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
Whatever the presenting problem in a remarried family. it is essential to look laterally as well as back to previ- ous generations and to evaluate past relationships with previous spouses to determine the degree to which the family needs help to work out the patterns required by the new structure. Ongoing conflict or cutoffs with exspouses, children, parents, and grandparents will tend to overload the relationships in the remarried family and make them problematic. We consider genograms particularly essential in work with remarried families, because the structural complexity so influences the predictable triangles of these situations (McGoldrick, 2011; McGoldrick, Gerson, & Petry, 2008).
We next describe several predictable triangles in remarried families. In first-marriage families, the major problematic triangles involve the parents with any or all of the children and each parent with his or her own parents and in-laws. In the more complex structures of remarried families, we have identified six of the most common triangles and interlocking triangles presenting in multi-nuclear families. In no way do we mean to suggest by this focus that the triangles with the extended family and grandparen- tal generation are unimportant to the understanding and the therapy of remarried families. In our clinical work with remarried families, coaching of the adults on further differentiation in relation to their families of origin proceeds in tandem with work on current family problems (McGoldrick & Carter, 2001). Our experience indicates that families that are willing to work on relationships with their families of origin do better than those that are not.
Triangle between the new spouses and an ex-spouse
When a triangle focuses on conflict between new spouse and the old spouse with the partner in the middle, the usual issues are finances or sexual jeal- ousy. Underneath, it is likely that the ex-spouses have not accomplished an emotional divorce. The first step in the tricky clinical work around this triangle is for the therapist to establish a working alli- ance with the new spouse, who will otherwise sabo- tage efforts to focus on the first marriage. Efforts to work on the resolution of the divorce by seeing either the ex-spouses alone or all three in sessions together will probably create more anxiety than the system can handle. We have found that such work goes most smoothly when a spouse is coached in the presence of the new spouse to undertake steps out- side of the therapy sessions that will change his or her relationship with the ex-spouse. Along the way. the new spouse will have to learn to acknowledge the importance of that past bond to his or her spouse and to accept the fact that some degree of caring will probably always remain in the relationship, depend- ing on the length of time the first marriage lasted and whether there were children.
Triangle involving a pseudo-mutual remarried couple, an ex-spouse, and a child or children
In this triangle, the presenting problem is usually acting out or school problems with one or more chil- dren or perhaps a child's request to have custody shifted from one parent to another. The remarried couple presents itself as having no disagreements and blames either the child or the ex-spouse (or both) for the trouble. Although the request in ther- apy will be for help for the child or to manage the child's behavior, the background story will usually show intense conflict between the ex-spouses, the new spouse being totally supportive of his or her spouse in conflicts with that spouse's child. The first move in sorting out this triangle is to put the manage- ment of the child's behavior temporarily in the hands of the biological parent and get the new spouse to take a neutral position, rather than siding against the child. This move will probably calm things down, but they will usually not stay calm unless the pseudo- mutuality of the remarried couple is worked on, per- mitting differences and disagreements to be aired and resolved and permitting the child to have a rela- tionship with his or her original parent that does not automatically include the new spouse every step of the way. Finally, work will need to be done to end the battle with the ex-spouse and complete the emo- tional divorce, the lack of which is perpetuated by the intense conflict over the child or children.
Triangle involving a remarried couple in conflict over the child/children of one of them
The first of these triangles (stepmother, father, and his children), although not the most common house- hold composition, is the most problematic because of the central role the stepmother is expected to play in the lives of live-in stepchildren. If the stepmother has never been married before, and if the children's mother is alive and has a less than ideal relationship with her ex-husband, it may be an almost impossible situation. The stepmother should be helped to pull back long enough to renegotiate with both her hus- band and the children regarding what her role can realistically be. Rather than leave the stepmother and children to fight it out, the father will have to participate actively in making and enforcing what- ever rules are agreed upon. When their immedi- ate household is in order, the husband will have to work on establishing a cooperative co-parental rela- tionship with his ex-wife, or else his conflict with her will set the children off again and inevitably re-involve his new wife. If the first wife is dead, he may need to deal with his mourning for her and help his children to do the same in order to let the past go and not see his second wife as a poor replacement of his first.
