When you combine two families, each with their own habits and culture, into one, there will inevitably be fissures and frictions. Then add in the fact that a single parent, though lonely and with no one to depend on, at least is free to make his or her own decisions, but after remarriage must compromise and make concessions. No wonder so many reconstituted (or “blended”) families are tested to the limit by the need to abandon old ways of thinking in order to recombine with new family members.

Both David, with sons aged 9 and 11, and Xiu­xiu, with a daughter aged 11, had to put painful first marriage experiences behind them when they remarried four years ago to form a new family unit.

For David, now 46, the problem was that his first

wife became very depressed and would fly out of control over little things, and after years of trying to improve things without success, he finally gave up on the marriage. A year or so after his divorce, he met Xiu­xiu through an online matchmaking site. Good looking, capable, and understanding, Xiu­xiu—who was then working in a university—was extremely attractive to him. Now remarried, he has someone to share his life and to provide the adult emotional relationship that he was missing.

Right from the start they had a mutual understanding on raising the kids: no criticizing or scolding the other’s kids face to face. David had no girls, and Xiu­xiu had no boys, and the two of them had different approaches to raising their kids, so they agreed that Mom would handle the daughter and Dad would handle the sons. If there were any disputes, the natural parent would come forward to resolve them.

Easier said than done, however. Living day after day under the same roof, Xiu­xiu found it impossible to put up with her younger stepson coming home from school every day in a cranky mood, while David found that he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing when his stepdaughter talked back to her Mom. Then there were the little problems of daily life to cope with, like the boys peeing on the toilet seat, and the girl clogging the drain with constant washing and brushing of her hair.

The biggest problem in reconstituted families is deciding how best to raise the kids.

One day, the younger boy stayed up very late playing computer games. His father told him to go to bed, but the boy just called him a “retard” and ignored him. Xiu­xiu feels that children’s understanding is immature, so they should be trained from an early age to know the difference between right and wrong—you shouldn’t just let the kid off easy by saying “boys will be boys.”

“I always give serious consideration to his advice about childrearing, but he just shuts my opinions right out,” says Xiu­xiu, who is tired and depressed as her long efforts at communication have paid no dividends.

But David also feels caught between a rock and a hard place. When his wife and child get into it, he is caught in the middle, and he is frustrated that his wife won’t just let him handle his sons in his own way.

Fortunately, both partners are determined to make the most of this second chance at happiness, and are hopeful about getting through the rough patches.

In fact, it is quite normal, no matter what the nature of the family, for there to be differences between husband and wife over how to discipline the children. It’s just that the problems are tougher to resolve in reconstituted families, and if they are not taken seriously and handled well, they could become the cause of emotional outbursts pitting the spouses against each other.

Chen Ying, a therapist with the Taiwan Institute of Psycho­therapy, says that blended families must work hard to build a sense of identity as a “we,” to create a sense of shared identification as one family unit. “Stepfamilies are like any other families—so long as the people in them are willing to put in the effort, stay humble, and learn from each other, so long as they love each other, they can find a little piece of sunshine they can call their own.”