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Power Tools : Grief And Loss

Step/Blended Parenting And Grief:

by Ron Huxley, LMFT

"It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness."
-- Cicero

Children in a step family experience grief. As strange as it might sound, it is possible for a step-child to feel both joy and sadness when a parent remarries. The remarriage signifies both a gain and a loss, for the child. It is a gain, in that new family members are added, a new parent and/or siblings, and it is a loss, in that biological parents and siblings will not longer be together in a traditional arrangement. Difficulty occurs when some member of the family, usually the children, are less accepting of the new parents and/or siblings. Older children are generally less accepting of new parental figures than are younger children. Older children may have had a longer period of time to attach to a biological parent and therefore feel a greater sense of loss. To accept a new parent and/or siblings, a child may feel disloyal to the biological parent. Even when biological parents share custody, children experience and re-experience feelings of grief as they move back and forth from mom's house to dad's house and vice versa.

Parents in a step family also experience grief. There may be unresolved issues of anger or hurt towards the ex-partner that carry over into the new relationship. Feelings of making "another mistake" may pop up during times of conflict creating an experience of grief. Feelings of guilt, of traumatizing one's children or hurting an ex-partner may stir up more grief. Jealousy of the bond between biological children and their parent can create feelings of grief for the nonbiological parent, with or without their own biological children. Anger may be present in having to pay child support and care for the financial needs of one's new family or by never receiving child support and being unable to meet the financial needs of the children. These are just some of the examples that can result in dysfunctional triangles discussed earlier under family systems.

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