The Marriage Counseling Blog

When a marriage combines families, its an adjustment to say the least. Many families and couples enter marriage counseling during this transitional phase. And in day where divorce is still a common option between married couples, more and more families are needing to learn the skills to integrate well.

Many difficulties can arise - jealousies, hurt feelings from the previous marriage, confusion, loss of familial identity. But the best part of it all is that there are solutions. Many happy families today are the result of two (or more) families learning to work through the initial discomfort to a place of comfortability and love.

Here are some additional pointers:

1. Children have difficulty with changes. When you get your stepchildren on the weekends, it’s important to give them as equal a share of your time as the children that live at your house full-time.

2. Try to ensure the stepchildren have their own room or personal space, decorated the way they want. You can make it a project, to paint the room together, arrange the furniture the way they’d like, buy a bedspread in a style that makes them feel happy and comforted. If they have to share a room, just make sure their side of the room gets to be decorated using their imagination.

3. Find an activity they like to do and spend time doing it together as a family.

4. Let them choose one of the meals. Either going out to eat, or helping to prepare it together.

5. Start a new tradition as your new family. Make up a bedtime game or routine, sing songs or have a picnic in the new bedroom, lay on the grass outside and look at stars. Each weekend, the kids could come up with something new and unique to try.

Combining families is never easy but its a wonderful practice - learning to love new family members and look past our own ego-issues. This practice teaches ALL family members the importance of inclusion, family (in all of its meaning) and love - something that can ultimately benefit the world in which we live.