Melding two families into one is venture that takes much work

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl get married and live happily ever after.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?

But what if boy has two children and girl has one and each has an ex-spouse in the picture? Happily-ever-after might be difficult to reach without a lot of hard work.

Elizabeth Einstein wants to help stepfamilies do that hard work.

Einstein, a family and marriage therapist and author of the new book, “Strengthening Your Stepfamily” (Impact Publishing), will visit North Idaho College Wednesday. Her free talk, “The Stepfamily Journey: Not for Wimps,” will be at 7 p.m.

Not for wimps, indeed. Statistically, about 60 percent of remarriages end in divorce, Einstein said.

“Stepfamily living is very difficult,” said Einstein in a telephone interview from her home in Ithaca, N.Y. “The ‘Stepfamily Journey’ is a trail map … to give people an idea of the normal development processes that all families go through.”

In her talk, she’ll describe the five stages of creating a healthy stepfamily.

The first is fantasy, in which couples believe that love will fix it all, Einstein said. For many remarried couples, she said, “The reality is that they have not dealt with their former relationships well. They have very unrealistic expectations.”

Soon, she added, those hopes are dashed, making way for stage two – confusion. This is when the people in a household bump into each other over rules and roles, she said.

The third stage is “crazy time,” or a time of crisis, Einstein said. This time is a turning point. If the family members take this opportunity to get help, then they can progress to the next stage. If they continue to deny there are problems, they’ll be unable to move on, she said.

“The thing about denial is that many remarried families simply don’t understand the need to get information, and then they stay in denial,” Einstein said. “And it keeps them stuck.”

Denial takes may forms, Einstein said. Some people don’t take time to grieve for their former families. Others deny the role their ex-spouses have in their children’s lives. Still others turn a blind eye to the anger, fear, guilt and resentment raging in their new stepfamilies.

“Denial is the easy way to deal with the tension,” Einstein said. “But denial merely dulls the pain. It can never release those feelings.”

Once families can face the denial in their lives, they move on to the final two stages.

In the stability stage, the family is able to take the lessons learned during the time of crisis, apply them to their daily lives and move on. The final stage, commitment, is when the stepfamily decides that they will do what it takes to make the family succeed.

Sounds like a lot of work. Is it worth it? Einstein said it is. The last chapter of her new book focuses on positive things to be found in stepfamilies.

“There are many, many stepfamily strengths and many rewards that come from stepfamily living,” she said. Beyond the personal satisfaction of a new marriage, the stepfamily can serve as a positive marriage model for children. When the combined families are from different ethnic or religious backgrounds, family members really learn from one another. Ultimately, Einstein said, a strong, healthy stepfamily can help repair any damage children may have endured in an unsuccessful first marriage.

“There are really a lot of opportunities to learn powerful lessons here, both personal and spiritual lessons,” Einstein said.

Einstein has worked with stepfamilies for 25 years, but her experience goes beyond her career. As a child, she was in a stepfamily. As an adult, she married and had stepchildren. Back then, there were very few resources available to help her family clear the hurdles, she said.

“There weren’t any books,” she said. Her first book, “The Stepfamily: Living, Loving & Learning,” published in 1982, was one of the earliest.

One of the biggest mistakes people make in their relationships is to move too quickly from one to another, Einstein said.

It can take anywhere from 4 to 7 years for a person to emotionally heal from a divorce. Getting remarried too soon can make people prone to repeating mistakes, she said.

“Single parents should come to this meeting. They may think they will never remarry, but the fact is that over 85 percent of them will,” she said. “What really makes the difference is if people take time between relationships and prepare to remarry.”

Einstein’s talk is presented by the Conflict Resolution Center of the Inland Northwest, in conjunction with the Idaho First District Bar Association, the University of Idaho College of Law’s Northwest Institute for Dispute Resolution, North Idaho College Head Start, the Harding Family Center and the NIC Center for New Directions.

The Conflict Resolution Center regularly sponsors workshops for attorneys, mental health workers and other professionals who deal with children, said Coeur d’Alene attorney Heidi Fisher. Einstein’s talk will precede two days of professional workshops, one featuring Einstein and the other on mediation issues with attorney Chip Rose. This marks the first time the center has hosted an event for the general public.

The idea is to give single parents, people in stepfamilies or those around stepfamilies an opportunity to hear advice from a leading expert in the field.

“Divorce involves a lot of loses for kids, but post-divorce life can also bring an extended stepfamily that offers love and support,” Fisher said, adding that with the love and support can come more opportunities for conflict.

“This in an opportunity,” Fisher said, “to get some helpful skills on how to create the healthiest and best stepfamilies that we can.”