The Family Pow Wow

 

Upon entry into this Step Family I thought I would try to use communication as a tool for at least a basic understanding of some of the more overt concerns that usually go unexpressed in even nuclear families.

I lived under dictatorial rule growing up and my father and mother to a more limited extent used intimidation as the means of law and order in the little fiefdom I called home.

I immediately recognized that I could not be an autocrat and neither did I want my new family to feel anything like what I felt growing up.  However I was not prepared for a family that lived under a similar Code of Hammurabi that included verbal abuse of the highest magnitude if I was to believe some of the short stories my wife told me about her ex.  And I do believer her.

So what transpired as I called these family gatherings was me giving my well-intentioned soliloquies. I thought for sure my blended family would instantly hear and feel the love that was in every impassioned phrase I uttered. However what I experienced was that there was absolutely no feedback except for an occasional silent nod from my wife who seemed to appreciate at least the attempts of me speaking to her offspring.  From the children I either got silence or in the case of my stepdaughter: crying jags that my wife had to remedy.  Whenever I heard about these reactions I immediately went into a defensive posture exclaiming how did that happen?  I never took into account two things. My own arrogance thinking that these kids actually wanted to hear anything I had to say and the damage their own father had inflicted that they were never able to act out on.

What I found out was I had to choose my moments to speak and do it much more carefully. And those moments were when my stepchildren initiated conversation with me first not the other way round.  If it seemed appropriate, then I would try to express my concerns and even the resentments with as much sugar coating on the pill as I could muster.  The great communicator got his first lesson in humility.