FEATURE:

Don’t Even Think of Remarrying Until You Read This

We all want love to last forever, but let’s face it, 100% of divorces start with a marriage. It’s even worse the second time around—no joke. First-timers have a 50-50 chance of failure, but subsequent tries carry an even greater statistical risk. You’d think people would learn from experience but in fact nearly 60% of remarriages wither on the vine. The numbers are even worse for so-called ‘blended marriages,’ i.e., couples with stepchildren.

It’s not hard to understand why. Research shows that many people who remarry are, almost by definition, ‘emotionally challenged.’ They may possess destructive qualities such as irrational insecurities or a tendency to rage—the very reasons their original marriages failed. Obviously when both partners are emotionally unpredictable, their difficulties as a couple are more than merely doubled.

Another under-appreciated factor is that second marriages tend not to get the support so readily extended to the starry-eyed young in their white dresses and black morning-suits. Second-wedding showers are not unknown but rarer than the Po‘ouli bird. Some marriage counselors also believe that ‘ignoring strengths and illuminating the problems that remarriage families face may create a negative, self-fulfilling prophesy’ (Duncan & Brown, Families in Society, 73(3), 149-158, 1992). Resentful children and critical friends or relatives frequently undermine new family situations. More dangerously, battle-hardened divorcées may be readier to separate again or, even worse, view the courts, rather than courting, as a way to resolve difficulties. In other words, many remarrieds have not only not learned to handle relationships but have discovered the crude resolutions of the legal Goodbye.

That said, not all the news is bad. Remarriages can be and often are successful. It’s true that, as George Santayana remarked, those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. But on the other hand many of us do learn and don’t repeat our earlier mistakes.

One big lesson is that successful marriages—whether the first or the fifty-first—take work. Another is that love, while essential, is not enough. There will always be conflicts and disagreements, alas. What counts is how you handle them.

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Hope and Experience

The great lexicographer Samuel Johnson once observed of a man who remarried that it was the triumph of hope over experience. Witty as always, but only half true. A successful remarriage is the triumph of experience over experience.

For one thing, second-time-around couples quickly realize that the re in remarriage makes all the difference. Princess Diana famously complained that her relationship with Charles involved three people. In the deepest sense that’s the case of every remarriage (though the final count might be four or even more—several ex-spouses and perhaps a string of former lovers, parents, siblings and ingrained behaviors).

The first step therefore is to exorcise the ghosts, some of which (the ingrained behaviors) may not even be human. People whose young marriages have failed are prone to grieve the loss of innocence (the magic of first love is the ignorance that it can ever end), the painful yielding up of a sweet dream, and/or the unexpectedly tragic conclusion of a narrative that was supposed to continue happily ever after. Prince Charming divorces Cinderella (or vice versa)! After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Cynicism is a dire temptation.

This of course is where Johnson’s ‘hope’ comes, the antidote to despair. It’s often forgotten that at the bottom of Pandora’s Box lay Hope, quietly emerging after all the world’s troubles were released.
The advice that you should wait at least two years before dating seriously again is thus a function of Hope and Experience working in tandem. A lengthy layoff will give you the time to heal and regain your sense of self. A new relationship may feel good in the short run but will almost certainly distract from the healing process. Yes, you should get back on that horse but not until your broken parts have healed.

People who successfully remarry have thus successfully mourned their losses, a necessary rite of passage. Grieving over the past is to continue living there. After those feelings are finally overcome we can return to the present, the eternal. Now, freed of the destructive baggage of animosities toward our former partners, or an ongoing involvement in their lives. In the words of Nancy Recker, M.A., Family and Consumer Sciences Agent of Allen County, ‘When grief is resolved, there is less hostility with former partners, and children are more likely to be encouraged to build a strong relationship with a stepparent.’ (‘Before You Say “I Do” Again,’ FLM-FS. January 2001).

Recker also notes that couples who successfully remarry have more realistic expectations. It’s like making the same journey twice: you know the landmarks, potholes and where to apply the brakes. You’re better at recognizing the danger signals and are more skilled at negotiating sudden bends and twists in the road. You know what to expect, or at least some of it. You’re likely to be more sensitive to your (plural) children’s needs and understand that certain things require greater care than you realized the first time around.

Among them of course—surely every second spouse knows it—is that romance is great but nurturing the relationship is crucial. This means spending quality time together, ‘just us,’ without the kids, absent the friends and relatives, just hangin’ out and continuing the courtship.

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Learning from History

The point of learning from history, as Santayana implies, is precisely not to recapture what’s gone but to improve on it. It has been wisely said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Successful remarrieds therefore consciously set about creating new living patterns, ways of being, strategies of relating, agreed rules of conduct. It’s not innovation for its own sake—obviously some truths are unchanging—but a clear-eyed assessment of what previously worked or (equally important) did not.

You may also be facing novel circumstances, such as the ‘blended family life’ that comes when two sets of kids (and their friends) are thrown together. You’ve chosen to remarry, a very personal decision, but for the children affected it’s a different matter. They may not like your prospective spouse at all (why should they?) and feel even less enthusiastic about their new half-siblings. A husband may be quite skeptical about his bride’s offspring, and she may feel equally critical of his.
Accepting your spouse’s kids can take time and effort, especially if they resemble (physically or emotionally) the ex-wife or ex-husband. The first rule is: Don’t compete—you can’t. ‘Step-parenting is usually more successful if step-parents carve out a role for themselves that is different from and does not compete with the biological parents,’ write sociologists Visher & Visher (How to Win as a Stepfamily, New York: Brunner/Mazel 1991, p. 92). Your relationship with your new children will form slowly and may well proceed unevenly. Don’t try to hurry it along. Remember that they are not biologically and perhaps even culturally yours.

One of the big unstated truths of any marriage is that you’re entering into a long-term relationship with your spouse’s family as well as with her/him. Almost inevitably there will be a lot to accept. If you don’t feel up to it maybe it’s too soon for ‘I do.’

It is thus not a bad idea to date your prospective spouse’s children before tying that knot. You’re all going to be living together, one way or another, so you’d better get to know them. And they need to find out who you are too. If it really doesn’t work with them you may need to re-evaluate your plans, though this does not mean a quick surrender.

One solution is to develop clean and equitable rules governing your interactions. If they don’t work, revisit them and try something else. Keep your eye on the desired result and don’t get bogged down arguing over abstract principles.

All that being said, my advice is go for it. The rewards of Romance are worth the risks. I had a friend once who boasted he’d had three wives, X, Y and Z. ‘X’ as in ‘ex-wife’ and a protective crucifix (he would throw his crossed arms before his face like Dr Helsing fending off Dracula). ‘Y’ as in ‘Why did I marry her?’ And ‘Z’ as in ‘Zee wife!’

May you find your Z partner-in-life.

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