A stepfather, St. George says that he spent the first two years of his marriage developing a bond with his stepson, Ryan, who was 3 years old when he married his wife, Beckie, in 1992.

"The stepparent needs to be an adult friend and protects that role until the child can accept the stepparent to take a parent role," says St. George, who has worked as a licensed marriage and family therapist at the Alliance Counseling Center on Lincoln Avenue for 12 years. "If a stepfather comes in and acts like an authority figure, he could become the evil stepfather. Same with the evil stepmother."

St. George says that the stepparent should let the biological parent deal with discipline problems and intervene only after establishing a close tie with the child. Otherwise, the stepparent is very susceptible to becoming "the bad guy."

He suggests that the stepparent should move slowly and develop the relationship according to the child's pace. But he says that sometimes it is the stepparent who is not ready to play a parental role, while the child is hungry for a father or mother figure.

"The stepparent should find out what role he or she wants to play and what kind of role the child wants the stepparent to play," he says.

The child's age can also create different challenges. St. George says the older the child is, the more likely the child has a hard time accepting the stepparent because the child has spent more years with the biological parents. But again, the age factor differs case by case and is simply one of the many variables that a stepfamily must deal with.

"There is a whole spectrum of differences," he says. "A stepfamily will never be like an intact nuclear family. There are legal, financial and emotional issues involved."

He says that for most blended families, the first few years are especially difficult because all the parties, including the in-laws from the previous and current marriages, must adjust to the changes and differences.

Photograph by Douglas Rider Religion in Marriage: Michael Kalkstein is Jewish, and Susan English, his wife of 20 years, is Christian. Having children from former marriages, they celebrate both Jewish and Christian holidays.

But not every couple is as lucky as the St. George family. For Norbert Fronczak and his wife, Margaret, having a stepfamily meant a long, painful learning curve and a major test of their relationship.

Norbert thought stepfamily problems would simply work themselves out when he and Margaret married seven years ago. His two sons were 3 and 7.

Margaret had been married before but had no children. As an African American marrying a Caucasian, she wasn't concerned about mixed-race issues, but she'd read books about stepfamilies and knew trouble was ahead.

"I cried," she said, "but I was very much in love with this man and wanted to marry him."

The slings and arrows in a stepfamily can be brutal. Relationships are complex. And new stepparents, ex-spouses and the children are rarely prepared for what's ahead.

Dr. Don Partridge, Ph.D., president of the Institute for Family Research and Education in Pleasanton, and his wife, Jenetha, led a conference for stepparents and potential stepparents on March 9 of this year at Calvary Church in Los Gatos. Partridge and his wife have been stepparents to seven children for some 20 years.

Partridge used the metaphor "extreme environment" to describe to an audience of 220 what a stepfamily is about. "Things become dangerous and difficult fast," Partridge says. "You have to be prepared."

A good number of those in the audience nodded their heads in agreement.

Partridge estimates that more than 60 percent of what he calls "blending families" fail.

The Bureau of Vital Statistics does not keep statistics on blended families; however, the bureau reports that since 1980, 60 percent of remarriages have ended in divorce. Of those, Partridge estimates that the rate of divorce among blended families with children under 18 may be as high as 70 percent. Various estimates of divorce among first marriages range from 40 to 52 percent.

At first, Margaret and Norbert didn't tell the boys they were dating. "I got along great with them," Margaret said. "But when the boys realized we were more than just friends, things changed." For instance, Margaret remembers riding the light rail with the family when one of the boys pulled her and Norbert's clasped hands apart.

"There was this sense with the boys that if I weren't around their parents would get back together," Margaret says.

Norbert's ex­wife was also upset about this new relationship. According to Norbert, she didn't want the divorce in the first place. But he says their relationship had been very contentious and hadn't changed after two separate rounds of counseling. He'd given up and left.

Joanne, a computer engineer from Palo Alto who was at the Calvary conference, expressed how she felt when her husband left.

"He turned his back on me, and I felt abandoned," she says. When he found someone else, her hope for reconciliation withered. She was angry.

"It's very difficult because I feel all those wedding vows went down the toilet," she says. "I would have stayed together for the children."

It's not just the divorce that's difficult for the children, but also the addition of a new relationship for one or both of their parents.


Stepmother understands

Margaret says she understood the boys' need to protect their mother's feelings. "I never said anything against their mother in front of them," she says. "For one thing, I knew I would be the loser."

For a time things seemed to smooth out. Norbert and the boys made a big deal over Margaret on Mother's Day the year before the couple married. "They even gave me an 'almost stepmother' card," Margaret says. And the youngest boy was attentive to Margaret on the wedding day. "I thought he and I were finally connecting," Margaret says.

Mother's Day rolled around again, and Margaret anticipated special treatment. "It's Mother's Day," she said to the boys.

"You aren't our mother," the boys told her.

Things continued on a downhill slide from there.

The boys' mother still wouldn't talk to Margaret, and though the custody arrangements allowed for it, Norbert had to obtain a court order to get his ex-wife to let the boys sleep at his house. One of the boys asked Margaret not to attend their sports events. "I think that idea actually came from their mother," Margaret says.

Margaret tried little things to develop a relationship with the boys. She created a collage of photographs with her and the boys in the pictures. After that, Margaret says, the older boy refused to be in pictures with her. She says she thinks the divorce was harder on the older son because he was close to his father. The younger was closer to his mother and more protective of her.

"I prayed a lot," Margaret says. "I didn't want to replace their mother, but my heart was being ripped out so much that I needed to back away." There were times she considered leaving.

Norbert was struggling to keep both families happy. "What I didn't understand about divorce is that you've got to make decisions about who you're going to spend time with," Norbert says. "There might be a swim meet for the boys at the same time Margaret's family is having a celebration. I've got to choose, and it's never fun."

Norbert was getting in as much time as he could with his boys. He often rode with his ex-wife and the boys to the games and had dinner with them after the games. Margaret stayed home.

Eventually, a frustrated Margaret suggested counseling. The counselor helped Norbert see that he had to keep the families more separate, that he was confusing the children, and that he had to bring Margaret into the picture.

"I started in small ways," Norbert says. "I rode to the games in a separate car. I didn't go to dinner after the games." This wasn't easy because it meant less time with his boys. Then Norbert began bringing Margaret to the boys' sports events. His relationship with Margaret improved, but the strain with his ex-wife continued.

Then one day, Margaret was waiting in the car while Norbert was at his ex-wife's door picking up the boys. Margaret overheard the boys' mother ask Norbert to pay for a new bathing suit. Margaret called out that she thought the bathing suit should come out of the regular clothing allowance.

"I lobbed that one from the car," Margaret says.

Norbert's ex-wife walked up to the car and a stream of resentments and old hurts came pouring out at Margaret. Margaret in turn poured out hers.

"It was a kind of catharsis," Margaret says, because after that incident the boys' mother began talking to her.

"Now she calls me on the phone from time to time to discuss schedules and things about the children," Margaret says. "One day she even said to me, 'You've always been nice to me.' "


New experience

"I had no idea what I was getting into 20 years ago," says Susan English, a Los Gatos resident. English, a mother to one child and a stepmother to four, says, "There was nothing in my experience to help me understand what was going on, and there was no support group or information at the time." Her search for answers was a major motivation for becoming a counselor. Today, English is a marriage and family therapist and the Los Gatos contact person for the Stepparent Association of America.

"The difficulty arises when you expect a stepfamily to be the same as a nuclear family," English says. "We are not trained to be blended families. We are expecting The Brady Bunch," she says. "The Brady Bunch operates as if it's a nuclear family—no ex-spouses, no past history. It's not reality."

"Being a parent in a blended family takes much more thought and planning," English says. "You are interacting with another household over which you have no control, and there are often hard feelings, with that other household, over which you also have no control."

English says her husband's former wife never got over her anger, which made it difficult for English and her four stepchildren to have a close relationship while they were growing up. "Children feel a loyalty and protectiveness toward their biological mother," English says. She feels that the biological parent needs to somehow give the children permission to have a relationship with the stepparent.

Even with the support and acceptance of a biological parent, developing a relationship with a stepchild can take years. Partridge tells his audience, "You can't be nice for one week or two weeks or even one year and expect a close relationship. It may take years, sometimes not until the child is an adult."

English says that her son (who was 5 when she remarried) and her husband butted heads for years. "It was awful for me because these were the two people I loved most in the world." Finally, when English's son was 16, her husband and her son spent three or four sessions with a counselor. "They cleared out all that stuff, and now they have a good relationship," English says. "There are times when the biological parent has to step back and get out of the way of the relationship between the child and the stepparent."

"Sometimes the child is angry with the stepparent because it's safer than being angry with a biological parent," English says. "The child might really be grieving over the loss of the nuclear family."

English has led therapy groups for stepfamilies. "I can see the relief in their faces when they find out they were not the only ones with these issues."

Feeling were complex even on her wedding day. "Here it was a happy day for my husband and me, but for the kids our wedding spelled the death knell for their hope that their nuclear family would get back together."

For a little while after the wedding, English says, her family seemed to be getting along fine, but when the first choice came up that someone didn't like, trouble started.

Many issues surface after a while—for example, problems with stepparents disciplining stepchildren or children finding they've lost their position as oldest or youngest in the family. A daughter who's enjoyed having her father to herself may feel a strong sense of competition with the stepmother. One parent might be upset because the other initiated the divorce and use the children as punishment.


What's best for the children

In fact, Greg MacSwain, a family law attorney, says it's the rule, not the exception, for couples to use their children to get at each other.

He says courts have set up a system to help alleviate some of the contention. "What we used to do is go to court and throw mud at each other," MacSwain says. "Now a couple must go to Family Court Services and work with social workers and psychologists to figure out what is best for the children."

"It's not that the parents want to hurt their children," MacSwain says. "Many of them are terribly hurt and simply trying to survive. They don't have anything left to give to the kids."

He says he frequently gets calls from parents. "A dad will call, very upset because the stepdad has just yelled at his kid, and the dad wants to do bodily harm to that stepfather," MacSwain says. "Unless there is something truly injurious going on, I tell my client to calm down, it's going to be OK."

At Calvary Church, Partridge compares a stepfamily to an Apache helicopter. "It takes a crew of 14 to maintain the helicopter. It's complex and requires constant maintenance."

He says there are ex-spouses but there are no ex-parents. Nothing has really changed as far as who the parents are and what their responsibilities are, except that what was once a closed unit is broken, and now there's a third person and perhaps more children.

Partridge explains that a stepfamily is actually an extended family system and that everyone needs to be included. The couple needs to talk about all the issues that come up and learn to come to an agreement. They are the ones who set the tone for the family; otherwise, he says, it's like two separate families living in one house.

Hostilities should be kept between the adults or it will tear the kids up, he says. If the children are included in the hostilities, it includes them in adult difficulties, which children cannot handle.

Partridge tells those in his audience who are thinking about starting a stepfamily: "You need to learn the climate of your partner's family system before you get married." When dating, he advises, observe and learn. Tough questions need to be asked about hypothetical situations.

Trying to fix a partner's family is the worst thing one can do, according to Partridge. "What you see is what you get, and what you see is not what you get because dating is when everyone's best foot is forward. After marriage, things get worse."

He also says that the transition of two households can be a disaster because the living styles may be totally different. He suggests working to bring the styles together before moving in together.

Stepparents need to let little things go and lean on the biological parent to do the disciplining. The stepparent has to build a relationship with the stepchild, and that may take years. If a stepchild is angry and belligerent, Partridge says, the stepparent shouldn't take it on, but rather let the biological parent deal with it.

He says not to let the children speak against their biological parent or their stepparent. Children will discover the truth on their own. If there's a problem, Partridge advises, help them solve the problem, but "don't go negative or allow the child to go negative on the other parent."

According to Partridge, children will always have a place in their heart for their parents, even if the parents are gone. "It is important to encourage the child to share; otherwise the child is cut off from his history and his roots," he says. "Be assertive about it. Ask to see pictures. A child will beam if you give him roots and history."

"There are benefits to having a stepparent," Susan English says. She says that children can often go to a stepparent as a kind of friend, to talk things over before talking to the biological parent. "Children have a bigger investment in what the biological parent thinks," English says. "Stepparents can keep a little distance and support the child's individuation."

Margaret and Norbert now have a 2-year-old daughter, Paige, and another baby on the way. "Paige adores her older brothers," Margaret says. "Having Paige has also helped me understand Norbert's relationship with his boys."

Photograph by Douglas Rider Blending It: Susan English has been the mother in a stepfamily for 20 years. Here she checks the lamb for her family's Passover celebration.

"It really takes all of us to work things out. Good relationships are a good thing, no matter what. If everyone gets along, the children benefit."

For information on the Stepfamily Association of America, visit www.saafamilies.org or call 800.735.0329.

For information about the Teen and Family Counseling Center, 208 E. Main St., Los Gatos, call 408.354.7648 or visit www.teenfamilycounseling.org.

For information from the Institute for Family Research and Education, P.O. Box 10092, Pleasanton, 94588-2747, call 408.461.3472.

—Willow Glen Residentstaff writer I-chun Che contributed to this story.