After one of my emails on blended families and remarriage triggered some reactions, I knew it was important to clear a few things up about blended families. Since there are so many of you facing situations where you are dealing with such situations, it deserves some additional attention. One reader wrote “Just calling it (the family) blended doesn’t make it so. There’s a host of healing that must occur in order to be capable of reconnecting.”
I even found myself in a discussion where the term ‘blended family’ was considered offensive and replaced with ‘modern family’. Whether blended or modern, changing the label doesn’t clean up the mess.
Throwing a collection of people together with marriage and calling it a ‘family’ is a common modern occurrence. These days, it’s not necessary for them to be reasonable or have anything in common beyond love. The reader is correct in pointing out that work is needed before they’ll act like a family or function like one. Just calling them a family doesn’t make it so.
The children are told to ‘act like family’ when all they have seen are broken relationships and disloyalty. The blended parents then blame the child for exhibiting what they’ve been shown and exposed to. This can create a lot of confusion and frustration for both the children and the new parents.
However, even though it may take time and effort to build a strong blended family dynamic, it is possible. The key is communication and open discussion about expectations, boundaries, and roles within the new family unit. All members need to understand that blending families means adjusting to change. Researchers have found that when you change the structure of a family, you change the way it functions.
You can call them a family, yet without healing and reconnecting, they won’t act like family. You may have pictures that ‘create’ a myth of family, but that doesn’t make it so.
Sure, you can share some common experiences, but that won’t magically turn you into a family. You need healing before there’s the possibility of reconnecting with others in forming a functioning family. Each family member needs to feel safe before healing occurs. They need validation and to feel valued. You may say you value them, yet they each need to feel that they are valued by you.
Love only grows in a family when the conditions are right. Each member of the family looks to the parents for how to connect and behave. When you and your spouse are on shaky ground, or without reason, there’s not much connection to show them.
You’re only going to be able to take your family members as far in healing as you have come. If you’ve never moved past the affair, you can’t expect them to.
Besides knowing how to move past the affair, they also need the ability to connect. When the trust level is low in the family, or they’ve never seen a real connection, they don’t know how.
Getting yourself healed from the affair isn’t just about you, it’s also about your family as well. They need you back in the role of the parent to show them how its done.
If you don’t know how to reconnect with others yourself, now is the time you can do something about that. In the video “Let’s Talk: Hurting People and Healing Questions”, I share proven ways of reconnecting with your spouse.
What you learn in your marriage, you can use in improving your relationship with family members as well. Having confidence in connecting with them and making them feel valued is priceless.
Click the link and download the video today. A functional family adjusts to recovery go much smoother. You don’t have to fight, threaten and yell to get things done.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
