Stepfamilies with adolescents
Since the difficulties that most American families have with adolescents are legendary, it is not surprising that early adolescence seems the most difficult time for both boys and girls to adjust to their parents' remarriage. The additional complications of this phase in stepfamilies can push the stress level beyond manageable bonds. We have found the following issues common in stepfamilies at this phase.
1. Conflict between the remarried family's need to coalesce and the normal focus of adoles- cents on separation: Adolescents often resent the major shifts in their customary family pat- terns and resist learning new roles and relating to new family members when they are con- cerned with growing away from the family.
2. Stepparents get stuck if they attempt to disci- pline an adolescent stepchild.
3. Adolescents may attempt to resolve their divided loyalties by taking sides or actively playing one side against the other.
4. Sexual attraction may develop between step- siblings or stepparent and stepchild, along with adolescent difficulty in accepting the biological parent's sexuality.
The impact of remarriage in later life cycle phases
Although there is not the daily strain of having to live together with stepchildren and stepparents, remarriage at a post-childrearing phase of the life cycle requires significant readjustment of relationships throughout both family systems, which may now include in-laws and grandchildren. It is probable that grown children and grandchildren will accept a remarriage after a death of a parent more easily than after a late divorce. There is often great relief throughout the family if an older widowed parent finds a new partner and a new lease on life, whereas a later-life divorce usually arouses concern and dismay throughout the family, in part, perhaps, related to anxieties about who will care for the now single parents. But grown children may also surprise themselves and others with the intensity of their reactivity to an older parent's remarriage.
The strength of children's reactivity to a par- ent's remarriage, even after they believe that they have long ago resolved the loss or divorce of the parent(s), may overwhelm them. They may need coaching to find a way to incorporate a parent's new partner into their lives.
Adult children may fear the loss of inheritance when a parent (especially a father) remarries. They may also feel the new relationship is a betrayal of their own dead or divorced parent. Clinically, it helps to facilitate conversation about fears and expecta- tions to avoid shut down and cutoffs between adult children and their parents. The major factor in three- generational adjustment to remarriage in late middle or older age tends to be the amount of acrimony or cooperation between the ex-spouses and the adult child's degree of resolution of the death of the other parent. When the relationship is cooperative enough to permit joint attendance at important family func- tions of children and grandchildren and when holi- day arrangements can be jointly agreed upon, family acceptance of a new marriage tends to follow.
Clinical Intervention with Remarried Families
