The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/basics/teamwork.htm
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This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological
building
family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness]
and preventing divorce.
This introduction describes the Web site's
purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part of a
mosaic of ideas, so the more you read, the
more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs. replace, other
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
+ + +
This is one of a series of articles on
improving your primary relationship. It offers suggestions for increasing the
sense of teamwork between you and you partner.
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Do you feel you and your mate are
partners or teammates (vs. lovers) often enough, recently? If not, this Solutions
article suggests two probable reasons, and describes three options: (a) get
clear on what you need, (b) assert them, and (c) problem-solve together.
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Get
the most from reading this by first reading...
-
premises about resolving any
relationship problem and any marital
problems,
-
the fundamentals of a mutually
satisfying relationship,
-
this
introduction to normal
personality subselves (like yours) - slides
or text, and...
-
this overview of psychological
wounds and what they
Recall recent or past relationships where you felt you were in true
partnership with one or more adults or children. What was it about those
relationships that caused that feeling? Have you ever been part of a
(sports or otherwise) where you didn't feel like a co-equal partner often
enough? How many people are needed to make a team?
What's the Problem?
Typical
mates (like you two) want to maintain a primary relationship in order to feel...
-
"connected"
with someone you care about,
vs. feeling alone, unneeded, and unimportant; and to feel...
-
steadily respected enough by
yourself and your mate - having your needs,
opinions, and limits consistently accepted and valued enough; and to
feel...
-
(valued) enough to your
partner, compared to other life
priorities; and to feel...
-
that
your mate wants to (vs. "has
to")...
-
share local and
long-range family responsibilities equally; and to...
-
care whether you feel
supported enough in these, and s/he wants to ...
-
with you when
you don't feel supported or partnered enough, and...
-
tell you when s/he needs your help and support.
This article focuses on the last of these normal primary needs. If you have
problems with the first three, follow the links.
Partners like you can feel loved and
connected (bonded) enough, and one or both of you may not feel like co-equal partners in managing your
daily living tasks. In patiently evolving your family roles and relationships together,
you mates each
need to feel partnered often enough - i.e. respected, supported,
and included by the other in mutual goal-setting and decision-making.
You each
fit somewhere between "very independent" ("I'm prefer to make decisions on my
own") to "very dependent" ("I'm very anxious and confused without another adult
to help me fill my needs.")
For several reasons, one mate can feel "less than" their partner as a person,
a partrner, and/or as a co-parent.
mates who can't
and/or
effectively can gradually
shift from courting partners to opponents - i.e. they lose - or never develop
- a
sense of true partnership and teamwork in building their family roles and relationships.
Do you know anyone like this?
A common symptom of this is a partner saying
something like "I feel so alone." Another is feeling like "My needs and
opinions don't matter" (to my mate), and/or "S/He never listens to me;"
or "S/He listens to me and agrees with me - and then does what s/he wants
anyway."
This article examines common causes of this, and options for improving
it. Let's start by
defining...
What's an
Effective Team?
There are
teams
(troupes, committees, squads,
gangs, crews, families, cadres, companies, casts, congregations, communities,
clans, communes, corps,...) and there are true teams.
Have
you ever been part of a true team? Let's say that's one where...
A
group of people choose to work together (vs. being
required to)...
to achieve
one or more clear common goals, over time;...
with the skilled guidance of one or several
trusted, respected leaders;
who are skilled at, and motivated to...
-
match and
delegate responsibilities and tasks to members' skills and
interests; and...
-
coordinate each person's talents and motives, and other
resources;
to...
-
nurture a spirit of cooperation among everyone; while...
-
resolving concurrent small and large problems effectively; and...
-
keeping everyone's vision, spirit, and motivation clear and strong;
so that eventually...
the group
achieves its key objectives; in a way that...
promotes everyone's individual
health and personal growth; and...
leaves everyone feeling included, respected, appreciated, satisfied, and
proud of themselves and each other.
Does this describe how you and your mate each usually feel about co-leading your
home and family? Do
you each consistently feel like co-equal partners in
building and managing your home team? If so, congratulate each other (!), and move on to
other articles in this site. If you and your mate feel more
like opponents or disconnected fellow
travelers, read on...
The
Stepfamily-team Challenge
Typical multi-generational stepfamilies like yours coalesce from the complex
of
three or more prior
biological families, over many years. Each prior family had...
-
one or
more leaders;
-
a group of members in various
-
complex sets of values, rules, and
and...
-
(ideally) some
and various plans or
strategies to reach
the goals.
Each family also had a fuzzy or clear group
identity
- like "We're the Meacham-O'Tooles. We're Irish and
English based, Protestant believers and church-goers, raucous, sports-minded,
hard working, kind, fun-loving, social, moderate, Republican, and musical.
Stepfamily mates and ex mates try to merging their respective biofamilies while
(a) keeping your individual integrities
and identities whole, (b) filling your and your kids' primary needs well
enough, (c) building an effective co-parenting team together, and (d)
steadily nurturing your re/marriage/s. The latter is far more complicated than childless mates
exchanging vows for the first time! In the excitement and thrill of
courtship, typical re/marriers usually
this
complexity.
Unless you were living with parents or another adult,
you and your present partner were
probably each a - or the - leader of your
prior home. You're used to feeling responsible for, and making, major
decisions about things (including food, money, furnishing and decorating, cars and
appliances, and money); and activities.
You're used to being in
control
- at least of your own life and household.
When you move in together, you're faced with co-creating true family teams in
and between your several related homes. To do that, you mates must decide
together...
-
What are our common goals?
-
How do we share the responsibilities, tasks,
and control (power) to
achieve our goals, while...
-
balancing all our other family-members' needs well enough, every day?
How are you two doing at agreeing on these?
What are typical problems
that make succeeding at this hard for many
co-parenting couples, and what can you do about them?
Typical Partnership "Problems"
Two factors combine to hinder effective partnership
between re/married mates:
and
Both can be reduced! Because of them, one or both mates...
don't
want to learn what makes a true
and/or how to co-create one.
Solution: review, discuss, and
edit the above together, and apply it to Projects 6, 10, and 11; and use books
and
Websites on team building, and traits of a
wholistically-healthy
family.);
don't know what they're
and how to do it
- or they can't
compromise and agree on those. Solution: work at
and
together;
are
and
that. They don't
respect
themselves enough and/or their partner,
either as persons, mates, or as competent co-parents. Solution: work
at
together;
And/or one or both mates...
are
and deny that. Symptoms
are (a) reluctance to assume responsibility or to share control over
family resources and decisions, and/or (b) sending
about personal core
and related commitments.
Solution: work at
and
together;
More
possible barriers to mates feeling like true teammates: one or both...
don't know the seven communication
that empower
and mutual
- Solution: help each other patiently progress with
and/or
mates...
haven't
learned to fully
their
partner's judgment in home and family decisions - so they send "I'm
1-up"
which sabotage effective communication.
Solution: co-commit to
and
together,
and select among these other options;
and/or one or both mates...
values someone or something
than
teaming up to
a co-parenting team together. Options: (a) admit
this truth to yourself and your mate, (b) choose a long-term view (e.g.
25 or more years), (c) review your kids'
developmental and
family-adjustment
needs, (d) review or draft your stepfamily
together, and then re-compare your personal priorities; and/or mates...
haven't solidly
changed their viewpoint from "(you and your kid/s) and (me and
mine)" to "us and our combined kids (and
relatives)." Options:
-
assess both of you for (a) false self
and (b) possible unwise
and...
-
check each of you for
and...
-
review your genuine mutual acceptance of
what it
to be a stepfamily, and...
-
work more on co-parent
as needed; and/or...
-
assess this "us vs. them" polarity with
a
seeking to
what blocks you from genuinely adopting the new "us" view; or
perhaps you...
haven't yet evolved an effective way to
spot and resolve divisive
and/or
conflicts
and associated relationship
Options: follow the links; and/or mates have...
some other situation-unique reasons
for not wanting to develop more teamwork at this time.
Does this group of barriers to shared partnership and teamwork between re/married
mates seem realistic? If not, what barriers do you see?
Does
all this seem too complicated and overwhelming? So does graduating from the
first 12 years of your schooling, or from the four years of a college
education, if you look at it all at once! Patience - partnership
and stepfamily-team building is a many-year set of projects that you all do a
little bit a day - with enough guilt-free rest
and play stops along the way!
If these partnership-barriers do seem realistic - what can mates like
you do about them?
Options
Toward Partnership-building
You and your mate can
resolve or master each problem
above and feel more like true partners, if each of you (a) is guided by your
true Self, (b) has made three wise re/marital choices, (c) is truly willing
to change something important to you to get this teamwork, and (d) sees some do-able options.
These ideas and options probably can't create or raise your motivation to build
your partnership. That has to come from within you. What the
ideas here may do is help you partners to (a) recognize the kinds of
blocks that may hinder your teamwork, and (b) see that you have many choices
to reduce the blocks together:
Help each other
learn from other couples what factors both
strengthen and hinder their feeling like true teammates
and family-building partners;
If you're in a stepfamily co-parent
support
group, focus one or more meetings on exploring mates' partnership-building.
The issue is relevant to every couple! If you're not in such a group,
consider finding or founding one;
Enjoy developing a partnership language that fits your
personalities and styles. Notice your pronouns: if you mates use I and
mine and you more yours
more than we and ours - explore whether
that (a) strengthens your feeling like partners; and (b) encourages your
kids and relatives to see you all as a unified stepfamily, or several
disconnected homes and families.
Build the habits of
discussing (a) what you each
(b) what your
re/marital,
stepfamily,
and co-parenting
goals are, and
(c) the
progress you're making together. Get more detailed than "Be
happy, healthy, and safe." Yes, you originated in different families -
and you adults and kids share a big set of common problems and objectives
today!
Part of your strength and
as a stepfamily team is helping each other identify and fill your individual
and shared short and long-range
- e.g. "We're here to strengthen
each of our self-esteems, learn how to grieve well, heal past wounds, build
mutual respect and trust, help each other learn how to problem-solve
effectively, and creatively guide each of our kids towards responsible and
productive adult independence." Does that seem like enough common projects
to work on as teammates?
More options...
Acknowledge every-day behaviors among any of
you that promote household and stepfamily team-building and partnering.
That can sound like "Jean, thanks for remembering to fill the car's gas
tank before our trip. That was one less thing on my mind, Hon."
Print this article, pass it around, and discuss it
with your family members.
Collect reactions and suggestions from kids and adults alike (would
teammates do that?). Choose some undistracted time and record (journal,
tape) your own thoughts, feelings, and inner images
soon after reading these ideas.
Periodically (say quarterly?) review your personal and relationship
(re/marriage) priorities, alone and together. How high does building a
strong adult partnership and stepfamily team rank? Do your actions match
your thoughts and words? Would informed others agree?
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Help each other keep
guiding you all every day: staying
balanced on four levels, and
enjoying
your challenging long-term stepfamily merger team-project!
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Recap