Most Stepfamilies Are Not 'The Brady Bunch'

    Joy Baxter had visions of a “Brady Bunch” existence when she married Randy Baxter 20 years ago. She thought her then-4 ½-year-old daughter would get along just fine with his two daughters, 12 and 9 at the time, and the newly married couple would create a blissful new life together.   

But that ideal life didn’t happen. Resentment, anger and other conflicts quickly bubbled to the surface as the Baxters grappled with the issues of blending two once-separate families into one. “I kind of came into it with all the high hopes, not based on much reality,” says Joy Baxter, a 49-year-old Walnut, Calif., resident. “When you’re in love, you’re kinda dumb.”    

“The Brady Bunch” was TV after all. Marriage is difficult enough the first time around. Couples embark on a new relationship filled with hopes of a happy life together. But when the honeymoon is over, reality sets in. There are bills to pay, jobs to go to and in-laws to get along with. It’s even tougher for couples who’ve ventured down the aisle more than once -- especially if they have children.     

Children may feel that they’re competing for the affection and attention of their parent when a new spouse arrives. That spouse may be caught in the middle of the dynamics of lifelong relationships between the children and their biological parents. Loyalties can be questioned and tested. Power struggles can ensue. Finances can be strained. And old ills with the ex-husband or ex-wife can fray the new marriage.    

Little wonder that remarriages have a shorter shelf life than first marriages, which have a 50 percent divorce rate, experts say. About 60 percent of remarriages often fail within three to five years and the divorce rate increases by an additional 10 percent with each subsequent marriage, experts say.     

“It redefines commitment. It redefines perseverance,” says Gordon Taylor, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Oklahoma and California who’s been married to his second wife, Carri, for 21 years. They have 10 grandchildren and have been raising Carri's oldest biological granddaughter, who's now 17, since birth. “You’ve got to be ready to give and give and give,” Gordon Taylor says.

Joy had hoped the girls would accept and love her. She spent time with them, taking each one out for frozen yogurts after school. Thursdays were beauty nights when she’d do their hair and nails while they watched “The Cosby Show.” Joy admits that early in the marriage she tried to compete with the girls’ biological mother by being a super mom. "I think I was trying to be a perfect mother," she says.  She learned that wouldn’t work because, after all, she isn’t the girls’ mom.     
    
Joy told Randy that he needed to be the disciplinarian with his daughters and that he needed to take time alone with them -- away from her daughter and her -- so their relationships would strengthen and flourish. Randy did that to an extent, Joy says. He would take each of his girls to breakfast and would find other ways to spend time with them.

But, Joy says, he didn’t always connect with them enough. Randy’s older daughter, who’s now 32, moved back in with her biological mother when she was 18. His second daughter, whom Joy describes as a quiet and introspective 29-year-old, eventually moved out on her own. “He says now, 'I’m paying for it because I’m working overtime to connect,'” Joy says.