Step Families

After you are divorced, and when the time is right, remarriage is an exciting step into a wonderful new life. Step families are often an important part of that experience.

Having come from a family where my parents divorced, I had the privilege of experiencing what it's like to have a step-brother and a step-sister. The new kids in my life were still little--eight and ten years old--when I was in college, but I found it a wonderful experience! They loved me like their big sister and, now after 38 years, that's exactly who I am to them! My dad and his wife went on to have two more children of their own, and I can honestly say this little family has been one of the bright spots of my life. I love them extraordinarily!

When I remarried, after my own divorce, I inherited Ken's two sons, as well as his two step-daughters. Since they were all adults when we married, our relationships have been more formal (though, congenial) then they might have been if they had been little children when we married. But they are still a source of pride and enjoyment to me, as I know my children and grandchildren are to Ken.

What an opportunity to widen the parameters of our affections and learn to show love for "other" brothers and sisters!

Here's a quote from "Reflections from a Broken Mirror" by Deborah Eldredge Milne that addresses this wonderful phenomenon:

"As I cultivate my relationship with stepfamilies, I discover the large capacity of my own heart. How lucky I am in this lifetime to know that two dozen people, or a hundred, or a million---each infinitely unique--can form a family not because chance or biology placed them together, but because they have learned how to love each other."

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