When Late-Life Repartnering and Parental Death Intertwine: Adult Children’s Perspectives

Late-Life Repartnering

The literature on late-life repartnering includes several definitions of the phenomenon: beginning the relationship at or above the official retirement age (Moustgaard & Martikainen, 2009); starting the relationship at age 50 years (Brown, Bulanda, & Lee, 2012; Brown, Lee, & Bulanda, 2006), or at age 55 years and older (De Jong Gierveld, 2004). Another definition restricts the phenomenon to partners who had a lifelong marital relationship in which each had previously raised a family with children and grandchildren (Blinded for review). In the present article, late-life repartnering excludes the divorced and refers only to widows and widowers who repartnered at or above the official retirement age in Israel. Both partners had children and grandchildren from their lifelong marriages and their repartnering relationship took the form of remarriage, cohabitation, or living apart together.

Late-life repartnering among persons aged 65 years and older is a relatively new phenomenon worldwide with low prevalence of no more than 10% (Davidson, 2002). It is more accepted in modern societies (De Jong Gierveld, 2004) and usually occurs within a mid-high socioeconomic status (Davidson, 2002). As life expectancy increases, the phenomenon is likely to continue to develop as an option in old age (De Jong Gierveld, 2004).

In Israel, a society culturally located between tradition and modernity (Lavee & Katz, 2003), the phenomenon has not yet received recognition as a normative choice in old age (Blinded for review). This could explain why, no data on late-life repartnering are available from the Central Bureau of Statistics (2014).

Repartnering creates a type of stepfamily constructed in old age (Blinded for review). Step-relationships are unexpected (Coleman, Ganong, & Russell, 2013) at any age and require those involved to adjust to the new family structure (Baxter et al., 2009). This is especially true in old age, when repartnering is perceived as having more of a partnership role than a family structure (Blinded for review). This might explain why most of the empirical literature on late-life repartnering refers to partners’ issues of widows (Davidson, 2002) and widowers (van den Hoonaard, 2012) studied mainly from their individual (e.g., Davidson, 2002) or dyadic perspectives (e.g., Blinded for review). In the few studies referring to familial aspects of late-life repartnering, conflicts were addressed. These included issues concerning inheritance, jealousy, and anger regarding priority changes, threat to the memory of the deceased parent (Spalter, 2010), and caregiving expectations (Blinded for review) and experiences (Sherman, 2012). However, some adult children encourage late-life repartnering because of its advantages for both generations. These include enhancing the parent’s self-esteem, social capital, and sources of support (Spalter, 2010) and reducing the children’s worry (Blinded for review) which might have increased with the parent’s widowhood (Stuifbergen, Van Delden, & Dykstra, 2008). Adult children’s experiences with parents’ late-life repartnering as positive and/or negative could have significant influence on family dynamics and on quality of life of parents and children alike (Blinded for review). Therefore, it is important to examine adult children’s experiences with parents’ late-life repartnering, including the impact of the death of the deceased parent.

Adult Children and Parental Death

Adapting to the death of a parent is a multidimensional personal and familial process. Parental death affects identity, social interactions, family, spirituality, intimacy and sexuality, work productiveness, and health (Lund, 2001). Adult children confront their own mortality when a parent dies (Kiel, 2003), which might lead to reevaluation of their own life course (Black & Santanello, 2011). As with the loss of anyone close (Lund, 2001), initial reactions to parental death might include anger, sadness, fear, shock, disbelief, relief, guilt, loneliness, confusion, and depression (Kiel, 2003). Grief might be accompanied by thoughts about the deceased and events related to the death (Lund, 2001), perceived simultaneously as expected and unexpected (Black & Rubinstein, 2013).

Adult children’s difficulty in discussing and sharing experiences related to parental death derives from the merging of past experiences with the parent and the present situation of the parent’s physical absence, along with focusing on the “here and now” of coping (Black & Rubinstein, 2013). Other findings indicate that children, who report a positive relationship with the parent and express ongoing loss, might idealize the parental relationship. Sharing memories and reminiscing about past experiences connected to the deceased parent is an acceptable means of escape from reality. It brings comfort and helps ease existential loneliness that accompanies the experience of loss (Kiel, 2003). For adult children, communication with the deceased parent (e.g., writing them letters about life events) was found to reduce the trauma and pain of the unbearable reality of death, providing an escape from the despair associated with the inevitable finality of life (Ata, 2012). Bereaved religious persons were found to be less anxious than those who were not religious. Religious affiliation can provide strength and resilience, which contribute to coping with death (Ata, 2012). However, it is unclear whether these findings are restricted to those who were religious prior to the parent’s death or also includes those who became religious or strengthened their belief as a result of the death. After the death of a parent, adult children lose the opportunity to find answers to hitherto unresolved questions, including identity aspects related to change of self and worldview. Parental death might serve as a turning point in their own and their family’s lives (Black & Santanello, 2011). With time, sadness generally decreases, improving the emotional state of the bereaved adult-child (Kiel, 2003).

Parents create familial norms, beliefs, morals, and attitudes. Parental roles have symbolic meanings such as father as provider, protector, authority, friend, and critic (Black & Santanello, 2011). Thus, parental death influences family dynamics (Black & Rubinstein, 2013), potentially reinforcing these patterns. Children were found to receive comfort through support from family and friends. Their social ties were strengthened, and life purpose was focused on involvement in family life (Kiel, 2003).

Heuristic Framework: Existential Phenomenology

Parental death and repartnering of the surviving parent are two separate occurrences in the adult-child’s life. From an existential phenomenological perspective, the two might be mutually constitutive (Valle, King, & Halling, 1989); similar to the Gestalt figure–ground concept. A figure has an object-character that is spatially cohesive and enclosed, filling a space inside its border. A ground has a material character that extends behind the figure (Shapiro & Hamburger, 2007). Based on this conceptualization, we examined how, if at all, adult children experience late-life repartnering of their surviving parent (as figure) in the context of the deceased parent’s death (as ground), and how, if at all, parental death (as figure) is experienced retrospectively in the context of late-life repartnering (as ground).

A way of interpreting the adult-child’s situation is through the existential phenomenological concept of the life word (Lebenswelt), which includes the following four dimensions (van Deurzen, 2010): The physical world (Umwelt) represents people’s relationship with nature. Through this dimension, the adult children might perceive the deceased parent’s physical absence from their world as the natural course of life. The social world (Mitwelt) represents being-in-the-world with others. It refers to the adult-child’s feelings toward the repartnered parent and the new partner, and how repartnering influences the adult-child’s relationship with them. The personal world (Eigenwelt) is the inner world not shared by others. This refers to how the adult-child, who lost a parent and whose surviving parent has repartnered, copes with the existential sense of death (May & Yalom, 1995). It also represents how the adult-child, who cannot control a parent’s death or repartnering, known as existential thrownness, uses situated freedom of choice, constrained by life situations, to cope with such events (Sartre, 1991). The spiritual world (Uberwelt) represents creating meaning and a sense of belonging to a scheme of things. It refers to how the adult-child makes sense of the parent’s death, the surviving parent’s repartnering, and the essence of family (van Deurzen, 2010). In existential terms, temporality is experienced as relative and subjective (May, 1983). Thus, we ask how it is expressed in the experience of adult children whose parent repartnered after the other parent’s death. The four dimensions intertwine to compose the individual’s holistic life-world (van Deurzen, 2010).

Both parental death (Black & Santanello, 2011) and the subsequent late-life repartnering (De Jong Gierveld & Merz, 2013) are significant life events for adult children. Therefore, when examining the adult children’s experiences, it is necessary to understand the essence of the possible interplay between these two events.

The research questions are accordingly: (a) How do adult children experience parental death after late-life repartnering of their surviving parent? (2) How might the death of one parent and late-life repartnering of the surviving parent intertwine?

Sample and Sampling

Criterion sampling for the larger study (Patton, 2002) included older couples who repartnered after the official retirement age in Israel (men 65+; women 60+). Both partners were previously in a lifelong marriage that included adult children and grandchildren. The larger study included 37 adult children whose parents were either widowed or divorced. Criterion sampling of the subsample for this article included 27 adult children whose parents had repartnered after widowhood with a partner who was also widowed with children (Table 1).

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Table 1.

Demographic Information.

	Participant	Age	Gender	Year of birth	Country of origin	Marital status	Religiosity	Education	Parent’s age	Parent’s gender	Length of parent repartnering (years)	Time since death of the deceased parent (years)
1	F1SM	51	Man	1960	Israel	M + 3	Secular	Partial academic	81	Man	15	15 years and few months
2	F2DM	54	Woman	1957	Israel	M + 5	Secular	High school diploma	83	Man	14	15
3	F2DW	51	Woman	1960	Israel	M + 3	Reform religious	Academic	77	Woman	14	24
4	F3SM	48	Man	1963	Israel	M + 2	Secular	High school diploma	78	Man	5.5	5.6
5	F3DW	37	Woman	1974	Israel	M + 2	Traditional	Academic	69	Woman	5.5	6.5
6	F4DM	50	Woman	1962	Uruguay	M + 4	Religious	Academic	77	Man	1.5	3
7	F4DW	47	Woman	1964	Israel	M + 3	Religious	Vocational	75	Woman	1.5	18
8	F5DM	44	Woman	1967	Israel	M + 2	Secular	Academic	71	Man	3	11
9	F7SM	55	Man	1956	Israel	M + 3	Secular	Academic	82	Man	1.5	2.5
10	F7DW	51	Woman	1960	USA	M + 4	Religious	Academic	73	Woman	1.5	2.5
11	F8SM	41	Man	1970	Israel	M + 4	Secular	Academic	67	Man	2	3
12	F8DW	46	Woman	1965	USA	M + 8	Ultra-orthodox	Academic	66	Woman	2	4
13	F9DM	47	Woman	1964	Israel	M + 2	Secular	Academic	75	Man	1	3
14	F9SW	52	Man	1960	Israel	2M+	Secular	High school diploma	73	Woman	1	36
15	F10SM	56	Man	1955	Israel	D + 3	Secular	Academic	80	Man	16	18
16	F10DW	50	Woman	1962	Israel	W + 3	Secular	Academic	80	Woman	16	26
17	F11DM	52	Woman	1959	Israel	M + 3	Secular	Academic	74	Man	10	31
18	F11SW	48	Man	1964	USA	M + 4	Secular	Academic	70	Woman	10	16
19	F12SM	50	Man	1962	Israel	M + 2	Secular	High school diploma	83	Man	15	16
20	F12DW	48	Woman	1964	Israel	M + 3	Secular	Academic	80	Woman	15	27
21	F13SM	38.5	Man	1973	Israel	M + 2	Secular	Academic	78	Man	3	5
22	F13SW	47	Man	1965	Israel	M + 2	Secular	Academic	70	Woman	3	7
23	F14SM	41	Man	1971	Israel	M + 3	Between secular and traditional	Academic	71	Man	3	6
24	F14SW	42	Man	1970	Israel	M + 2	Traditional	High school diploma	65	Woman	3	7
25	F15SM	53	Man	1959	Israel	M + 3	Secular	Academic	89	Man	2	3
26	F16SM	60	Man	1952	Israel	M + 2 + 3	Secular	Academic	86	Man	7.5	A little more than 8 years
27	F17DM	54	Woman	1958	Russia	M + 1	Secular	Vocational	79	Man	8	24.5
28	F19DM	44	Woman	1968	Israel	M + 2	Traditional	Academic	86	Man	1	11
29	F19DW	49	Woman	1963	Israel	D + 1	Secular	Academic	82	Woman	1	27

Demographic information for the 27 adult children was as follows: Between 37 and 60 years old, all of them had children, most were married, and two were divorced. All except five were born in Israel and had an academic or professional education. All of them were Jewish and defined themselves as secular, traditional, or religious. The parent’s repartnering had occurred between 1 and 16 years previously. Time since death of the deceased parent was between 2.5 and 27 years. Participants were coded in the same way as in the larger study (e.g., the man’s son in Stepfamily3 was coded Stepfamily3SM).

Recruiting Participants

Participants were recruited via professionals working with older persons throughout Israel. They were contacted by phone and were provided with information about the study. After they were found to meet the study criteria and agreed to participate, the older partners contacted one of their adult children and asked them to participate in the study. Thus, the parents chose the adult children, who were interviewed at a time and place convenient for them. Most interviews were conducted at the child’s home, lasted about 1 hour, were audio-recorded in Hebrew, and transcribed verbatim. To preserve the original meaning, the quotes chosen for this article were translated from Hebrew into English by the second author, who is bilingual.

Research Tool and Data Collection

Semistructured face-to-face interviews were conducted with each participant separately to learn about late-life repartnering from an intergenerational family perspective, from November 2011 until the end of 2012. The interviews were based on an interview guide (Kvale & Brikmann, 2008) developed for the adult children’s generation. The opening question was “Tell me the story of your parent’s late-life repartnering.”

The interview guide included several content areas. Those relevant for this article were intergenerational relationships in the family including the relationship with the parent before and after repartnering, and with his or her partner, attitudes toward the parent’s late-life repartnering in particular, and to the phenomenon in general. The interview guide did not include specific questions related to the experience of parental death. However, when the interviewees initiated such content during the interviews, the interviewer probed further. According to the interviewee’s answers, additional questions were formulated during the interview regarding content, meaning, contrast, follow-up, probing, and clarification (Kvale & Brikmann, 2008).

Analysis

In the process of data analysis, we identified adult children’s experiences of parental death and decided to examine them further although this was not the primary purpose of the larger study. We analyzed the data based on the phenomenological tradition (Smith et al., 2009). In the first step, we read and reread each interview while listening to the recordings and making initial notes including descriptive comments of events, behavior, emotions, and thoughts, linguistic comments such as repetitiveness, and conceptual comments relating to ideas and perceptions of partnership, for example, “partnership should be for life.” This process helped us identify units of meaning, and the second step included identifying the relationships between them. For example, we examined the relationship between “relationships are eternal” and “loneliness in old age.” This process was conducted in-depth for each interview separately. In the third step, we identified units of meaning whose themes went beyond the individual interview and emerged across interviews. Identifying patterns by comparing units of meaning that emerged in different interviews assisted the creation of new categorical structures of the findings. This step was accomplished using a process of abduction (Charmaz, 2006), which means that, after a possible theme had emerged inductively, we examined it deductively on the rest of the data to derive at a conceptual structure. When such a conceptual structure was identified through the abduction process with the rest of the data, the theme was confirmed. This process resulted in two main themes, which are presented in the “Findings” section.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness was achieved in several ways. All the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim so that we could check that the emerging interpretations were based on the original data. Notes and memos, including thoughts, emotions, and ideas, were documented by each researcher throughout the entire process. As part of the larger study, the research team held periodic meetings to discuss disagreements regarding coding, units of meaning, and themes. The discussion continued until agreement was reached and changes were made accordingly (Kvale & Brikmann, 2008).

Ethics

The study received approval from the ethics committee for experiments on humans of the university research authority (Approval No. 224/11). Each participant signed a letter of consent after receiving a brief explanation of the study to ensure voluntary participation. The letter included the option of withdrawing at any stage and ensured confidentiality by promising to alter identifying information. Code labels were used to replace participants’ real names and identifying information was altered. The interviewer was a graduate social work student, who was familiar with creating a rapport and showing empathy without taking on the role of therapist (Kvale & Brikmann, 2008). Finally, we informed participants how to receive emotional help, if needed, due to disclosure of sensitive issues. This need did not arise at any stage of the study.

Loyalty Conflict

Deceased Parent and Parent’s New Partner: Comparisons

This theme refers to adult children’s comparisons between their deceased parent and their parent’s new partner, leading to either satisfaction or discontent. Three illustrations follow: satisfaction with difference, discontent with difference, and satisfaction with similarity. Discontent with similarity was not found.

The woman’s daughter in Stepfamily12 illustrates satisfaction with difference between her father and her mother’s new partner:

When the partner arrived, it was a very different experience because he’s very adoring. He used to write and leave her these messages on every occasion [. . .] full of praise [. . .] It was very embarrassing at times, but for her, it was a lot of fun. Let’s say she’d make a Friday night meal. He’d stand in front of all of us and my brother would kick me and say: “Here we go again,” and then he [Mom’s partner] would raise his glass and make a toast to Mom for preparing everything: “Look at all the delicious dishes. Look at the chicken, look and look.” She’s our mother. As children, we took it for granted that when you come home to Mom there’s a Sabbath meal, right? He would be surprised every time [. . .]. My father was very different. He didn’t show his feelings. That wasn’t his style at all. Certainly not standing in front of everyone and telling everyone how wonderful she is. I think she has gained something; she experienced two different kinds of relationships, opposites. Every time I’d say, if my father would have seen whom my mother chose the second time around, he’d turn in his grave. What a man [my father was]. He had a dominant presence, was very physical. My father was a man of action, and now, she chose this kind of “softy,” who can hardly handle a drill. But I think she has benefited and has a very nice life. (Stepfamily12DW, age 48, mother’s age 80, widowed 27 years, repartnered 15 years)

The difference between her father and her mother’s new partner is described as enrichment to her mother’s life and enables the daughter to reflect on her family. Although she feels uncomfortable with the new partner’s behavior, it provides an opportunity to examine her mother’s functionality within the family throughout the years. Thus, late-life repartnering could serve as a way to reexamine intergenerational relationships within families, helping the daughter appreciate what was formerly taken for granted.

The woman’s daughter in Stepfamily9 illustrates discontent with difference:

I really try to think what is so difficult for me with the partner, how she makes me feel inside. I asked my children when we were all together: “Do you think I’m the problem?” They said: “No Mom, she’s just a difficult personality, who needs a lot of attention.” For my children, it’s not easy with her, either. She’s very, very different from my mother, extremely different. They were very attached to my mother and loved her very much. My mother was a very involved grandmother. My children aren’t happy going to the partner; they don’t want it. My son always asks: “Tell me, Mom,”—he calls her the army general: “Is the army general coming?” They prefer it when she doesn’t come [. . .] On the one hand, there is the difficulty, on the other hand, we are all happy that Dad is in a relationship . . . that means we have to ignore it and give in. (Stepfamily9DM, age 47, father’s age 75, widowed 3 years, repartnered 1 year)

At the beginning of the quote, the daughter expresses self-doubt and wonders if her negative emotions toward the partner are legitimate. She might be afraid to jeopardize the repartnering relationship and does not want to risk her father−daughter relationship. She feels torn between her need to please her father and her difficulty to cope with his partner’s personality. Even though she is happy for her father, she refers to his partner as “the partner,” never as “my father’s partner,” and her children’s reference to the “the army general,” rather than “the partner” might indicate their difficulty in fully recognizing her as such. This might be because the daughter compares the new partner unfavorably with her mother. The relationship with her mother was characterized by closeness, great involvement, and love, whereas contact with the partner is perceived as unpleasant and has a bad influence on the family atmosphere. Although no objection was described regarding late-life repartnering as a phenomenon, comparison with the deceased parent might place the new partner at a disadvantage.

The man’s daughter in Stepfamily17 illustrates satisfaction with similarity:

I don’t feel any difference. She [the partner] accepts us so openly, just like my mother. [. . .] Probably Mom chose such a person for him [father] from above, out of concern for him; a good wife, like Mom was. (Stepfamily17DM, age 54, father’s age 79, widowed 24.5 years, repartnered 8 years)

The daughter is happy, thankful, and finds comfort in the resemblance between her father’s new partner and her late mother. She feels that they have regained an element of the mother’s presence, and both she and her father have benefited; as if the mother has sent something of herself to them in the image of the new partner. This case is unique among all the participants in that the new partner seems to fill a certain maternal lack. The resemblance to the deceased mother has become an advantage. For the daughter, what matters is the function “like mother was.” To say: “She [the partner] accepts us so openly” is also exceptional. Usually, this is reversed and the adult children are preoccupied with accepting the partner as a new family member. The sentence “I don’t feel any difference” strengthens, for the daughter, that the partner also represents the continuity of motherhood and does not just create a new family situation.

Deceased Parent as Figure and Late-Life Repartnering and/or New Partner as Ground

Here, as a part of the inner world (Eigenwelt), the adult children’s main experience is of loss, for example, Stepfamily14SW:

and everything that happens in life [. . .] is not how it used to be. When Dad was alive, there was more joy, more getting together, more fun. I’d say my quality of life changed by 80% [. . .] it is certainly not the same joy”).

The essence of the loyalty conflict that could arise in late-life stepfamily relationships is the difficulty of turning the figure of the deceased parent into ground, to make room for the surviving parent’s partner as the new figure (e.g., Stepfamily2DW: “she asked: ‘Do you think he [current partner] will let me be buried here?’ [. . .] I prefer that she decides, not me”). This constitutes acceptance that the deceased parent is no longer part of the physical environment (Umwelt; van Deurzen, 2010) and that his or her physical space was filled by a new figure, the parent’s new partner (e.g., Stepfamily14SW: “Mom told me that she met a new partner. It was a bit difficult at first because it was instead of Dad”). The tangible grave and the question of where to be buried (Stepfamily2DW) could be interpreted as a metaphor for the loyalty conflict (Smith et al., 2009).

When the figure of the deceased parent and fear of desecrating the parent’s memory and place in the family are at the forefront, accepting the new partner as part of the family might be difficult. In such cases, the figure of the partner and the repartnering relationship do not make a difference because the focus of the adult-child is on the parent’s lifelong relationship. This type of experience is consistent with findings regarding stepfamilies constructed at earlier stages of the life-course, indicating that the duration of the step-relationship has an effect on its legitimacy (Clawson & Ganong, 2002). The perception of phenomenological time as relative (May, 1983) is what causes the lifelong marital relationship to be perceived as figure. For example, Stepfamily14SW:

it’s seven and a half years since his death. The partnership, I think, [began] two years later. If it had started today, it would [also] be difficult for me. “Time is not the essence here.”

Consistent with being-in-the-world with others (Mitwelt), stepfamily relationships constructed in old age because of late-life repartnering are not only shorter than those constructed in earlier life stages, but the family members involved have to deal with a lifelong marital relationship that previously existed (Coleman, Ganong, & Russell, 2013; e.g., Stepfamily14SW: “Of course it doesn’t suit me. Mom lived with Dad for maybe 40 years, and someone else came”).

Another way of being-in-the-world with others (Mitwelt), in which attention remains fixed on the experience of parental death, is by not granting meaning to the figure of the deceased parent but to the parent’s previous function in the life of the adult-child. Therefore, the reaction toward change in the family structure is influenced by how the new partner fulfills those parental functions (e.g., Stepfamily17DM: “I don’t feel any difference [. . .] a good wife, like Mom was”). In addition, change in the adult-child’s spiritual world (Uberwelt; van Deurzen, 2010), as expressed in worldview and lifestyle due to parental death, might contribute to the continued focus on the experience of loss. An example is the strengthening of religious faith that sometimes occurs after parental death, leading to lifestyle change and reconstruction of family life (e.g., Kiel, 2003), as illustrated by Stepfamily14SW: “since Dad [passed away], I go to the synagogue and believe more”).

Finally, another possible explanation could be related to illegitimacy of late-life repartnering as a phenomenon in cultures such as Israel, located between tradition and modernity (Blinded for review). Adult children experience ambivalence in their inner world (Eigenwelt). They have difficulty accepting late-life repartnering and/or the partner but, at the same time, are grateful for the good effect that it has on the parent (e.g., increasing well-being) and on themselves (e.g., decreasing caregiving burden; Blinded for review). Adult children’s preoccupation with their deceased parent might serve as justification (Scott & Lyman, 1968) for objecting to the new family structure. Their pain due to parental death might become stronger within a conflictual family constellation (Martin & Doka, 1999) enabling expression of difficulty with the new family structure without having to dismiss it.

Difficulty Discerning Figure From Ground

In this situation, both experiences stand alongside each other in the lives of the adult children, exemplified by their comparisons between the new partner and the deceased parent. The world of interaction with others (Mitwelt) distinguishes figure from ground. Both relationships are evaluated in relation to one another and are therefore simultaneously figure and ground. The negative perception of the relationship with the partner in Stepfamily9 is compared with what was experienced when the deceased parent was alive (“She’s very, very different from my mother, extremely different. They were very attached to my mother […] My children aren’t happy going to the partner”). The positive perception of the repartnering relationship in Stepfamily12 is possible in light of what was lacking in the lifelong marital relationship and vice versa:

he’s [Mom’s partner] very adoring [. . .] My father was very different. He didn’t show his feelings [. . .] certainly not standing in front of everyone and telling everyone how wonderful she is [. . .] if my father would have seen whom my mother chose the second time around, he’d turn in his grave).

The centrality of being-in-the-world with others (van Deurzen, 2010) as constructing experience was found also in previous research on step-relationships at earlier life stages, indicating that a close relationship with the new partner influences the perception of the stepfamily relationship and the relationship with the new partner (Schmeeckle, Giarrusso, Ferg, & Bengtson, 2006). By examining previous family relationships in light of the new family situation, adult children gain a different perspective on past family relationships, for example, Stepfamily12DW:

When the partner arrived, it was a very different experience [. . .] It was very embarrassing at times [. . .] As children, we took it for granted that when you come home to Mom there’s a Sabbath meal, right? He would be surprised every time.

The different reactions of each of her mother’s partners to her mother’s cooking efforts cause the daughter to reexamine past family dynamics. This is consistent with the phenomenological perception of time determining the past in light of the present (May, 1983).

Late-Life Repartnering and/or New Partner as Figure and Deceased Parent as Ground

The deceased parent and/or the previous family structure serve as ground to repartnering. The deceased parent’s prior acquaintance with the new partner helps adult children accept the new family situation of late-life repartnering and perceive it as positive, for example, Stepfamily7SM:

We have been acquainted with the lady for many years […] it’s a wonderful idea because they come from the same background [. . .] I assume that if her late husband and my mother would have known about it, they would have been happy.

The advantages of late-life repartnering such as partner providing support (Blinded for review) help overcome the adult children’s potential doubt about whether the deceased parent would have approved of the new partner. In such a case, repartnering is the figure and is accepted, regardless of the deceased parent’s hypothetical consent and in spite of loyalty conflict and refer to the adult-child’s inner world (Eigenwelt; e.g., Stepfamily4DM: “What always troubled me was what my mother would have thought of it, especially because it’s someone she knows”). The adult children’s account is that prior acquaintance turns the new partner from unknown to known (Clawson & Ganong, 2002; e.g., Stepfamily4DM: “They decided quite quickly to get married and we were really happy because we knew she was not someone new; she was someone new–old”).

Figure–Ground Positions and Grief

The three figure–ground positions show how the two events in the adult children’s lives are intertwined but have different influences. However, why do some adult children emphasize one event as figure and the other as ground?

A possible explanation might be related to intuitive (emotional) and instrumental (cognitive) functional patterns of grief for the deceased parent (Martin & Doka, 1999). Adult children preoccupied with parental death as figure require emotional involvement, and therefore might be more intuitive in their grief. This might make it more difficult for them to accept that the surviving repartnered parent has continued with life, for example, Stepfamily14SW:

My mother also has a life and she needs to live. You have an inner struggle […] it’s her life, but still, it doesn’t suit me today either […] it’s difficult to accept, although you see that it’s good for Mom, it shrinks in comparison to what I feel”

Nevertheless, adult children who experience instrumental grief might have more ability to direct their attention to the present and to accept their remaining parent’s repartnering. This is because such processes require cognitive functioning regarding the finality of death when considering their remaining parent’s quality of life (e.g., Stepfamily2DW: “The fact that I miss my father very much does not make the presence of my mother’s new partner problematic,” and Stepfamily12DW: “I think she has gained something; she experienced two different kinds of relationships, opposites [. . .] I think she has benefited and has a very nice life”). Our findings indicate that adult children who accepted late-life repartnering presented a more rational attitude toward it (e.g., Stepfamily2DW) in comparison with those for whom acceptance was difficult (e.g., Stepfamily14SW). An exception to this was found when repartnering was accepted for emotional reasons (Stepfamily17MD: “She [the partner] accepts us so openly, just like my mother. [. . .] Probably Mom chose such a person for him [father] from above, out of concern for him”), possibly because the partner’s functioning reminded her of her mother’s parental functioning.

Findings illustrate phenomenological time which is subjective and relative (Ellenberger, 1958) regarding the two life events of parental death and late-life repartnering. Time is not necessarily referred to as the chronological continua between the two events but to the way time is experienced (e.g., Stepfamily7SM, 2.5 years since mother’s death, gladly accepts the repartnering: “I was glad that this partnership happened [. . .] it’s not only me, my sister, too” whereas Stepfamily14SW, 7 years since father’s death, has difficulty accepting the repartnering: “‘Time is not the essence here.’ it doesn’t suit me today either. It doesn’t suit me, of course it doesn’t suit me. [. . .] it’s difficult to accept,”).

In addition, our findings relate to how the adult children experience the temporality of life through parental death (Umwelt) along with the continued presence of the deceased parent in the personal (Eigenwelt) and interpersonal worlds (Mitwelt). This is illustrated by adult children talking about the deceased parent when asked about the surviving parent’s late-life repartnering. The parent’s late-life repartnering might retrigger previous grief emotions and cognitions toward the deceased parent. The assumption that changes in the family structure, whether negative or positive, are stressful and require adjustment (Carter & McGoldrick, 2005) coincides with adult children’s experiences.

Limitations and Implications for Future Research

Data for this article were drawn from a larger study on late-life repartnering from an intergenerational family perspective (ISF No. 1583/11). The fact that adult children’s grief was not part of the original design of the larger study has led to several limitations. First, the larger study lacks systematic information such as the type of relationship with the deceased parent, the manner of death, and the bereavement process. This could have enriched understanding for the interplay between parental death and the surviving parent’s late-life repartnering. However, data revealed rich information volunteered by participants when sharing their experiences during the interviews. Thus, systematic data analysis provided sufficiently rich information to derive conceptual structures for the findings.

Second, participants were chosen by their parents, who repartnered in old age and took part in the larger study. The parent’s choice might have been influenced by the type of relationship with the particular child. Although this might be a limitation, the scope of the larger study did not allow participation of more than one child per partner. Thus, this sample represents the experiences of adult children who are in contact with their parents following late-life repartnering. It does not include adult children who have cutoff their relationship with their parents following late-life repartnering. The requirement of the larger study that all three generations participate reduced the chance to recruit adult children who cut ties with their repartnered parent. Such experiences have yet to be studied.

Third, data were not analyzed according to demographic variables such as the gender of the child−parent dyads and the age of both child and parent at the time of the parent’s death, which might have provided additional understanding of the phenomenon. However, qualitative research and particularly existential phenomenology emphasizes the experience of the participant which is derived at inductively. The data are subjective because the experience studied is what is meaningful for the participants. Our aim as researchers was to understand these experiences. Thus, the content brought up by the participants is what was analyzed. Analysis was conducted with the attempt to stick to the concepts used by the participants rather than categorize them into predesigned categories (Smith et al., 2009) including demographic variables. The participants did not bring up gender when describing their experience of their parent’s late-life repartnering after parental death as part of their meaning system related to the two events. Therefore, gender has not been a part of the analysis process. Examination of gender on the perspectives of the adult children is interesting yet subject to a different article using a different theoretical framework.

Along with limitations, the findings regarding intertwining of late-life repartnering and parental death present new understanding of adult-child−parent relationships. These understandings are important due to the ongoing development of the late-life repartnering phenomenon. The findings indicate meanings of late-life repartnering for adult children in the context of parental death and vice versa, emphasizing loyalty conflict. Such conceptualization has been studied in stepfamilies constructed early in life (e.g., Baxter et al., 2009) but not within stepfamilies constructed late in life. Loyalty conflict could be perceived as threatening because of the emotional content regarding parental death. The new understandings are related to comprehending grief in new late-life family structures. Such understandings provide a basis for further empirical study and might enrich practical interventions, taking into account the relationship between parental death and repartnering in late-life stepfamilies.