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Dangerous Crossing
How to keep your marriage footing as your blended family becomes one
Jim Killam | posted 9/12/2008
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After four sometimes-shaky years, the Giersches finally went to a Christian marriage and family counselor. Today they acknowledge their marriage might have ended had they not found help with what turned out to be common marriage and parenting issues.
The Giersches also credit another blended-family couple, Moe and Paige Becnel, for helping their marriage grow. The Becnels work with blended families at Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and are authors of the book, God Breathes on Blended Families, which Ricki and Pat used in their church-based small group.
Ricki and Pat found safe footing on a treacherous bridge. Here are several key planks to step on that can help your blended family survive the dangerous marriage crossing.
Recognize memory triggers. Moe and Paige Becnel know—from their own experience as a blended-family couple and from counseling others—that anyone in a second marriage will face bad memories. You can stuff that pain away, or you can confront it.
"If you work through it," Paige says, "eventually it doesn't bother you any more. That makes you a healthier person, which in turn gives you a healthier marriage."
If something your first spouse did made you feel betrayed, then you need to recognize that as a rotten plank and make your new spouse aware of that. Margaret Broersma, author of Daily Reflections for Stepparents: Living and Loving in a New Family, has a friend whose ex-husband was an alcoholic. "If her new husband even drank at all, she would panic," Margaret says. "It was too scary for her. Drinking wasn't that important to him, so he stopped."
Forgive. Many a second marriage has been doomed by lingering pain—especially if the marriage has come too soon after a divorce or a spouse's death for there to be enough healing time.
"They take the hurt, anger, bitterness, and vengeance, and bring that into the new marriage," Moe Becnel says. "You can't channel anger at one particular person; it spills onto every person in your life—including your new spouse."
How do you know if you still need to forgive? If you're having an argument with your spouse and your ex-spouse's name comes up in comparison—either in your words or your thoughts, Moe says—you probably have bitterness toward that ex-spouse. That's not fair to the new spouse.
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