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Haste Makes Waste
By Dr. Roger A. Rhoades
A friend plans to
remarry. You have mixed feelings. You want
to question the decision but hold back
because you feel it is none of your
business. You want to be enthusiastic but
something deep down in your gut screams that
something is just not right.
With over 50
percent of marriages ending in divorce and
others ending by the early death of a
spouse, many people who never planned on
looking for another partner find themselves
doing just that. They are disoriented,
confused, and lonely.
Friends that they
had counted on to support them through thick
or thin suddenly are too busy trying to keep
their own family together to be of much
help.
Because those who
are now single again have been used to
having another person in their lives to help
them pay bills, go to social events, take on
family responsibilities, and to sound off to
about the day-to-day decisions of life, it
is not surprising these people might believe
that the answer to all their problems would
be to acquire a new partner.
When coping with
the tailspin of divorce or bereavement, the
ability to make sound judgments about the
quality of people is flawed. People they
would usually not give the time of day to
are now being considered as possible mates.
Major flaws are ignored, denied, or even
invisible.
While emotionally
unstable, they make a choice that not only
affects two people but the children, and the
repercussions may ripple through extended
families and friends. Asked to wait by those
who can see what they won't, to give the
relationship more time to mature before
making a legal commitment, they demonstrate
they are not only blind, but deaf.
A potent mix of
pressures are at the core of these ill-fated
decisions. They believe this is their one
and only chance to get another partner. They
tell themselves that they're not getting any
younger and, therefore, are not as
marketable as they used to be. They usually
feel the fear of debt and money pressures
beating at their door every moment of the
day.
They speak of
wanting to do the best for their children,
of putting their own concerns on the back
burner. They feel responsible for providing
a good future for their children, they say,
presenting this as the motive for
re-marrying as soon as possible. Imagine how
devastated they feel when they find out that
not only were their children not helped by
the hasty re-marriage but that the children
had preferred the marriage be delayed.
Again, the saddest
consequences befall the children. Repeatedly
they are told the parents want what is good
for them, only to realize their concerns are
not considered.
Often children say
nothing because they do not want to hurt the
parent's feelings. They suffer in silence,
watching their parents make decisions that
will bring unhappiness to them. During these
difficult times of long-range
decision-making, children may be more like
adults than the actual adults involved in
the decision making.
People who rush
into a new marriage do not deliberately set
out to make their children unhappy.
Overwhelmed by trying to solve all their
problems at once, they create more problems.
The promises
uttered during the courtship can create
problems for the blended family down the
road, once the day to day realities of the
new family set in. Promises of closeness and
understanding go out the door when the
pressures of trying to create a new family
surge upward.
Now what? There's
a new marriage; one or both of the partners
have sold their home and started a new life
with a new partner in a new place. It is
possible that one or both now feel stuck and
resentful.
Without the
intangible support of familiar surroundings,
stress begins to build, Often the issues
facing the new family are too volatile to
work through, and once again, another
marriage ends.
Making adjustments
before the marriage is easier than after the
fact. But for those who are among the many
who did not realize this, here are some
guidelines to help weather the storm.
1. Make sure that
time is set aside for the original family
members to be together without the new
member or members present so they can
re-establish the family bond.
2. Take at least
one weekend every three months for a couple
getaway. Just like the original family needs
time to bond, so does the new couple.
3. The new couple
needs to agree on a financial budget and
then together talk about it with the
children. It is important that the couple
speak as one about money issues.
4. The couple
needs to talk alone and determine what the
rules of the family are going to be. If the
father has one set of rules and the mother
has another set of rules, it will cause open
conflict between the new parent and the
child or children.
5. Sell as much
stuff from the former life as possible and
then replace it with stuff chosen by the new
family. Carryover stuff has a tendency to
become more like a shrine of the absent
parent rather than an important piece of
property.
6. If either
person has specific plans for the future of
their children, they need to inform the
other adult what those plans are, i.e.:
schooling, car, clothing, trips, vacations,
and why they were made in the first place.
Those plans might have made sense in the
former relationship but they may be
unrealistic in the present family.
7. TIME, TIME,
TIME! All change takes time. Families take
time. Bonding, real bonding takes time.
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