Family Life: How can I help my daughter cope with my ex's new family?
HAVE YOU GOT A PROBLEM FOR DAVID? Email him at dcoleman@independent.ie
I HAVE been a single parent to four adolescents for the past six years. Up to now the balance with all our lives has been very good, but recently my third child, a girl age 13, has been truly troubled.
The children go to their dad every second weekend. A little over a year ago their dad met a new partner and now is engaged. His new partner has an 11-year-old son and here lies the thorn in my daughter's side -- she wants nothing to do with him.
She is a highly sensitive, soft, quiet girl who adores her parents. She is a thinker and needs constant reinforcement of love. Each weekend when she returns from her dad's she is devastated; having to share her dad, her home, food etc with his partner's son is breaking her heart. She wants her dad to herself.
I did speak to her dad about her recent sadness. He finds he's in a real bind as he hoped they would gel better and thought if he approached it in a 'put up or shut up' type of manner it would work.
Her dad has since reassured her of his feelings for her, but she feels this boy has ruined her time with her dad.
How does their dad make time for his children and himself in their old home without offending his stepson, who will also be in what is to him a new home?
Their dad has asked for my advice and I want to be well advised and sure of the direction I point him in. I hope you can shed some light on this for me.
I am not sure that the primary goal for their dad should be to make separate time for his children. I think that a more important goal should be to help your daughter to acknowledge and process all of the complicated feelings that appear to have been generated by her dad's new relationship.
My guess is that the 11-year-old stepson may actually be a trigger for all of the negative feelings that your daughter has about her dad's relationship.
The arrival of his new partner is when she first had to share her dad and her home and it may be that she is displacing the upset that this caused her onto his partner's son.
Displacement is a common coping mechanism that we all use from time to time.
A good example may be when your boss really annoys you but to preserve your job you can't react angrily to them. Instead you store up the angry feelings and then when your husband or wife says something small to you at home that evening, you react with a torrent of anger.
In that example you have displaced the anger you feel towards your boss onto your partner.
Children can experience a real feeling of loss when a parent enters a new relationship. Anxiety about changing circumstances or potential rejection can be very real.
In this situation your daughter may not only feel pushed aside by his new partner, but she may also feel intense jealousy that his partner's son will spend more time with her father than she possibly ever will.
Facilitating the expression of her potentially complex and distressing feelings is what your ex-husband needs to address with his daughter, and you can also help.
You and he need to let her know that you are trying to understand the reasons why she might be upset (even if it means guessing, much as I have done here).
Your ex-husband's first approach of 'put up or shut up' did at least point to the inevitability of your daughter and his future stepson spending time together and both being the object of his love or affection at different times.
What his approach probably lacked is any empathy with how difficult a process of accommodation and acceptance that involves for his daughter (and also probably for his stepson-to-be).
Empathy, demonstrating that you truly understand someone else's feelings, is a wonderful healing tool when someone experiences strong and painful emotions. Unfortunately for your daughter, she does need to accept that this boy will become her stepbrother and that she will have to share her father with him.
It is the understanding that you and her dad show to her about how you can recognise how difficult this is for her to accept that will make it easier for her to deal with in the long run.
I think his stepson-to-be can be helped to understand that when your children come to visit their dad that he will naturally want to make space for them and focus his attention on them for the time that they are with him.
This doesn't exclude the 11-year-old, as there will be times, like meals, movies, walks and so on, when he will also be included.
Assimilating children from different relationships into new family constellations happens all the time. While it can be complex and challenging, it is manageable once everyone accepts the merging is necessary.
I think your daughter needs some time, understanding and patience while she comes to her own decision that getting on with her future stepbrother is necessary.
She may never come to love him but she might get to the point of liking him, and that might just have to be good enough.
- David Coleman
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