wound up enjoying our evening.
What I didn't know then was that his first attempt at a blended family didn't turn out well. His refusal to talk about his kids was just his being protective.
Luckily, we've been able to avoid some of the missteps of his first attempt at a blended family. Through some trial and error, we've been able to create a successful blended family.
You can create a successful blended family, too. The number one thing you need to know?
Successful blended families don't "just happen" — they take work and planning.
Before you enter into a serious relationship or remarriage, it's important that you spend some time with your new significant other planning what type of life you'll have together, before you dive into that life.
In addition to planning your dreams of happily ever after, you'll want to agree on parenting styles, discipline styles, and lifestyle (yes, I did say "agree" and not "compromise". Successful blended families require partners to be on the same page in these critical areas.)
Once you've reached agreement, you'll need to consider each of your children, their personalities, and how different these styles of parenting, discipline, and living are from the way you're currently doing them.
Will the changes be large or small for each child? The smaller the changes, the more easily the child will be able to adapt. If the changes are large, you'll want to consider making the changes gradually before blending your families full-time so each child will have the fewest obstacles to overcome in making the blended family a success for them, too.
No matter how carefully you plan or how easy you try to make the transition, it's really normal for the kids to have different plans. These different plans are usually based on confusion and fear. It's also normal for kids to feel jealous of their bonus family members. And it's fairly typical for kids to feel angry about your remarriage because it messes up their dream of Mom and Dad getting back together again.
The five best things you can do to help all the kids involved are:
- Be clear about expectations and boundaries
- Communicate regularly as a family about family issues and with each child about what they're feeling and what's going on in their lives
- Let each child know you support them in loving their birth parent and that your new spouse is their bonus parent
- Take time every day to spend time one-on-one with each of your children and offer the same to each of your bonus kids
- Do fun things as a family
For most re-singled parents, their kids are a top priority, but successful blended families aren't built on being great parents and making the kids happy. Successful blended families are built on marital bliss!
Marital bliss also needs to be planned for. You'll need to plan for and schedule alone time for dates, vacations alone together, loud sex, and even just walking around the house naked.
The one thing that can help the most with all this is getting the kids on the same custody schedule as much as possible. That way you can regularly have kid-free weekends to focus on each other, connect, and strengthen your marriage without the demands of parenting. It's from this base of a strong marriage that the success of your blended marriage must be built.
Creating successful blended families does take planning and the best plans include heaping helpings of communication, respect, commitment, and patience.
Try this Functional Divorce Assignment to get your planning off on the right foot:
- Spend some time dreaming together about what you want your life together to be like. Make your dreams as specific as possible. By being specific about your dreams, you'll both know when you're on-course and when you drift off-course so you can correct things more quickly.
- Talk about your parenting styles, discipline styles and lifestyles. Be completely honest here. I know one couple who didn't have completely honest conversations about parenting and discipline styles before they got married. The result was that the first time the new wife saw her new husband's parenting style and non-existent discipline style with his child she told him that she wouldn't have married him if she had know this before-hand. Luckily, they've been able to work it out, but it would have been so much easier to do before they blended their families.
- Consider each child's potential reaction to having a bonus family. Each child has their own personality and will react differently to having a bonus family. By working together you and your new spouse can help to make the transition into your blended family be easier for each child.
On a recent Sunday morning, 10-year-old Kaia woke up in the mood for crepes, something her mom, Alison, makes like a pro. So Alison whipped up the egg batter while Kaia's dad, Wes, pulled out the frying pans. Big brothers Oliver and Noah sliced strawberries and tracked down whipped cream. "The kids love when we do family breakfasts," says Alison, 42. "On the weekends, we form an assembly line so everyone can pick their toppings." The kitchen of their Minnesota home is large and comfy. On the wall is a calendar that tracks soccer practices and doctors' appointments. Tacked up next to it is another schedule, one with alternating weeks labeled "Mom" and "Dad." It's a custody chart.
To say that Alison and Wes are still close seven years post-divorce is a laughable understatement. In 2010, they scrapped their separate living arrangements and moved back in together with their children, Noah, 15, Oliver, 13, and Kaia. The whole brood now shares a rambling old Victorian that Wes, 43, a carpenter, gut-renovated to accommodate everyone--including Alison's partner of five years, Shari. The parents say the screenplay-worthy move came after seeing the tailspin effect their split had on the kids. "They never seemed to find a peaceful place, moving back and forth between our two houses and keeping up with two sets of stuff and two sets of friends," says Alison.
This type of living situation, in which exes share or rotate through a single home that their children stay in full-time, is called "nesting." As kooky as it may sound, Margaret Klaw, a Philadelphia divorce attorney who's been in practice for 25 years, says it's on the rise: "I wouldn't have seen this even 10 years ago, but now more couples try it, sometimes just for a year or two during transition." Rob Crane, M.D., an associate professor of family medicine at Ohio State University who nested with his ex and their daughter, explains the motivation: "Allowing kids to stay put in their house instead of uprooting them every couple days can minimize the psychological injury of divorce and give a sense of normalcy at home." His arrangement attracted so much interest from friends and strangers that Crane started a website, kidsstay.org, where those considering it can get more info.
Nesting is obviously not an option for everyone; it could prove disastrous in a split that involves violence, for example. But it's one of the many new ways that exes with children are becoming better and happier "apartners." Exes who are not only amicable but loving are part of a divorce revolution, along with mediation and collaborative divorce (in which both parties hire lawyers but agree to keep it out of court). "It's the beginning of a nationwide change of thought that divorce has to be a confrontational thing," says Richard Kulerski, a Chicago-based lawyer who now specializes in friendlier tactics after 40 years on the battlefield of divorce.
Even in these happier splits, tensions are high at first. Alison, who now teaches co-parenting classes with Wes at a local community center, says, "When Wes and I first broke up, we couldn't be in the same room without our mediator. Gradually, we found a way to relate by focusing on what was best for our children." Their setup isn't without its critics, who tell Alison that she's "messing up" her kids. She says divorce equals hatred to these people because that's all they've ever seen. "It only takes one parent--even if the other is out there getting a restraining order--to say they're willing to work together. Rarely do partners get to that point at the same time, so you have to be patient."
The key moment for Wes, whose own parents divorced when he was young, was the Sunday evening when he asked Kaia how the weekend had gone with her mom. "It was clear she had done something fun with Alison and someone she was dating. I could tell she was pulled apart, not knowing if she should tell me," he recalls. "Finally, she let it out. That's when I realized I had a choice: to close off, or say, 'Oh, that's awesome!' And that's what I did. I couldn't stay tied up in despising Alison anymore. After I let go, living together didn't seem so crazy."
When Alison and Wes first brought up the idea of moving back into one home, their children worried that they would fight as often as they did during the death throes of their 10-year marriage. Alison admits they still know how to push each other's buttons, but now they make a real effort to acknowledge when they slip up and criticize each other unfairly--as they do from time to time, being human and all. "We're not avoiding conflict; instead, we're dealing with it differently," she says. Their son Noah says the turnaround in his parents' relationship borders on miraculous: "It's hard to believe. Almost right away I noticed that the fighting had died down. It seemed like heaven."
The new communal custody
Making things easier on the kids is, of course, the most powerful incentive for ex-spouses to keep turbulence to a minimum. Numerous studies have shown that having combative parents increases children's emotional volatility and aggressiveness. The general rule in the mental health field, says John W. Jacobs, M.D., a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York University, is that the worse the conflict between parents--whether they are married or divorced--the more difficult it will be for their children to form close relationships later in life. To protect their kids from this potentially nasty fallout, some exes are working hard, if not harder, at their relationship after the marriage is over.
Linda Kietzer, 50, got divorced 11 years ago and now lives only a half mile from her ex, Jonathan, whom she meets frequently for dinner to catch up on their two children's lives. Yet she says she still runs into people who expect her to bad-mouth him, because they just can't picture a split that is anything less than bitter. "We're fiercely loyal to each other," she says. "I shut down any negativity immediately." Milwaukee-based family therapist Holly Hughes Stoner says she's seeing more couples like Linda and Jonathan, who are really trying to find some common ground. "The more parents can say, 'We're still a united front'--with a lot of focus on the we--the better," she says.
"This idea of a dad pulling up in a woodie station wagon to take the kids every other weekend while the mom can't even look at him is really not what I'm experiencing as my reality," says Magda Pecsenye, 39, who with her ex-husband, Doug French, created the candid divorce blog When the Flames Go Up. Magda and Doug aren't the first exes to blog about divorce, but doing it together? That's what made them such a novelty when they popped up in the blogosphere in 2010. One of the things their readers appreciate most, says Doug, 46, is that they write so honestly about the challenges of true 50-50 custody. After coming across a sweet note that Magda had slipped into their 9-year-old's math textbook, Doug posted: "As it turns out, you can...create something that is, though not ideal, eminently livable: the situation when you're glad she's no longer your wife, but you're also glad she'll always be [your kids'] mom."
The Huffington Post picked up on this new, open conversation and in 2010 launched an entire section devoted to working through divorce. "Obviously people don't get divorced because they're happy with each other. Nobody is saying this is easy," says the site's founder, Arianna Huffington, whose marriage to former California congressman Michael Huffington ended in the late '90s. In the years just after their breakup, it took "real effort," Arianna says, for them to meet face-to-face, but she knew how important it was to her two daughters that she and her ex-husband come together without seismic eruptions of animosity. Now the exes take regular family vacations. "The pleasure of being with our children and seeing them happy became more important than hanging on to our own grudges," she says.
Pushing the boundaries
Fifteen years ago there were few alternatives to filing papers, says Kulerski, the collaborative divorce attorney. Mediation is an increasingly popular, less abrasive--and less expensive--option. "A divorce that goes to court can cost more than $25,000," he says. "People are fed up with spending more on their divorces than they did on their weddings." Kenny Smith and Geri Donenberg chose mediation when they split, saying it was better financially and emotionally. "There wasn't a lot of bitterness, but there was a considerable amount of pain and guilt," recalls Geri, who says that her frequent work trips caused conflict at home. At the suggestion of the mediator overseeing their divorce, she and Kenny sat down to write letters to each of their children--Emilia, now 13, and Sean, now 18--describing the lives they'd like their children to have in 10 years. "My daughter asked, 'Will we still do things as a family?' And in my letter to her, I promised her we always would," Geri says.
They kept that promise with joint outings to Sean's track meets and annual Hanukkah celebrations at Geri's. Last fall, Kenny and the kids joined Geri and her new husband (also named Kenny, which makes them all laugh) on a trip to Los Angeles for a nephew's bar mitzvah. "This was the first time we'd traveled together since we split," says Kenny. "I can't call Geri's husband and me close, but, you know, I really like him." Kenny says the trip solidified for him that he and his ex had done the right thing. "When Geri and I were withering in couples therapy, we knew it would be better for the kids if we met other people who made us happier," he says now, choking back tears. "It was an insanely hard decision, but it worked--the kids have two happy homes."
An alliance between an ex and the new partner was once the stuff of Desperate Housewives plots; now it's a common factor in many real-life splits. In fact, Amy Elliott, 38, considers Candie, her ex's new wife, a friend and almost a second mom to her daughter, Amani. For Amani's sweet 16 last year, Amy and Candie, 35, took Amani and four of her friends to St. Louis for a weekend celebration, with the mom and stepmom sharing one room while the girls crashed in another. Amani, who calls both Amy and Candie "Mom," says the trip was "the greatest ever. Some of my friends with divorced parents say, 'You're really lucky to have that. I wish my family got along that well.' And it's true--I am lucky. My mom and dad were friends first, and they're friends now."
Amani sounds truly content, doesn't she? In the end, finding an outcome that's best for the kids is what Thellen Levy, a San Francisco--based attorney who's been in practice for 33 years, wants for all her clients. "Having been in the litigation trenches, I used to get sick to my stomach representing clients who were making horribly devastating decisions that would affect their kids," says Levy, who now works only with exes willing to stay out of court. "There were no winners, just losers. But when divorcing couples have the right kind of support, they can put their kids at the center of all this--without putting them in the middle."
"Nobody is saying divorce is easy, but seeing our children happy became more important than hanging on to our own grudges."
Source: http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/advice/a14116/living-with-an-ex-after-divorce/
