Many people see remarriage as a fresh new chance at happiness with a partner whom they should have chosen in the first place. But the statistics reveal that second or later marriages are much more likely to     1    divorce. Why is this so?
    For one thing, remarrying mates often have unrealistic     2    . They are in love, and they don't really understand that the     3    of a missing partner (due to divorce, desertion or death) doesn't actually     4    the family to its first-marriage status.     5    , remarriage will present them with a number of unanticipated design issues such as children's loyalty binds, the     6    of parenting tasks and the uniting of disparate family cultures. These are three of the five major structural challenges of remarriage outlined by psychologist Patricia Paper in her remarkable architectural model of remarriage. Essentially, the remarried family's unanticipated and difficult job is to     7    many of their old assumptions about how a "real family"—i. e., a traditional first-marriage family—is supposed to     8    and get to work on self-consciously planning, designing and building an entirely new kind of family structure that will     9    their own unique requirements.
    A second, and equally important problem for the new couple lies in the realm of     10    communication. This is especially true     11    matters which lie very close to the mates' hearts, such as the sensitive issue of the children's behavior. Are the members of the pair     12    and caring of each other's youngsters, who have     13    difficult losses and transitions? Or does a stepparent respond to a child's stark unfriendliness with outrage and attack?
    For example, it is much better for a stepmom say "I feel hurt when your daughters come to visit and don't even say Hello to me or make eye     14    "than "Whenever your bratty daughters come over, they walk right past me as if I didn't even exist! They are so rude, and you just     15    there!" The first response is an "I" message and could start a useful discussion about how to handle the problem, while the second "you" response is blaming and likely to     16    an argument.
    The knottiest of remarriage issues is often that of     17    , and here a ton of research provides a clear guideline. The stepparent's role should be similar to that of a nanny, an aunt or a baby-sitter who is familiar with the rules of the house (such as, no TV before homework is finished.) She or he <em>monitors</em> and reports on the child's behavior, but ONLY the biological parent should do any kind of punishment (and is also allowed to let rules     18    .) And yet, far too often, a step-parent will think they should be the enforcer if they are to get real respect from their step-children.
    The problems of remarriage are a national issue that has been hiding under the     19    for far too long. It is only by bringing the unique challenges out into the open that we can possibly bring the     20    rate of these marriages down.