Very few people know how hard the challenges of blended families are until they’re in one. If you are reading this then you probably already understand that it can be painfully difficult.
Marriage is tough. When one or both of you bring children from a previous relationship into the mix that difficulty multiplies exponentially. Your spouse’s bond with their children combined with your limited influence over them can at times cause you to feel like an outsider in your own home. Kids you may have thought would welcome you into their lives may regard you as an intruder. They probably dreamed their parents would get back together and may see you as the one responsible for the death of that dream.
Often people enter blended families with the expectation that they have the full rights and privileges of a biological parent. When that’s the case, kids often rebel, and you can feel caught between your children and your spouse. That’s a horrible bind.
In a blended family there are more than kids to deal with – there are ex-spouses, and grandparents as well. It can seem like there are just too many people in your relationship.
All of these issues bring enormous pressure onto a marriage and can lead to overwhelming disappointment. You may have expected a happily-ever-after with your new spouse, but now find yourself in a place you never dreamed you’d be. You may even wonder whether you would choose this at all if you had it to do over again.
We are here to help you navigate the labyrinth of blending a family, repair the injuries that your relationships may have sustained along the way, and help you establish new constructive patterns for moving forward.
At Living Well we combine Gottman Method Couples Counseling and Emotion-Focused Couples Counseling with been-there-done-that knowledge of blended families to help you address your blended family issues.