You’re remarried, and you want to believe. You want to believe that you’ve found the love of your life. You want to believe you’ve found a fresh start as a lover and parent. You want to believe your remarriage is untouchable. There’s one small crack in your faith’s armor: your ex-wife.
You’re free from your old, poisonous relationship. You’ve found someone new who you love. Remarriage is shaping up to be the best time of your life.
That is, unless your children have something to say about it…
Joining a family is a tricky thing. You worry that you’ll be forever stuck on the outside, looking in. So, you want to please your husband and his children as best possible. This way you can solidify your role in the family, and bring stability into your life. If you’re particularly ambitious, you may even be out to heal your new family’s past wounds inflicted by the divorce or ex-wife.
You’re compelled to win everyone over. You won’t settle for “Step-Mom.” “No, call me ‘Super-Mom!’”
There are just a few teensy things in the way…
It’s unnerving watching your children spend more time with a competing mother figure than you. You feel inadequate, your judgement clouds, and you make knee-jerk reactions in protection of your cubs. You catch yourself making unkind remarks about your children’s stepmother and demanding your children’s unwavering loyalty.
What could go wrong? You’re just making life hard for her, right? Wrong.
Understand how parental alienation relates to depression, how it harms your child, and what you can do to prevent it.
Remarried fathers often struggle with balancing their relationships with their biological children and those with their step children. Fathers feel guilty for spending more time with their step children than with their biological children due to custody arrangements. Biological children get jealous of their stepsiblings for that very reason. Identifying the guilt and working through it is very helpful for both fathers and children.
Here are some dos and don’ts to help you strengthen your relationship with the children.
Stepfamilies facing life’s milestones, like graduation, experience a great deal of anxiety. It’s made worse when the relationship between two households is challenged due to an insecure parent feeling threatened by a stepparent. Your goal is to celebrate the occasion.
Consider the following steps to help you and your stepfamily enjoy your child’s graduation celebration.
You may be wondering whether it’s possible to be any more stressed out with the upcoming holiday than you already are. It is. Here are 5 holiday killers and effective to beat them.
Busy Moms and Dads can easily downplay Valentine’s Day or ignore it outright by thinking it’s just “for them” and ignores the needs of their children. Wrong! Valentine’s Day is for kids too, but probably not the way you assume.
A good couple’s relationship is the foundation for a successful, happy family.
Put your cares and worries aside for Valentine’s Day and make sure this special time for husbands and wives is celebrated and not ignored. It’s an important yearly milestone of your love and commitment for one another.
