Composite family: what to consider and help

Your previous relationship didn't work out, but you're now in round two (or three) and you've found someone. Yay! But that person also has children, and putting all that together constitutes a blended family. Not only do you now have to figure out your relationship with your new partner, but you also want the relationships between the children to be as smooth as possible. But how do you go about that?

Compound family problems

It may be helpful then to have an idea of problems you may encounter.

One of the challenges people face is that members of blended families often feel uncertain about their role within that family. Many people understand how “normal” families work, but what about blended families? There’s much less clarity on that subject[1].

Other issues include:

1. Setting and Communicating Boundaries
2. Solidarity
3. Adaptability[2]
4. Loyalty problems in children[3].
5. Unrealistic expectations (especially in the beginning)
6. The other parent feels replaced by the stepparent
7. Children coping with the loss of their "normal" family
8. Jealousy and envy between children
9. Guilt and frustration as a stepparent toward stepchildren

Another thing to keep in mind is that your sense of family cohesion or intimacy and that feeling of having succeeded can fluctuate over time. You would say that you steadily feel more and more like your compound family is becoming a real family, but practice shows that it can also be very chaotic with ups and downs (source 3).

Time before a blended family feels like a family

If all goes well, it still usually takes two years for your new compound family to feel like a "real" family. In cases when things work out but still take a little longer, it can take up to four years. And sometimes it just doesn't work out, or at least not within four years.

When things move fast

One of the things families did where it went relatively quickly was to use the words "mom and dad" even though it was about the stepparents and "brother" and "sister" even though it was about stepbrothers and stepsisters.

If the children are participating in a sport, or anything else where parents come to watch, it is helpful for the step-parent and natural parent to both watch. If the natural parent cannot watch, the stepparent can still show up (source 3, page 11).

Parents did indicate that they found it strange to take on a parental role toward stepchildren. So this is not something everyone picks up on easily.

What also helped was doing fun things together with both families, including ex-partners. Like playing soccer together. However, tensions between parents, stepparents and ex-partners can cause problems in the second year.

As the compound family slowly becomes a family

In composite families where it does not really work out to feel like a real family over time, it emerged that there solidarity was a problem from the beginning in establishing the new boundaries of the new family. Children in such a family are open to the new family, but do not really see a composite family as a traditional family. It also feels stranger for these children to treat or see their stepparent, for example, as a kind of parent.

Only in the second year do roles become clear when things slow down, and opening up to other members in the compound family takes a little longer. Christmas, for example, is adjusted to give other family members space as well.

In the third year, everything becomes more comfortable and mothers and stepmothers, for example, can communicate better with each other, even if at first there was mostly animosity between them.

When things seem to be going well, but still don't work out

In compound families where nothing had simply improved after the fourth year, the following factors emerged. What was typical was that many of these compound families did feel like a family in the beginning, but so after four years that feeling had disappeared (source 3, page 14). Where did that come from?

Loyalty problems and conflicts occurred, for example, because the family divided between biological groups or even between generations. For example, children felt that the (step) mother started the conflicts but blamed the children for all the family problems.

Children also felt forced to call parents "father" or "mother" and did not feel comfortable doing so.

In its second year, the family felt like a battlefield, and members also tried to avoid each other.

By the third year, family members were even able to move elsewhere. One man even developed an allergy as a result of all the problems. Because of this, his new partner decided to move elsewhere after all.

If the composite family never is or becomes a real family

Then you also have a version where the feeling of being a family is not there at all. Not at the beginning nor at the end. One of the survey participants indicated that the marriage of her parent and stepparent was very sudden for her and her sister and they were told to just deal with it.

Again, there were many problems with loyalty and role assignment. Conflicts could also arise between the roles of the children and the stepparents. For example, one daughter felt that she knew what was best for her mother and that her mother did not need her stepfather to make her happy.

This included certain rituals that children then felt the stepparent was infringing upon. For example, one stepparent gave the children money to buy a gift for the mother, but because the children first bought those gifts themselves, without his help, it felt like an intrusion. Even though it was well-intentioned.

However, there may be sporadic feelings of solidarity in this type of compound family, such as when someone is ill or something similar

If you have many ups and downs with your compound family

You can also have the extreme version where you may or may not feel like a real family if you have a blended family. In the first year, it can feel very strange for the children that there is suddenly a new family living together. There were also tensions from wanting to be part of the new family but not knowing how to shape that role.

In the second year, you may then find that expectations not met can cause a lot of tension. Even to the point that children choose to live elsewhere because of not being able to be themselves and the conflicts in the composite family.

Or family members may find it very difficult to trust people in the family again due to broken promises.

In the third year, it could then either continue with all the tension and avoidance, or you could confront and discuss things you are unhappy about. You then talked about your feelings, how you saw certain situations and how things may have been lied to each other. This could then be a change from the communication up to that point.

In the fourth year, there may still be conflicts that keep your compound family from feeling like a family.

According to researchers, the new couple must present themselves as a team to the children, as a unit; if that fails, it is more difficult to turn a composite family into a real family[4].

This at least already gives you many insights into what to expect as you begin life in a blended family, and this can help you with the understanding that it can literally take years to get everything right.

Benefits new compound family

But don't let this fool you, because a blended family has its benefits, too.

For example, if you succeed in resolving all conflicts, your children will learn how to resolve conflicts, which is not only helpful for the family. It is also useful for their future relationships and for managing conflicts when they have a job later.

Another advantage of a blended family is that you have greater financial stability, since you likely have two incomes, yet now only have to pay the mortgage or rent once, as well as utilities and all housing-related taxes just once. This can mean that you and your children are less affected by poverty-related issues.

For children, this can, among other things, improve their academic performance and behavior[5]. So, in terms of the financial situation, a blended family is more manageable than raising children on your own.

Therapy for a composite family

Because it can take years to turn a blended family into a real one, chances are you'll want to seek professional help. Researchers indicate that if you seek help, you often do so within four years[6].

You can then get EFFT therapy, emotional focused family therapy. That then helps you establish boundaries and how to communicate them to everyone.

In addition, the therapist can help both the children and the partners better process the grief resulting from the failure of previous relationships.

Therapists can also look at the experience of parenting and children's developmental stages and offer advice on how to deal with these differences.

In addition, attachment issues may arise due to the breakdown of the previous relationship, making it difficult for everyone to fully commit to the new family with confidence.

Reframing certain patterns can also be important in therapy, so that family members view the problems in a different light. Instead of thinking in terms of blame and victimhood, the way you view the problems is changed so that you can arrive at a solution (source 6).

Hypnotherapy can also help gain these kinds of insights into each other and reframe issues so that you can still make your blended family a real one[7].

Want to know how hypnotherapy works? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.

Or register for a seminar or one of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training courses.

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