So what happens to a blended family when the family doesn’t blend? You get family on the rocks.

It’s hard to imagine people raised in different atmosphere getting married. I think it’s more of a miracle that people stay married than not. Given that people grow up in different countries, different cultures, different religions, different viewpoints, different personalities, and usually in the years 20-30, they choose to marry and vow to commit to one another for the rest of their lives, it’s fascinating to me.

Those that stay married to the end are quite remarkable given that life brings so many surprises. People grow and change and want different things. They demand different things at different ages. Life throws some hardballs. Yet there are people who survive as a unit after 50 or 60 years. That’s a miracle given our divorce rate of about 60%.

How do blended families work given the odds? Second and third marriages are much more likely to fail. Unless there are children between them, there are a lot of reasons for spouses to walk away when things aren’t working out, when we are disillusioned with our partners, when we are seeking more out of life.

When people come together and have children separately, how do they make a Brady Bunch? The idea of blended families was always a ridiculous notion because I never have seen parents love the others’ children as much as their own or treat them all equally. More often than not, I see people in the office where the children are a reason for divorce, or the parent feels second to the others’ children, rather than first.

We are taught family therapy and family dynamics in grad school, but the reality of life and of relationships today is often different from the books. There is often so much pain involved, so many personalities, generations and egos. I wonder what people do to make it work?

In therapy, I teach about communication tools and listening and honesty. But people take into a marriage anger and betrayal and pain and memories of court battles and child custody arrangements, and it gets dragged into the next marriage and the next children.

Without a spiritual foundation and a sense of community, without counseling and friends who’ve gone through the same, it’s a wonder to me that anyone can survive round two or three in marriage.