Reply to Does a blended family actually work?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you’re not divorced you have no right to comment on this board. The condescending attitudes about what’s right and “not just marrying anyone” are uncalled for. No one is talking about just marrying anyone. The question is about two people that suffered through divorce finding happiness again and hoping to expand a family.

Yes, it can work if done correctly, especially if the children are young and already get along. [/quote]

Adult children of divorce have a perspective you won't get from divorced people.  Divorced people can be very self-deluding about the consequences of their choices, and will stubbornly insist that everything is great, when really things are pretty bad.  [/quote]

I get this, but I'm not sure how having parents who are miserably still together, or miserably single with no partner for emotional support, is really that better for kids? At some point you do have to drop the bitterness.  [/quote]

You are still not getting it.  It's not that I am bitter.  I am tired.  I just don't want to spend time propping up the illusion of a big happy family.  My parents have the right to date and marry.  I have the right to think their relationships are dysfunctional and their new partners are losers.  I don't want to spend my time and energy on it.  I have my own family now, and my own marriage and in-laws, and my other parent as well.  I'm just not available for the fake happy family thing.  Divorced parents should go in with eyes open and understand that their children may be polite but likely wil never truly blend.[/quote]

To elaborate on this PP’s post, here are some ideas about what playing “happy family” looks like:

-expecting/insisting that the adult children and grandchildren in the blended family spend holidays together
-expecting me to be interested in and discuss my step siblings as if they are of equal interest to me as my bio siblings
-don’t pout if I want some pics of just me and my dad on my wedding day, or of just my dad and my kids at Christmas.

Ideas for how to make things go better:

-the parents who chose to marry, make babies, then divorce, then remarry someone with kids, and potentially make more kids: THOSE WERE ALL YOUR CHOICES and no one else’s. Part of recognizing that is understanding that things like the awkwardness you might experience at my wedding, or the limited time you get at holidays with me, is a product of the situation that YOU CREATED with your choices. Don’t get mad at me about it. There are operational and logistical consequences to blended families
[/quote]

This is right.  Stop expecting other people to run themselves ragged and put up with awful people so that you can avoid (or pretend to avoid) the consequences of YOUR CHOICES.

Even if my step-relatives were not a bunch of drug-addicted losers, even if they were just fine normal people, they would never be a priority.  My priorities are my children.  My actual parents.  My marriage-- which I am all the more determined to maintain after seeing what children of divorce go through.  My siblings.  My job.  My own sanity.  Peaceful holidays in our own home.  Step-parents, especially if they didn't raise me, come after all of that.  And their children and relatives are an even lower priority.  Maybe that disappoints you or interferes with your fantasy that you can have the family life you want, but the fact is, none of us can.  Including you.  That isn't bitterness.  It's just a fact.  Hassle me, complain, call me bitter or selfish or anything else, and you'll get even less.[/quote]

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