Confessions From a Blended Family: A Biological Mom’s Perspective
by Ronnie Tyler
Divorce rates in America are about 49% for the 1st marriage, but goes up to 67% for the 2nd marriage and jumps up again for 3rd marriages. And I can image that the issues/complexities of dealing with a blended family contributes to the divorce rates of many remarriages.
Blending families is not easy! You are bringing together two families that have different customs and traditions, different ways and ideas about disciplining children, different loyalties (with the children often feeling conflicted or guilty about liking or even loving the new step parent) and outside influences such as the biological parent or other relatives trying to interject their two cents.
Here on BMWK most of our team has a blended family. So over the next couple of days, we will be sharing with you our experiences, some of our major challenges, and what tools or actions that we have used to strengthen our families and bring us together closer as a family unit.
When Lamar and I met, I already had 2 children, an 11 year old boy and a baby girl that was about to turn two years old. Since I married Lamar, I have felt the greatest joys and the worst heartaches of my life. My joy comes from the fact that I married a wonderful man that truly loves me. He is a great husband and is a great father to the kids. I am so blessed to have him in our lives as he is a true example of a responsible, loving, sacrificing, hard working, Christian man.
Even though I married a great man, we still have our share of struggles coming together as a blended family. My heartaches have come from the fact that I had this notion that we were going to be one big happy family, immediately. And when that did not work out, I felt hurt, disappointed and frustrated because everyone was not getting along the way they “should.” Lamar and the baby girl took to each other right away. She was his baby girl and he was her daddy. But that’s not uncommon when the stepchild is so young. However, this was not the case with my oldest son.
My son was twelve years old when we married. Initially, I tried to force “the one big happy family” idea on him, but he had issues with that idea (and understandably so.) So we had to let his relationship with Lamar build slowly and more naturally. From time to time, Lamar would offer to do things one on one with him. He did not always accept Lamar’s offers. But we had to stop trying to force a relationship. We had to realize that “one big happy family” did not happen over night and that it could take years for relationships to develop.
We also had to figure out the best way to discipline the kids after we were married. I have to be honest….it was a struggle for me to see someone else discipline my kids. As the mother, I had this feeling that I needed to protect them. So I was always watching to make sure that they are being treated fairly. But I had to get over that and trust my husband’s decisions.
We did not always agree on how to discipline them. And in my mind I was thinking, is he being too hard on them? After Lamar and I had two more kids together, I was able to see that he was consistent in the way he disciplined all of the kids. I came to realize that he and I have different backgrounds and we just do things differently.
But one thing that I think we do well is to remain united in front of the kids (and any extended family that wants to poke their noses in our business.) We do not disagree with each other in front of the kids. We wait until we are alone and address our differences then. And I have to admit, it has not been easy hearing someone criticize my kids. We had some real heated arguments about the kids that sometimes led to tears being shed. But no matter what, Lamar always reassures me that he loves me and the kids and that he wants to do whatever it takes to make things work. We stick together, we work as a team and we do whatever it takes to keep our marriage strong. We know that the odds are against marriages working and they are even worse for marriages with blended families. So we are very proactive in protecting our marriage from all of these issues that could easily destroy it if we are not careful.
BMWK Family – Can any of you relate to our challenges? Please share some of the things you have done to strengthen your blended families? Please check us out tomorrow when Lamar shares his perspective has a stepfather.
Make sure you check back all week as we run a new post on blended families daily here on Black and Married With Kids.com!
Add a comment
Comments (32)
Good luck with your blended family.