Most of you will answer that you fell in love and hoped this time would be different and better. That this adventure into matrimony would not only work, but repair the harm from the last one. But, how could you bring yourself to walk back over that cliff?
I know that in my own case, I didn't walk, I sprinted toward my second marriage. I remember thinking a good three months before our wedding was scheduled to take place, "Why should we wait? Why not just get married TODAY?! We're in love, we are ready to start over, let's go!" I was held back only by the plans that were in place and the deposits that had been paid for the scheduled date. I was so much in love, I couldn't wait to start being happily married. Again.
As some of you probably know from our working together, the first two years of my new marriage was less blissful than expected. In fact, it was horrible. We jumped into it far too quickly and far too soon after our previous divorces. In retrospect, we should have spent a good two years (bare minimum!) learning about each other and figuring out how to blend our lives together - especially regarding her teenaged daughter's impact on our marriage!
If I'd paid closer attention in my university classes on psychology, I'd have seen that others had already studied this phenomenon of blindly walking off cliff walls. Back in 1960, two researchers named Gibson and Walk constructed a table to test depth perception in animals and babies. The table, as illustrated below:
was made of clear plexiglass under which was one half a table surface, and one half a drop off to the floor. In the experiment, very young babies - first animal then human - were placed on the "safe" side and encouraged to cross the glass table to the "unsafe" side. Animals almost never crossed, and many babies would not cross. But some babies were so focused on their parent's facial expressions that they happily crawled all the way to her. They were more interested in Mom's or Dad's smiling, encouraging faces that communicated it was OK to cross the divide than what their eyes told them.
Now "the Visual Cliff", as this experiment has become known, has real application in helping us understand why so many people ... people who are generally pretty clear headed ... will stumble out of the smoking wreckage of a horrible divorce, right into another relationship as quickly as they can find one.
We, like those trusting babies on the glass table, are so focused on the smiling, happy, beguiling faces of our new love interests (or other body parts besides their faces!), that, although we can see the drop off, we don't heed our body's natural warning responses.
"Dude! Stop! Can't you see you're leading us off a huge cliff, just like what we just fell from a few months ago? STOP!" To which we reply dreamily, "I can't stop. Sorry. Her ("eyes") are just so big and pretty and she keeps smiling at me and making me feel all warm inside," or "Don't be silly, Self! Can't you see how strong he is and how much he loves me? I just know it will be safe" ... to blindly crawl out into blank space where common sense tells me I'll crash to the bloodied rocks below, just like last time!
And off to the races we go!
Relationships, then, are clearly more important to us than safety, sight, experience, or common sense. Statistics tell us that our hearts will lead us where our eyes should force us to not go. Second marriages experience two divorces out of every three attempts, while more than three out of four third marriages fail. Got that? Two out of every three second marriages end in divorce!
The cliff is real! But we just keep on crawling. Why?
Because we NEED love. We need to have someone we can share the joy of life, as well as the fears of facing the world alone. And we are happy to ignore our brains to listen to the hopes of our hearts.
The bad news is that the odds are against you if you're in a stepfamily.
The good news is there is hope.
Yes, we need love; we need a partner to walk beside us. And that love is possible. Your marriage doesn't have to turn into a warning sign to others. It is possible to turn back from what may be looking like a disaster in the making. You just need help.
In sixteen years of working with stepfamilies, we've had OVER 90 PERCENT success helping you guys beat the odds. I'm still amazed at that number. We're not magic. What I teach isn't some arcane secret. I just help couples see the land mines clearly, then understand the best ways through the toughest times.
"The heart wants what it wants," as Dickinson said. Almost 100 percent of people who divorce get married again. We love that cliff.
If you're over the cliff, fearing that you've made a big mistake, and especially if you have children involved - don't give up. Don't freeze up and just wait for the drop to another crash. Get help. From me, from someone else, within yourself, wherever, just don't give up. Especially if there are children involved. Don't drag them into that abyss again.
Hold on and get across this time.
STEPcoach Bob Collins
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