Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

“Second Marriages after Retirement Can Be Problematic”

Let's say you are among the half-million or so Americans over sixty-five who married during the past year for the second time. Let's say that because you were widowed or divorced, you chose companionship over solitude, and decided to join-up for a second go-round of matrimony, or even cohabitation, (which has its own solid AARP statistic). You thought it was a pretty rational thing to do, considering the eternal qualities of love, and the fact that you already knew life is short.

But, alas, you didn't anticipate the antics of your grown children reacting to your new status and their new step-parent. Remarriage at this age turns out to be fraught with a number of new family problems you never knew existed. For one it is difficult to have certain family gatherings because of sensitivities, fears, and old loyalties. Some people just won't appear in the same room with certain other people. I call it the “Fox, Goose, and Grain Syndrome”.

In the age-old problem of the traveling farmer, accompanied by fox, goose, and grain, there is a major river to be crossed. The poor farmer's boat is small so that he can't take all his charges to the other side at once, and therefore has to make several trips, making sure he puts the right elements together, while, at the same time, avoiding the lethal mixtures. If the farmer is unable to supervise the fox, this wily fellow would surely eat the goose if he could. But the goose can't be left alone with the grain either. The farmer has a delicate transport problem, because if he is not careful, he could lose his precious property to miscalculation.

This tale is said to be 1100 years old, which deserves to be mentioned, because it is nearly as old as the problem of step families itself. Maybe that is how the story got started. Get it? A metaphor for the well-meaning new couple who would dearly like all their prospective dinner guests to get along at the same table.

When it comes to step-families involving grown children, I have seen fierce conflicts that were destined to make grown people cry from frustration. The new couple, retired from everything except the family bonds, didn't realize they were stirring up trouble among their kids. The kids themselves didn't realize they would feel strange around the new family they did not really choose. Someone in that generation is bound to wonder, “What is going to happen to the inheritance which I thought was in store for me? Who will get it now? What if the wrong person dies first? Money, with or without pre-nup' agreements, has this way of taking on nuances of evil in the distrust it engenders. Or, even without any estate to be hoped for, feelings themselves make the new family alignments hard to adjust to.

Fortunately, the baffling power that seems to disrupt these new retirement marriages can be eased with a little frank discussion. There is a good handbook for this, entitled, “Step Wars: Overcoming the Perils and Making Peace in Adult Stepfamilies” The trick is to be able to put labels on the disruptive anxieties.

By the way, if you have to row this particular boat across the river, and you want to solve the fox-goose problem, here is a tip: Start with the goose alone, and come back by yourself, having left him on the other shore. Although there is a lot of alone time in the boat for the farmer, (much like your retirement marriages), it does have a solution.

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