Family wellness is tricky enough when only one lot of you are involved, but when your original family falls apart and you’re trying to add new people into the mix, it can be difficult for the emotional wellness of everyone involved. Obviously, there are many different circumstances in which this can happen.
Once scenario you might find is that your partner is divorced with children, though you’ve never been married or had kids yourself. This can be tough on your emotional wellbeing as you may feel you’re expected to pick up where the old wife or husband left off. Getting married is a challenging enough situation anyway, but being expected to be a mother or father to a child that already exists can be overwhelming.
In this situation, your partner should take the lead in terms of discipline, respect and constant communication in the initial stages, as he or she has been doing this for a long time and is the person who connects all of you. If the children don’t respect you, it might helpful for them to think of you as an adult with responsibility like a schoolteacher or police officer, at least in the beginning while they adapt.
When you’re both divorced and bringing children along with you, there may be a battle for one family’s dominance over the others at first, but in fact these situations tend to be the most successful. However, be aware that your children don’t want to share their biological parent with other children, as this means less space, time, energy, affection and a listening ear for them, so make sure you communicate with your kids as much as possible. They need to know that you love them just as much as you always have, understand how they feel, and that they’re actually gaining a parent too, not losing one.
If you both have been widowed, and have young children from your first marriage, the conflict comes from the hurting children. Whilst children of divorce can escape the ‘step-parent’ and visit their biological father or mother, children of widowed families have nowhere to escape to when things get difficult. If you’re the step-mother, for example, it can help to encourage having pictures of the child’s biological mother around the house, and the same if you’re a step-father. This helps the child to deal with their grief, whilst building a loving relationship with you.
Finally, if your children are adults, and you’re remarrying after a divorce or death of your partner, your children are still acquiring a new step-parent even if they’ve left the nest. Because they don’t have to see you both every day, it can be awkward when they do see you. Therefore, it’s important to put the time in and have plenty of get-togethers so everyone can get used to the new situation.
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