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This is one of a series of lesson-4 articles on how to
evolve high-nurturance relationships. These articles augment, vs.
replace, other
professional help. The "/" in re/marriage and re/divorce
notes that it may be one mate's first union.
This article is for people whose mate has not fully
mourned the loss of a prior partner. The article assumes you're
familiar with...
-
the
intro to this
Web site, and the
premises underlying it
-
self-improvement Lessons
(or 7, if you're in a stepfamily)
-
ways to
promote
healthy grief
-
basic
premises
about resolving relationship problems;
|
My client
Todd (not his real name) was a slender, previously
unmarried man who had just wedded an appealing widow with four
pre-teen kids. His described arriving home from work one recent night to find that
his thirty-something wife Louise had put up an array of pictures of her and
her dead first husband on the landing leading to the upstairs bedrooms. She hadn’t
told him she wanted to do this or asked how he would feel about it.
Todd described struggling with shock, hurt,
anger, guilt, and ambivalence. He said
“I
wasn’t crazy about being reminded every time I used the stairs that I wasn’t
her first love, and knowing that her kids would be reminded of their Dad
every single day.
They’re already ignoring me pretty much, and Louise says I’m ‘too sensitive'
if I say that bothers me." Like most co-parents, neither of these good people knew much about
stepfamilies when they exchanged vows.
Rather than say how he felt
and what he needed,
Todd asked his wife why she put up these pic-tures. She said “I
want my kids to remember that their parents had some happy times.”
Her former hus-band had spent much of their kids’ lives in jail. Louise
had little empathy for how the pictures and her mo-tive would affect Todd.
Her
included only her and her kids, as it had for the
several years after her husband’s death.
Todd tried to balance his and Louise’s needs
by suggesting that she put the pictures in his step-kids’ rooms. “I can’t,”
she replied flatly. “Their walls are already jammed with rock stars and
school stuff.” The painful meanings he drew from this were
“My wife
values her kids' needs more than mine,” and “If I want to be here, I
have to endure daily reminders of being number two, and maybe never gaining
the ac-ceptance of my stepkids.”
Louise said (defensively) that all four
of her sisters agreed that what she did was “reasonable.”
That implied that Todd’s discomfort was “unreasonable.” Louise “saw no
point” to joint counseling, and encour-aged her husband to go to fix his
problem. This attitude was a classic early-warning sign of major
re/mari-tal problems ahead...
Perspective
A minority of U.S. re/marriages
follow the death of one partner's former mate.
Psychologists esti-mate that a mate’s death can cause
one of the greatest traumas that adults can experience. The
natural response is grief, which
- if unimpeded - eventually allows the
widow/er to accept their losses, resume normal life,
and start to form new bonds.
|
Many Americans
like Todd and Louise ignore or trivialize the
vital process of mourning, and don't know how to
spot incomplete grief. They aren't aware that
many
psychologically-wounded
don't grieve well, and suffer
a range of significant personal, family, and social
problems.
That's
why
in this Web site exists. |
A more common version of this problem is someone re/marrying
before s/he and/or any kids have fully mourned the major
losses (broken bonds) from a divorce.
Symptoms of Incomplete Grief
Your beloved mate does things like these too
often:
Repeatedly calling you by the dead
person’s name and saying "You're too sensitive," joking about it, or saying “I can’t help it.”
Insisting on keeping
emotionally-loaded mementos in your home (like Louise’s family pic-tures),
despite your discomfort.
Continually reminiscing alone or with
kids and kin about good first-marriage times, despite your discomfort.
Getting “depressed”
at holidays,
birthdays, and anniversaries, (or other times) and refusing to do anything
about it, even though it stresses you.
Procrastinating or refusing
to sell
the first-marriage home or other property, and/or balking at redecorating and
refurnishing with new “ours” choices.
Your mate keeps
her married last name
(“for the kids’ sake”) despite your requests to take yours.
S/He consistently
avoids discussing her prior mate's death and its
effects, or does so with-out any emotions;
S/He ignores your requests to “say
something” to kids and relatives who constantly bring up the dead person and
former “good (or bad) times.”
S/He resists
starting new family traditions, despite your requests.
S/He develops chronic illness which doctors can “find no reason for,” and may not respond to
treatment.
Your partner...
-
doesn’t really
empathize with your feelings and needs,
-
blames you for being childish,
immature, unreasonable,
and/or self-centered (relative to dead-mate issues); and...
-
denies or justifies (defends) this.
S/He insists on inviting her
former in-laws to family celebrations or other occasions, and/or s/he
awards them higher status than your own relatives - and denies or defends
this.
Behaviors like these suggest a
re/married widow/er like Louise isn't finished grieving a dead partner and their lost
relationship, rituals, pleasures, dreams, and family. Any of these can cause
a new mate pain – and
none of them is the real problem.
How
you respond to
symptoms ;like these can add to the problem - e.g. you...
-
discount, minimize, or deny
your frustration (needs);
-
whine, complain, blame, or
snipe, instead of asserting your needs and
problem-solving;
-
avoid confronting your
partner; and/or you...
-
view this as my
problem or your problem, rather than our
problem.
Primary Problems
If you feel you’re in
a re/marital contest with your partner’s dead former mate, I
propose that the real problems to reduce are
unawareness of…
Psychological
in one or both of you, and how to
them; (Lesson 1); and...
Effective
and
(Lesson 2); and probably...
Healthy-grief
concepts, and
how to
and finish incomplete grief
These can contribute to up to
nine concurrent relationship
If you're in a
like Todd and Louise, another
common primary problem is unawareness of...
Stepfamily basics,
norms, and realities
Also
see this 