Behind The Book

Behind the Book/ Women of Divorce
By Susan Shapiro Barash

With stepfamilies accounting for sixty-five percent of the population, the hope for families is that the father’s new marriage will be complication-free, without competition between daughters and the new wife and with little impact on the mother/ex-wife. However, even in the best of circumstances, there are new schedules, new personalities and a restructuring of roles for everyone involved: the daughters, mother, stepmother, and father. In reality, the beginning can be tenuous, evoking feelings of despondency and anguish for daughters. This is further complicated with stepsiblings and, eventually for the forty percent of second wives who have not has children who will have babies within the first two years if their new marriages, half siblings. A stepfamily with stepsiblings and half siblings introduces new realities such as sharing rooms, stretching money and facing the end of fantasies about parents’ reconciliations. While the stepfamily may one day become strong and solid, a great deal depends upon the stepmother’s and mother’s attitudes toward each other.

The mother’s position toward the stepmother is pivotal in terms of the success of the daughter of divorce/stepmother bond. Most daughters take their cues from their mothers. In their mothers accept the second marriages, the daughters may as well. Nevertheless, the stepmothers bring unknown qualities into the new marriages/ new families and into the stepdaughters’ lives. Only if the daughters are responsive to their stepmothers will they benefit. In fact, I found that the distress over the loss of the original intact=2 0family is eased if the father’s new marriage provides a successful stepmother relationship and if the mother has successfully reinvented her own life. If both parents remarry, the daughter becomes a part of two stepfamilies; a challenge even in the best of circumstances.

I have listened closely to stories told by female friends, students and strangers in this new triangle from every point of view as each person explained her position and her place in the entangled realm of mothers, daughters, and stepmothers. This population of girls and women to whom I spoke represent diverse socioeconomic boundaries and ages. The daughters who came forth to share their stories are between the age of sixteen and thirty. The ages of the mothers and stepmothers range from twenty-five to sixty. It is notable that, regardless of how disparate the backgrounds, there is a great fund of common experience.

Often the daughters to whom I spoke had stepmothers that were substantially younger than their mothers, sometimes midway between the age of the adolescent or college-age daughter and the ex-wife. This was at times disturbing to the daughters who felt competitive. In other cases, it could be beneficial, with the stepmother giving insight in the areas where the mother does not. As one nineteen-year-old stepdaughter explained, “My stepmother is the one I confide in when it comes to boys and clothes. My mother guides me about school and friendships and having a career.”

Nevertheless, the loyalty of the daughters is divided and the dissolution of the original family haunts them. For these daughters, there is certain consolation to be found in their friends who are in similar positions. When they gather with these friends, they often compare notes on topics like finances and custody and they share their hopes and=2 0fears, especially about fathers’ dating patterns or new wives—topics that often bring about the most anxiety.

Of the daughters interviewed for this project, sixty percent revealed they experienced reduced self-esteem and senses of insignificance when their fathers remarried. Almost all the desire of validation of both their fathers and stepmothers. For the forty percent of those interviewed who felt sure of themselves despite their parents’ divorces and their fathers’ remarriages, there was a stability found in the co-parenting of the divorced mothers and fathers. The daughters in the forty percent group revealed that their stepmothers are available emotionally but do not try to replace the mothers. Furthermore, they reported that affirmation from their father, particularly for adolescent girls, is evident.

How daughters relate to their stepmothers and what they expect of them and wish for themselves becomes a personal odyssey, one that takes on too many characteristics which are unique to the individual stepmothers and daughters, yet remains influenced by the mothers. Undeniably, I found that even in the smoothest of transitions, there is enormous upheaval in the daughters’ lives. Until a divorce occurs, daughters believe that they exist in realms where parents stay married, whether they are happy or not. When this fantasy is destroyed, the daughters’ lives are no longer the same.

For those raised in conventional families, divorce continues to carry a stigma and a sense of dread. In the optimal scenario of daughters of divorce, inner strength is discovered and endures. The confusion and sadness occasioned by the early experience of parents’ divorcing become distant memories and in their place, hopefully, comes resiliency.

In a divorce, no one dies, yet there is mourning, unrelenting grief and wounded survivors. Of these survivors, daughters seem the most vulnerable and fragile of all. The emotional baggage is everywhere, even as the sheer hope of future happiness, of a fresh start, propels us forward. From the stories shared by mothers, stepmothers and daughters, it becomes evident that women of the triangle are able to move past the pain and anguish of divorce, adjust to their new lives and build satisfying, rewarding relationships with one another.