While the dictionary definition of remarry is as straightforward as it gets – the word means to marry again – nothing about the reality of remarrying is straightforward, particularly if one or both of the partners have children from a previous marriage. Remarry and remarriage are sneaky, tricky and curiously crafted words, because the presence of the sly and subtle “re” in front of “marry” and “marriage” suggests there’s nothing to it, just an easy, breezy, do-over event, a re-do, perhaps, when there’s nothing else on the schedule. As simple as renewing a magazine subscription, or a membership in a club.
But when we speak about redoing our apartments or our houses, we are referring to repairing the things that don’t work, as well as maybe buying a new sofa and freshening up the paint on the walls. We keep the same old apartment or house, but make them better and stronger. And when we speak about renovating a building, we don’t tear it down, we fix and rebuild it, we shore up and strengthen a structure that may have served us well but is in need of propping up and repair so that it can carry us into the future.
A remarriage, on the other hand, is an entirely different sort of do-over. The prior marriage is over and no one is trying to fix it. The remarriage is with an entirely different person (unless you remarry your first spouse, which is always an option) and, hopefully, the lessons learned from the dissolution of one relationship will create a greater awareness of how to nurture, enhance, maintain, invigorate and protect the new relationship as it develops so that there isn't another divorce.
A person may well be remarrying, but they are most certainly not doing anything over again, or even doing anything anew. They are in fact developing...from scratch...a brand new relationship with a brand new person. And while there may be significant and important carryover from the prior marriage (children, for instance), there has to be a sense of building the new marriage from the ground up – just like a house that will shelter its inhabitants from the elements – fully taking into account the needs of the new spouse.
In fact, I venture to say that if any divorced person with children who is proposing remarriage were to say casually to their future spouse, 'I want to get married, but my children were here before you and I don't really want to rock that boat. I don't want to do change anything too much, or do anything differently. I know that if you try really, really hard, and use a little elbow grease, with a little luck and time you'll figure it out. Come on. Be a sport. Everything will be okay...,' their future spouse would head for the hills lickety split!
So, in honor of the New Year, it’s a perfect time to talk about new beginnings with Paula Bisacre, founder and publisher of Remarriageworks.com, in this final segment of a three-part interview that began on December 27, 2010.
You left a long time career as an Intelligence Analyst to start Remarriage Works. Isn’t that like divorcing one career and marrying another? Tell me about that choice.
If you had told me a decade ago that I would have a stepfamily with five children, be an entrepreneur building my own company, write for The Washington Times about remarriage (or anything else for that matter), or that I’d be on the Board of Directors for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Maryland, I would have told you that you were totally crazy.
I don’t look at my career change as a divorce at all. While my two careers are like night and day in many ways, when I changed careers I didn’t have the feelings that often come with divorce, such as pain, anger, frustration, sorrow, bitterness, heartache, guilt, blame or depression.
I loved my first career. It was very rewarding and it afforded me fantastic opportunities. I acquired many skills that crossed over into my second career, such as research, analysis and project management. Since my junior year of college, when I started as a co-op student within a Department of Defense agency, I grew up in a work environment where you didn’t tell people where you worked. Even my kids didn’t know what I did for a living.
I’ll never forget the time I went to a back-to-school night for my son and on the classroom’s bulletin board were pictures the students had made of their parents in their work environments. There were the easily identifiable policeman, nurse, teacher and doctor, but on my son’s picture there was a mom literally producing dollar bills. Later that evening, my son explained that he drew me “making money.” It was eye opening to me. I was used to an anonymous work-life.
Now I’m open to a whole new world where I’m not anonymous. In my Journal for Stepmoms I wrote about my remarriage and my stepfamily life, with stories from my personal experiences interspersed with those from stepfamily experts. It’s a very big shift for me to be out in the world, literally via the Internet, communicating with so many different types of people.
For 19 years I was working toward retiring from my first career. When I was preparing to remarry, I found very few resources to help me with the remarriage and stepfamily building process and I casually thought that one day in my retirement years I might create a magazine for remarrying brides as a hobby! But researching about remarriages and stepfamilies that first summer, I quickly realized there weren’t a lot of resources available and I suddenly felt compelled to let others know what I had learned and to create even new resources for them. I faced some challenging times early in my remarriage and I wanted to help others who may be going through the same thing. I wanted to create what I wasn’t able to find. I wanted to create a positive, inspiring, valuable, and credible resource for remarrieds.
Yet the real impetus behind moving my idea from a retirement hobby dream to a full-time entrepreneurial business was when my youngest son was diagnosed with Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. I took a sabbatical the first summer following his diagnosis, mainly because it was so difficult to find childcare options that fit his medical needs and our schedule. I planned to take care of my son over the summer, while he was still able, like every other kid, to attend various camps and activities. I thought I’d spend time researching and laying the groundwork for a magazine that was to be born years later. When his school started in the fall, my plan was to go back to work. That lasted about two weeks.
It was very difficult balancing what I needed to do at work, and what I needed to do for my son. I felt like I wasn’t getting an A+ either at mothering or as an employee. But still, I felt fortunate. On the one hand, I had a son newly diagnosed with a horrible disease that took away his normal childhood and forever changed his life, but I also rather quickly, and with my husband’s full support, was able to do what I felt I needed to do to take care of my son at the same time that my once casual thought of helping remarried brides suddenly became new passion – and Remarriage LLC was born. It all just came together.
As a wrap-up to our discussion, is there anything you can add to the mission of Remarriage Works…to have a positive impact on remarrieds by providing solutions that increase happiness…and to celebrate each successful, individual remarriage?
As a remarried Mom, writer, and publisher, I strive to provide resources and information for remarrieds and stepfamilies that are positive and inspirational. Remarriages have a better chance of success if couples remarry with their eyes wide open. RemarriageWorks.com provides not only a realistic view of the challenges of remarriage and stepfamily living, but also provides solutions.
There has been a lot of discussion recently in the media about the decline of marriage and the reasons not to remarry, e.g., "The Decline of Marriage And Rise of New Families," November 18, 2010, by Pew Research Center, based on a survey conducted in association with TIME, and “The Case Against Remarriage” on November 22, 2010 in SmartMoney.com.
In addition, since the days that “Snow White” and “Cinderella” were created, Hollywood continues to paint a mostly negative picture of stepfamilies, such as portrayed in “The Uninvited” and “The Stepfather.”
I think it’s better to acknowledge the unique challenges that remarriages and stepfamilies face, along with the grim statistics. After all, that’s reality. But after we do that, let’s focus on proven solutions and the often hard-to-find support that is available. I think Virginia Rutter captured it best when she wrote in “Lessons From Stepfamilies,” in Psychology Today on May 1, 1994, “A far more useful, more important fact is that stepfamilies do indeed face instability, but that shakiness occurs early in the remarriage – and may ultimately be traced to lack of support from the culture.”
There is far more to the story than the break-up rate statistics. If you are planning to remarry or are already remarried, I recommend concentrating on understanding the risks of remarriage; proactively seeking stepfamily support, resources, and marriage education; and surrounding yourself with positive influences. Click here for the introduction to this series of articles, click here for Part I, and click here for Part II.
For More Info: Paula Bisacre is founder and publisher of ReMarriageWorks.com, an in depth resource and support system for stepfamilies and remarriage adventurers, as well as author and publisher of the new Journal for Stepmoms, available online at www.RemarriageWorks.com.
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