Blended Family Talk! All Your Blended Family Questions Answered!

As most of you know, I’m in a beautifully blended family. My husband had one son and I had one daughter when we got married. Recently we welcomed our newest edition, a baby girl. So we are a blended family of 5. I talk about our blended family quite often because these days 50% of the people you’ll meet are in some type of blended family. Although there’s so many blended families, there seems to be a shortage of positive examples of these families. They get a bad reputation of being drama filled and just impossible to navigate. In no way do we try to “glamorize” blended families because to be very honest it’s HARD WORK. It takes two VERY mature people to make it work. BUT with God and hard work you can have a successful, drama free, blended family with double the love. The children involved didn’t ask to be in these situations. Therefore, us as the adults must do our part to still try and raise them in a loving and peaceful environment. I allowed my social media family to ask any blended family questions they have so that I can get you guys some answers below. Let’s jump right in:

1. How is your relationship with your ex’s for both you and your spouse? Overall both of the relationships are pretty great. We both co-parent with our ex’s very well. The difference between the two relationships was that me and my ex talk and interact very often. I would dare to say we are actually “cool.” We didn’t have a bad breakup and a we both are very easy going/non-confrontational people. I’m actually still pretty close with his family. His mom came to my wedding lol. My husband and his ex don’t have a bad relationship but they have very little communication. They only communicate if they have to regarding their son. So it was uncomfortable for my husband at first how cool I still was with my ex and his family. My childish mindset in the beginning would think “it’s not my fault you and your ex can’t be extra cool” smh. But I realized at the end of the day, now that I’m married boundaries did need to be set and I have to respect my husband. When it comes to relationships with ex’s MATURITY is key. I know it can be hard when the other person is either bitter, not over you, or purposely trying to make your life a living hell but the only person you can control is YOU. Like Michelle Obama said…”When they go low, we go high!” Keep it classy!
2. Does your bonus son stay with you full time? No, he doesn’t. This is one of the hardest parts of our blended family because our son lives in Louisiana with his mom full-time. We live in Houston, Texas. We get him for the holidays, spring break, and the entire summer. We feel most complete when we are all together so him only coming three times a year is tough but we make the best of it. We stay very busy in the summers because that’s our longest break with him. We are sure to make it super fun!
3. When do you know when the right time is to introduce your mate to your children? I would say when you know the relationship is going in the direction of being it for the two people dating. You don’t want to introduce the children too prematurely when it’s not a committed relationship yet. But at the same time, I wouldn’t wait to introduce them to your potential spouse like the weekend before the wedding. You want to be sure your children and future spouse can bond as well. You might think you love a person until you see how well or not they interact with your kids. Some people may THINK they are up for a blended family until they see how much responsibility comes with it.
4. How does your step-son’s mother feel/respond to your public post? She hasn’t had a problem with it that she’s made known to us. My personal opinion on the matter is, it’s inappropriate to post other people’s children on social media when you’re not in a committed relationship. I didn’t start posting my son until my husband and I were engaged. Now that we are married and raising our family together I think it would be odd that I take all these family photos but didn’t include our son in them. If you were to come to my page and he was non-existent would be worse in my opinion. I wouldn’t feel right taking family photos and having him sit out on the sidelines and just watching us. I would have to think that his mom would be happy that when he’s with my husband and I, I treat him just like he’s one of my biological children. I include him in everything I include my kids in. I would never want him to feel like he was treated differently or like the step-child.
5. Would your daughter’s father let your husband adopt her? (That’s if he’s not involved) Absolutely not lol. He’s very involved. My daughter’s father is the only child & my daughter is the only grandchild on his side. She’s the apple of her dad’s family eye. They would probably adopt her if they could haha. She’s blessed to have a great relationship with her dad.
6. How is discipline handled in blended families? Do you discipline your stepson? I know discipline when it comes to blended families can be very controversial. You really have to do what works for you and your family. For our family, with our children still being so young when we got married…my daughter was only 3 and son was only 4…we both will play a big part in raising each other’s children. With that being said, we decided that we will allow each other to discipline each other’s children, only when necessary. It’s not something that happens often. We typically just let each other handle our own biological children when it comes to discipline. But we made that decision because we didn’t want either of our kids to think they were invincible when it comes to their “step” parent. It’s easy for kids to get away with murder and be disrespectful when they feel like the step parent can’t do anything to them. Then that ends up causing issues between the two spouses. I will say my step son is extremely well behaved though. I really hit the jackpot when it came to step kids. So I don’t see much discipling needing to take place on my end.
7. Does your husband get along with your daughter’s father? And do you get along with your son’s mother? Yep, we all get along. I’ve only met my son’s mother once with us living in two different states. She was very pleasant in that one interaction. We haven’t had any issues between us two at all. My husband and my daughter’s father interact more often with all of us living in Houston. They are always at a birthday party, dance recital, or school program together. They get along just fine. Thank God!
8. Did you find it hard to trust your soon to be husband when it came to loving your daughter? Totally! As a single mom, especially to a young daughter, you’re super over protective when it comes to your child. You feel like no one can love them like you do. This caused a lot of tension in the beginning because my husband couldn’t even look at my daughter the wrong way without having to hear something from me. I don’t play when it comes to her. I had to realize over time that he truly did love her and that he treats her no different than his other children. My husband was also super patient with me, knowing that with it just being my daughter and I for so long, it was going to take some time to adjust to a 3rd person being involved on a daily basis with her.
9. What do you do when your son’s father’s wife doesn’t embrace your child and makes them feel unwanted? That’s SO horrible. I can’t respect any woman that treats an innocent child like that. Okay, sorry rant over lol. But I haven’t been in this situation. My daughter’s father hasn’t brought another woman around her yet. But if I knew for a fact the woman was making her feel unwanted she wouldn’t have to worry about being bothered with my child. I don’t play when it comes to my children. And it’s sad your son’s father would let someone treat his son like that. When he ask why his son hasn’t been coming around I would say because you wife doesn’t want him there 😊
10. How do you deal with the child wanting their biological mom and dad to be together and they aren’t receiving the step parent? I haven’t had to deal with much of this due to our children being so young when we first got married. I’m sure this is really common with older kids and trying to blend a family. I feel like it’s only natural for a child to want both of their parents to be together. I would be patient with the child and just continue to sow good seeds with that kid and eventually you’ll reap a harvest. Also, make it clear that you are not trying to take their parent’s place. You’re just there to offer double the love. I believe it’s the biological parent’s responsibility to sit that child down and explain to them that mommy and daddy are no longer together and there’s no chances of that happening. But they both still love the child, respect one another, and will do their best to raise him/her together. They should also make it clear that their new partner wants nothing more than to have a relationship with them and should assist with that happening.

I’m going to stop it at 10 questions for the sake of this blog being extra long. I got an overwhelming amount of questions. I tried to address the ones that multiple people asked. I’m thinking this is something I’ll start doing once a month or so with all the feedback I got. Let me know if that’s something you would like to see once a month on the blog. If I didn’t get to your question please email it to me and I’ll try and respond to you individually. I know blending families is super tough but you can do it guys! Even if you’re the only mature and God fearing person in the equation, it just takes one persons prayers to change things. The enemy wants to see a bunch of drama and confusion. Don’t let him win. I’m rooting for you guys.

As always…Love you all,

Courtney N. Williams