Del Haley of Portland says his wife, Shauna Haley, is the poster mom of stepmothers.

When the Haleys were first married, Del had a 1-year-old daughter, Madison, who lived in Yakima, Wash. with her mother. Every other weekend, Shauna traveled to Yakima with Del so they could spend time with Madison, who is now 10. Later – after the Haleys had two children of their own – Madison came to Portland to visit in the summer, and Shauna worked hard to ensure her stepdaughter felt at home.

“Shauna hasn’t once showed resentment about Madison being in our family,” says Del Haley. “She makes Madison feel like one of her own.”

In spite of Shauna Haley’s open heart and commitment to her stepdaughter, the Haleys have grappled with a number of challenges as a stepfamily. Because Madison lives far from Portland, the Haleys can’t share her daily life with her, attending her soccer games, dance recitals and parent-teacher conferences, says Shauna Haley. In addition, the Haley’s family culture – expectations about what Madison eats, whether she watches TV and how she should spend her leisure time – is very different from Madison’s mother’s. And at times, relations with Madison’s mother are strained.

These are classic stepfamily challenges, and they represent just some of the hurdles that can arise when divorced parents tie the knot. “People don’t know what they are getting into when they form stepfamilies,” says Susan Wisdom, a licensed professional counselor in Portland and co-author, with writer Jennifer Green, of the book, Stepcoupling (Three Rivers Press, N.Y.). “It can be a horrible shock. They feel the tugs and pulls of children and ex-spouses and are surprised when they don’t have their new spouses to themselves.”

However, according to experts, if parents can educate themselves about stepfamilies before getting married, embrace flexibility, commit to getting along with ex-spouses, and focus on strengthening their own relationship, they’ll navigate these hurdles and create a nurturing family. And those nurturing families will help both the parents and children involved mature in ways they never thought possible (see box on “How Stepfamilies Help People Grow Emotionally”).

Preparing for Challenges

Before stepfamily members begin reaping those benefits, they must plan for the initial shock of living with step-relatives, either by reading about blended families or seeing a pre-marital counselor, says Dr. Shirley Hanson, a marriage and family therapist and professor emeritus at the Oregon Health Sciences University School of Nursing. If they don’t anticipate potential challenges, they can become overwhelmed by surprises.

This was true for Tatiana Tannenbaum when she moved from Moscow, Russia to marry Portlander Leb Tannenbaum. Like many new stepmoms, Tannenbaum entered stepfamily life blindly in love. Suddenly she found herself in Portland learning to adapt to a new culture and life with three stepsons who weren’t particularly excited to have her around, she says. To earn her stepsons’ acceptance, she cooked Russian meals, which the boys rejected. At times, she spoke English and felt as if no one understood her. During these early times, it seemed all her efforts to win them over failed, she says.

Such transitions go more smoothly if divorced parents anticipate potential problems and do a littler research, says Hanson. “A person can do a lot of reading about loyalty issues, about jealousy, about relationships with former spouses,” she says. “And I’m a strong believer in pre-marital counseling and prenuptial agreements.”

However, it’s important to keep in mind that parents can never be completely prepared for stepfamily life, says Joe Hertzberg of Portland, who has a stepdaughter, Lara, who is now in her twenties. “You can have a prenuptial agreement about who gets the house or the stock. But you can’t have a prenuptial agreement about how things will be when you live together in a stepfamily,” he says. “You just need to have your eyes open. Stuff is going to come up and you need to be committed to dealing with it.”

Preconceived Notions

Hertzberg’s brand of commitment and flexibility are critical to creating successful stepfamilies, experts say. Too often, divorced parents enter blended families with clear expectations about how everyone will behave. Often, they expect their family to look and feel like a conventional family, which sets them up for disappointment. “They think it will be a traditional family,” says Wisdom. “But there’s nothing traditional about stepfamilies.”

Rather than entering a stepfamily with pre-set ideas, new stepparents need to proceed slowly and patiently, says Mark Henry, a stepfather and licensed professional counselor in Portland and Lake Oswego. They should try to identify their roles as they get to know their stepchildren. They may decide it’s more appropriate to behave like an uncle, aunt or friend than like a biological parent. “You should find out where the children feel comfortable with you,” Henry says.

After a few years in a blended family, Hertzberg decided to re-consider his expectations. At first, he really wanted to feel more like a dad to his stepdaughter, Lara. But because Lara was so close to her mother, Nancy, Hertzberg often felt abandoned and rejected by both his wife and stepdaughter, he says. Eventually, he took on a new role as a stepdad. “I decided my primary goal was to support Nancy,” he says.

Dealing with the ‘Ex’

As people in stepfamilies, like Hertzberg, strive to keep their expectations in check, they’ll likely need to grapple with feelings about their spouses’ ex-husbands or ex-wives. Often, parents in new blended families expect to have their new spouses all to themselves, says Wisdom. And they’re often disappointed when they discover that their spouse’s “ex” is not completely out of the picture.

“ Naturally, ex-spouses sometimes are still single and hoping for reconciliation,” says Wisdom. “And ex-spouses will resent the newcomer and the newcomer forming relationships with their ex-spouse’s kids.”

It’s tempting to get angry about the role ex-spouses play in a blended family. Instead, parents and stepparents need to work as hard as possible to get along with the ex-spouses. When the adults argue, the children get caught in the middle. “Even if there’s just some underlying tension, you’ll still see it reflected in the kids,” says Jean Wright, a licensed professional counselor in Portland. “They may withdraw, act out or get more irritated. It’s an unsettled way of being in the world.”

To ease such tension, divorced parents need to establish civil relationships with their ex-spouses. And parents should permit stepchildren to forge relationships with stepparents. “Parents need to give their children permission to have relationships with their stepparents. Otherwise, the kids may feel as if they’re being disloyal to the parents,” Henry says. “In divorced families, parents need to look at what’s good for the kids, instead of what’s lost for themselves.”

If an ex-spouse fails to consider what’s best for the child, and refuses to cooperate or communicate, re-married parents need to hold their anger in check, says Del Haley. At times, his relationship with his ex has been strained, he says. But he has continually sought to improve his interactions with her, and last winter arranged for his ex-wife to have dinner with his new family and Madison. It was worth all the hard work, says Shauna Haley. “Madison said it was the happiest day of her life,” she says.

Nurture New Marriage, Too

While adults in stepfamilies are trying to strike civil relationships with ex-spouses, they need to remember to nurture their own relationship, Wisdom says. Because stepfamilies involve so many people and relationships, it’s often difficult for the new parents to find time together. But they must.

Good communication is critical, too. When parents re-marry, they’ll inevitably encounter values conflicts because they’ve spent time raising children with another partner, Wisdom says. It’s important to talk about these values conflicts – issues like TV-watching, nutrition and discipline. “You need to develop a parenting team,” with your new partner, explains Wisdom.

When Wisdom re-married, she thought her husband was “rigid” and hard on his kids. He thought she spoiled her kids, she says. “We had to develop a style together. We had to focus on communication. Eventually, I learned from him how to set boundaries with my kids and he learned how to lighten up,” she says.

Learning to lighten up is crucial to helping build successful stepfamilies. As divorced parents negotiate the maze of blended family challenges, they need to keep their sense of humor intact and try to keep the big picture in mind.

“ You need to take the long view,” says Henry. “My youngest stepson is a junior in high school. I often remind myself, ‘What kind of relationship do I want when he’s in his 20s and 30s?’” “What I really want,” concludes Henry, “is a long-term relationship with my stepkids.”

Lisa Cohn is a stepmom, an award-winning writer and co-author of One Family, Two Family, New Family: Stories And Advice For Stepfamilies. To read her articles or about her book, visit www.stepfamilyadvice.com.

How Stepfamilies Help Their Members Grow Emotionally

Children who grow up in stepfamilies must learn to relate to divorced parents, stepsiblings and stepparents, a challenge that often teaches them important interpersonal skills, says Margorie Engel, president of the Stepfamily Association of America. “Children in stepfamilies learn a lot of interpersonal skills, like fighting fair and reading people’s faces and interpreting their tones of voice,” she says.

And they often grow up living in two cultures: Mom’s house and Dad’s house, where there may be very different expectations about TV-watching, nutrition and staying up late. Those two cultures often teach children tolerance for people’s differences, says Engel.

Stepmom Shauna Haley of Portland says her stepdaughter, Madison, follows Haley’s family’s rules when she’s in Portland, and a different set of rules when she’s living with her mother in Yakima, Wash. At her mother’s, she can stay up late watching TV. At the Haleys,
Madison turns off the TV and gets to bed early, just like her two half-sisters, says Haley. “It’s good for kids to grow up knowing there’s more than one way of doing things,” says Haley.

Parents in blended families mature emotionally, too. Adults learn how to keep their anger in check, communicate well with their partners and spend time with ex-spouses they don’t really want in their lives. “Nothing will force growth and maturity like stepcoupling and stepparenting as you go through the adjustment pains and come out the other end,” says Susan Wisdom, co-author of the book Stepcoupling and a licensed professional counselor in Portland.

Del Haley says that if his ex-wife criticizes him for how he parents their daughter, he refuses to argue with her. He stretches emotionally for the sake of his daughter. “I always try to keep in mind what’s best for Madison,” he says.

Wisdom adds, “It’s never easy, but it’s rewarding to know that there are benefits to the emotional and physical work required to create a healthy stepcouple and stepfamily.”