Look Before Leaping into Remarriage

Remarriage is always a highly emotional and sensitive scenario. This is true whether one or both of the engaged couple is previously widowed or divorced. However, divorce carries with it the additional fear that past mistakes will be repeated, or past abuse will be inflicted again.

In one way, this kind of fear is actually well grounded, because people tend to marry the same kind of person the next time around. Something about the individuals personality is attractive. On the other hand, just as we wouldnt say that all white dogs are deaf, we shouldnt think that all introverts are frugal with money, or all happy-go-lucky people are irresponsible (just to give completely arbitrary examples). It follows that, since we cant generalize, marrying the same kind of person the second or third time, might just work out. Or not, of course. The game of love is anything but predictable, and has no guarantees.

The biggest obstacles to happiness in remarriage are often the children from previous marriages or liaisons. Young children can greatly fear or resent having a new parent in the picture. Often this is expressed openly, making for volatile get-togethers. Additionally, the parent may secretly worry that her boyfriend, now becoming the stepfather to her child, will actually molest the girl.

Successfully blended, loving families have worked very hard to get along in their new relationships with each other. Yet The Brady Bunch is pretty much a myth in todays society. For one thing, the questions of respect and discipline have to be resolved upfront, so that abuse does not happen, from any quarter. Frequently, the biological parent dumps that responsibility on the new spouse, instead of sharing the load.

Older children can be equally resentful of a remarriage. They often see every prospective stepparent as a person who will take their rightful inheritance away from them. While it may come as a shock, the truth is that no one has the moral right to anything their parents have worked hard to obtain, or have received as a windfall. Assuming the parents are not suffering from dementia at the time, it is their decision to leave something for each child in their Will, or to write a lazy, disrespectful, spiteful, or gold-digging child out of the same document.

Another major obstacle to achieving success in a second marriage is the spouse who constantly compares the second wife or husband to the first. It is unkind and selfish to do that. The road leads to divorce again, or to long lasting strain that will undermine any solidarity that might have been reached without such verbal, and often sexual, abuse. Five years of hearing a husband complain that his ex was much better in bed will, at best, get a husband nothing but icy treatment in return. It generally takes far less than six months for a second wife to figure out why her husbands first marriage failed or actually ended in disaster.

Look before you leap is sound advice in any situation, but especially when remarriage is on the horizon.

2006 Shirley Ann Parker