Developmental Stages of Stepfamilies - The Stepfamily Cycle
Jan and Brent Scharman

"Psychological research corroborates that knowing what to expect lowers stress."

FANTASY STAGE:

Most stepfamily members bring a complex set of fantasies wishes, and unspoken expectations to their new relationships; Later experience may prove these fantasies embarrassingly inaccurate; There is an unspoken sense of "how it should be"; Often a hope that the new family will provide the reliable and nourishing relationships that may have been missing; Giving up fantasies is hard because it means another loss; The need for stepparent and stepchild or stepsiblings to love each other may create impossible burdens; There is often surprising hostility or indifference; The family is divided along biological lines; Adults yearn to heal the pain created by divorce or death; Children often continue to desire to see their parents back together.

IMMERSION STAGE:

The reality of stepfamily structure begins to be felt; Stepparent has an outsider position and biological parent and child remain intensely connected; Stepparents often have unexpectedly strong and negative feelings - jealousy, resentment, confusion. inadequacy; Biological parent may interpret the stepparents difficulty joining the new family as evidence of lack of commitment; Often an uneasy feeling that something is amiss and the stepparent may believe "It must be me."

AWARENESS STAGE:

Stepfamily members make more sense out of the confusion; names are put to feelings and they are experienced more fully; Stepparent more clearly understands the power of the biological parent-child connection; Stepparent begins to feel less self depreciating;
Accepting reality allows the stepparent to be more clear about his or her needs; Fantasies of an instant family are relinquished and the stepparent begins to know the strangers he or she has joined; Biological parents begin to understand more clearly that they're the only ones truly connected to both children and spouse; Biological parents begin to increase awareness of exactly what was gained and lost by the remarriage.

MOBILIZATION STAGE:

Differences are much more openly expressed: This may be a chaotic, embattled period; Stepparents may begin speaking up with more energy about their needs for inclusion and for change; Stepparents may experience relief at being heard but biological parents may feel more pressure as they decide whether to hang onto the past or change to meet the stepparents requests; Stepparents more vocal desire to distance from an ex-spouse may conflict with the biological parents need to maintain a civil relationship; Arguments may appear trivial but are often over whether the biological subsystem will remain stable or whether the step people will be able to generate enough change to make themselves comfortable.

ACTION STAGE:

This is the stage where negotiations are made about how the family will function; Moves in this stage change the family structure as new boundaries are drawn. The family flow has enough understanding so that every family activity is no longer a potential power struggle between insiders and outsiders.

CONTACT STAGE:

The family begins to function without constant attention to step issues; This is often the honeymoon stage; Are now new areas of agreement within which the family can function easily; There are more one-on-one relationships rather than triangulated relationships; Children have been pushed out of the marriage and biological parents out of the stepchild-stepparent relationship: Intimacy and authenticity now become possible in step relationships; Stepparents and children begin to forge real relationships; It is only now, after the major structural changes, that a clearly defined stepparent emerges.

RESOLUTION STAGE:

The stepfamily now has solid and reliable step relationships; Norms are established and a history has begun to build; Although some children may be more inside the family than others, there is clarity about and acceptance of this fact; The stepparent role now brings satisfaction and nourishment; Stepparent is solidly established as an "intimate outsider"; he or she is intimate enough to be a confidante, and outside enough to provide support and mentoring in areas too threatening to share with biological parents: The family faces the remnants of its fantasies - it is a time of grieving once more the reality of nonbiolgical and noncustodial parenting; Step issues continue to arise and the family may re-experience the entire stepfamily cycle with divergent fantasies about how it will all work out, however even large differences no longer threaten the couple or stepparent-stepchild relationship.

Comments
        Faster families complete the entire cycle in about 4 years. Average-paced families take about I year. Slower families remain in the 3 early stages longer than 4 years and a few for as many as 12 years. Some of the last group end in divorce, others remain stuck and a small number eventually move on successfully.
        Speed and ease of movement through the cycle are often closely related to the amount and timing of support, particularly in the first 3 stages. Support is defined as the presence of someone or something that provides validation for and understanding of the intense painful feelings involved in early stepfamily living, and some indication of what to do next.
        In faster couples the biological parent has been able to hear the stepparent's jealousy and confusion right from the start, and the stepparent has been able to sympathize with the intense pull that biological parents experience from their own children. These families usually have fewer deeply held fantasies and more realistic expectations.
        Stages of step family development do not happen neatly and precisely - a family may move ahead in one area but remain at a much earlier stage in another. "Stuck" families have often been those which had talked to almost nobody who understood their experience. Early data showed that faster families were the minority, but later data suggests that stepfamilies may be coming together at a somewhat faster rate than previously believed. This later data may reflect the fact that our culture is becoming more supportive of stepfamilies, and particularly in the form of better information about what to expect in early stepfamily life.


Based on information from "Becoming A Stepfamily" by Patricia L. Papernow