Friday, June 15, 2012

Time: deadly weapon or life saver…a matter of attitude. Some ideas about the adjustment period


Walking on the tricky roads of daily life of a step family pattern, determination and patience are key to develop the strength necessary to successfully overcome the difficulties involved, from both sides, equally. That “equally” part is the hardest one, even when there’s love and commitment on both sides of the marriage. Information gathering is vital as well as awareness regarding the length of time adjustment takes and rational conscience about it. I may be wrong, but despite the fact no one comes lectured on how to raise a family and one learns and grows on the road, I strongly believe that to handle the step family pattern does require rational discussion, research, outsource information and planning. The “natural” flow one can find in a regular family cannot be found in a stepfamily by matters of spontaneous generation (I’m not saying it cannot happen, but it is not the average), they are not the same; the functionality and harmonious development does require a different approach in order to be successful at it. Help from an independent source and counseling is key, but pride will often put aside that alternative. Even when all the ducks are in a row and the stars aligned towards a marriage… an inappropriate management of the “step” part in the new family can kill a few ducks and vanish a few stars. It does require clarity and objective analysis of the characteristics of the elements and circumstances involved, conciliation and an objective approach, it demands rational expectations...easy to say, hard to accomplish. Family matters tend to be emotional. Step families, because of the conflictive emotions it may raise, demands the utmost dose of rationalism and realism on expectations. It does require equanimity more than good will and wishes; it would be great to find tons of it in the parent spouse.

Time then could be an ally or an enemy, depending on the side you’re on. Time can save the day… and the marriage day by day, if you understand that time is of the essence and no one knows the specific amounts of it that a determined stepfamily will need to begin acting as a functional one (basic functionality). Time also can be a deadly weapon, if your expectations are unrealistic, or anxiety is bigger than you and common sense or logic. The secret: to go smoothly… both spouses should share perspective… but  I can tell It is not the usual way to go. Something everyone should know and interiorize: the adjustment period is a matter of years –and not one or two-, it can take more than five years. That’s why patience and perseverance is so important; it is easy to be visited by negativism and desperation, and anxiety can threat a great marriage which otherwise could result a successful one.  

 My experience placed my husband and me on opposite sides on that matter. Time was a conflictive factor among us then, but it is turning OK I guess. What do I mean? His mind was set considering everything should be easy. Looking at his kids with the eyes of love, he truly believed affection would come by default because he could not find anything but the best characteristics in them. Overlooking personalities, he thought he would have a family  full of candid interaction quickly. Believing I should accept everything, he thought I had certain “obligations”, and being me the one “accepting the package”, the burden was on me ONLY. I’m sure he truly believed there was no reason other than my own lack of effort for the tardiness on the process, thus he carved his own frustration and desperation. On the other side, when I had a clear picture of where I was, I immediately knew it would take time, so I place my bet on it.

During all these years, I’m sure my husband has been feeding the anger monster with frustration because the Bready bunch is not emerging. I’m sure he has confronted his love for me with his resentment towards what I’m sure he believed my lack of effort. Time was an enemy for him. He was looking at the years coming and saying good bye without the gift of his utopic vision. Had I shared such a perspective, time would have been a deadly weapon to our marriage. He then adopted a position of expecting nothing, like taking for granted a failed effort to constitute a step family close to functional, which probably placed in jeopardy the marriage effort. A while ago I heard him say: “if it has not happened in five years it will never happen”. That confirmed my suspicious on the fact he never had the right information or objective perspective on the development of step families. I’ve been suffering with his anger episodes, and wishing I could heal his pain, but he needed to overcome that stage by his own, and I needed to preserve my emotional health to support him on the road and have the strength to walk it with him.

It is not that I had the answers, but I kept myself gathering information on the subject, and studying the topic seeking advice and support. One of the very first things I had clear was that the initial adjustment process takes years (and not one, not two nor three as I mentioned). A few books I read coincided in a 6 years average. I knew I should not let anger or frustration invade my spirit, I commanded myself to keep a low profile and wait, I correctly expected a challenge of patience, and I can see the rewards a few steps ahead.
A few weeks ago, a paragraph on my daily readings made me think on the issue, and breathe its truthfulness:


As wonderful as it is to have found love the second time around, living in a blended family can seem particularly stressful at times. Newly formed stepfamilies -- and experts say that "new" is a term that can apply for up to seven years, as everyone learns to navigate old loyalties, unfamiliar relationships, and developmental changes -- need lots of advice, and they know it. Conflict about how to handle kids is tough on everyone and can be murder on a marriage. (It's one of the reasons second unions fail more than first ones.) We've got advice on how to handle the most predictable hurdles”.
 
Experts are right, I’m living evidence. Despite the fact we’ve been together for 6 years, I honestly think our true road began three years ago, as I previously explained in an early blog.  It has taking years for my husband to overcome guilt and give me, our marriage and our family the right place (a place I would say). My son’s birth was the trigger to this positive change. It took years for him to understand that by having a new life and be happy living it did not involve downgrading the place of his other kids. It took years for him to act coherently with the fact the he had a new family.  It took years to stop his incessant verbal obsession of telling me who was first and that under a given facts, I would be the dispensable one.  It is taking years for me to adapt to way unfamiliar relationships and approaches, to navigate being who I am among circumstances which directly conflict with my principles. And it took  years for those kids to grow up, and once they were older, develop and  overcome difficult stages and softening things while they get older and the natural independence they’re getting makes my husband realize that he has to take care of his own life too, instead of sabotaging it because of guilt or unfulfilled time expectations. Time has taken away lots of conflict sources; we did not solve many of them, but they disappeared and we were able overcome the feelings related.

Time was kind with me, the Heavens were generous. Time is helping us to make it. Despite my husband’s opposite approach towards time, it has come to our rescue. Time, and the perseverance which accompanies it, has become the lifesaving boat that has protected our marriage. Things would have been easier if we both would have had a more realistic perspective of the time it takes to put things on track. Such awareness I do think now is vital to pursue common goals and reach success in the establishing of an acceptable functionality of the blended family.

Time has made us all grow, reason why, time has helped us lessen the hardship, to highlight the positives, to use the care and concern to prepare the soil for the seeds of affection, time has weakened prides and open our minds and eyes to begin having a more realistic idea of who we are. I’m sure it will work with our hearts too.

Time has made us grow as a couple; consequently the strength of that bond is close to allowing us the ability to design a strategy with rationalism and objectivity, instead of pride, anger and partial views. Time has taken away a lot of the conflicting issues, time has brought solutions to remaining ones, and strength to keep dealing with the unsolved.
The bottom line is that managing a step family should not be left to luck, but to informed decisions, strategies and well established notions regarding its development, it requires a drop of rational methodology...sort of speaking. One should have a clear understanding of the time it takes to adjust, to be patience, to not become dangerously

Sunday, June 10, 2012

First time mother... second wife

During the almost 6 years I’ve been with my husband, only the first one – a few months actually- involved some (a lot actually) uncomfortable moments because of his ex. Thinking about it, I would say it was not actually because of her but because of my husband’s poor management after his divorce. He was, hiding in the pretext of the possibility of something happening to his kids, allowing people bother him (and us) calling at his cell phone for intolerable things 24/7. Yes, stupid calls woke us up in the middle of the night and questionable calls were made and carefully attended on weekends, dinners and conversations were mutilated, quite moments were disturbed, romantic moments were murdered. No, not a single one related to a reasonable need of his kids, not one related to an emergency (because Santa’s shopping list is not and emergency, and who was going to buy the cars when the kids reached 16 was ridiculously unreasonable (being the kids either infants, or 12 the oldest). Time washed out that stage quickly, reason why I just recall it with a twisted sense of humor. I know she existed, and does exist ( I know where my husband’s money goes, and is not towards nice clothes to me or house gadgets on demand). She definitively knows I exist; and if she is a bit of an observer, she should know my husband is a renewed man, and is doing fine, and growing as he would never had next to her (at his own credit… but not underestimating my part)
I have never had any kind of encounters and the only way I remember she exists is when I see her kids visiting my husband every other weekend. Meticulously, he has made all possible efforts to keep me away and unaware from any incidence coming from that side (of course, he still does not get that “sixth” sense one has and d thinks I actually ignore everything). But I have to recognize his efforts on the matter. I’ve had no hard times on those regards. I don’t even know how she looks. I do know she is not a good person though. Why? I’ve seen the deep rooted damages she’s left in my husband’s mind, soul, and skin. Someone capable to extirpate from a good human been any traces of trust, sensitivity, peace of mind and comfort, is not a good person. Someone capable to truly deteriorate the physical wellbeing of her spouse is not a good person to me. To be honest, I cry rivers every time I look at pictures of my husband back in those years, I look at him, and that person is not my husband, he could not have been my husband. To her disbelief probably, she must have been seeing the turn in his life (and I don’t think she’s happy about it, but who cares). She could not kill his vision, his efforts to climb goals, his desires to live better.
What I won’t do, is to criticize her “mother” side. I can’t, it would not be fair. Why? She may be doing what she knows, applying what she’s learned, living as she’s used to and displaying her own background. As my husband must have secretly recognized, his second wife is in the opposite place, 180 degrees from her and the life they had. Where I come from, who I am, what I believe, how I live, what I like is absolutely different, the opposite of what he saw, lived and learned during those years. Therefore, my roads, my sight and my north, clashes violently with the ways he was used to. Since that applies to my parenting style too, I know he must have a hard time understanding why the ways he applied with his other kids, and the ways he applied domestically in his previous household outrageously collide with my perspectives and goals. Yet I know that despite his resistance, his pride and toughness, he is now able to see things he never saw or thought before.
Where am I landing? I cannot be compared, because there’s no point in doing that, which is a good thing. It’s not that I think I am it, it is just hat you cannot try to compare the results of two completely different chemical formulas… there’s not constructive purpose. But for looking at the faces of her kids, I would forget her existence; thanks to my husband I have not had the hard times other second wives experience. But for that former legal contract and the living consequences of that, I can proudly say, it is as if I was his first wife in many ways. However, unfortunately, that regularly inexistent shadow happens to interfere like a shadow in the light in the most important life experience one can have: motherhood. It is when I became a first time mother that my shoulders felt the weight and precedence of the adjective “second” as in “second wife”. I’ve never experience trouble because of the shadows of the ex, she was an invisible harmless ghost. Yet the hardest fight I’ve had has been defending my rights in life to live the experience of being a first time mother. Weird isn’t it?
This is why, I did not live my pregnancy the way I would have wanted, because it happens that my husband's previous experiences where far distant from what someone like me would have expected. And since he went through that several times before… I was the unreasonable, pure inexperience maybe… his way was a proven one apparently… I still question that. I could not have clear skies the day my son was born, and the days after… because his worries were somewhere else, and even though I knew he loves me and he was beyond happy… his actions showed me the door to a second place (no, not behind my son which would have been more reasonable), by ignoring everything I said about how I wanted to live that experience, yielding to other interests related probably to his sense of guilt towards what he left behind. I’ve not been able to peacefully be who I am and peacefully do what I want for my son, since my road bifurcates from the road he had in terms of parenting, instead of learning and growing, it is easier to attack my ways when colliding with that other side of his life. Yes, things are getting done, but a lot of sweat is on the floor and a couple of tears on my cheek some times. Since he has always been in the middle of a kindergarten, and I have not, it seems I cannot freely and comfortable decide how to introduce my son to interact with other kids, because nothing has happened with his way, which is not the point: the dis-authorization and overruling of my attempts as a first time mother with my own beliefs and ways (which seems I cannot develop because they are interfering with his regular course of parenting business and the precedent rights of his side, or they turn offensive towards his side’s interests). I do know things will grow in complexity as my son will get older, and new challenges call at our door.
By now I know it sounds like pure complaining. But he’s the amazing positive effect of my struggle and discomfort in this motherhood battle overcoming the shadows of being the second wife: I became a warrior, motherhood wise. I’ve been prompted to analyze over and over the kind of parenting I want for my son, evaluating and re-evaluating my applicable principles. I became more than committed to raise my son with the full extension of the knowledge I’ve amounted and the knowledge I would seek every single day of my life. I know that as a wife my priority is to promptly and adequately take care of my husband and house, and I would fiercely do it every day of my life. Likewise, as a mother I will defend my son’s formation and my rights as his mother to exercise all the efforts I may find proper for his development and his steps in this life’s road. I methodically and consistently inform myself, I am my toughest critic, because I want to learn from my own mistakes, and grow from them, I want to grow as a mother, by the hand of my son’s growth. I could take any positive critic, but I will not subsume my right to experience motherhood my way to the comfort of anyone out of my household, nor will I subject my expectations to the shadows of the pattern of past times and their results. Every day is a new one, every day the past is one more step behind. Unexpectedly, the darkness sometimes threatens, but it happens to build a stronger me, and a stronger commitment towards my son’s future.
Furthermore, I have to give my husband some credit. Whether he wants to openly recognize it or not, I know he’s growing as a father too. He has the heaviest part. He’s aware now of things he never considered, he has seen over horizons he never considered, he’s realizing there was a huge and demanding world out there (parenting wise), he has to bare the pride and pain of being conscious of his own faults or lacks. It has been hard for me, I surely deserved easiness on the matter, but I’m aware it has been harder for him. I’m just developing my life project, so I was to expect some detours and obstacles to overcome; but he thought he had mastered those life stages, and the human soul does not easily accept the change or the hand’s mistake. He will have to learn to set aside guilt, which has no room in this subject matter, and take advantage of the lessons given by the roads that were not taken, and the new perspectives.
I’m proud of him, because despite it all, he always moves forward, whether he openly accepts it or not. When the anger dilutes, he becomes a better individual, a better husband, a better father. When the anger dilutes, I become a better wife, a better mother, I grow in patience, and harvest more than what I would if things would resulted the easy way. And as a couple, we learn from each day to be better the next one.
At this point, through difficulties and imbalances, life has offered me so many opportunities to grow, that beyond wondering what if, I look for the next step, because my son so deserves from us: stay looking for one step forward every day. He deserves a daily growth from his parents, because he is a unique experience for BOTH of us, he is beyond every one’s past experiences, he was blessed with new opportunities, and he does not have to stay in the same place others are just because of an irrational equity remedy based in a twisted idea of what equality means (equality calls to treat different those who differs, and equals in an equal manner) If God gave him a whole new set of roads, a whole new set of parents, further is the only way. He is beyond what has been done; he is future, something no shadow will take away from me, light which no shade will block its brightness. I’m not second in line; I’m his only mother, and my husband’s sole source of personal support. The two of them are my life, and they are worth all efforts.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Safe Harbors in Step Families

No, I did not find the answers every stepfamily member is looking for. No, I haven’t found the miracle formula. In fact, as of now, a few years on the road, I’m considering accepting like a proven fact that there are no safe harbors. Due to human nature, and all the sensitive components involved, conflict will always arise, even in the most harmonious families, even if all individuals involved are “nice people”.

I have arrived to my first conclusion of fact: good faith is the only umbrella we have available in the rainy roads of interaction within a stepfamily. Be intelligent enough to prepare to fight the worst, but hope for the best. Take Good faith in any single action, so my conscious can feel fine when the storms threaten and comfortable when the rain temporally stops.

I read a lot, got advice from insiders and professionals, I numbed my judgment so I could not infer right or wrong from my “step family members”, closed my eyes so I could not see if there was something unpleasant and enjoy when I could feel something good.  I tried silence (which was the hardest, and what had the worst results for me personally), I tried several recommended techniques (for instance, I applied  the method of not exercise authority directly but going to my husband first; I tried rewards systems in domestic chores -which I’m against to-, I tried to be invisible, so my husband’s kids would not  resent his new life, I tried to give them all the space  during the time they have so they could really enjoy his father, I tried to softly introduce my husband to new ideas I though may help to his kids’ improvement), I even basically stopped being me, because it seems that being who I was and exert my opinions the way I normally do,  will hurt susceptibilities. Nothing I tried was taken the right way. Nothing I said was taken in plain meaning. No gesture in my face escaped to judgment.

So I got tired. I quit. No, not from my marriage, not from my husband (that’s out of question) l but from the tiredness of spending a lot of effort in finding the best approach (objectively speaking, not what people expected) without results, since I was the only one who seemed aware about the time it would take and the difficulties a stepfamily involved per se. It seemed I was the only one visited by realistic expectations and that was not fair. So I decide to feel good and comfortable in my own skin: I decided to be me, with my very own and rooted values and opinions. I have to recognize it; it is hard to be me every other weekend, so I have not been entirely successful at it, but I’m not discouraged. 

I decided to rely in two things: good faith and time. Everything I say, do or suggest, has been always in good faith, and thinking it will help everyone to grow and improve. I learned also that time is the best remedy. Time dilutes differences, or finds a way to minimize their effects, either creating turnarounds, improving, or softening the roads. And slowly, things are getting course.

Time flies. Soon my husband’s kids will be on their own, reaching those ages when independence springs and probably I will see them less often. My son will be very demanding by then, and I’m sure some of my ideas will not sound that crazy or bad intentioned while applied to my son.

My husband and I will grow old, and there’s too much time ahead as to devastate my soul in unsuccessful efforts to prove me right or to prove my good intentions.  He married me because he knew I would bring goodness to his life.  I just pray for guidance, wisdom and tolerance. I pray… to not be hurt when accused, to persevere when tired, to love when attacked, to look beyond the difficulties, to have such a dynamic mind so I could find solutions for the sake of everyone. I pray for the peace my son and I deserve, the home we’re constructing, the life and the home I want for him, and for my husband and me.

I wish for the best to my husband’s kids, even though we may not be in the same page. They deserve goodness. I pray for their wellbeing. I move honestly and in good faith. Worries will always be present, that’s the parent’s story of life. Impulsive answers to worries are to be fear.  

I also pray for my peace of mind and the consolidation of my own family, I have the right to do so. I will always be defending my best interest and my son’s best interest, and my marriage’s best interest, yet I would keep in mind what’s best for everyone and, to favor my side, I would not move to destroy the other one. Maybe because in defending that other side, sometimes my husband has attempted against our own wellbeing, and I do not believe in such unfair method. Second does not mean last… conversely I will say… present weights more when planning for future. That’s why I finally disposed of the feeling of having no right to defend what I have and what I want.

I’m not sure whether silence or speaking out is the better way; I’m in the process of analyzing that.  Silence may reward when time lapses the challenges, but may annul the right to have voice. Speaking out may help to healthy discuss and operate agreements and solve conflicts if partiality is not involved (the trickiest part), but words to an unprepared ear may be taken the wrong way and endanger what otherwise could be stable. So, that’s my current quest.

Due to the unavoidable nature of the interest within stepfamilies, there’s nothing I can do or say that could redeem me from judgment. I know, knowing the elements currently involved in my case, no matter how best my intentions might be or how objective my perspective might be, I’ll be under the microscope, and trying to save my skin from the statistics of misunderstanding. Moreover, I will often find myself at the losing side of the table; I’m not expecting my ideas to be considered as the right ones… I know there will be a few tears involved once in a while. But I’m strong enough as to keep standing and fighting for my family.

Thus, I would hold on to my good faith approach when dealing with stepfamily issues. I owe that to my husband, and I believe in the peace of mind it gives me when the tides are up. Life cannot be unfair with me, at least in theory, if I fairly move always in good faith.
Whether others agree or not (I do respect different views), I put everything in God’s hands, and walking in good faith, I hope for the best.