Merging Stepfamilies: An Adventure

Last night I picked up my daughter from her after-school activities and returned home after a long day at work. I found my three poodles and one cat running through the house disoriented, with dirty athletic socks over their heads. The socks appeared to be those of my two teenage step-sons.

I removed the dirty socks, let the dogs outside, put the cat up in the safety of my bedroom, sent my daughter to work on homework and went in search of the boys. I found them in the game room playing a fierce video game and said hello. They mumbled a quick hello and went back to their game. The battle on the screen required their full attention.

I wandered into the kitchen to contemplate what to make for dinner. While I stared at the refrigerator door, deep in thought, my husband arrived home from work. He plopped his briefcase down by the front door and came into the kitchen to hug me and give me a long wet kiss. That was the best part of my day.

Jim and I have been married for seven months. He is the father of three and I am the mother of two. Our children range in age from twenty-six to eleven, with three of the children still living at home. The other two children are in college. Three months ago we became grandparents. Our lives are chaotic and we have learned to love almost every minute of it. That is the key statement. We have had to learn a great deal as we merge our families and love has gotten us to this point.

Our wedding months prior was a private ceremony. The children were our witnesses and our only guests. I gave them approval to wear their favorite outfit to the wedding without actually understanding the ramifications of that agreement. When we arrived for the ceremony in our long white limousine, the first two out of the car where Jason (15), attired in his full military camouflage gear, and his twin brother Daniel, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, his red hair newly dyed black. Matt (21) followed close behind in a shirt from the Island of Maui . Elise (11) idolizes Jason. She too wore full military camouflage, including a camouflage hat. Melody crawled more slowly out of the limousine wearing a beautiful maternity top. Melody was soon to give us our first grandchild. Jim helped me out of the vehicle wearing his jeans and a white Hawaiian wedding shirt. I wore a long off-white sleeveless wedding gown, giving bystanders the only clue as to why this motley group was gathered together.

We were married that afternoon surrounded by those we love dearly. It was a simple ceremony. We cried and hugged and laughed with relief when we were pronounced husband and wife and family. It took just a moment for us to be declared a family, though we were already well along the path of coming together.

We are still learning about each other in the new 6 bedroom home we had built to hold everyone. Jason and Daniel have installed electronic coded locks on their doors to prevent the other from invading their rooms. Elise has installed a door bell on her door. Matt spends weekends with us occasionally when he is home from college, but he prefers the game room to the guest room. The television is larger in the game room. Melody is away again at school.

On any given weekend, we have between two and twelve additional teens and pre-teens present in the house. Friends of Jason, Daniel and Elise all love spending time at our home. It is amazing to watch on Saturday mornings as young people appear from the various recesses of the house in search of food and beverage, their hair and clothes a mess.

Dinners are an adventure in our house. Jason, Daniel and Elise all have strong likes and dislikes where food is concerned and I have yet to identify any common ground among them. The boys like fast-food, seafood and cheap Mexican food. Elise abhors most fast-food and all seafood, Mexican and Chinese food. All of them hate sushi. Jim and I love sushi, Chinese and barbeque. We eat a lot of grilled meats and pasta dishes as a compromise, and periodically someone will go hungry as they attempt to make a point about the food that I have prepared.

The children often have disagreements of varying degrees of seriousness. The boys will wrestle with each other to settle arguments. Elise and the boys fight their battles predominantly using text messaging over their cell phones. The cell phone battles can be somewhat intense, but generally quiet, with only the sounds of angry fingers pecking away at the keys of the phone.

Jason, Daniel and Elise have become much closer in recent months. They search each other out for video game partners, they shoot at each other with marshmallow guns, they bike together, and they defend each other fiercely with outsiders to our family.

Jim and I continue to learn as we strive to merge our families into one. The love that we have between us and the strong bonds that we see developing between our children make it all worthwhile.