Introducing a new love to your children, or meeting your partner’s child, is incredibly exciting. “You’re not just the new boyfriend or girlfriend, you’re going to be part of a stepfamily,” say these relationship therapists.
Every child of divorced parents has one or two stepparents within five years, according to relationship therapist Patricia Heije. Such a family is called a complex family structure by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), and 16 percent of the more than 3.4 million minor children grow up in such a complex family structure.
Patricia Heije supports blended families with the organization Stiefgoed and wrote the book Als ik dit eerder had geweten (If I had known this sooner). It is complex, she says. “A stepfamily is not a nuclear family where you grow up with each other calmly and slowly, everyone has their place, and you love your children deeply and unconditionally.”
‘Don’t expect anything from a stepchild’
In a blended family, everyone comes in at the same time and love is not self-evident. “In a relationship you give and take. It doesn’t work that way in the relationship with children. You can’t expect a stepchild to give you anything. He doesn’t have to like you, love you, or be nice to you.”
Before the first meeting between your child or children and your new love, a lot of groundwork has to be done. First, tell your ex that you have a new partner, says Marianne Smulders, and then tell your children carefully. Smulders is a family mediator and founder of Stief & Co. “Let the news land with your children, they don’t have to be enthusiastic right away and don’t immediately suggest a meeting with your new love.”
Children often suffer from the dynamics that a new stepparent and perhaps stepbrothers or stepsisters bring, says Heije. “There is only a small group of children who benefit from it and then all the stars really have to be aligned.”
Take off the rose-colored glasses
Parents who shout about how cozy it all is, that big blended family, may still have their rose-tinted glasses on. “In such a situation, the ex often sees more clearly how children feel when a step system is created. When you are in love, you want everyone to be happy. But your child will probably not come out of it unscathed.”
The parenting plan that divorced parents draw up undoubtedly contains something about a possible new partner, say the step experts. Smulders: “I have seen parenting plans that state that the new partner may only be introduced after two years. You can think anything of that in the here and now, but it has been agreed. So discuss the agreements with your ex.”
Drinking coffee with ‘the ex’
It’s not fun at all, but do it, says Heije: first meet with the ex of your new love before you meet their children. And do that without your new love. “So you and the ex-wife of your new boyfriend, just the two of you. Or you and the ex-husband of your new girlfriend.”
“Just talk to each other. That ensures a smoother start to your step system. It is probably difficult for that ex that there is someone who is going to take over some father or mother tasks. Give each other a place, don’t push the ex or the new partner away. It really requires a big heart from all parties.”
Smulders: “Prevent children from being used as messengers and keep your ex informed when the meeting between your new love and the children takes place. Then your child doesn’t have to be on his guard, keep secrets or worry about his father and mother who may not know anything about it.”
Absolutely not to an amusement park
A thirteen-year-old will show more resistance than children of six or seven, Smulders thinks. Keep such a first meeting short; about an hour and a half. Absolutely do not go to the Efteling, both step experts say. “That’s too long and too intense. Go to a playground, where a child can also walk away and do his thing.”
For the new partner: stay yourself, don’t overact, fish for attention, ask a thousand questions and let a child come to you, not the other way around.
“Children see their infatuated father or mother change because of you,” Heije explains. “They feel that there are unspoken expectations, that a claim is being made on them. That’s not fun or easy. Give them the space to process this at their own pace. For one child it takes a week, for another child three years.” In her own blended family, Heije says, they could only say after ten years that everyone is in their place.
Sweets for your own child
“There is sometimes a lot of venom,” says Smulders. “Mothers who get those special Haribo frogs for their own children, but not for the stepchildren. Photos of the old nuclear family that are given along unasked to put in the other house. “
These new relationships can also start to chafe after a while, and when that happens, it is often over the backs of each other’s children, Heije notices in her practice. “Then you hear statements like: his children are not well brought up, or: hers are rude, ill-mannered. Many people think they are a better parent than the ex. My message to the stepparent is then: back off.”