Oct 27, 2004
When broken families unite
by Cheong Suk-Wai
TAKING another chance on marriage can be a big but rewarding challenge when your new family resembles TV's Brady Bunch.
This is when two divorced or widowed people with children remarry.
But while the 1970s TV show is full of the big smiles and good cheer of a winsome family, real life can sometimes be quite different.
In everyday Brady Bunch families, children may want their biological parents to get back together even as stepparents try to woo them.
Conversely, stepparents can get jealous of the attention stepchildren get from their biological parents. The latter can over-compensate because they feel guilty about imposing a new parent in their children's lives.
It also doesn't help that insensitive outsiders may needle Brady Bunchers with barbs like 'What kind of man or woman would want to feed someone else's children?'
Still, remarriages here are on the rise, so Singaporeans must be getting things right the second time around.
According to the Department of Statistics, the number of remarriages rose steadily from 1990 to 2000, with more men than women doing it.
In 2000, 2,700 divorced men remarried compared to 1,700 in 1990. This is a 58 per cent increase.
The corresponding figures for divorced women during that period are 2,400 versus 1,400, a 67 per cent rise.
Overall, that decade saw 24,600 divorced men and 22,300 divorced women remarrying. And their remarriages are holding up well.
Lawyer Foo Siew Fong says fewer than 3 per cent of the cases her firm handles are divorces as a result of remarriages. She heads the matrimonial practice at law firm Harry Elias Partnership.
In contrast, 60 per cent of all remarriages in the United States end in divorce.
Ms Foo and other lawyers Life! spoke to say the most common ground for divorce the second time around is the spouse's unreasonable behaviour, chiefly over differences in managing finances.
'It could be due to the fact that at least one of them had gone through a divorce before and so is more concerned about protecting her assets. This can lead to a breakdown in trust,' says Ms Foo.
For those who stay the course, perseverance goes beyond just financial compatibility.
So, while the six stepparents Life! spoke to all say they remarried mainly to give their children a father or mother figure, family psychologist Joanna Koh-Hoe says single parents should never see Brady Bunch families as a quick fix.
Ms Koh-Hoe says: 'While a single parent has to take on an extra role of either father or mother in one family, a stepparent has the double workload of leading two families.'
American stepfamily therapist Ron Deal says the most crucial thing stepfamilies need to grow love are time and good feelings.
'Think of a Brady Bunch family as a crockpot which cooks food on low heat for a long time, but when it's done, the result is warm, rich and nourishing,' he says over the phone from his home in Arkansas.
Mr Deal, 38, married with three sons, has been counselling stepfamilies for 18 years and advises The Stepfamily Association Of America. He also wrote the book The Smart Stepfamily (2002).
He and other experts tell Life! it takes an average of five to seven years - and up to 11 if the kids are self-absorbed teenagers - for such families to bond as well as first-time ones.
'You may wish it were a microwave but love is not instant like noodles,' Mr Deal says. 'If you wish it were blended, as some call Brady Bunch families, that's worse because you are chopping the family up thinking they all feel and want the same things. They don't.'
So humility, frank and frequent conversations, and a big dose of common sense help.
But the great thing about remarrying in mid-life is that one often wears less rose-tinted glasses and has two feet firmly on the ground.
This, at least, is the view of Mr Jan Van Wellen, 47. The Singapore-based Belgian risk manager has three children from his first marriage and three stepchildren.
'You know your ship will come across a few icebergs but your commitment is also more solid the second time around,' he says.
Mr Deal quips: 'The honeymoon for a remarriage is at the end of the journey, not the beginning, but it's ultimately a great reward.'
Peace after the hurricanes
AMERICAN expatriate Vicki Reay is now more certain of her second marriage.
The 47-year-old was a widowed housewife with three children - son Paul, now 16, Lauryn, 14, and Autumn, eight - when she wed Belgian risk manager Jan Van Wellen in 2000.
Of her second marriage, she says: 'There have been a lot of hurricanes in this marriage and I used to think: 'You know what? I don't need this. I'll pack my bags and go'.
'Any time a problem came up, I found myself just bearing it for the kids and planning my next move. But that's the easy way out and if I asked the kids, they'd beg me not to do so.'
Smiling, she adds: 'Never once have my kids told Jan, 'You are not my father'.'
Her son, Paul, chips in: 'I was all right with them getting married because Jan made my Mum happy and I understood that nobody could replace my Dad.'
His British father Brian Reay, who was a hotel project manager, died suddenly of pancreatitis in 1998.
He left enough money for the family to continue living comfortably in Hong Kong.
He and his sisters have actually known their stepfather for 10 years, first as the father of their best friends - Kris, now 17, Dimitri, 16, and Kiera, 14 - and then as the man who helped their mother fix things around the house.
But when it became clear that the two were becoming an item, Lauryn recalls: 'Overnight, our best friends turned against us and took sides with their mother.'
Mr Van Wellen, 47, and his British wife, Simone, divorced in 1999. She and their children moved to South Africa to live with her family.
Mr Van Wellen continued living in Hong Kong with his new family until last October, when his job brought them here.
Then, just last week, his three biological children visited him at the family bungalow in Woodlands for the first time in five years.
Their mother had died of cancer in July.
It was not a smooth reunion for everyone.
Ms Reay's stepdaughter Kiera, for one, made her trudge through every clothes store in town - and then refused to buy anything.
Ms Reay says: 'Kiera was pushing every button but I knew she wanted me to lose it so she could throw it back in my face, so I held it in.
'She finally said: 'Boy, you're really patient, aren't you?'
She breathes in deeply and adds: 'My stepkids went home last Saturday but they'll return to spend Christmas with us so we'll have to see how that goes.'
She had wanted to have a child with Mr Van Wellen but he was not keen.
Grinning wryly, she says: 'Perhaps it's just as well, otherwise it's not just His and Hers, but His, Hers and Ours, which would really complicate things.'
As to how they differ on disciplining the kids, she says: 'I choose which mountains to climb. He climbs every mountain.'
She soul-searched this summer when she and her kids spent two months apart from Mr Van Wellen, visiting her family in the US.
It was the first time that they were separated for so long in four years.
They found themselves missing him a lot, and would call him up whenever they saw things like beautiful sunsets along the way.
There are more signs that this family is doing fine, like when chatty Lauryn lauds her stepdad for his way with words and teases him for eating pizza with a fork and knife - just hours after she had a big tiff with him for partying when she should have been studying for a school test.
With moments like that and their Christian faith, they are moving forward.
Ms Reay muses: 'After being away from Jan for two months, I made this mental switch that this family is forever.
'So I now have both feet in my marriage.'
Changing gears with new husband and father
REIKO CHAN* never intended to remarry after her divorce.
Her second husband is James Tan, 57, a divorcee who is a retired businessman.
Mrs Chan, 57, a receptionist, met him in 1986, some six months after she walked out on her first husband after 15 years of wedlock.
The latter had accused her of flirting with her bosses and complained about not having a son in the early years of their marriage.
They had a daughter, Maggie, and Mrs Chan did conceive a son, Jordan, later.
But in 1986, she walked out with her children after he brought women back to their house. They divorced that same year. 'That era was so different from now. Divorce was very shameful,' she says.
She struggled to cope but her mother and sister came to her rescue, pointing out a handsome church worker who was purportedly a bachelor.
He was Mr Tan, who had divorced his wife earlier after living apart for 14 years.
He says his mother hated his first wife from Day One, so he sent her back to her parents' home three months after their honeymoon. They never lived under the same roof again.
Still, they had two sons - Ken and Ben, who are now in their 30s and married - before they called it quits.
Mr Tan was known to Mrs Chan's kids as they attended the Sunday school classes he taught. He would often allow Jordan to change the gears of his green Nissan van whenever he gave them a lift home.
He also took to calling up Mrs Chan every Sunday after church. Before long, they were dating, often including her kids in their weekend meals, but not Ken and Ben, who lived with their mother.
In 1987, they registered their marriage.
Mrs Chan's stepsons surprised her when they called her 'Mummy' from the start without prompting. But her children found it 'very strange' to call their stepfather Dad. They had called him Uncle James before.
By then, Maggie was 16. She is now 33 and a mother of two.
She recalls that her stepbrothers were friendly but not close. Ken, one year her senior in Victoria Junior College, 'passed on his college belt and badge and introduced himself to everyone as my big brother. That was nice'.
Mr Tan's ex-wife died a few years ago, but even before then, his sons had always had reunion dinner with their stepmother and stepsiblings every Chinese New Year Eve. His sons are now married with children.
Mr Tan adds: 'Maggie and Jordan visit their father every Chinese New Year and it's nothing to be jealous about. In fact, I feel good they do so.'
Jordan, quiet by nature, turned wild child after Secondary 2 and ended up in a boys' home after numerous juvenile delinquent raps.
Maggie recalls: 'He was pretty confused when Mum left Dad. He told me he wished it hadn't happened.'
Mrs Chan now rues cutting him too much slack then. 'I was blinded by love because of the guilt I still felt over breaking up the family and causing the children to suffer,' she says.
Jordan, now 21, is in Selarang Prison. He has served 10 months of a two-year jail term for employing an illegal immigrant in his carpentry business.
But this Brady Bunch will make it work.
On Father's Day this year, Jordan wrote a letter to his stepfather from prison, which included this line: 'How long has it been since I changed gears for you in your Nissan C20 van?
'What I'm trying to say is that when I have a child of my own, I would want to be a father just like you.'
* The names of this family have been changed at their request
Step by step
HERE are tips for Brady Bunchers to get along better:
IF YOU ARE A STEPPARENT-TO-BE
Do 'date' your child and potential stepchild as often as you can and, if possible, date them one at a time at first to find out how they really feel about you remarrying
Do explain how your child may soon belong to two families and it is perfectly all right if he feels closer to his other biological parent
IF YOU ARE A STEPPARENT
Do tell your stepchild to think of a cool, good and kind teacher or sports coach he admires, and ask him to treat you as he treats them
Do tell him you don't mind if he doesn't call you Mum or Dad
Do seize every opportunity to assure your child and stepchild that they are both very much loved and wanted
Do learn to turn away when your stepchild says hurtful things and get it off your chest before you go to bed
Do watch out for aberrant behaviour among your brood and give them permission to tell you about things that should not be happening
Don't expect to be treated as a beloved family member from the start. Let your stepchild warm to you at his own pace
Don't rush into wielding too much authority over your stepchild. You are a stranger who needs to earn his trust and love
IF YOU ARE A STEPCHILD
Do think 'How can I contribute to this family?' and not 'What can I get out of this?'
Don't compare the family you used to have to the one now. Both have flaws and fillips, and pitting one against the other hurts everyone
Don't stonewall your stepparent; you cannot manipulate your biological parent into ending a relationship and expect to win
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