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Renegotiating Relationships:

Perhaps the thorniest emotional issue for stepfamily members is working out who to be to each another, coming to terms with differences in attachment, and finding both/and solutions to apparent  either/or loyalty contests. Being a stepparent is not the same as being a parent, and the kind of relationship that can develop between stepparent and stepchildren will vary dramatically based on how old the children are when they become a family, how much time the children spends in the household, and whether they have both parents' blessing to open their hearts to a stepparent. For example, becoming  a stepparent to a toddler means very quickly becoming very like a parent. With a teenager, however, the stepparent is more likely to be accepted as a close adult friend, mentor, or "uncle."

Therapy can help stepfamily members explore what they expect of themselves, what they expect from each other, and what the world is telling them they should be to one another. Are they facing demands and asking of themselves feelings and behaviors that are more appropriate to first families? In therapy, stepfamilies can determine which of their beliefs are remnants from ill-fitting hand-me-down fashions and together design relationships that better fit their lives as they want to live.

For example: "Why should I work on making things better with my stepmom?,"18-year-old Mark asked his father. "After all, I'll be going to college in a few months, so what's the big deal?." When his wife and son get along, father countered, he feels warmer and more inclusive toward the young man. When they don't, he feels stressed.

 
How would it be different, I asked Mark in an individual session, if he thought of his stepmother, not as another parent, but more like a mother-in-law. He talked about watching his Dad make an effort to get along with his wife's mother and how Mark expects that, out of respect for his future wife, when he marries he will also behave respectfully toward his mother-in-law. We began to explore what it means to be related to someone by someone else's marriage, and he came to appreciate the effort it takes to be cooperative was to the benefit of all.

Ten-year-old Jane, in another example, spent much of the time with her father "arguing" about anything and everything. Very close to her mother and affectionate with her stepfather, she perceived her father as critical of her mother and angry at her for getting close to Mom's new husband. In therapy, I talked with Jane and her Dad about how they were struggling to figure out how to be a family with a Dad, a Mom, and a Stepdad in a way that left room for all of them to be important to her. Dad told her that he was hurt that their relationship had deteriorated, and that he wants her to recognize that he is a loving father. He went on to say that he can accept her being close to her stepdad if it doesn't mean that she pushes him away as a father. She saw that he was hurt, not just angry, and his anger dissipated as she told him that she finally heard that he does understand her.  Mediating conflicts between households.  Whether and how ex-spouses work together to parent their  children can make all the difference, both in the happiness and well-being of their children and in whether their remarriages-to other partners-are happy and enduring. A parenting coalition across households is the best way to "insure domestic tranquility." Lack of cooperation between separated parents exacerbates loyalty conflicts for their children, makes it harder to be an effective parent, and leaves adults feeling out of control of their own lives, leading to frequent uproar. Work in this area by Drs. Emily and John Visher,  founders of the Stepfamily Association of America, underlines the need for permeable but protective boundaries between households, so that adults can work together to raise their children well and each household can be organized to operate without undue interference.

Therapy can be particularly helpful in negotiating differences between households, defusing conflict. While coordination of routines is helpful, that doesn't mean each parent must do things exactly the same. Whether the conflict is about the stepparent transporting the children to school, how to handle telephone calls so as to keep the lines of communication open without disrupting household routines, how and when transitions should occur, making school choices or planning for vacations and summer programs, or handling differing values or religious observance, therapy can help negotiate workable solutions to these and other sources of conflict. Frequently the issue is how to balance a parent's need for access to children when they're with their other parent with the other household's need for privacy and predictability.

Because divorced spouses frequently have a history of disappointment and distrust to overcome, therapy can be an opportunity to forge a new relationship based on a newly arrived at  respect for each other as parents. My very first family therapy experience, as a student many years ago, involved a stepfamily that I saw with my professor. There was considerable conflict between  households, based to some extent on Mom's having sowed some wild oats in the years following the divorce. In a session that included Dad and his new wife, and Mom and her new husband, being in the same room and seeing for the first time that the new mates were sensible, reliable people went a long way toward changing the climate from hostility to cautious but pleasant cooperation. 

Mediation:

Some stepfamilies feel more open to mediation than to therapy in settling interhousehold conflicts. Mediation is a family centered conflict resolution process in which an impartial third party assists the participants to negotiate an informed and mutually acceptable solution. In mediation, as in therapy, decision-making authority rests with the parties. The role of the mediator includes reducing the obstacles to communication, maximizing the exploration of alternatives, and addressing the needs of all those who are involved in or touched by the conflict. Mediation is explicitly short-term and solution-focused, which can also be true of some approaches to therapy.

What to look for in a therapist:

This article has tried to demonstrate how very helpful therapy can be for stepfamilies who are experiencing difficulty. But  not all therapies are equally helpful, and some approaches can  actually make things worse. For therapy to be effective with stepfamilies, it is important that the therapist have a thorough knowledge of what stepfamily life is like and how it differs from families in which the adults are a couple before either of them becomes a parent. In choosing a therapist, be sure to look for the following qualifications:

1)  Your therapist should be a    
      professional-marriage and family 
      therapist, social worker, psychologist, or    
      psychiatrist-licensed by your state. In states that
      don't require licensure, the therapist should be a 
      member in good standing of their professional 
      organization, such as the American Association 
      of Marriage and Family  Therapists, the 
      Association of Clinical Social Workers, the
      American Psychological Association, etc.

2) Your therapist should have explicit training and 
     experience in working with stepfamilies. This is 
     of vital importance. Don't be hesitant to ask a 
     prospective therapist what his or her education 
     and experience about stepfamilies has been. 
     One way to find a qualified therapist is by 
     contacting the Stepfamily Association of 
     American  (SAA) at www.stepfam.org. The SAA 
     has a list of therapists who are trained to 
     understand what makes stepfamilies different 
     than first-married families and how to work 
     effectively with stepfamily problems.

*See Elion, D. (1990) Therapy with remarriage families with children: Positive interventions from the client perspective. Unpublished Master's Thesis, University of Wisconsin-Stout, and Pasley, K., Rhoden, L., Visher, E.B., & Visher, J.S. (1996) Successful stepfamily therapy: Clients' perspectives. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 22: 343-357.

Anne Bernstein, Ph.D.
is a Licensed Family Psychologist and Mediator in Berkeley, CA.
She is a professor at the Wright Institute, and a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Anne is the author of:
Yours, Mine, and Ours: How Families Change When Remarried Parents Have a Child Together

Flight of the Stork: What Children Think (and When) about Sex and Family Building