Cognitive Biblical
Therapy Coursework
Counseling Through God’s
Transformative Word
Course 4, Chapter 11
Section 3: Relationship Situations
Chapter 11 Second Plus Marriages
Second marriages are often complicated by blended families, parenting issues, ex-spouses and demanding financial situations. With similarities to First Marriage Issues, the treatment of Second Plus Marriages, take a deeper knowledge, experience and resourcefulness.
Essay Questions: Answering the section questions (red buttons) is a great way to prepare for the end of the Chapter Quiz. Chapter 11 questions require you to analyze the case study and apply both present and previous course understanding, while using common sense. The section questions will provide Dr. Wilkinson’s feedback to your answers.
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Chapter 11
Second Marriage
Symptoms and Impact
Counseling second or more marriages can often feel like there are more than two people sitting in the room with you. You may sense the presence of two ex-spouses and a boat load of children, not to forget the personal baggage from the precious marriage(s). A counselor’s patience and kindness will be tested when assessing and treating their presenting issues. So remember, what you initially see, sense and hear from the couple, will initially only be the surface, take your time and be courageous with the Spirit of God, empowering you. Let’s start by looking at the Symptoms and Treatment Text (Materials tab). You will find, a reference early in the text, the First Marriage Symptoms (topics) and Treatment (plans/goals) are very similar (see Chapter 4’s Materials tab). So refer back to the identified chapter and materials when needed for understanding the symptoms and treatment of second marriages, though also the Materials tab in this chapter, since there are some significant additions and applications.
Remember the Rock and Ripple example in Course 1, Chapter 1? The client(s) presenting issue(s) and complaints may sound and look different in first and second marriages, though both their underlying issues (rock) will be very similar. And that's simply because the manifestations (conditional thoughts, motives and behaviors) of the lack of the understanding of rudeness, pride, selfishness, and the person's relationship to God, are the same for most of the underlying issues. If belief in God exists, it may be minimal and distorted, and will always have the same outward, behavioral symptoms of dysfunction that you encounter in the initial session. And remember, their belief in God that is based on the Scripture as our guidance for what makes a relationship good or bad, which manifests itself in the actual daily personal relationships.
When we look at these daily functions in personal relationships within marriage, we see things such as 1) extreme emotion like yelling, crying, hopelessness, potential violence, punching holes in the walls, breaking objects, physical abuse, hitting, slapping, shoving, restraining the other person in a room; 2) sexual abuse of the spouse or children; 3) excessive use of alcohol or drugs, 4) the negative effects on the children. These negative effects can be 1) no discipline, so they are out of control, or they're withdrawn and depressed, 2) poor performance at school, academically, physical, 3) sexual abuse, and 4) poor performance at work. These negative effects will be within the adults, relative’s concern over the couple, family intervening inappropriately, sexual dysfunction such as lack of frequency and desire.
There will be various levels in relationships to God, understanding of God and Agape love, and even unsaved folk. They don't know or understand the God and His love, since they don’t read the Scripture, nor prayer or surrender to Him. There can be adultery on one or both sides and ex-spouses. This is an added issue from the previously discussed types of relationships. An ex-spouse, husband or wife can be involved in a relationship that will cause problems such as: arguing, feeling alienated, angry, and upset. In a second or more marriage, these hurtful behaviors will be a very destructive and present problem. It can be as ridiculous as the ex-spouse coming into the house, setting down the current spouse, and lecturing him or her about the other spouse’s behavior. The inappropriate influence and intervention of ex-spouses, and lack of unity between the spouses over how to discipline two sets of children. There can be each spouses’ discipline plan from the previous marriage, different from each other that has been used with his children and her children. The couple will need to decide how to parent the blended family for those who visit and those who live fulltime with the couple. If they have children from this second marriage, there will be three different sets of children to manage: his, hers and ours. This issue of a parenting plan is huge and critical to resolve early for the success of the marriage and life quality of the family.
Fully answer the following question from the content you just read and submit your answer to find your score and Dr. Dan's answer to the question.
All of the initial concerns that were expressed in the questions over a first marriage apply to a second marriage, plus some more. List some of the other types or additional concerns that occur within a second or more marriage.
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
Some of the other influences that differentiate a second marriage from a first may be the pressures of his, hers, and our children, the hostile or inappropriate intervention of ex-spouses, unusual financial burdens, or the effects of bad relationships.
Fully answer the following question from the content you just read and submit your answer to find your score and Dr. Dan's answer to the question.
What are the negative effects in second plus marriages?
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
These negative effects can be: 1) no discipline, so children are out of control, withdrawn, or depressed; 2) poor academic, physical, or school performance; 3) sexual abuse; and 4) poor performance at work. These negative effects also extend to adults -- relative's concern over the couple, family intervening inappropriately, and sexual dysfunction such as lack of frequency and desire.
Assessment and Treatment
Similar to first marriage counseling, evaluate their concept of love and their personality types through the AQAL and Analysis Profile. See Case Study 8 (Materials tab), you'll notice that they are both active- sincere. They had been married over 15 years. In my observation the man appeared to be somewhat quiet, while the woman appeared to be more outgoing, and open. Even though there had been a mild form of physical abuse, the other issues were the most troubling. Arguments, displays of emotions and differences had gone on for a long time. In this case study, the woman had become so emotionally and mentally upset that she had spent about three months in an inpatient treatment center. While there, she had become aware of her own tendencies and healed through the changes she made.
By the time I saw her, she required medication, and still saw a psychiatrist. She had gotten fairly good help, and her scores show her changing. Her scores now are much different than they would have been before her treatment, because for a number of years, she had just bent over backwards to try to please and win the love of her husband. She would do things like warm his towels, before he got out of the shower so they would be extra comforting. She brought him drinks or tea or food. In areas of sexuality, she would just do anything she could to please him, and wear whatever type of clothing he wanted. Because he was insecure in many ways sexually, he would demand to be sexually active with her numerous times a day, every day. His need and demand were so intense, that her monthly menstrual cycle was catastrophic, because he couldn’t be sexually active with her.
Their relationship was focused on people-pleasing, almost at the bondage level. And if we look at his scores, we'll see that his highest ones are in the areas of C envy (23), D boastful (19), and F rude (21). He wanted to be protective, and wanted to believe that God would help them with their problems. When I first showed them their scores, he she was pretty incredulous in some ways. She didn't believe that these were accurate, but agreed that he wants to do what's right. And he would say the same thing. His areas of difficulty are: B kind (16), E proud (18), G self-seeking (18), I keeping records of wrong (15), J-K being negative (13). His areas of most difficulty were: A patience (12), H easily angered (12), M trusts (7), O perseveres (12), and P fails (9). This man wasn't saved, even though he had toyed around with the idea for years. She had tried to get him into church. He would go, but he wouldn't make much of a commitment. It makes more sense when you look at his scores and you see his lowest score is on trust. He didn't know God, didn't trust God, felt like a failure, and had minimal perseverance. In other words, he did everything on his own strength, instead of relying on God. He didn't have a relationship, so he couldn't go to God to ask him for input or help.
Her scores are very different. Her high scores are: C envy (24), D boast (19), F rude (22), and G self-seeking (18). Her mid-range scores are: A patience (16), B kind (16), I keep no record (14), J-K delights in evil (13), and M trusts (12). She had a very good mind, and very good discernment. Some of her troubles started to show up, though, with being impatient and unkind. There isn't anything wrong with bringing him heated bath towels, but there was a concern for her motive. She did it out of fear and trembling, means to cope, keep the peace, a type of enabling behavior. To gain acceptance, she was a people pleaser, and manipulated by parents and others.
So, she approached love in her second marriage the same way she had in her first marriage. She repeated her mistakes by allowing her husband to manipulate her. She didn't confront him, so she wasn't patient and kind. She would make excuses for him, pamper him, baby him, while thinking that that would help him, and it never did. You may have noticed, she was “enabling” her husband, which you will also see later in the chapter text. See the Effects of Enabling. She had trouble with E pride (16). She had to admit her need for God’s help, let her see where she was wrong and then agree to change. It wasn't an extremely low score, but she had to surrender her will to God’s authority. Her score on I keeps a record (14) shows that she resented how she had been berated over the years. Her score on A patience (16) shows that she had no process for dealing with difficulty in her marriage. She had to learn how to confront him, which became much easier once he became a Christian. She believed that he was a new person, and they could start over. She had a tendency towards being negative, look for the worst (J-K), and she also had trouble with M trust (12). It was much better than when I first met her, but her tendencies to keep a record of wrong, hold a grudge, by assuming it was always the worst-case scenario. She would avoid prayer and thinking, just felt. It was hard for her to practice patience when she felt hopeless. She had the most trouble with H being easily angered (9), so some of her behaviors would provoke him. She would get quiet, put on a happy face, and pretend everything was okay. She didn't realize that instead of protecting and helping him, she created a sense of hopelessness in him. She was experiencing the results of “enabling” her husband. He thought he couldn’t do anything to help her. Her attempt to pacify him was actually an attempt to live off her own strength, instead of relying on God. She felt she was a failure, because she couldn’t fix the situation.
Once I explained their scores and that they both had the same type of tendencies, they understood that they needed a better method for dealing with life issues: patience, kindness. We began working through the concepts of love in the questionnaires. I had to work with him to understand salvation, because he had never really understood the process of salvation. About two thirds of the way in their counseling process, he accepted the Lord. She led him through the process, up to the place of praying a prayer of acceptance, and then left him alone. She said to him, “I don't want to be here when you do this, and I showed you how, here are the Scriptures.” I had given him a Bible with a prayer that printed in the cover. And she said to him, “This has to be done on your own, and I don't want to be any part of it. I'm going to leave you with some time out on the deck. And if you want to do that, fine, and if you don't, that's fine, but it's your choice.” That was the best way that she could have ever handled him.
When I showed them their scores, explained the spiritual side and the human side, how both sides impact their interactions, and what their problems were, they both felt pretty open to learning and changing through counseling. Their other concerns were common for second marriages: no budget, financial difficulties, and debt hopelessness. In a second marriage there can be financial demands where the income has to be carefully managed. The type of custody each parent has will impact expenses like school clothes, sports fees, needs for arts supplies and tuition. The finances can be compounded and stretched even tighter, which often produces arguments and anger, a sense of hopelessness, disrespect and despair. You invite them to list the other issues they need to resolve. The basic process of going through the studies and the questionnaire results, enables you to help them learn how to deal with things like money.
In this case, you know that both people are sincere, and want to do what's right, but they don't have a good method for problem solving. Instead, they get emotional, confused, can be pushy and demanding. Let them know how their old patterns would impact them: when you get thinking about money, you feel pressed and tight, frustrated and angry, so do not talk about it. Use the process of patience to back off, until you are ready to share each other's perspectives, after seeking God’s perspective.
Together, you can decide where your money is going, and if you're using good stewardship, because in your tendency to be active and sincere, you'll both be impatient. And you can say to the man, “To a larger degree, you will be impatient which means that you'll see that shotgun or that 22-foot boat and you'll want it, without waiting for it.” You can say to the woman, “You will be less prone to spend time with him, but will have the tendency to get mad, because of being easily angered. That means you will mouth off and say, ‘Who do you think you are? What do you think you're doing?’” She also has gone from being very quiet, meek and passive to being more outspoken and verbal. Her scores were unusual in the wide range of perseveres (7) and envy (24). These tendencies apply to any issue, and the financial is just one of them.
In your own words, answer the following question and submit to see Dr. Dan's answer. This question is for your personal reflection -- no score is given.
Describe your familiarity with unhealthy "enabling motives and behaviors" in marriage. In your own words, describe possible motives behind enabling and the associated behaviors of one spouse towards another.
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
Enabling is defined as a behavior pattern of support, protection, or excusing a loved one's irresponsible, addictive, or self-destructive actions. Instead of helping the person grow, the enabler shields them from natural consequences, which allows the unhealthy behavior to continue. Enabling can take root in marriages, especially those that are second-time or blended after experiencing challenging first marriages. A spouse can repeat the same patterns from their fear and insecurity, including various feeling patterns around anxiety.
Conditional love attempts to "win" a spouse's affection through service, and at other times becomes a means of control to keep the peace in the household. Sometimes a husband demands constant sexual attention and expects the wife to rescue him from every practical problem that is a nuisance to him. Both partners cling to these habits out of a deep-seated dread of rejection -- a sense that if they do not keep the other satisfied they will be abandoned -- and a hopelessness that the relationship cannot improve without extreme self-sacrifice.
Often the Analysis Questionnaire for Agape Love will probe for a spouse's sense of hopelessness, anger, pride, and guilt. The Analysis Profile will point out deficiencies in Agape love that pinpoint motives behind the behavior patterns in both spouses.
Potential Abuse in Second Marriages
Our next issue involved in this case is the sexual aspect involved in this situation. They had an extremely active sex life, mostly for using sex to compensate for deficits they felt: her to feel loved, and him to feel secure. I have reprinted the information about female and male perspectives for you. In this case neither of them knew or understood any of this information. It helped take some of the urgency and fear out of their relationship. In a second marriage, there can be several issues with affection and sexuality, because of past brokenness and emotional wounds from others. This was true for both of them. There may have been a period of time after the divorce, where they became either celibate or extremely sexually active. It's very common in a second marriage that they were sexual with each other, before they got married, because they had grown uncomfortable with sexuality in their first marriage. Sometimes they lived together before marriage. You have to ask if there are any sexual issues or questions. Even in a second marriage, it is beneficial to review the information on sexuality from a man and woman’s perspective.
In this case, the man was very insecure, and would seek the emotion of sexuality as a substitute for security with God. When he accepted the Lord as his Savior, this void was filled, which resulted in his desire not being as extreme as it was. Reassure him that his reduced need for sexual activity is normal now that he is not compensating for a soul emptiness. The satisfaction is now spiritual and internal, coming from the proper place. Now the sexual relationship can become a place of balance and peace, and fulfill the role it's supposed to fulfill, instead of based on fear and insecurity. Help them understand that will be a period of adjustment. The woman will have a sense of peace and begin to develop a new level of balanced desire, and may feel some insecurity, because the man is not as demanding as he once was. So help them understand where it's been out of balance. You may need to also work with them on previous relationships where sexuality was unbalanced or used to control another. Check to see if they have false concepts about sexuality or developed unhealthy patterns of sexuality like this couple did. They may need to get rid of things used in a perverted or unhealthy ways, like paraphernalia, pornography, or clothing.
The potential for abuse, which means violence towards one person or both towards each other, can be simply loud, angry arguments. Discussions with extreme emotions, can escalate to potential violence to inanimate objects, abuse of physical or sexual nature, poor performance at work. In this case, the problem was that he had pushed her, blocked her in rooms, yelled at her, sometimes threw things, and which scared her to death. It was very interesting, that in the first session, she mentioned this behavior, then she said to him, “I want to make this very, very clear to you, I will not live with you if you do that stuff again.” She had gotten that counsel from her in patient treatment. She said this through tears, trembling and hesitant voice, “I will not live in this, and if I have to, I will divorce.” They had been separated for a brief time before she went to the hospital for about three months. When she came back, she conditionally agreed to move back in. In the first session, she told him this, and I was very grateful. It made my job a lot easier. She had made the decision to be healthy, so I didn't have to convince her to not accept physical abuse. I was able to explain the reason she accepted physical abuse is because you were willing to trade physical abuse for love and affection. It never satisfies, because you were seeking inner spiritual security, which you never had before. You settled for an occasional hug or I love you with some tenderness.
The further treatment (similar to First Marriage) talks about evaluating the personality type and teaching the proper form of confrontation. Both of them took to this fairly well. He would have some trouble though the issue of confrontation, because he would get scared and revert back to some old patterns of getting mad, but that passed relatively quickly. It was unusual for them to not want to discuss old issues, but they decided they had worked through them in other discussions. Their focus was different in that they wanted to move forward with issues in their current marriage. As they worked on these current issues, they got better, and got much better in dealing with life issues. This couple had already been through a separation and that had been resolved.
But if you as the counselor, see the couple or one spouse in a physically abusive situation where one person won't stop, then by all means, establish a separation (like in Chapter 7), if you can. By the nature of physical abuse, it continues because the abuser is hesitant to break that cycle. It may be all that they know and a continuation from a first marriage either for the abuser or the abused. This will be more difficult to deal with, because the pattern not only has been established, but may be reinforced through a second marriage where the same abuse occurs. You have to confront that. You have to show them how it isn't loving to accept that. Show them the possibility of sinful rebellion against God, or thinking that they are junk and do not deserve to be loved. This is the most I'm worth. This is all I can expect. It can come from a place of low self-esteem, or lack of self-confidence.
So keep in mind, that some sexual issues may be involved in physical abuse, and that those need to be addressed. Now, this is not going to be a primary issue in potential physical abuse, but it may be an underlying issue. This won't be tied to children, when you're looking at physical abuse, but there's a link between how you perceive your worth as a spouse, and then what you allow others to do to you. Whether you're the abused or the abuser, there is a good chance that if there's physical abuse, there is also sexual dysfunction. This results from a lack of respect for either of those involved in the abuse.
There are also issues of control and empowerment involved. Do you see now the abused wife can also be enabling? Out of fear? Keep the peace? In this case, the man, even though he was soft spoken, could be very angry, and could lash out at times. His wife had been so passive for so long to just appease him, she had stuffed this all inside. But underneath her passiveness, she wanted to solve the problems and deal with the issues. When their tendencies finally came out, she could be demanding and aggressive. Their strengths and weaknesses were fairly well balanced between them. When I first started to work with him, they both walked on eggshells, and at times he would lash out, and she would respond angrily like him. This made the whole thing worse. As they learned to use the process of patience, they mellowed out, got a balance where he would talk civilly, and she would confront him correctly. The Lord helped them to work things through until they understood, and the physical abuse stopped altogether. But remember that if you find abuse, you have to confront it. You need to set up the separation. There may be sexual abuse or sexual issues, once you explain the sexual part to them.
There still may be other issues, like sexual abuse of the children, violence, concerned relatives getting involved. The abused one may believe he or she is sick, and at fault. There may be an established cycle of abuse: acts loving, abuse occurs, abuser is nice again, and the abused blames himself or herself. You have to explain that pattern, and also help them to get a balance for being sexual. In this case, these two had a fight that continued into the early morning. I hadn't been working with them very long, so they were still using their old coping mechanisms. When they came for their session, they both had this happy glow on their faces. And I asked, “Oh, how are you doing?” They responded, “Well, we started to fight Friday night, and finished Saturday morning. I took the kids over to Ma's, and we stayed home all day, and we made love to each other all day, and it was just wonderful.” And I thought, how many times? And she volunteered, “I think we made love five or six times.” And I thought to myself, you folks aren't healthy.
Later on, I was able to say to them, “What do you think your reasoning was, and what were you trying to accomplish? How did it set in your soul? Did it make you feel hopeless the next day when it all sort of fell apart again?” I was able to explain the cycle of abuse. You both use your sexuality to appease each other rather than working in balance with the Holy Spirit to solve a problem, and find peace with it. If it isn't focused on thinking with the Holy Spirit, it is a pattern of abuse of sexuality. Using sex as a fix is just a band aid, doesn’t fix anything and it doesn't satisfy you long. You don't learn anything or gain any understanding. And so, you go right back into it again. As they began to work with the Holy Spirit to understand each other and gain insights, that abuse did stop, and they got to a good balance.
The treatment talks about evaluating personality types, including unhealthy and inappropriate thinking, coping and behaviors. Then the treatment section mentions separation, if or when needed. In other words, sexual abuse can be literally mistreatment of children. It can be bondage, it can be perversion, it can be all kinds of things. It talks about perceptions. And it says, again, present the male and female perceptions, the needs and how there is a sense of satisfaction in a loving way. Often the relationship has been such a mess for so long that there are a lot of wounds and scars. It's not uncommon to have clients say they hadn't been sexual for months. Their emotions are frayed; their coping mechanisms don't work. It's like, here I go again. Isn't this ever going to change? I'm so sick and tired of having these problems in a relationship. It's not uncommon for men to bring pornography addiction into this, and to have huge misunderstandings about sexuality and satisfaction. They don't understand what's going on, so they feel hopeless. Women can feel the same way.
Be aware of the potential for abuse, you may have to confront the issue of sexual abuse or physical abuse to children. This will require you to make a hotline call (like in Chapter 8) which is mandated in most states. It may involve the police and everybody else. So, look for that. There can also be the issue of adultery. In one case, the man had been married six times, committing adultery in his third and his fifth marriage with his first wife, who was currently his ex-wife. When I met him, he was still in this cycle of relationships, and got married the sixth time, which also ended in divorce. If there is adultery (like Chapter 8), you have to follow the same procedures, confront it, perhaps, establish a separation, and go through the whole regimen of dealing with and confronting it, in order to eliminate it from the marriage. In some cases, obviously that's not going to work; the person is not going to give that up easily. But that is what it takes; to confront this issue, you will need to use the separation procedures to assist that recovery and restoration.
Spiritual Issues
Now, the next part of this says spiritual issues, or relationship to God, and it lists the three levels of individuals, unsaved, saved or nominal, and then mature Christians, and then treatment. In this case, the man wasn't saved, and his tendency was to try hard, bend over backwards, live the best life he could, based on his own strength. It just didn't work. And over time, he saw the need to check this out, and build a relationship to God. Because his way was not working, he was open to hearing the spiritual dimension of his life. Don't be bashful. Present a plan of salvation. Be very direct. And I would say to him, “I am not trying to bully you or harass you into being a Christian, but it's my obligation to be honest with you and tell you why you're having difficulty, and to help you find the answers.” I told him I would pray with him or he could choose someone else or do this alone. I explained that without a relationship to God, his marriage would not work. The presence of Christ, submission to God, the principles of the Scripture all need the foundation of the relationship. Now, in her case, she had been saved for a long time, but had some serious problems in her concept of God which show in her scores on L protects (11), M trust (12), N hopes (11) and O perseveres (7). There is the pattern of her people pleasing, and trying to win love through performance. And P never fails is 10. Remember, that scores from protects over through never fails, is a relatively good picture of the person's concept of God. If you look on his you will see that he had: L protects (20), M trusts (8), N hopes (19), O perseveres (12), and P fails (9). Whenever you see higher scores, especially on protects and hopes, the person has a sense of God's character, but does not know how to turn it into a practical reality or faith. Because his scores were high on the God concepts, it was not difficult for him to submit his will and accept salvation from the Lord. On the other hand, her wrong concepts of God crippled her for years, because she didn't know God wants to protect her, and was trustworthy to help her solve her problems instead of trying to please people especially him through sexuality, warming up towels, waiting on him, bringing his food into him, pulling his socks off, rubbing his feet, always being available, never arguing, and giving in to his choices. He spent 1000s of dollars on stock cars and she never batted an eye, but inside felt miserable and did without things she needed.
She had been a nominal Christian, and her need was to strengthen and deepen her faith. Some of that happened at the Christian inpatient treatment center, where she learned about confrontation through patience. In biblical counseling, she got even more help through the process of patience which she didn't get in her inpatient care. So those scores changed quite a bit, but she needed to strengthen and deepen her faith. He did very well once he accepted Christ, but until he did, I had to keep pointing him to his need for God’s help through the Holy Spirit. As a counselor, I had to ask God for discernment, because I needed to keep pointing him to his need for salvation. I couldn't hedge on that, and yet I couldn't harp at him or be inappropriate either. So, it was a balance between looking at the problems, pointing him towards a reason for it, and asking him, every couple session if he'd made any more progress on accepting the Lord or not. And then there came that point, where that was done. If you are working with a mature Christian, there needs to be further strengthening. You begin with the personality type for treatment, and then the concepts of Agape love and how to apply it.
Relatives, Parenting and Ex-Spouses
Our next topic is relationships to friends and to relatives. You may need to confront the couple by instructing the client to not listen to or discuss with their relatives and/or friends, problems or counseling information. You may have to instruct the relatives about the Biblical principles that you're using in your counseling that are important to the couple’s relationship. With a second plus marriage, there may be a plethora of relatives, from currently close ones to those from 20 years ago. In this case, there weren't relatives who were intervening. However, in other cases they held onto friendships with relatives from past relationships. If there's been a real distinct change, like the man in this case, he had to re-evaluate his connections to them because of the sinful activities they were connected to. When he did this, his friends thought he was crazier than a loon, because he got religious. He was strong enough that he didn't listen to them, and I didn't have to intervene, but he did mention it. You may have to investigate by asking directly about interference from friends or relatives. Caution them to not share the intimate issues they are working on in counseling. If needed, you may have to coach them about separating from some of the negative friends or setting boundaries with family. For example, in a case of separation, the husband would go to numbers of different people and tell his story over and over, how he wanted to be back in his home. In his mind, it was very inappropriate that he was separated, and didn’t accept it. I had to tell him to not talk to friends, but call me. Often, they talk to their friends instead of me, is because they don't want to face their problems. They want someone to listen to them, and tell them they are right.
The same interference can occur with friends and relatives from prior marriages. Sometimes you have to confront them. Sometimes they are inappropriately involved. There can also be sexual issues we've talked about: a lack of closeness and frequency, or inappropriate frequency. There can be all kinds of thoughts and fears and emotions that are causing a lot of problems. This is going to be the end of our discussion on second marriage. You will find a great deal of variation of issues with each client in a second marriage. You will see people with a variety of combinations of personality types, which will cause different problems but within the same basic issues. Each couple will deal with these issues differently depending on background, personality type, relationship to God, and life experiences in problem solving. A passive person will avoid solving problems, and an active-sincere person will stay frustrated. If it's a purely active person, they're just head bangers, they're fighters, they're screamers. They're saying, I got to take care of my kids, and I can't help but that she's their mother, and I'm going to go over there anyway, and you need to quit nagging me and giving me a hard time and just shut up and let me do what I need to do. Or if it's a passive wife, she might say, okay, dear, no problem. I'll be here at home. And if it's the one that's passive-active, she might say when he walks in the door, “Did you have a good time? You've been gone for three hours?” Or the man might say, “Why do you need to talk to her? You know, you make me sick doing that all the time.” Or he might turn around and say, “You know, I missed you so much” and then act wimpy and emotional.
Most unique to second plus marriages is parenting. In this case study, there was a child from her first marriage, and the stepfather showed an extreme amount of prejudice and bias toward her child, and yet the opposite extreme towards their own child. According to the stepfather, this first child, a boy about 12, couldn't do anything right; this mistreatment had gone on for years. When she had her breakdown, and went to this inpatient treatment, there were many issues in their relationship. She would never contradict her husband or confront him about how he parented. Instead, she would secretly tell her son it was okay. She would feel bad and miserable; since the son was an emotional person, he also would feel bad and miserable. Like his mother he would act passive and withdrawn, trying to get the stepfather to love him. On the other hand, the stepfather would lavish extreme amounts of affection on their son who was four or five years old. He would buy the child toys, take the child places, and never discipline him. The two siblings were in constant conflict, while the wife felt insecure and disrespected and didn't know what to do. This was one of the issues that we had to discuss. She had to eventually confront him, and he admitted that he'd been unfair.
We had to establish the parenting procedure that you are familiar with, and that took away a lot of the discord. See Parenting a Blended Family. When the pampered one was no longer pampered, all kinds of behaviors and problems come out of that child. For about three months, they went through absolute warfare. The older boy wanted to gloat and act cocky, but was scared to death, and at the same time he tried to start a relationship with his stepfather. They had a lot of false starts, fears and misunderstandings They each tried to win a power struggle through arguments. But they did begin to work that out, while the younger child began to settle down. Both parents were amazed at how divisive the kids had been, and how awful each of them had been. They were very grateful that they got some unity and understanding in the whole thing.
The other issue in this area is about relationships to ex-spouses, which is another unique aspect of a second marriage. The potential for interaction is great especially if child custody is shared. In one case, the ex-wife would come in, sit down with the new wife, and yell and argue with her about all of the issues that bothered her. She also would tell awful stories about what a rotten father he was and what a terrible person he was, giving detail about the rotten things he'd done to her. This absolutely wrecked the new wife. She got all scared and frightened, and would jump all over him when he got home with all of the things she had just heard from his ex-wife. One of the interventions we had to do was set down rules for the ex-spouse, and it was pretty simple, she couldn't come in the house. And another rule was, when the ex-wife talked to the new wife on the phone, she was to talk only about logistics, of exchanging the kids at a certain place and time. If the ex-wife talked about anything other than business, she would confront her and say, “You can't do that.” And if she didn't stop talking, she would say, “I'm going to hang up now.” Disconnect the phone call and not answer a call back. The husband had to make changes in his behavior. He could no longer go to help her out with things such as changing her tire, fixing her refrigerator. He couldn't continue to feel that he needed to help her so that he would help his kids, “But my kids are there, and I got to take care of my kids.” He had to face his own tendencies to people please, feel insecure, and allow himself to be manipulated and controlled. That took a lot of work on his part, because it gone on for a long time. His kids knew they could manipulate him, so they would purposely set him up to come rescue them. He had to recommend others she could call for help. If a child lost his coat, he would have to do without for a while, until I can afford to buy you a new one. This was a better solution to adding to his credit card debt, which made his wife feel insecure. The father needed to help the kids to learn that manipulation and control are not good for relationships in life. That had not been done and the emotions of the current family were suffering from this manipulation. The current family felt an extreme lack of unity, loyalty, even a sense of lack of fidelity, because the ex-spouse still interfered in the new marriage. The issues involved, especially the ex-spouse and the kids, second marriage/family unity, lack of consistency with the kids and discipline plan. Those are the primary issues.
In summary, the sexual issues, as far as just dysfunction, will be somewhat primary also, and the others are more peripheral. Finances can be pretty intense if there's a long-term spending pattern that's irresponsible that the other spouse cannot seem regulate. And that will become apparent as they get to know each other. Obvious signs are a lack of money, lots of visas charged up. A lot of times, I've seen people ignore blatant problems and believe they can overcome them. They do not have the foggiest idea what love means, and enter into a bad relationship. When it gets worse, they become frustrated and question their decision. This is the end of this discussion of second marriages.
Copyright 1987, 1990, 1993 by Daniel D. Wilkinson. All rights reserved. For more information concerning this material, write to:
The Biblical Christian Counseling Ministries, Inc., 2730 Radcliffe Dr., Florissant, MO 63031.
Any reproduction of this material without the express written consent of the author is prohibited. Printed in the U.S.A..
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When a couple has children from each of their previous marriage(s) plus one or more of their own, a unique set of difficulties can arise. Describe some of these problems that can exist in this situation.
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
There can be conflicts over how to parent the children, accusations of favoritism, conflict from the other ex-spouse that disrupts or distorts the parenting attempts, and accusations or threats from the children themselves.
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At times an ex-spouse can become inappropriately involved in a second marriage. Describe how this can happen, what the effects can be, and what plan of action should be taken in order to deal with it effectively.
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
The ex-spouse can disrespect the new spouse by verbal abuse in person or on the phone, and can attempt to divide the ex-spouse and the new spouse by asking that time be spent -- usually for the children's sake -- in helping to repair the car, obtain groceries, repair the house, etc.
The effect upon the new marriage will be to divide the two and cause a sense of hopelessness, disrespect, and anger. The plan of action must include confronting the ex-spouse, eliminating inappropriate intervention in any way, shape, or form, establishing proper confrontation consistently, and educating the spouses as to how allowing this intrusion causes a sense of spiritual infidelity and weakness in the new relationship.
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