To those couples who’ve decided to blend their families and to those who already have, know this: Just because the two of you fell in love, doesn’t mean your children are going to fall in love with each other or with your new spouse. While you wait for that to happen–if it ever happens–shoot for like, for tolerate. Pray that they’ll be kind to one another. But don’t insist that your children–the children who’ve already suffered through the divorce or death that turned you into a single person–don’t insist that they love one another, not right now. Love, even like, takes time.
So hope, pray, and work to the end that they will at least tolerate and be kind to one another.
And then do your best, your very best, to model for them the way they should treat each other. You do this by treating your new spouse–the new love of your life–the way you hope they–the newly blended children–will treat each other. Then be patient because becoming friends, especially when each child is struggling to fence off his or her space in a new family, is not easy.
Yes, be patient. You are the adults after all.
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