Living Happily Ever After
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Blog Articles

A Signature

Date: March 17, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“The past is behind, learn from it.” (Thomas S. Monson)

As I’ve mentioned before, after we married my husband and his son moved into our home. To ease his son’s “culture shock,” my husband modified my family and house rules for his son. Which meant four children in the home lived one way and one child in the home lived another way. I don’t know what the experts would say about that but lets just say I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t appear to work. Honestly, I think it was frustrating for all parties involved. For my stepson, and despite the modifications, it still wasn’t his family, his former life, his former home and the way he was used to living, so I don’t think he was happy even with the modifications. Some of the children in the home couldn’t help but notice (and comment) about the differences and some of the younger children hounded me to have the same privileges and rules as the stepson instead of the ones our family had always lived by. With each passing month, it seemed to me like the arrangement wasn’t working very well but there was nothing I could do, I was the powerless new step-parent. And my poor husband simply tried to hold it all together for as long as he could!

Six months later my stepson moved in with his mother. He appeared happy to have a peaceful and quiet life again and to have his wishes repected regarding his living situation. I hoped it would turn out to be a good decision for him and that he would finally be happy. My husband missed his son.

A few months after that, my husband’s daughter was struggling in her life and living situation and it became necessary for her to find a new place to live. When the news reached her mother, she showed up on our porch one night, worried, emotional and panicked…and told my husband she couldn’t take her. Due to the challenges involved, my husband had some reservations about our ability to accommodate the needs of his daughter but we decided to give it a try. However, we had learned a few things from the previous experience; lessons taught to us courtesy of our inexperience and I wasn’t about to repeat them again!

I told my husband that for our situation, a contract (outlining rules, expectations and why things were expected, our parenting philosophy, etc…) was necessary. I wanted everyone involved to know and understand why I do what I do and why I emphasize certain things in the lives of the children I raise in our home. (Things like family time, chores/service to the family, good attitudes, faith/church activity, education/homework/good grades, obedience; I don’t think I insist on totally terrible or unrealistic things!) I was happy to do my part, but I wanted everyone to do their part, as well—including backing me up as a parent in my own home. I may have also said (ok, I totally did say) that unless all parties agreed to it and signed the document, we’d have to re-evaluate the situation and our decision. I feel THAT strongly that parents should be able to parent the children living in their home, regardless of who the children are, and I feel that way for so many reasons (to0 many to detail here.)

Interestingly, my husband consulted a counselor who suggested the very thing I had. The counselor had worked with teenage girls and their mothers just like my husband’s and advised, “Get it in writing and have all of the adults sign it.” I was assigned the task of writing the document, probably because I was the parent who felt very strongly about some things based on our previous experience (aka. I was the parent with the issues and concerns!) I wrote it, gave it to my husband, he reviewed it and added his input, and then I looked at him and said, “Now it’s your job to get it signed.”

Poor guy.

I know Hollywood makes divorce look easy, like it’s blissful and easy to separate, rebuild new lives, create new families and everyone can be one big happy family–the husband, the wife, ex-wives, ex-husbands, stepchildren, half-siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and everyone else involved. I know some families who have done that and it works for them. I’m sure the aforementioned situation is true in every situation…but ours. And while we’re only one year into it and I know things change and ease into place over time, at this point, I believe in being polite and kind to everyone but my opinion (and take it with a grain of salt because I’m not a fan of divorce and never have been; my husband says my views of divorce and my ideas about it are “archaic”—right out of the 1970s!) is that there’s usually a reason men and women choose to divorce, preferring to destroy their family unit and put their children and their finances through all that that entails rather than remain married to one another. I believe if you can get along well enough to be one big happy family, spend your holidays together, and be good friends post-divorce, you should probably just work out your issues and remain married in the first place!

My husband had to get the document signed and by that time, I think he had a lot of hope. He had the chance to live with one of his children again and  he desperately wanted to live one of his children again. He had a lot riding on that document. He needed his ex-wife’s signature to make it all possible and he was worried about that last tiny detail of the deal.

A signature.

“A signature always reveals a man’s character – and sometimes even his name.” (Evan Esar)

Moving

Date: March 16, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights, so it looks like I’m the only one moving.” (Stephen Wright)

I realized the other day that I’ve moved children in and out of the same bedroom three times in the same year. No wonder it feels like I’m the only one moving, or moving a lot, these days!

First, it was my middle son. Who got moved out so my husband’s son could move in with us. I know the move was hard on my son, especially after losing and moving from the only home and bedroom he’d ever known for almost 10 years, to a new home and bedroom in a new state, and then less than two years later being moved out of his bedroom once again. Compared to how some children would react in his situation, I admire my son for his good attitude and his willingness to sacrifice for someone else and for the good of the family. My husband hoped that a new dad in the house, a dad who would focus on the needs of “the one” (in this case, my son) would compensate for the necessary move. I think that has more than been the case. My son is better and happier than ever, although occasionally he wistfully reminisces about how much he liked that room! And his younger brother, my youngest, is already begging to be the next child to live in that room. It’s a popular room, I guess.

Then we moved my stepson in. The new occupant of the bedroom, almost 13 years old at the time but looking and acting a lot older than that in many ways, went from basically being an only child (his siblings hadn’t lived with him for several years) in a quiet bachelor pad with his dad, this son pretty much the center of his father’s universe, to one of now five children in a busy, loud home that, compared to the way he was raised, was an entirely different world and culture (I’ve said it before, and it’s true: different mothers=different family cultures, different values, different rules, different everything in our case). Poor kid. He lasted six months and went to live with his mother who had moved a few blocks away from us. (But that is another blog post in itself that will never be written! Lol. Lets just say while it is convenient for the child, I’m a woman who prefers boundaries and would never have chosen, had I had any input in the matter, to move that close to a former spouse or to have an ex-wife move that close to me. Just another of those remarriage “moments” my husband and I shake our heads and laugh about!)

The room was in limbo for a few months and then, lo and behold, my husband’s daughter was struggling where she was and needed a place to live. That bedroom of rotating occupants was available and just the thing. I gathered the last of the stepson’s personal items, moved them out, and got the room ready for his sister to move in. But that isn’t all I did.

I had learned a few things in that first year of marriage, remarriage, “blending” families, stepchildren, etc… Things were going to be different this time around. Before another child moved in, there was going to be an agreement made between the parents. ALL of the parents. And it was going to include, for the first time, the mother of the home the child would be living in. The stepmother. (Boo! Hiss!) Little wicked, little evil, little mean and nasty old me.

“Her evil stepmother is trying to get her married off to the Prince of West Muffin Land. Cinder is very unhappy, but according to the tale, her Fairy Godmother arrives to save the day.” (Ed Balthazar)

Stay tuned.

Second Marriage Moment #28: An Epiphany

Date: November 14, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“When you take it personally, you eat it up, and now it becomes your garbage.” (Ken Lauher)

I became a mother in 1993. I’ve done a lot of parenting (and correcting of inappropriate behavior) 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year in and year out. I’ve also done a lot of celebrating, cheerleading, taxi driving, cooking, cleaning, laundry, tutoring, teaching, friendshipping and dancing (as in, dance parties in the kitchen)—all part of the territory! Motherhood has been my greatest joy; being a mother has been the finest thing I’ve ever done.

Enter divorce. Followed by a second marriage. To a man with four children. Totally uncharted territory for me the day I became…a stepmother. Sort of. I noticed the older adult children introduced me to everyone as their “dad’s wife,” and I realized the adult children don’t see me as their parent in any form. (For the record, I’m o.k. with that. I’d probably feel the same way in their shoes.) So we like each other and get along for now, and I’m hopeful that as most great relationships are founded in friendship, with time, many relationships grow to feel like “family” and maybe that’s what will happen with us.

However the youngest child moved into my home and we began the blending process. (Life in the blender, as one friend, also divorced and remarried, told me they call it at their house!) There have been steps forward and steps backward, complicated by completely opposite family cultures.

In an effort to better understand my stepson, I found myself constantly evaluating what had to be the logic and reasoning behind his choices and behavior. It was all so different from anything I’d experienced, as a parent, before; I was always attemtping to “walk in his shoes,” which resulted in me taking some of his behavior personally.

As soon as I realized that, I was appalled! I’d never taken my other children’s behavior and choices, or any other child’s behavior and choices, personally. WHY would I ever think to do that with a stepchild?

I wouldn’t. It was my step-parenting epiphany.

Second marriage moment #28: don’t take the choices or behavior of stepchildren personally. I don’t think it’s ever about you, it’s about the situation. So just let it go, every time, and love them anyway.

Pretty good advice for life, too.

Second Marriage Moment #27

Date: November 13, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

Second Marriage Moment #27 actually occurred before I married my husband. One night he called to tell me his son and his son’s friends were coming to my house to hang out. He told me the expectations he had shared with his son—and I made the mistaken assumption that he told me the rules he’d established so I could follow through and enforce them!

Wrong.

The son and his friends did things my fiance/husband had specifically forbidden and I called the son on it right away, as soon as I saw it transpire. In my culture, you see a wrong committed and you correct it then and there. It doesn’t matter who’s around. There’s no yelling or anger, you stop the behavior, re-establish expectations, and carry on.

Also in my culture: parents back each other up. If they disagree on parenting or anything else, they back each other up to the kids and resolve their differences privately. No big deal.

Except for one little thing which made it a BIG DEAL.

In my fiance/husband’s family, experience and culture, you take care of things later. After the friends are gone. All correction is done privately and to do anything else equals humiliation of the highest degree. (And the whole parents backing each other up thing? That never happened either.)

Oops. Second marriage moment #27 was a disaster.

Turns out, my fiance/husband had modified the rules after he’d told me what he expected, so his son hadn’t actually been disobedient; I just didn’t know that. In support of his father’s parenting, I called the son on his behavior immediately, and while his friends were in the vicinity—so I disciplined him AND humiliated him, according to his culture, in one moment, at the same time!

Way to go, Andrea!

Sometimes even I outdo myself.

But we got through it.

We talked it out as parents. I apologized to my stepson. And to his credit, he didn’t hold a grudge. In fact, this far past it…I can shake my head and laugh at the senseless disaster of it all. I mean, ” The next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it,” (Frank Clark) right?

I learned a lot from second marriage moment #27 and to laugh at it, continues the tradition of laughing at everything we can, instead of choosing to be overwhelmed by it, or get mad, at it all.

“I realize humor isn’t for everyone. It’s only for people who want to have fun, enjoy life and feel alive.” (“Real Life Quotes” blog, December 24, 2010, by Kevin Rayner)

Keep laughing.

Second Marriage Moment #25: The Counselor Was Right

Date: November 4, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture.” (Kak Sri)

I’ve always been the kind of person that appreciates cheerfulness, a positive attitude, a spirit of gratitude, a sense of humor and kindness and courtesy toward others. It’s pretty much how I’ve always tried to approached everything, every blessing and every challenge, in my life. And true to form, it’s how I entered into remarriage.

I thought that if we all tried to be cheerful, if we all had positive attitudes, if we all counted our blessings instead of our misfortunes, if we all laughed at ourselves and some of the crazy blended-family situations we now found ourselves in, if we were just polite to one another, everything would (at least) be tolerable. It’s how I raised my children; it’s the home life I’ve always espoused; and it has worked well for us: the good times have been really, really good; and the challenges, even the practically unbearable ones in the wake of a Ponzi scheme revelation, the venom we endured, the divorce and complete life change which resulted from the situation brought upon us by a former family member, were more bearable because of it.

Unfortunately, the remarriage counselor had a different view. He actually told us to expect issues—and he told us what they would be! I was NOT a fan of all the counselor told us to expect. And, I recognize (now) I was extremely naive to think all of the above could eliminate from our lives what every other remarriage situation brings to all family members. I learned, firsthand, the professional expert, the remarriage counselor, did indeed know what he was talking about. Every single issue he told us to prepare for came to pass in the course of our engagement, our marriage, or in the months afterward!

Looking back, I guess it was easier to know what to expect (even though I’d forgotten to expect it by the time it happened). I recommend premarital counseling to everyone. On those occasions when an issue would arise, we were prepared for it to some degree. My husband would look at me and say, “No problem, we were told this would happen, we’ll make it work.” And he always did, we always did, reminding ourselves, “This, too, shall pass.” And it always does.

One thing the remarriage counselor failed to mention, however, was the impact mothers have on their children; especially the impact of different mothers raising their children! Remarriage, and my husband, have taught me, “Different mothers equals entirely different cultures!” I believe you can attribute most blended family issues to that.

As a result, while there have been some great moments, there have been some challenges. I even dared wonder, about three weeks into our marriage (and on one or two other occasions), “WHAT have I done? Can I really endure the issues that come with this territory?” But what marriage doesn’t make you wonder that at some point, even a first marriage? And as my husband always points out, “At least the issues are never with each other or between us.” True, and that’s something to be grateful for.

Another thing I’m grateful for is that despite eight months of marriage, he is still holding on to the whole “soulmate thing” with all of his heart. And the longer I’m married to him, the more I think he’s right. How awesome it is to have found mine, so unexpectedly, thanks, once again, to…the unexpected life.

Oh, the counselor was right about something else, too: It CAN be done. It IS worth it. And, to quote him, “You two are going to be just fine!” Second marriage moment #25.

“Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

What blessings has YOUR unexpected life brought you?

Two Worlds

Date: July 25, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Culture is roughly anything we do and the monkeys don’t.” (Lord Raglan)

Remarriage means attempting, and learning how, to blend two completely different worlds. Two different lives. Two different families. And as #5 wisely observed, basically, “two completely different cultures.”

Second marriage moment #19? The reality and sum of the remarriage equation in my world: ex-wife/mother of stepchildren plus wife/mother of other children equals two completely different, opposite, family worlds. And its ramifications confront you, literally, every single day to those who live together. As optimistic as I prefer to be, I confess, it is not always an easy reality. Mark that second marriage moment #19a. (A difficult pill to swallow, at times, for the overly optimistic me.)

So how do you deal with it? I believe you handle it  like any other challenge in life, expected or otherwise: laugh. Because family, blended or otherwise, and “Rastafari not a culture, it’s a reality.” (Bob Marley) There are some pretty crazy, and darn funny, moments, aren’t there? Sometimes all you can do is shake your head and laugh.

Lastly, never forget that challenges are meant to be overcome; that they CAN be overcome. Second marriage moment #19b: the day my youngest sister, remarried and a stepmother for almost a decade now, told me: “Hang in there. EIGHT YEARS LATER, it’s a LOT better!” Oh, good. Only seven years, 7 months to go! Lol.

But I believe it can be done. And I’m going to be one of many who successfully does it. Anyone can, even if they don’t always think they can, like those moments of, “WHAT have I gotten myself into?” I imagine even original, biologically-related parents of families might wonder that on occasion, as well, huh?

Those moments are when we listen to Oprah. “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” (Oprah Winfrey)

That’s what I’m doing. I’ve mounted the high wire of remarriage and blending families; there have been some great moments. In fact, “I’ve had quite a few moments I’ve liked, so it’s good enough.” (Bryan Ferry)

And I’m looking forward to many more.