Blended Families
Today, one-third of American children – a total of 15 million – are being raised without a father. Nearly five million more children live without a mother. With those staggering numbers we can’t help but notice the increase in growth of blended families across America. With all the new dynamics and intrinsic issues that arise in the blended family today, shows the reason why most of these marriages fail within the first five years. Being in a blended family myself for almost a decade, I would like to share with you some ideas that could adversely affected your marriage if you don’t address them. For me, it almost brought my marriage to the point of entertaining the thought of divorce had my wife and I not agreed to take a stand and recognize what was causing so much riff in the family.
Validation
One of the biggest struggles with blended families is establishing validation of the step parent. There has been many instances where my wife who is the step parent, would give instruction to my child and right in the middle I would step in and over ride my wife’s authority. Whether it was requesting a task to be done or correcting my child or simply given instruction, I was right there to over ride and disregard my wife. Over time my children saw this and began to play my wife and I for their benefit. To my wife it was like saying her status as my wife and lady of the house had not been established or validated. I had always felt that she was blowing things way out of proportion. Until it hit epidemic proportions to where my children didn’t bother listening to anything my wife had asked, even if I had confirmed with them they needed to. If you as the biological parent have not validated the step parent, then I would say to start with this in building or rebuilding the foundation in your family.
Batting in the Major in the minors
There is no doubt that there’s a bond or connection that the biological parent has with their children that the step parent doesn’t have. With that in mind, it presents challenges that seem to affect the marriage almost just as much as validation of the step parent. With that disconnection of the step parent can sometimes overflow into the authority of the step parent as to what is too much authority or not enough. The Biological parent will always feel like the step parent is being too harsh. The step parent will always stand on the absolutes of crossing the line, no matter how small the offense is. Thus giving harsher punishments with no mercy because of that disconnection. The biological parent will contemplate and give second thought and say well, “my child didn’t know you meant this...” or “you’re being too harsh”. It’s important for the step parent to recognize that it’s not so much about the strict line in the sand but more about making sure that if a rule is broken, the correction or punishment has to be inline with the offense.
Stand your ground
Standing your ground as “one” in front of your children at all times is exceedingly important. It shows the children that you are in control and the children will find security in the fact that you are in control. So when the time comes for correction or direction, either parent can stand on authority. I would like to take this one step further and say that if the step parent is giving out authoritative directions, and the biological parent doesn’t agree, the biological parent must bite their lip at all cost and not overstep or override the step parent. it’s important that the biological parent doesn’t interject or correct the step parent in front of the children. Then later the biological parent can address the disagreement behind closed doors.
Are you ready to go the distance
New blended families have a long road ahead of them no doubt. It’s imperative to know that you have to be committed to the long road ahead. These have just been a few ideas about the dynamics of the immediate family. We haven’t even talked about all the ex-spouses and the mix of their blended families. It is estimated that it takes about 7 years or more before a blended family even begins to mesh together. I have been in my blended family just at 8 years, and just in the last week my wife who is the step parent is feeling somewhat bonded and have made positive progress with my daughter and vise versa.
