When I served as a lay religious leader, many families in my congregation were experiencing second marriages and step-parenting challenges.  And while I did my share of ecclesiastical counseling on marriage and relationship issues, I seemed to spend a lot of my counseling time with parents in second marriages.  The normal, daily difficulties of living with a spouse are sometimes amplified by step-parenting issues, by emotional baggage from the prior marriage, and by simply having to adapt to someone else’s established lifestyle.

Just like any other significant relationship, both husband and wife need to invest in the quality of the marriage.  But doing that in a second marriage is quite a bit different than when the partners are starting out younger and less settled and when stepchildren come as a part of the package.   So, not all the tools you may have used effectively in the first marriage apply, and you may need to bring some new and additional tools into your marriage relationship “toolkit.” 

1. Understand your histories.  Every person coming into a second marriage brings a back story.  No one comes in as a blank sheet of paper.  So take some time to process and understand your own story and know the positives and negatives you are bringing.  No matter what, your new spouse will be different from your prior spouse (which may make you really happy), but she will bring her own story as well, much of which will not involve you.  Some therapists I have talked with even suggest that prior to a second marriage, each spouse write a personal history.

  This exercise helps process the background of the prior marriage and helps identify possible stumbling blocks for the new one.

2. Process the grief from the prior relationship.  Every marriage that reaches an end brings some sense of grief and loss.  In most cases, the marriage dissolved in a divorce, and there are likely regrets of things that might have been done better.  In the case of a death of a prior spouse, there is the sense of permanent loss that brings its own set of difficulties.  Make sure that you have thought deeply about the experience and that you have come to grips with the grief and loss of the prior relationship. 

3. Improve your communication skills.  Many marriages that end in divorce had root problems with communication.  Coming into a new marriage requires a new commitment to transparency and stronger personal communication skills.  Learn to be an active listener and to share your thoughts and feelings with your new partner.  Step-parenting is also enhanced when both new partners are good communicators.  Consider taking a class together at your local community center, community college or local church on marital communication.

4. Set some step-parenting rules.  Many of the families I worked with found their second marriages crumbling as the result of step-parenting difficulties.  This most often happened when one spouse tried to take a strong hand in raising the children of the other.  Most successful step-parents have discovered that discipline is best left to the biological parent, allowing the other to become a friend and role model to the children.  Sometimes, parenting styles are very different between the new spouses, and children can magnify those differences by pitting one spouse against the other.  Consider setting up a parenting plan and some basic ground rules for how each spouse will interact with the children of the other.

5. Make time for daily connecting and weekly dates.  The best marriage advice I think I ever personally received was from a family therapist friend who recommended 30 minutes each evening of connecting time with my partner and a weekly date night as well.  This is a little like preventive maintenance on a vehicle – investing a little in the asset along the way can prevent big and expensive repairs later that would occur if the routine maintenance were ignored.

6. Create your own new memories as a couple.  Sometimes, second marriages are challenged by the long history that the spouses may have had with their prior spouses.  Family vacation memories or holiday traditions that involved the ex will seem to exclude the new spouse.  So it is important to create some new memories that involve the two new spouses.  Plan some weekend getaways doing things that you both enjoy.  Try creating a whole new set of holiday traditions that you both can embrace.  Having a library of new memories can help strengthen the relationship when hard times come.

7. Make new friends as a couple.  One of the biggest challenges the families I worked with faced was integrating the new spouse into friendships from before the new marriage.  In many cases, the couples who had been friends with the prior couple had taken sides in the breakup, or maybe had a sense of reverence for the spouse who died.  If the prior marriage broke up due to infidelity, there may have been strong feelings on both sides among prior friends.  So, while you will certainly want to keep friends from the prior marriage, it is also important to make some new friends that do not bring baggage along with them.  So find some new friends that can be enjoyed without risk.

8. Create a unified family budget.  Dealing with finances can be tough in a second marriage.  There might be trust issues from prior relationships, and each spouse may bring his or her own financial assets or liabilities that he or she may not want to full share.  So set up a common family budget, even if you don’t totally pool all resources.  Having unity from a financial perspective can help overcome a lot of the difficulties associated with a new family unit.

9. Be willing to try new things.   Spouses coming into a second marriage bring their own likes and dislikes, and it is important to the marriage to blend those as effectively as possible.  Many marriage and family therapists suggest that the new spouses learn to like some of the things the other spouse likes.  And, even better, they suggest that the new couple experiment with things that neither of them has tried yet.  This willingness to get outside of your personal comfort zone is important to finding new common ground in the new relationship and family.

10. Remember to take care of yourself, too.  The most important thing you bring to a new marriage is your best self, and keeping your best self in the equation requires some investment.  Make sure that you have a self-care plan and that you are investing in your personal well-being.  Good nutrition and exercise will help your body, meditation and study will help your mind, interacting with others will help your social skills and a rich spiritual component to life will keep you personally grounded.  Making some time to “sharpen the saw” regularly will be important to continuing to bring your best self to your new family.