One Family's Journey to Healing
We are recreating the design of family faster than we are creating
language, behavior, expectations and responsibilities.

I was divorced in the 1986 when my daughter was 8 years old. When I started dating and realized that perhaps one day I would remarried, I remember thinking that I would like to marry a man who already had children. I never thought about what it would mean to be apart of a step or blending family. And just how that would impact my life.

In 1990 I married a man who has two children. My husband also has an ex-wife, ex-in-laws, plus my husbands ex-wife has a long time live-in significant other. The coming together of my daughter and myself, my husband, his children, his ex wife, her significant other and her parents has been a very difficult task.

Our children were young teenagers when we met. They seemed to bond with relative ease, especially our daughters who are the same age. My step son and daughter always seemed to have an understanding with one another. Of course there were fights as in any sibling relationship, but they knew from the very beginning that we were a family and that this family was, "Until death do us part".

From the beginning I formed a special bond with both of my husband's children. Today our children are 21 and 23, beginning their own lives, but they still share a sense of family. It was hardest for the adults to accept and live peacefully with all of the new players. I am happy and proud to say that we are now an extended family and are continually learning how to interpret the roles we have in each other lives. Once we made the concerted effort to acknowledge and create this new form of family, we have done so with ease.

It is very difficult to form a blending and extended family. Part of the dilemma of blending families is that there are few, if any cultural guidelines to follow. For example, we know how to behave and what is expected of us when we become in-laws. But we really do not know what our role is with our spouses ex-spouse. There is no language for these new members of the family and for the most part we do not acknowledge them as members of our extended family, nor do we think of them as friends. They may actually be seen as advisories, intruders and a relationship built on this type of foundation can be very draining. Without guidelines and language it is very difficult to create family or friendships. We are recreating the design of family faster than we are creating language, behavior, expectations and responsibilities.

It is now almost two years since we have established an understanding that we are in each others lives and that we can be supportive to one another, we can even be friends.. My own story is probably not all that different from the many other women who have married men who have previously been married. It took over eight years for the adults to come together. The most difficult part of my journey was learning how to be friends with my husbands ex-wife, Jane. It was something that I had to do, not for the sake of my husband or his children, but for my own well being. I knew that it was possible to have a relationship with my husband's ex wife because I was aware that two of my male cousins had developed family ties with their ex's and their new spouses. I knew too, that it would take time and patience.

What I did not know was that it would take a lot more than that. It became a deep personal journey inward. Jane became my mirror and I had to examine just what it was that she was exposing in me and what was angering and frustrating
me so.  The two main issues that I was confronted with with were control and anger. And then I had to learn to deal with issues of jealousy. I had no role model and I was very confused by all the emotions that were being conjured up because of having Jane in my life.

For years I felt in the midst of an angry tug of war. For the first seven years of my marriage my husband's relationship with Jane was based on anger and fighting. Jane and my husband had a connection between them that needed to be resolved and then re-formed. I came to understand, with great difficulty, that I had to step away and give them the space to heal their wounds. Perhaps by simply respecting their boundaries and mine, this was able to take place. I was hurt when my husband was unable to set boundaries for himself and for letting Jane manipulate him. I felt that Jane was trying to control her children in ways that were interfering with my life with my new husband. Perhaps she was, maybe not. I do not know. It seemed that no matter what my husband and Jane did, I had to enter into the picture and would become angry and frustrated as well. I saw myself in her anger. I was being forced to look in places within myself that I had avoided and feared most of my life. As I sifted through my own reactions, I was able to see myself more and more clearly in the mirrors provided by Jane and by her relationship with my husband. Perhaps too, I was jealous of their relationship, past and present. I think all three of us, really had no

idea of how to behave; for Jane and my husband on how to be cordial ex-spouses who share and love their children; for Jane and myself, who had the awkward relationship of having been married to the same man; and even for myself and my husband on how do we deal with his ex-wife.

There were no road maps for any of us to follow. The difficulties between the three of us kept growing and none of us were capable, at the time, to make the necessary adjustments. I could no longer take having Jane call our home, because most times an argument with ensue. I did not know how to pull myself out of the turmoil and that must have added to the confusion. I did something that may sound radical; I sent a note to Jane asking her not to call our home and explained that I could no longer deal with the arguing. Jane respected this, and I am very appreciative that Jane was respectful of my request. A year later, I came to a halting revelation: that I can pretty much choose to be married to my husband, and I do, than his ex-wife must be part of the picture. I sent another note, this time asking to simply put the past aside and to begin again as friends. I give Jane much credit because she has been able to do this with such dignity.

Our first meeting was for her son's college graduation. The whole family went, myself, my husband, all of our children, Jane and her boyfriend and her parents. Our first few minutes were a bit awkward and then we eased in a relationship. Her boyfriend and I have an inside take on "our family", we share the sense of being "the in-laws".. My husband too, understands that Jane's boyfriend provides yet another adult to be involved with and to love his children. I hope too that my presence in the my stepchildren's lives offers them love and support. In the two years , we have shared several family events, holidays and a funeral. Jane's father died recently and it was our privilege to help support the grieving family, which of course included my stepchildren, their mother and grandmother. Having been able to succeed at this relationship has been and continues to be a very gratifying and healing experience.

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