Fireproof Your (Re)Marriage!

September 4, 2012 By

Has the fire in your (re)marriage burnt out or headed in that direction?  Let’s face it, the statistics are staggering.  According the to latest survey taken by the U.S. Census Bureau, the divorce rates in the United States for first marriages is currently between 40-50% with the median length of marriage being 11 years.  For remarriages, that number increases dramatically to between 67-75%.  What’s even more stunning is one-half of all remarriages end in divorce after just three years.  Whew…now as disconcerting as those figures are, this is why we here at Today’s Modern Family do what we do.  We are dedicated to helping remarried couples avoid some of the pitfalls that unfortunately naturally accompany remarriage.

In preparing for this post, I took a small poll from several people that I know that live in blended families and I asked them what each of them thought was the top issue that causes problems within the remarriage.  Drum roll please…..expectations and integrating parenting styles was the number one issue.  The second most popular issue was the problem with putting the remarriage first before the children.  With that being said, I would say, in my professional opinion, the latter is the most important issue that has to be resolved in order to have a successful remarriage.  When the remarriage is put first in the lives of the life partners, it’s much easier to incorporate things like parenting styles, expectations and discipline.  It is widely known that if you allow your remarriage to become a prisoner to negative influences, it will tear your marriage apart.  Unfortunately, at times, those negative influences can be our children.  Now, I understand that some of those reading this post will be sent off the roof with that statement and say to yourselves…”what in the hell is this lady talking about?”  But, what you have to remember is that marriage is the foundation of family, not your children.  If the foundation of your marriage cracks, everything else cracks with it.  Of course, I have to put the caveat in here that I am not speaking about any situation that involves abuse in any manner, I am generally speaking about what would otherwise be normal circumstances involving the stepfamily environment and you or your spouse’s children driving a constant wedge between you (other stressors can take many forms).   When this happens, it causes one or the other partner in the marriage to feel controlled, restricted, belittled, disrespected and deprived, with deprived being the most important word.  In every successful remarriage that I have dealt with, when the feelings, opinions and heart of each spouse is put on the top of their partners priority list, the marriage exudes confidence, love, respect and trust.  When remarriage lacks priority, it is essentially deprived.  When the remarriage is deprived, the trickle-down effect begins and the whole blended family heads on a path of disaster.

If you are wondering about the title of this post “Fireproof  Your (Re)Marriage,” yes, you are correct.  I obtained the idea for this post from the movie Fireproof Your Marriage starring Kirk Cameron.  I was so incredibly moved by the movie that I began to ask myself the question, how can I apply this to remarriage.  Well, the answers to that was the same premise that Kela and I have been teaching our clients for years.  You have to treat your remarriage as if it is a first marriage.  In a first marriage, 9 times out of 10, parents stand united with one another by nature.  This does not occur naturally in stepfamilies.

One of my favorite sayings is that a garden that is not watered produces no harvest.  A flower that is not watered withers and dies.  A remarriage that is not put first on the priority list ends up deprived and suffocated.  Debunk the myth that focusing on your marriage means you are neglecting  your children.  Your children will not just be more well-rounded if you make your remarriage a priority, they will benefit greatly from it.  They learn what it means to be committed, to have trust and respect in a relationship and they actually see what love really looks like.

Fireproofing your remarriage begins with priority!  Make your remarriage your first priority and I promise you all else will fall in it’s proper place.

Peace & Blessings,
Diane

 

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Love, Patience, and Life Lessons From My Stepmom

July 1, 2012 By

I know the same old stories about the hardships and struggles of growing up in a divorced family can get  boring at times but to me they never get old.  I talk with lots of folks on a day-to-day basis about their lives, issues and the problems that relate to the dynamics of stepfamilies and I do my best to get them thru same.  Nonetheless, I never get tired of hearing those problems because I, too, have been in their shoes, and I feel it is my calling from God to help others thrive.  Needless to say, I learn more and more about myself after each visit with someone else.

My parents divorced when I was six.  Both of my parents remarried early on after their divorces and both of those remarriages ended in another divorce.  However, my father remarried again later on when I was about 22.  As a kid, what choice do you have really except to try to go with the flow and hope that things turn out for the best, right?  Well, at 22, you have your own mind, your own skepticism, your own perceptions at that point about what marriage looks like and unfortunately, for a child of divorce, sometimes that view is skewed due to your own broken experience.  With all of that, we forged ahead.  Dean and my dad have been married for well over 20 years now and I have learned so much from her, actually, more than she probably knows or will ever take credit for.

My stepmom didn’t have the pick of the litter for stepkids.  We weren’t kids when she came into our lives and we had our own idiosyncrasies already established.  In our opinion, we didn’t really care because we had been down that road before without success.  Our expectations weren’t high about marriage and remarriage but we hoped for the best for them and for us.

Dean had only one biological child whom she lost tragically at the age of 18 before she married my dad.  Rightfully so, I wouldn’t have blamed her one single bit for not wanting to put up with any stepkid drama but that was never Dean’s attitude. Dean never wore her feelings on her sleeve.  She is a strong woman.  One of strongest I have met.  She doesn’t know this, but  when I was faced with my own tragedy, I thought a lot about her strength and tenacity and it helped me to know that if she could have faced something as unimaginable as the loss of her only child then I could stand and face what I needed to as well when I experienced loss and when my husband was diagnosed with MS.  What I have learned from her I could write a book on and I have to say, most I never learned from my own parents.  My parents are good people and each of them have taught me good things and brought different perspectives to my life.  I love both of them dearly, but Dean has a way of making me “think” about things differently.  She has an extraordinary sense of saying the things I need to hear most, right at the right time which gives me that little “umpf” to get to the solution quicker.  She has taught me it’s okay to grieve for a time but then it’s time to get to the answers and move on to better days.  She has taught me the art of focusing on solutions instead of problems.  But, I think the greatest lesson she has taught me isn’t through her words, it is through her actions.  Dean is a registered nurse and a very successful small business owner and at the age well….let’s just say….about 60 (but to me she’s no more than 40) she went back to school and attained her Masters Degree and is a dissertation away from her doctorate degree.  All of this while dealing with a disease she has had since she was 16 years old. She recently had a stroke and when I called to speak to her I asked her how she is getting thru this and she eloquently said…”doing what I need to do and moving on!”  Determination is an understatement in her vocabulary.  When she accomplishes something, she finds something better and harder to strive for.  When she is faced with something, she faces it with dogged determination and moves on to the next!  Most importantly, she has taught me not to feel sorry for myself for anything that I have gone through but to know that road bumps are simply stepping stones to my rainbows and when I get to that rainbow, I may still get a few splinters sliding down along the way but that is God’s way of making me strong and sturdy for the next challenging hurdle that I will have to jump.  For these lessons, I am grateful.

I tell my clients who are stepmoms and who are struggling that their efforts do not go unnoticed even if it seems like they do.  Children live what they learn.  They take those positive experiences and turn them into life qualities.  They are watching even when you don’t think they are, even when they are being stubborn.  Sometimes it takes into adulthood for them to realize the importance that you bring to their lives, but don’t fret, what you bring to the table is important and special.  I am a stepmother now.  I have my own stepdaughter and I hope that I can be to her a  quarter of what my stepmom is to me.  I hope that I can pass along those same lessons Dean has taught me and I hope that if she needs me when she hits one of those road bumps, that I can teach her how to use that experience to slide down that rainbow!

Thank you Dean for all of your love, patience and life lessons!  I love you.

Peace & Blessings,
Diane

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Noreen Lambert’s Blended Family Kitchen

March 12, 2012 By

As the holidays were upon me last year, I began perusing the internet for some good edible gift ideas and came across my new favorite YouTube channel, Noreen’s Kitchen!  Noreen had me at “hello” when I was able to recreate her fabulous coconut and brownie macaroons and I got rave reviews from my coworkers.  Over time, I found out that Noreen also lives in a blended family.  She, her husband Rick and her two daughters make it work!  I was intrigued by how all members of the family join Noreen in the kitchen, which I also feel is so important in bond building with families.  The kitchen being the center of the family, Noreen has it down pat!  With that, I had to interview Noreen.  TMF Readers, I hope you enjoy my interview with Noreen Lambert as much as I enjoyed chatting with her.  Not only do I now have a new cooking mentor, I’ve made a new friend in the process.

Diane:  Noreen, let me begin by saying that I am so excited to have this conversation with you.  I have been a big fan of your YouTube channel, Noreen’s Kitchen, for some time now and thank you for allowing me the opportunity.

 Noreen:  Oh thank you Diane, I am extremely flattered that you would have me here.

 Diane:  Your YouTube channel is a fabulous outlet for women like me who aren’t experts in the kitchen but love to cook.  What inspired you to cook for an audience?

 Noreen:  I don’t have a great answer to that question, except that I wanted to do it.  I’ve been into making videos for the past 3 years now but before that I was just a viewer.  One night, I thought I would make a dinner.  At first, I wasn’t great at editing, I had to learn the learning curve, actually learned an awful lot.  I wanted people to come into my kitchen and feel like they are sitting at my kitchen table.

 Diane:   Growing up in a blended family and having a blended family currently, what is your perception of how a blended family should operate? 

 Noreen:  I think that I have two different ideas.  My father died when I was 10.  My mom remarried soon thereafter. My stepdad was my father’s very good friend.  However, I was daddy’s little girl, so the loss was very devastating for me.  I will admit, I was not easy to live with and I probably didn’t really accept him as my stepfather.  I didn’t disrespect him but I had a hatred for him until my early 20’s.  My family works because it works for us.  Everyone is different.  When I was growing up we didn’t have “blended family” we were told and were expected to be “just family.” 

Diane:   What do you think caused you to feel hatred?

Noreen:  Because he was replacing my father.  We, my brother and I had always known him as “Uncle Paul” and as soon as my mom and Paul came home from their honeymoon, I was told that  he was no longer to be called “Uncle Paul,” but either “Paul or Daddy.”  A giant paradigm shifted in my life.  If I call him Paul, I will upset my mom and if I call him dad, I am being disloyal to my  deceased father.  That was a lot of pressure.  Of course, every family has issues that have to be dealt with in one way or another, but sometimes its easier to brush them under the rug and hide them which only causes more pain.  I have a brother 5 years younger and he didn’t know we had a blended family because the “step” part of it was all he knew.  I, of course, had a different experience as I knew my father well, I was ten.  I was his little girl.  My brother had horrible guilt that he never knew our father.  As parents we all make mistakes and we can’t fix them but grow through them.  I never got permanent closure from losing my dad.  We just had to grow thru it. 

Diane:  How do you think these experiences have affected your parenting?

Noreen:  As a mother now, I am painfully honest with my children.  When I separated from their father, they were 2 and 4.  18 months later, Rick and I met and we finally married 3 years ago.  Rick has a daughter in Vegas and she dislikes me.  I know what she is going through as I went through the same situation.  She doesn’t accept me in that respect.  She is 14.  I never would have guessed that my stepdad would be a fabulous dad now but I got really lucky.  Every family has their dysfunction.  My kids accept Rick as their dad.    

 Diane:  Do you find that your belief system is a lot different than that of your parents when you were being raised in a stepfamily?  Is there anything you purposely do different?

 Noreen:   Very much so.  I do a lot of things different from my mom.  My mom is very “everything has to be planned.”  That doesn’t work for me.  Growing up, we had a living room that no one sat in, a dining room that no one ate in.  I am totally different.  We have to live for today and I want my kids to grab life by the “balls” and that they should try everything and realize that there is nothing in life that they can’t do whether they live in a blended family or not.   You have to pick your battles.

Diane:  What lessons did you take from your personal childhood experience that you may or may not want to bring into your current experience?

Noreen:  We are a team.   Our family growing up wasn’t a team.  Parents were parents and kids were kids.  In my house we play on the same team. 

Diane:  A lot of times, stepmoms feel the need to overcompensate or to be the “fixer of all things” for their husbands, stepchildren, children, etc.  What advice would you give people who are suffering from what I call “super stepmom syndrome?”

Noreen:  Its funny you should ask this.  I always feel guilty if I don’t make something better.  Being a woman in general we feel obligated that we have to make everyone happy all the time.  Society in general makes us feel this way.  When I am cooking on the videos, I always say “it doesn’t have to be perfect.”  I am by far not perfect but I think that the most important advice I can give is to “forgive yourself.”  Be easy on yourself.  We can only fix what we can fix.  I spent a lot of my life worrying about what I couldn’t fix.  The sun still comes tomorrow.  Tomorrow is another day.

Diane:  Those statements are extremely powerful and so true.  You speak my language Noreen.   As a stepmom, what do you think is the most important lesson you have learned through this journey?

Noreen:  That you just have to let things be.  She doesn’t have to like me.  It has to be organic.  You cannot put a seed in the ground and do nothing to it and expect it to produce a fruit.  You just can’t.  You have to let it happen naturally.  The bottom line is the seed gives me a guarantee that if I water it and take care of it, it is going to give me something back.  But you have to nurture it and feed it and work at it.  You don’t just have a relationship; you have to work at it.   People automatically think that just because their children, they don’t have to work at it.  They are still people.  Everyone has to work at relationships.  People discount children because they are children.  They have feelings. 

Diane:  You and Rick make a great team on camera as I am sure you do in your married life.  What impact has Rick had on your girls? 

Noreen:   He is very patient and very accepting.  Having been in the military for so long he knows how to delegate.  He never expected anything from them which goes back to that organic relationship.  It has grown from there.  Their relationship was never forced, it always happened on the kids terms and they were able to build trust in him.  How I was raised is “we are going to be a family whether you like it or not.”  That doesn’t work. 

Diane:  One thing I notice about you and Rick is that he is very involved in helping you with your YouTube channel (i.e., filming, commenting and even cooking from time to time).  I think it is wonderful that the two of you exhibit your “love and support” of one another the way you do. You laugh together and you make us laugh.  It’s very important in remarriage and in any relationship to nurture it.  Do you agree?

Noreen:   If I can be humorous,I think the greatest way to learn about how to have a good marriage is to screw one up!  My first marriage didn’t break up just because of my husband, we both played a role.  Nurturing your marriage is the most important lesson I can give people.  The first time around, it was very important for me to be right and for him to be right and now it doesn’t matter who’s right.  Your reward for hard work in your marriage is the reward of your good relationship. 

Diane:  To keep in line with tradition, I ask all of my interviewee’s this question.  What do you do for fun?

Noreen:   Go to Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, Virginia.  I also craft.  I love crafting.  Another past time, is that I love to play on the Wii.  I am also a movie and trivia junkie. 

Diane:  Noreen, it has been a real pleasure interviewing you and thank you for allowing Today’s Modern Family into your world.  We are doing our best to serve blended families and we love to acknowledge great, successful blended families when we get the chance!  Thank you for stopping by and letting me pick your brain not just on the issue of stepfamilies, but with regard to my favorite pastime – cooking and baking.

Noreen:  You’re so very welcome Diane.  I very much enjoyed our time together and thank you for having me.

 

Noreen Lambert is a wife, mom, stepmom and homemaker who loves to cook.  You can find Noreen’s channel on YouTube with the tag name of atticus9799 and at www.noreenskitchen.com. 

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Three Generations of Successful Blended Families

April 29, 2009 By 1 Comment

Having and being brought up myself in my own blended family has made me realize that the only reason my family is successful is because of my parents and grandparents.

Growing up I never had a clue I was part of a blended family. While my parents were married until I was six years old, both sets of my grandparents were divorced and remarried. There was not a distinction between my grandparents I was born to or my “step grandparents” – they were just Grandma Martha and Grandpa Bud.

Looking back now I see that my parents unconsciously set me up for success to lead my daughters and to have a beneficial relationship with my husband. Though my parents ended up divorced as did I with my first marriage, the second time around has proven to be a charm. I feel better equipped from my past experiences and with what I learned from watching my parents and grandparents interact with each other or resolve conflicts between each other. I have also learned from their mistakes or downfalls and have tried not to repeat them in my own family or relationships.

My mother never spoke badly of my father or vice versa. If there was something I had an issue with between either parent, I figured it out for myself. One didn’t influence my opinion of the other. I formed my own opinions from my own experiences with each of my parents. I feel that’s how it should be. Unfortunately it’s not that way in most blended families. Putting your children in the middle of your own differences with your ex is not only detrimental to that relationship but detrimental to the relationship you have or will have with your children. Kids are very perceptive and we don’t give them enough credit sometimes. If there is an issue of one parent not doing what they say they will or not showing up for things, don’t dwell on it for your kids. It hurts, it hurts you to watch your children go through that AND it hurts your kids to be the ones going through it. The only thing you can do is be strong, be positive, be encouraging, and move on – for your kids. They will come to their own conclusions later or not. You don’t have to say a word about the other parent.

My father’s mother and step-father both lived in the same town as my father’s dad and step-mother. They didn’t “hang out” all the time but I would say they were all friends. Sometimes you just realize that you don’t HATE your ex; it’s just that you were not fit for each other. Seeing who my grandparents ended up marrying and who my own parents ended up marrying I see they finally found their soul mates; even if it was the second time around. When my dad’s step-father (he always called him dad) passed away, my dad’s real father and step-mother were there for my grandma to help and do whatever she needed. In return when my dad’s real father passed away, my dad’s mom was there to help my grandmother with whatever she needed or just be there to support her. Things weren’t always perfect over the years but for the most part my four grandparents on my father’s side always came together for what was best for our family – period.

Same on my mother’s side. My maternal grandmother and grandfather both married wonderful people who balanced them out and were a much better fit then they were for each other.

I feel pretty lucky to have grown up in a “blended” family. People used to call it a “broken” home or family, but I truly now know from the bottom of my heart that we weren’t broken – just in need of a little tweaking!

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