Glass George S. - Blending families Successfully: helping parents and kids navigate the challenges so that everyone ends up happy

Copyright 2014 by George S. Glass

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Liz Driesbach

Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-431-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-876-2

Printed in the United States of America

AUTHORS NOTE

Many former and current patients, colleagues and family members generously granted me permission to use their stories in this book for the purpose of helping others overcome similar situations. I have changed names, dates, and identifying characteristics for literary cohesion and to protect their privacy.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Lessons My Family Taught Me

Dad, I want to try parasailing before we go home, my thirteen-year-old son Frank announced on our last day of vacation. Can you take me?

Yeah, me too, said Barry, the nine-year-old son of Donna, who I had been dating for eight months. I really want to go.

Oh? I asked.

By that time, Donna and I were already entertaining thoughts of blending our families, so going to Mexico together for a long weekend seemed like a good idea. Her kids liked me; my son liked her, and equally important, Donna and I liked them back. Her thirteen-year-old daughter, Susan, was at camp, so it would just be the four of us, together like this for the first time.

The first three days were perfect. But on the last morning just as we were finishing breakfast and heading off for our last few hours at the beach, Frank and Barrys request threw me for an unexpected loop.

Barry, youre too little, I told him, slowly lifting my foot off the floor in the direction of my mouth. And besides, I need some private time with Frank to do something special with my son.

Barry looked at his mother as if Id swiped the perfect donut right off his plate. It was true; I wanted one last one-on-one activity with Frank before we left Mexico because under the terms of my divorce, the only extended time I had with him was in the summer. But Barry, like most nine-year-olds, was having none of it. He started crying, which immediately set off Donna.

George, if we are going to build a family, everyone has to be treated equally, she told me. No one gets his feelings hurt like this. We have to be inclusive.

I loved Donna and Barry and wanted our relationship to work. But for years, Frank and I had spent summers bonding as father and son, and he was about to go back to his mother for the school year. I was trying to explain that, but everything I said seemed to make things worsefor everyone. Here I was, a psychiatrist well trained to analyze other peoples family dynamics but I couldnt do anything right with the people I cared for most.

Barry continued crying.

Youre being so self-centered, Donna snapped. Were over!

I was speechless, emotionally tied up in knots as I shifted between blaming the child she was protecting and wanting to cry myself because I was afraid I was losing the person I loved.

You dont understand how sensitive Barry is right now, Donna said, getting up from the table to leave. You cant just focus on your own son.

The rest of the morning sunk us all deeper into what felt at the time like an impossible hole. Donna wouldnt talk to me the whole ride to the airport. On the plane, we sat in different sections with our own child, intent on protecting them, while trying to convince ourselves that we didnt care enough about each other to make a real go of our relationship.

Luckily, cooler heads prevailed that day and Donna and I are happily married twenty-seven years later.

But I know I am a lucky man.

I dont think it had anything to do with the kids, Donna explained to me recently. You were the bad guy and kept trying to push it and you were treating the children differently. Barry was just a kid, and he and Frank got along great back thenand still do. You treating them differently is what got me so upset.

I was almost silly enough to bring up the age difference and the fact that Barry really was too small to parasail, but Ive learned a few things over the years. In spite of my professional pedigree and ability to help others, when its a question of my own family most of my acquired wisdom comes from my amazing wife. Besides all shes learned from earning a masters degree in education and teaching elementary school for many years, Donna has an uncanny ability to cut through all my analytical tendencies and get right to the heart of an issue.

Come on George, get real.

I have heard that refrain from my wife endless times and I must admit it has probably never lost its relevance. It may only be topped by my childrens familiar and favorite dressing down of their father.

Dad, you dont understand anything; you are the worst psychiatrist in the world.

Thats exactly how I felt when we returned from Mexico and Donna probably agreed. We originally looked for help in many forms to better understand where we came from, what we had been through, and how we could move forward and grow as a positive, blended family. We looked for books, but at that time we only found some technical psychiatric books, a lot of religious, spiritual tomes suggesting that a higher power wanted us to marry, and a few superficial cookbooks ( The Family That Eats Together Stays Together ). Nothing fit our circumstances.

We talked to friends in similar situations, but most of them looked and sounded like the walking wounded. Some couples, in spite of their economic success and solid reputations in the community, disliked talking about their children from a first marriage and felt depressed about their struggle to build a blended family. We heard stories of kids turning to drugs, dropping out of college, and feeling lost into their twenties and thirties as a result of their parents divorce. Sadly, a few parents had written off the children from their earlier marriages. What brought us down most was hearing an all-too-familiar refrain: No matter what you do, the kids will never be happy.

This was unacceptable. So were the success stories we discovered that came without explanation: I dont know why weve been so fortunate; we were just lucky. I knew there had to be help for me and Donna and all of those other families. Whether that meant learning new ways to facilitate healthy communication or defining why certain blended families functioned better than others, I felt determined to better understand myself, the needs of Donna and my family, and the children and parents who hadnt yet figured out that two families co-existing can be bigger and better.

This book is born out of that personal and professional quest.

On the personal side, I was the first one in my family to be divorced, and when everything in my life abruptly changed, I was living in Texas, far away from my roots, both physical and psychological. I was starting over, but despite being the leaver, within a short time, I felt like I was the damaged one, without a clue how to start over again. As a single and part-time father, I experienced feelings ranging from glee to guilt to boredom. Several years after my divorce, when my ex moved to California with my son, I became even more of a part-time dad, commuting on weekends and spending as much time with my son as possible during summer and school vacations.