When death occurs in a blended family
It’s been almost one week since my father-in-law passed away. As with most trying times, I am forcing myself to reflect on the week of events and learn whatever lessons life might have been trying to teach me.
Those who know me, know how I feel about blended families and how much unique respect blended families require. Being married five years has me resigning to the fact that I can’t force others to respect my unique family, but what I can do is not permit those who lack respect to enter our lives anymore than they absolutely have to.
I’m not sure I’ll ever understand what compels people to look upon a family who has chosen to blend, a family that steps up to a challenge that very few can master and discount that union in any way. I suppose it takes those displays of tarnished character to help me and my family determine where our own efforts and relationships should lie.
My blended family has certainly offered it’s own challenges over the last five years and this last week has been the greatest test of my own character. It was difficult to bite my tongue, to not return the chilling stares and more difficult still, as a mother, to step aside and watch as my children were treated as second or third class citizens. For six hours, out of respect for the deceased, we sat quietly and gave the immediate family room to process and mourn as they needed to.
I watched as the “grandchildren” were called on to participate in a small symbolic ceremony of each placing a flower next to the grandfather, as tribute while the “step” grandchildren were not asked to join in. Although later, my husband took his ‘children’ to create their own moment of tribute with their own flowers.
I found that most touching, that my husband would recognize and participate in such an effort during such a difficult time.
Thankfully my boys are now fifteen and recognize when people are acting in a way that teaches us how not to act rather than seeing their actions as hurtful and allowing them that power. I’ve taught them well to recognize mean people and to know that mean people just suck.
There were several acts on the parts of the family that caused me pause – wondering if those actions were “proper” and rather than say anything that might appear petty, I chose to do some research on proper funeral etiquette to see if my observations were amiss – thankfully I can take pride in knowing my parents and grandparents raised me proper and that I can take pride in recognizing when some actions are just rude, crude and completely uncalled for.
We have learned several valuable lessons this last week and if nothing else good comes from this experience, my husband was given a true glimpse at life without his father and can now rest assured that his father was never the man a select few had tried to make him out to be. In fact, he was a remarkable man, strong character and had obviously touched many lives – some visitors waited in excess of 2 1/2 hours to pay their respects to the man and his family. In his passing, he is leaving others behind who will have to finally take ownership of their own actions, their own decisions and their own petty ways.
Gayla, I can soooo relate to your blended family experiences. What you describe is most commonly referred to as “toxic family members”, and as unfortunate as it is, blended families are especially susceptible to the struggles of dealing with toxic people within the family. It’s really no surprise then why there are so many divorces for second and third marriages. Hugs to you!
I’m so sorry yo had to deal with this Gayla. I grew up in this kind of situation and it was never pleasant. On one side of my blended family, I had a step family that treated me above and beyond, (which is probably why I called them all, grandma, uncle, aunt, etc..) but on the other side, the only attention they ever had was for my step brother, and although I tried to be a little understanding since they didn’t seem to do it out of spitefulness, it still hurt, especially for my sister who was four when my parents remarried (and those would be the ones that we call by their first names). And although it sounds horrible, they did eventually all reap what they sowed since I was older by 8 years, I’m the first to have children and not that I play games or anything with my children but if all my relatives are doing something on the same day, the ones that never really made a connection are the ones that are on the bottom of the priorities list. I won’t cut them off (they’re enamored with my children) but on the other hand I don’t generally go out of my way. If they invite me, I try to come over, but they don’t get me calling them out of the blue to come over for a visit because frankly, I worry about when my step brother eventually has kids, my kids being pushed aside, and I don’t want them to be hurt.
I guess end of the day, all I can say is good for you for being repectful of their pain, but I would definately go back to your normal method of dealing with them. People that behave that way need to be told that it is unacceptable and you need to know that you’re protecting your children.
Gayla,
First off, this furneral is NOT about bleneded families. IT IS ABOUT THE PERSON WHO HAS JUST PASSED AWAY!!
It really has nothing to do about you or your kids or about being a bleneded family. It’s also not about “toxic family members.” Its about the fact that someone just lost their husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. I don’t know that it involved the fact that any member of the family has blended a house hold.
Second: It takes more courage to work through problems with you first husband / wife than it does to blend a family. If more people worked harder at the first marriage there wouldn’t be a 50 % divorce rate in the USA.
Third: If your kids are so respectful of the family and the blending they
@ Concerned Friend – I couldn’t agree more that this was about the deceased. We went with every intention of paying our respects and being there to provide what we could, where we could.
There are people who intentionally manipulate situations and rather than put our foot down and reject the pull to be drawn into the manipulations, we sat aside quietly. There is a time and place for everything and at a funeral is not the place to say what will eventually need be said.
The fact that one sibling placed their entire family (6 members) on the receiving side of the casket – BEFORE the spouse/mother and held a constant line as very weak and elderly waited to pay their respects was RUDE as HELL. In my opinion. Beyond that, nothing they did surprised me at all.
More on that later though. Today is just not the day for me to delve into that mess.
Thanks for the comments though and for your concern.
@ Kelsey – Thanks for your comment. I am so sorry you had such a terrible experience with step families.
I’ve come to realize that respect must truly be earned and when people become less important to some, those same will become less important in return.
Life is just too short to give in to the chaos. It takes precious and valuable time away from those who deserve your time most.