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When Anna* fell in love with the man who would
become her second husband, she vowed to create a stable family life for her
two daughters and his five children.
“I was crazy about him and wanted to be with
him,” she says. “At the same time, I wanted to protect my kids and make life
good for them.”
He agreed to live in Nashville, Tennessee, so
that her daughters could continue to reside in their hometown. She agreed to
become an equal financial partner with him in their household, as well as in
a new business they would start together. In addition, Anna paid half the
child support for his five children. She helped pay for his kids’ college
educations and split the cost of his children’s weddings.
Her generosity extended beyond the financial
realm. Every year at Christmas time, the stepfamily visited a ski resort,
where Anna not only bought and wrapped gifts for all seven kids, but cooked
meals for her kids, his kids and his children’s five friends.
“As the women, I felt like I had to do all
that,” Anna says. “I probably gave too much financially and emotionally. But
I did it for the children.”
Everyday, women tie the knot with men who are
fathers and agree to help pay for his child support, to care for his
children and to help foot the bill for his kids’ after-school activities.
Like Anna, they do all this in an effort to create a stable, loving, new
family unit. But in the process, they plant seeds of resentment that can
fester and threaten to undermine the family’s happiness.
“Often, she is paying for their current life
and he is paying for his former life,” says Jeanette Lofas, a certified
social worker and president of the Stepfamily Foundation Inc., N.Y., which
provides advice and resources to stepfamilies.
In some cases, stepmoms are happy enough to
help foot the bill for their husband’s children, especially if the stepmoms
are independently wealthy.
However, too often, a stepmom’s generosity
turns to bitterness, adding stress to already complicated stepfamily life,
she points out.
“She is losing money and doesn’t have the partner she hoped for
and if she brings it up, it becomes an issue of contention and warfare with
her husband,” says Lofas. It doesn’t have to be that way.
How to Avoid the Give-Too-Much-and-Feel-Resentful Trap
In order to minimize such strife, future stepmoms need to
communicate openly about each partner’s role in the new family and strike
pre-nuptial agreements with their fiancés, experts say. If couples go into a
marriage without such an agreement and later find themselves feeling
resentful, they shouldn’t allow those resentments to fester; they should
hire a counselor to help them find ways to start anew and create a more
rewarding partnership. For instance, couples trying to start over may need
to sign agreements requiring the husband to re-pay his wife for helping with
child support payments and other expenses. Or they could forge new contracts
providing some kind of compensation to the wife for caring for her
stepchildren.
Stepmothers can easily fall into the give-too-much-and-feel
resentful trap if they enter the marriage unaware of the realities of
stepfamily life, says Margorie Engel, president and CEO of the Stepfamily
Association of America.
“Many people go into a stepfamily marriage not
having any idea what they are getting into,” says Engel, whose Ph.D. thesis
focused on the financial position of women in stepfamilies. “The woman has
unrealistic expectations. She thinks it’s like a first marriage,” she says.
That often means she thinks it’s a good idea to throw all their money into
one pot. Not so.
Complicating matters, when women are dating, they’re reluctant
to ask questions about money matters, especially if their future husband
dwells on the financial consequences of his divorce.
“In the dating stages, the woman listens to the guy tell her how
he got raked over the coals during the divorce. The last issue she wants to
bring up is: ‘Am I going to be the benefactor in your life insurance
policy?’ She doesn’t want to be seen as greedy,” says Engel.
As a
result, couples often don’t discuss these issues before they get married.
What’s more, women often aren’t aware of critical legal issues. For
instance, a second wife does not automatically become the beneficiary of her
husband’s assets. A man’s ex-wife and children may likely be the
beneficiaries. "Beneficiary status is a choice made by the person with the
asset (pension, stock, IRA, insurance, trust, property - house, auto,
valuable collections, etc.) and they may choose the beneficiary they want,"
explains Engel. "The only exception is a pension benefit and a spouse must
designate the other spouse as the recipient of those benefits," she notes.
If couples fail to talk about such financial issues, they will
encounter snags that are sure to undermine their relationship: She may be
surprised or aghast to discover that he designated his ex-wife as the
beneficiary of his life insurance policy. Or he may assume that her child
support will be used for household expenses, while she may be thinking the
money should be used only for her children.
“Until you talk about these concerns and issues, both people are
operating on a different wavelength,” says Engel.
Avoiding these conversations can only lead to disappointment and
bitterness, adds Lofas.
“Women sometimes go into stepfamilies so blindly in love. But in
the end, they end up wondering, ‘Where is my house in the country, where is
the child I always wanted?’” Lofas says.
Yet, even if stepcouples do embrace conversation and plan
carefully, they don’t always avoid conflict. Enter the ex-wife.
The Ex Factor—and Other Questions
Jill*, a stepmom who lives in the Pacific
Northwest, agreed to help pay for her husband Frank’s child support
payments. An attorney, she assumed that her husband’s ex-wife would use the
money to pay for the children’s food and clothing. Instead, she says,
Frank’s ex uses the support payments to pay off school loans, and often
fails to foot the bill for the basics.
“His ex-wife knows we won’t let the girls go
without coats,” Jill says. “We are paying virtually 100 percent of the
girls’ support, but we have no control over how it the money is spent.”
This is an oft-heard complaint from stepmoms,
notes Susan Wisdom, co-author of the book Stepcoupling and a licensed
professional counselor in Portland, Oregon who specializes in stepfamilies.
“Often, women want to control what’s happening
in the other house,” she says. And they might believe they’ve earned the
right to do so, because their money is going there.
“Stepmoms can feel as if they’re getting a
double whammy,” says Lofas. “They often help pay for his child support and
then have no say about how that money is spent by his ex-wife. In addition,
they generally have little to say in how to raise his children. When you
feels resentful, you need to start retrenching. It’s time for a counselor
and reassessment,” she says.
Jill, however, has another solution: she’d like to see no less
than a change in the child-support system, in which child-support payments
would be lower and dedicated solely to the basics.
“Let’s say you now pay the custodial parent
$2,000 a month,” she says. “Under the system I’m suggesting, you would give
the parent $1,500 for the kids’ basic food and shelter. Then you’d take $500
out of your pocket each month and spend it on the kids directly for
activities and clothing. The system would be better and there would be fewer
arguments and tension if the person paying the expenses could do it more
directly. When resentment about finances builds up, it’s bad for the kids.”
Jill has two important factors going for her:
She is a mother and she works outside the home. If a second wife doesn’t
work outside the home or if she has no children of her own, she’s more
likely to become frustrated by the financial and emotional burden that her
new stepfamily represents. Engel says that the Stepfamily Association of
America’s membership is “heavily loaded” with stepmothers who aren’t moms,
because that appears to be the most difficult role to adjust to. Often,
women who aren’t mothers don’t understand why the father is fussing so much
over the children.
The task of establishing financial
responsibilities in such a stepfamily isn’t easy, says Dr. Shirley Hanson, a
marriage and family therapist and Professor Emeritus at the Oregon Health
Sciences University School of Nursing, says she’s often contacted to help
stepcouples grapple with such financial issues.
“Should a childless stepparent be responsible
for fewer of the household costs? If the man makes more than the woman, and
she’s home with her kids or his kids, what should she contribute? These are
hard questions,” Hanson says.
Such tough questions come up everyday in our
stepfamily. It’s not easy to answer all the questions. But we do know this:
In our “complex” stepfamily, with two of “his” kids, one of “mine,” and one
of “ours,” it makes a lot of sense to create individual bank accounts.
In our household, we have three pots of money:
one for me, one for Bill, and one for the shared household expenses.
Of course, it’s easy to get into arguments
about “shared” expenses. And if you’re not careful, you can get bogged down
in the details.
If Bill’s kids spend about half as much time
in our house as my son and “our” daughter, should I pay a larger portion of
the mortgage? Since he has two kids from a previous marriage and I only have
one—which requires an extra bedroom for “his” kids—should I pay a smaller
portion of the mortgage?
We settled this issue by simply splitting the
mortgage.
Larger stepfamilies like ours often argue less
about money, says Engel.
“When both partners bring children, they’re less likely to
have problems over spending for the children. There’s more of a sense that
it’s all a family,” says Engel. “It’s partially because there are always
kids around.”
That’s why I recently agreed to pay for the
lion’s share of a playroom for our three teenagers. I then struck an
agreement with Bill under which I will own a larger share of our house. I
thought it was really important that all the children have access to a
separate room for spending time with their friends.
Right now, it gives me great pleasure to see
all the teens playing ping-pong in our new playroom and arranging sleepovers
at our house. But will my generosity come back to haunt me in the form of
resentment? I don’t think so.
As Anna, who is now divorced, says, “Sometimes
mothers make decisions aimed solely at benefiting the children—and that’s
okay.”
She does resent the fact that her second husband got some of her
inheritance and she didn’t get some of his because they got divorced before
he inherited any money. Sometimes she wishes she hadn’t given so much at
Christmas time.
“I should have set up more rigid ground rules
and spoken out more,” she says.
However, she doesn’t regret other aspects of
her generosity because her willingness to give benefited her children, as
well as his. She’s proud of the fact that even though she and her second
husband split up, she has a good relationship with her five stepchildren.
“I know I gave too much in some cases,” she
says. “On the other hand, I feel so good about the fact that my kids get
along with my second husband’s kids even now. I worked very hard to make
that happen.”
Some things, it seems, really are more
important than money.
SIDEBAR:
Maybe
Cinderella’s ‘Wicked Stepmother’ Was Just Angry…Here’s How NOT to Follow in
Her Footsteps
One or both partners bring children from a prior relationship
into about 46 percent. of all marriages, according to the Stepfamily
Association of America. To avoid potential resentment and misunderstanding,
the millions of women entering these families need to be up front about
their expectations and should consider forging pre-nuptial agreements,
experts say.
Hire a
consultant. That’s the recommendation of Jeannette Lofas, president of the
Stepfamily Foundation in New York. Couples need to share information about
their financial state, and often a neutral party can ease the process
If a man expects his new wife to help pay for
his child support payments, she should consider giving him a loan.
Find ways to keep it fair. “If a man expects his new wife to
help pay for his child-support payments, I recommend that she make him a
loan, with so much payable when he gets a raise, or a Christmas bonus,” she
says.
If the woman agrees to stay home and take care of her
stepchildren, she needs to be compensated in some way. For example, they may
create a bank account for her that allows her to spend a given amount of
money in any way she likes.
“After all, she is not an unpaid nanny. But that is how some
second wives are treated,” says Margorie Engel, president of the Stepfamily
Association of America.
In some cases, a woman who cares for her stepchildren should
request that some of her husband’s savings or retirement funds be deposited
directly into an account in her name, each time her husband receives a
paycheck, Engel says.
Stepfamilies should consider creating an operating budget for
children’s expenses to identify where the money is coming from, says Engel.
With this system, the family can try to make adjustments when necessary, and
can request extra support from non-custodial parents if needed, she says.
Women in stepfamilies should think twice about
agreeing to a 50-50 split of expenses if their husbands make more money.
“Otherwise, a larger percentage of the woman’s wherewithal is needed to
cover the expenses,” Engel says. Instead, stepmoms should suggest that a
smaller portion of their income pay for joint expenses.
Don’t try to blend finances. Stepfamilies should consider a
system that creates his, hers and “theirs” accounts, says Dr. Shirley
Hanson, a marriage and family therapist in Portland, Ore. “Each person
should have control over his or her own pot of money,” she says.
Not all of the above suggestions will work for everyone, of
course, and some stepcouples don’t need them. They find ways to handle these
issues intuitively, without contracts or arguments. But all women are less
likely to face surprises if they enter stepfamily life with their eyes open
from the beginning, stresses Engel.
“Women need to learn about stepfamily dynamics before they
marry,” she says.
*not their
real names
Lisa
Cohn, an award-winning freelance writer, is co-author of “One Family, Two
Family, New Family: Stories And Advice For Stepfamilies.” (RiverWood Books).
Read about other stepfamily experiences and about her book at
www.stepfamilyadvice.com.
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