Remarried with Children: Ten Secrets for Successfully Blending and Extending Your Family [Hardcover]

Barbara LeBey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2004

It's the most daunting task many parents will ever face: bringing two growing families together into one brand new marriage. But even though statistics show that most remarriages are at high risk--especially when there are kids involved--more and more people are learning how to make them work and more and more kids are coming out of them with their psyches and souls intact. This honest and hopeful book looks at those successes--and at some failures--to show what they have in common: ten essential secrets that are at the heart of a healthy blended family.

As a stepparent with six children in a blended family, Barbara LeBey draws on her own family's hard-won success, as well as on extensive interviews and new research to show how to navigate the stresses, sticking points, pitfalls and perils most couples don't even anticipate. Starting with her first controversial secret--that the new marriage comes first, even before the demands of the children--LeBey debunks prevalent stepfamily myths and anticipates common traps. (Among them, money issues, warring stepsiblings, and destructive exes.) A strong advocate for children (including how to guard against fade-out parenting), she also suggests ways that in-laws, schools, and the legal system itself could provide better support for blended families. REmarried with Children is an expert, compassionate, down-to-earth book to turn to over and over again for advice, support and sanity.

Key topics include how to:

-Meet your children's and stepchildren's needs--without letting them undermine your new marriage

-Understand the new roles, new rules, and the new relationships for children and stepchildren of a blended family

-Deal with angry and/or manipulative exes--without adding fuel to the fire

-Handle key decisions about finances, religion, traditions, behavior and discipline

-Maintain healthy relationships with your children's grandparents--and other relatives--from a previous marriage

-Recognize warning signs of trouble ahead--and get the help you need

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If mothers-in-law have a difficult reputation, then step-children could give the devil a run for his money. At least that’s the gist of this helpful, but ultimately disturbing look at the modern-day Brady Bunch. More than half of American families now fall into the category of blended/extended, but the clans profiled by LeBey (Family Estrangements) suggest that most are nowhere near as happy-go-lucky as the ones portrayed on TV. Indeed, most of the titular 10 secrets that LeBey recommends revolve around handling the emotions and behavioral problems of children. LeBey counters conventional wisdom by recommending that couples put their new marriage first, ahead of their children’s feelings. Only then, she says, will their union survive the maelstrom of cold shoulders, rebellion and even incestuous relations that erupt in children of newly blended families. LeBey is no stranger to these perils herself, having weathered a remarriage and family blending nearly 30 years ago. She speaks of her experiences infrequently, however, preferring to rely on the advice of psychological studies, clergy, marriage counselors, teachers and other specialists. LeBey does occasionally inject a dose of sharp humor among her tips, and her book is peppered with lists (e.g., "How Do You Know If You’re Dealing with a Lunatic Ex- Spouse?" and "Ten Traps for Prospective Stepmothers"). But most of the book’s value lies in its many anecdotes of families who’ve survived their new incarnations; merely reading about the problems overcome by many of them should be reassuring to anyone working on an extended family. And while the couples featured are mostly dealing with the outcome of divorce, the chapter devoted to widows, widowers and grieving children is both compassionate and useful.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Inside Flap

It's the most daunting task many parents will ever face: bringing two growing families together into one brand new marriage. But even though statistics show that most remarriages are at high risk--especially when there are kids involved--more and more people are learning how to make them work and more and more kids are coming out of them with their psyches and souls intact. This honest and hopeful book looks at those successes--and at some failures--to show what they have in common: ten essential secrets that are at the heart of a healthy blended family.

As a stepparent with six children in a blended family, Barbara LeBey draws on her own family's hard-won success, as well as on extensive interviews and new research to show how to navigate the stresses, sticking points, pitfalls and perils most couples don't even anticipate. Starting with her first controversial secret--that the new marriage comes first, even before the demands of the children--LeBey debunks prevalent stepfamily myths and anticipates common traps. (Among them, money issues, warring stepsiblings, and destructive exes.) A strong advocate for children (including how to guard against fade-out parenting), she also suggests ways that in-laws, schools, and the legal system itself could provide better support for blended families. REmarried with Children is an expert, compassionate, down-to-earth book to turn to over and over again for advice, support and sanity.

Key topics include how to:

-Meet your children's and stepchildren's needs--without letting them undermine your new marriage

-Understand the new roles, new rules, and the new relationships for children and stepchildren of a blended family

-Deal with angry and/or manipulative exes--without adding fuel to the fire

-Handle key decisions about finances, religion, traditions, behavior and discipline

-Maintain healthy relationships with your children's grandparents--and other relatives--from a previous marriage

-Recognize warning signs of trouble ahead--and get the help you need

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (September 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553803212
• ISBN-13: 978-0553803211
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,369,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read, October 15, 2004

By 

Elizabeth Fischer (West Palm Beach, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remarried with Children: Ten Secrets for Successfully Blending and Extending Your Family (Hardcover)

As I read Remarried with Children--Ten Secrets for Successfully Blending and Extending Your Family by Barbara LeBey, all I kept thinking was: where was this book when I needed it.
Many years ago I married a man who had a nine-year-old son and an eleven-year-old daughter. Since I had never had children, I entered this marriage ill-equipped--I was virtually clueless--to deal with the children of the man I loved. LeBey's book could have saved me so much grief (the checklist alone on pages 113-115 would have been invaluable), prevented the myriad mistakes I made, and helped me work through the conflicts and problems that are inevitable when two people marry and one or both bring their children into the marriage. You aren't just marrying that man or woman, you are also an "instant family"--one that was there years before you came on the scene. Without the knowledge and tools to deal with this complex situation, the probability is that you will deal instead with ongoing tension and conflict, every conceivable form of resentment, disagreement and confrontation. And, in many instances, the stress of the stepchildren/stepparent relationship can erode the very foundation of the marriage itself. It did in my case.
Every chapter in Remarried with Children would have served to enlighten me, to calm my anxieties, and offer the kind of sage advice that I could have used on a day to day basis. The book is filled with reader-friendly stories that serve to illustrate--dramatize,really--every point LeBey makes. Her style is compassionate, often witty, entertaining, but above all, always delineating the problems with clarity and insight, and giving the reader the awareness, motivation and the means to make their newly blended family a shining success.
As I said, I definitely needed this book, and now after reading it, I know it would have been all that I needed.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful and a Good Read, October 31, 2004

By 

The Chord "Old Goat" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remarried with Children: Ten Secrets for Successfully Blending and Extending Your Family (Hardcover)

This book shows how important it is to put the marriage first. The focus is on putting aside the time to create a good relationship and preventing another divorce and more trauma for the children. The author tries not to push every relationship into one mold and she offeres a variety of options for some problems. I really enjoyed reading this book and I highly recommend it for those whose lives have fallen into any of these situations.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking Through The Issues, August 11, 2010

By 

Barbara Sheldon, M.S.W. (Solana Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remarried with Children: Ten Secrets for Successfully Blending and Extending Your Family (Paperback)

As a divorced single mom who eventually remarried, I found a lot to like in this book.
Sadly, I read it after the fact --- but still found it helpful.

This is one of the better books for spelling out the issues you'll need to consider.
Read it alongside Ginger Kolbaba's excellent book "Surprised by Remarriage" which is
also here on Amazon.

Clear, concise, and insightful analysis of the issues you'll confront. If you are
already remarried --- you'll find yourself in these pages.

Well-written and useful. Five stars for clear consistent writing.

Barbara Sheldon, M.S.W.
I also highly recommend: Happily Remarried: Making Decisions Together * Blending Families Successfully * Building a Love That Will Last