Loving Blended Families

When we met, we each had one teen living at home, and three adult children from previous marriages living in other parts of America. One former spouse lived locally and the other in a different state.

We wanted everything to go smoothly. Before we planned our wedding, we did as much "homework" as we could on blending families. We read books, manuals and magazines, and we took the advice we received to heart. And, most importantly, we practiced the concepts we learned. Over time, we developed guidelines that we believe are most important for successful family blending.

We interviewed other successful blended families, and they supported our guidelines. These were the golden threads through all our conversations with the other families, and they rang true for our new family:

* Prepare by reading books or by talking to couples who seem happy in their blended family and see what they did to make it work.

* Be alert to where you are emotionally when you enter a relationship. If one or both of you is needy, remember, you are dragging children into this scene. Will it be difficult for them? Are you both ready to be as grounded, mature and giving as you need to be with children? The advice is: Don't rush to merge your families if you don't both feel strong and centered.

* Blended families are challenging because they have all the issues traditional families have -- chores, education, finances, personality conflicts, plus they have many more people involved, such as former spouses, more grandparents and step-siblings. The parents must be their wisest and most mature selves to keep it all working smoothly.

* Give it time. Putting pressure on stepchildren to accept and love the new family can breed resentment. So be patient.

Here are a few more tips that worked for us:

* Communicate with your children. Discuss everything. Don't bottle up emotions or hold grudges. We had a family meeting every two weeks to discuss any issues that came up.

* Spend time with your own child one-on-one. Once a week, each of us had a special lunch date with one of our children -- alone. This gave us a chance to check in with him or her about the new blended family environment.

* Change as little as possible for the children. Change towns, schools, etc. only if absolutely necessary.

* Sometimes one set of rules does not fit all. We initially thought we were going to have the exact same rules for our two high school students. However, we created exceptions that allowed the children to continue to do certain things the same way as before our marriage. Everyone found this to be acceptable. Our point here is to be aware, flexible and open to the possibility that you may have to tweak your rules to suit each child. Remember that this will help the children adjust more happily to the new blended situation. It's important to note here that all children were subject to the same house rules, such as having regular chores, doing their own laundry and keeping the common areas of our home clean and orderly.

* Don't interfere with your partner's parenting. An important question each partner must ask him/herself is this: Can I live with the way my partner parents? If you answer no, you may not be able to live with your partner! If you answer yes, then make a promise to yourself and your partner to do so. And as you go along in your marriage, remember that promise.

* Avoid criticizing your partner's child. Here's the truth -- whether it's reasonable or not, parents can get very defensive when it comes to their children. Feelings of resentment can come up if your partner has even a little too much to say about your child's behavior, especially if the comments are critical.

Learn everything you can about dealing with blended families. Make sure you are comfortable with the way your partner disciplines children and make a commitment to your partner not to interfere in his or her parenting choices. Don't enter the marriage thinking that you will change everything or that, eventually, it will all be going your way. If you do, you are going to have problems.