Planning a blended family

You and your partner have decided to make a life together and form a new, blended family that includes children from one or both of your previous relationships. Congratulations.

What lies ahead can be both a rewarding and a challenging experience. It can take a long time for a blended family to begin to feel comfortable and function well together.

While you as parents are likely to approach remarriage and a new blended family with great joy and expectation, your kids or your new spouse’s kids may not be nearly as excited.

They’ll likely feel uncertain about the upcoming changes and how they will affect relationships with their natural parents.

They’ll also be worried about living with new stepsiblings, whom they may not know well, or worse, ones they may not even like.

To give yourself the best chance of success, it’s important to start planning how a blended family will function before the marriage even takes place.

Read more...http://www.helpguide.org/articles/family-divorce/step-parenting-blended-families.htm