•A history of violence, child abuse, or neglect
•Alcohol or drug abuse
In those situations, the need for collaboration between parents, extended family, and community resources will even be more important to children's safety and well-being. But, assuming neither par- ent is abusive, mentally ill, or involved in sub- stance abuse, children generally do better if they have regular contact with both parents. The more regularly children visit their noncustodial parent, the better their adjustment is likely to be. The more effectively custodial parents can function and the less parental conflict children are exposed to, the better the children's adjustment will be. Cordial or courteous, low-intensity relationships with the ex-spouse and the ex-spouse's new marital partner work best. It helps if therapists think of all parental figures as potentially enriching the children's sup- port network.
The emotional issues of remarriage go back at least to the disintegration of the first marriage. The intensity of emotion unleashed by the life cycle dis- ruption of divorce must be dealt with over and over again before the dislocated systems are restabilized. No amount of "dealing with" the emotional difficul- ties of divorce will finish off the process once and for all, although the more emotional work is done at each step, the less intense and disruptive the sub- sequent reactivations at later stages are likely to be.
The predictable peaks of emotional tension in the transition to remarriage occur at:
•The time of serious commitment to a new relationship
•The time a plan to remarry is announced to families and friends
•The time of the actual remarriage and forma- tion of a stepfamily, which take place as the logistics of stepfamily life are put into practice.
The emotional process at the transition to remarriage involves dealing with anxiety about investment in a new marriage and a new family; deal- ing with one's own fears and those of the new spouse and the children; dealing with hostile or upset reac- tions of the children, the extended families, and the ex-spouse; struggling with the ambiguity of the new family structure, roles, and relationships; re-arousal of parental guilt and concerns about the welfare of children; and re-arousal of the old attachment to the ex-spouse (negative or positive).
Failure to deal sufficiently with the process at each point may jam it enough to prevent remarried family stabilization from ever occurring, a problem that is reflected in the high rate of re-divorce.
The most common mistakes parents make are as follows:
