Combining families...tell me how this works please

[lolamei]

Ok, so I've been dating this new guy and, wow, there is a connection and great potential.  However - he lives an hour away and has 4 kids...so there are also some pretty big challenges.  I have met 3 of the 4.  I have one - this feels like a bit of a Brady Bunch scenario!

 

As I was watching him with his kids (11 year old twins, 14 yr old boy, 15 yr old girl - mine is an 11 year old girl)...I was trying to imagine how you combine parenting?  How does that even work?  I don't think either of us envision that we are looking for a new "mom" or "dad" for our kids - but it would certainly be a mixing of families and combined parenting.  It's so baffling to me.  My DH and I figured out parenting together as we went.  How does this work?  Anyone done this?  And in his case there is a divorce - so mom is still in the picture...

 

...I like him so very much, I think it could be worth figuring it out, but WOW!!!!  How???????

 

Curious how others combined families worked out....

[anniegirl]

So my husband had two young 2-somethings and I had a four year old when we married.

 

No other parents in scenario save the two of us as we are both widowed.

 

My husband believed (doesn't anymore) that while he was going to be parenting my daughter - given her age and the fact that she didn't really know her dad (he was sick her entire life), I would not be parenting his daughters.

 

Regardless of how much time you spend with them or not, parenting is what you are doing whether you intend to or not.

 

And really, children (of any age) really can't have too many loving, caring and supportive parental figures in their lives. What's important is that all the adults/parents behave, are civil and generally agree on the direction that parenting is going.

 

Any kind of blending means communicating clearly and not taking disagreements about things personally and finding middle ground so that the kids feel secure, not conflicted about loyalties (they should be able to love you all without feeling guilty) and they know they can't play you off each other.

 

It takes time and a lot of talking/understanding.

 

it was probably two years for our family to really feel like family. As if we'd been so all along.

 

Blending can be done. It's not the Brady Bunch insta-family though.

[Portside]

Believe me, there is no set "how to" - once you decide if you two are going to blend families, you just sort of dive into it and learn as you go.

 

I brought 4 sons into the mix, my wife brought two - a son and a daughter but only three of them still lived at home: The three oldest boys had already started their adult lives and are living on their own. We just started to do things together as a family before we were married but after (and only after) we knew we were going to have a future together. At first it was once or twice a week and, over time, we increased the frequency. Just doing the normal stuff - dinners, going to ball games, kid's plays, church, etc. Pretty soon we were acting like a family although we did not live together or combine households until after we were married.

 

One of the biggest items to get a handle on is discipline. Are your styles similar? If they are not, I advise the two of you to sit down and hash the entire thing out. What is allowed, what is not - what are appropriate punishments (no - not consequences - I'm old school  ;D) We are lucky, we had similar styles and it all meshed nicely. We also had no issue disciplining each others children if need be. Again, this worked well for us as the little scamps will play each of you off of each other if you give them half a chance. Don't fall into that - it's a recipe for disaster.

 

We dated for a full 16 months or so before we were married and for us anyway, the kids knew from the start we were to be married at some point. By the time we were married, the kids had fully accepted the two of us both individually and together as a married couple. They also felt they were brother and sister and all that goes with that.

 

Oh, one point not to be missed - for goodness sake, give a teenage girl her own bathroom if at all possible. There can be hell to pay if you don't. 

 

Good luck - Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

[anniegirl]

Oh, one point not to be missed - for goodness sake, give a teenage girl her own bathroom if at all possible. There can be hell to pay if you don't. 

 

An excellent point. There can never be too many bathrooms. But extra space for spreading out generally is good too.

[imissdow]

When I married DH My girls were 7 & 9. He had no kids of his own at that point. Blending families takes awhile. We were finally getting the hang of it when he got sick.  I think the most important thing we found was consistent rules ,expectations, consequences and rewards.  I have a very strong willed DD who liked to push buttons. That didn't get handled really well.  However when we put up a list of house rules and what the consequences for not following  them would be the button pushing kind of took a back seat. As she would start and we would just look at the chart and say you did this and this is what happens if you would like to argue we can double it.  Only took a few times and it got better. Your really need to be on the same page and have the same rules for all the kids. His and yours. If you can get mom on your side even better. My Ex caused a lot of problems by telling my girls they didn't need to listen to DH because he wasn't their dad. 

[patriciad]

I married my new husband 2 years after we had met (I was 3 years out at the time and he was 7).  We didn't have exes in the background.  We had 6 kids-aged 15,20.21,22,24 and 26.  Two girls(one his daughter, one his niece) and 4 guys.  We walked down the aisle to the Brady Bunch instrumental.

They all moved into my house.  I had done lots of renovations and did not feel like buying another big house at this stage in my life.  Everyone has cable in their bedroom(only the girls share) so they can go and hide if it gets too busy.  We figured out the shower schedule(and eventually put another one in our bedroom for us-1 shower for 8 people does not a happy household make-lol),and the  likes and dislikes for meals.  They are older so they kind of breeze in and out but we do try to sit down for dinner together on the weekend(at least one night).

My biggest difficulty is getting them to lend a hand in chores.  Doubling the size of the household MORE than doubles the work.  My boys were never big on indoor chores but would always lend a hand with gardening, snow shoveling, cleaning the car, putting out garbage.  His crowd-well, not so much.  I feel like a nag.  I guess I would just like everyone to keep their own space clean and pick up after themselves-big order.  But, despite our different house cultures, we are surviving. My DH and I are on the same page.  The youngest(now 18) does try to manipulate her dad a bit but he and I always discuss things before the stamp of "OK" goes on something.

This is my advice to you:  See if you have similar parenting styles.  Be willing to share in the raising of your kids(I don't believe it works when you have the "your kids" "my kids " thing).  Spend lots of time together-you can still have dinners, parties, holidays and vacations together before you solidify things and it would be quite revealing.

Try REALLY,REALLY hard not to sweat the small stuff(I still work on this).

It takes a lot of work but it is really worth it.

 

Pat

 

[SimiRed]

Blended Family, All I can say is yes, it takes a ton of work.  You BOTH have to be willing to do it.  My step daughter is 21 now, but we hardly see her.  When I moved, my son was 9 and he is now 14.

 

I still struggle everyday, so I am not a good one to ask how to make it work.  My husband is a divorcee, so he doesn't get the "widow" part.  He calls my late husband my "ex" and he doesn't really do much with my son. 

 

If I could go back in time, I would do things differently with this "Chapter 2", but I don't post about it because I don't know if it really belongs anywhere here.  I keep it all inside, cause the only one who can really do anything about it is me, and I'm don't know where the "me" is anymore.

 

Take your time, for me... I'm not sure it's working the way I had envisioned it to work.  My son does not have a Father figure in his life, and this scares the crap out of me.  I just feel like I've let my son down, but he tells me I didn't. 

[anniegirl]

If I could go back in time, I would do things differently with this "Chapter 2", but I don't post about it because I don't know if it really belongs anywhere here.

 

You absolutely can come here and I really wish we had a separate forum for those in relationships because you make the valid point that we don't have a space of our own and lumping us in with "social" sort of downplays the very real, not at all light hearted aspects of going from widowhood to new relationships and the work and issues that come up.

 

I know that no one agrees with me, but relationships/remarriages and the issues that come up don't belong in Social and do need their own home.

 

SimiRed, you are more than welcome to post about things that come up in the BAG section. There are people there who can probably relate. Blending is such a common thing anymore but there are no one size fits all solutions. With my own daughter, I simply had to spell out my expectations to my husband. He was of the opinion that he could never really be her father truly but eight years later he totally is her father. Even people who know he isn't her bio-dad often forget because they have such a great relationship.

 

Expectations. If you have them, you should say so. You can't get what you don't ask for. jmo and I realize that asking is only have the battle.

[Guest marian1953]

Boy, I sure do wish it, too. I just found out that the ex is suddenly going on a camping trip with her new husband- the week after spring break! Just remembered to tell us. So I will have a sullen 16 year old here for a week without warning, get him out to school, etc. etc. She will not talk to me, I get so goddamn angry sometimes. It sure would be nice to talk without feeling like I am a bitch. But the other family is supposed to raise the child, too, are they not?

blended families. i feel like this - fractured families. My fractured fairy tale, like in Rocky and Bullwinkle.

modified for spelling and to add stuff.

[anniegirl]

The more adults you add to the equation, the harder it will be even if everyone gets along and presents a united front - which you don't appear to have.

 

You are not the bad guy for speaking up and point out the obvious and wanting a plan that is workable with every one the same page, but you can only do so much on your own and then - the hard part - you have to let Dad and Mom work it out where your stepson is concerned. And yes, his mother has a bigger share of the responsibility and you aren't the hired help for her to dump on and disrupt at a moment's notice.

 

Your partner's kid(s) is always a tricky thing to negotiate. The older they are, the harder it can be. But, imo, it starts with establishing ground rules with your partner. Gets back to expectations and finding common ground. Parenting is forever. There is never going to be a time when kids won't be a factor - big or small - and figuring out the boundaries is not optional if a relationship is going to flourish and last.

 

 

 

 

[Losttogether]

I have been dating a divorced man for just over a year. He has two kids, boy and girl aged 13 and 11. He is an amazing guy and wonderful to my kids but truthfully, knowing what I know now,  if I could go back in time I would run for the hills. I really, truly love him, but his ex is crazy. Really crazy, and mean, and unstable.

I think if you meet someone who you gel with the kids really easily and the ex is ok with you being involved in her kids lives it could work out ok.  However, if there is a master manipulator mum in the background you don't stand a chance. My guys daughter won't speak to him as mum convinced her that he didn't have the right to date someone with children (of course she lives with her new guy who has 3 of his own) and that causes a lot of stress and his son is with him 50%. I will likely stay in the relationship but I've accepted we won't live together until his children are over 18 and on their own.

[Jess]

You absolutely can come here and I really wish we had a separate forum for those in relationships because you make the valid point that we don't have a space of our own and lumping us in with "social" sort of downplays the very real, not at all light hearted aspects of going from widowhood to new relationships and the work and issues that come up.

 

I know that no one agrees with me, but relationships/remarriages and the issues that come up don't belong in Social and do need their own home.

 

We are giving this a try.