Dating : ‘Chosen’ Is a Better Understanding Than Broken or Blended — a Beautiful Family Story

Is there a better name for “step’’ relatives?

Temperatures rise or fall if you add (or leave out) that “step’’ modifier. After a half-century of living with the word, I finally looked it up.

Step means to bereave?

The origin of “step’’ comes from the Old English word “steop-” which means “bereave,’’ or to, “be deprived of a loved one through a profound absence, especially due to death.’’

Ouch.

The term “stepchild” refers to orphans who lost parents. Arguably it fits divorce since divorce is the death of a marriage. Our beautiful blended family has had step-relatives (and all other unusual mixings of relationships) for several generations.

“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.” — Desmond Tutu.

My wife and I blended our families 15 years ago, meaning our 30-year — old daughters have now been part of this “chosen” family for half their lives. Our parents, a few of our grandparents and even some great-grandparents endured divorce or being widowed. We learned much about “blending.”

You can buy a dog, say “this is my baby” and no one will question you. But marry someone and it can be years or decades before everyone buys in.

“Every family is dysfunctional, whether you want to admit it or not.” –Shailene Woodley.

Division: The biggest lie of divorce?

People think they won’t be related after a divorce. That’s the pro-divorce argument. In reality, you still deal with these people albeit with less time and influence.

As anyone who works on Ancestry.com family trees knows: once you enter a family tree (via birth or marriage) you’re basically a part of that family tree for forever. Even if you die the next day.

Five hundred years from now, when someone is working on the family history, there you will be even if your marriage comes and ends very quickly. For example:

— My mother-in-law married her childhood sweetheart, Ray, as he was going off to war. They married, took a train to his base in California, they were together several weeks and then he shipped out. His plane was shot down over Germany a couple months later. He died a hero, forever young, forever at his greatest. For the next 75 years, family never stopped hearing about him. How do you follow a young hero who had no time to do wrong?

— My Grandma Helen married my Grandpa Ed in September 1941. Pearl Harbor brought America into World War II three months later, my dad followed in December 1942, my grandpa went to war in early 1944, helped liberate Paris in August 1944 and died soon after.

I look a lot like my Grandpa Ed but I am named after her second husband Joe. Both are part of me.

— My stepmom turned 16 the day I was born but my dad hated talking about steps, half’s, etc. because “family is family.” So we were taught never to correct anyone who assumed we weren’t all related by blood. That backfired once when a neighbor asked my age, my stepmom’s age, and did the math.

“Family is a lifejacket in the stormy sea of life,” — J.K. Rowling

Blood or not blood? Together or apart? All these people and their stories are a part of me, who I am: the pure, the putrid, and everything in between. All are perfect gifts of God and all sinned. All are ingredients in my life story.

Yes, your marriages and life will end (impacting the details of the family tree) but once your branch is on the bigger tree, you are officially connected to all those people, and neither divorce nor death nor running away or avoiding each other really erases that connection.

We are reminded of this during family milestones like birthdays, baptisms, weddings, and funerals. You go and are reminded of the relationships or — worse — you don’t go and you are haunted or scarred by them.

But either way, the connection remains. It’s part of you, your life, your history, your story if not a direct bloodline. But never forget, we are actually all related. All God’s children, with some sort of lines.

“Stepparenting is like working at a late-night convenience store — all of the responsibility and none of the authority.”― Valerie J Lewis Coleman, Blended Families: An Anthology.

I never appreciated surgical masks more than the moment I saw my wife’s ex-husband wearing one. He was masked, I was uncovered. No one enjoys seeing their spouse’s ex until you see them in a mask and know you don’t have to see any look on their face that particular day.

The meaning of “ex”

It’s easy to blame “the other,” the ex, the spouse’s ex, the oppressers, etc. But that’s like drinking poison (the poison of negative emotions) thinking it will hurt the other person you’ve chosen to blame. So we learn through Christian unbound prayer to forgive the others so we can forgive ourselves.

Father Dwight Longenecker explains how every family does this:

“Somewhere in their life, you can be sure they have a person or a group of people who they believe are the source of all their difficulties. In a family, they even call their sacrificial lamb the ‘black sheep.’ This ‘difficult’ member of the family is the troublemaker, the oddball, the one who doesn’t fit in, the one who doesn’t play the game, the one who rocks the boat… The People of the Lie always blame another.”

But at some point, we hopefully eventually realize it’s easier to take responsibility for our own lives rather than always blame and give power to “the other.” And even if we can’t stop blaming, we can try to forgive so all can move forward.

And then all that remains is the good or at least the ambivalent. Five years ago, I was finishing lunch, walking out of the restaurant when a voice called my name. I couldn’t recognize her — even as she got more animated.

I got up close and it clicked. I realized the person calling my name was my first wife. We were married 10 years (five of those years going through the agonizing war of custody battles). Eventually, peace follows.

Her friend asked how we knew each other and I accurately said:

“We met at Michigan State.”

She identified me as “my ex.” I no longer use the word. The word “Ex” is originally Latin meaning “out of” as in Michael Jackson’s, “She’s out of my wife.” So ex is accurate but it doesn’t sound pleasant. I instead prefer to refer to “my wife” and “my first wife.”