Stepfamilies: Love, Marriage, and Parenting in the First Decade

Based on a landmark longitudinal study, the nation's leading expert on stepfamilies reveals his breakthrough findings and offers the first detailed guide to easing the conflicts of stepfamily life and healing the scars of divorce.
There are more than twenty million stepfamilies in America. For most of them, the simple, daily issues that challenge every family are even more anxiety-provoking. After conducting a comprehensive nine-year-long study funded by the National Institutes of Health, Dr. James H. Bray has written an invaluable book that explains why over half of all stepfamilies fail and reveals the strategies that help the others succeed.
A stepfamily is assaulted on all sides by difficult and often divisive questions. How much control should a stepparent have over a stepchild? How much authority should a nonresidential parent exert over a child? How should a difficult former spouse be handled? How does an "ours" baby change the emotional dynamic in a stepfamily? Why is there a lack of "honeymoon effect" during the first years of stepfamily life?
The purpose of "Stepfamilies is to answer all the important questions of stepfamily life--to fill in the knowledge gaps that undermine so many stepfamilies today and, crucially, to learn the effect of stepfamily life on children. Based on one of the largest and longest studies of stepfamily life ever conducted, "Stepfamilies interweaves the stories of real families to illustrate such study findings as how:
a stepfamily has its own natural life cycle
a stepfamily takes several years to develop into a family unit
a stepfamily is at greatest risk during the first two years
a stepfamily ultimately coalesces intoone of three forms
a stepfamily must solve four basic tasks in order to succeed
a stepfamily can help heal the scars of divorce
Filled with emotional, gripping stories, Bray's findings pinpoint the three major transitions in stepfamily life and identify the riski