I recently worked with a couple that is a good example of the challenges faced in blended families. This couple, married about 2 years now, each brought two children into the marriage. His two children (ages 8 and 10) were only there every other weekend and one evening during the week. Her children of about the same age were always with them as their father was “out of the picture.” The wife in this marriage accuses her husband of lacking commitment to her and her kids, explaining that every time his children were there “he virtually ignores me and my
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Blending Families #1
A reader has asked me to write an article about “blending families.” In all the years that I’ve written this column I was surprised that I haven’t covered this topic before. This is an important topic, because currently the U.S. Census indicates that approximately one third of children today are living in blended families. Studies of family structures children in the U.S. are currently living in suggests that a little less than half of all children are growing up in nuclear families. About 30% of children are living in blended families, and that leaves about 20% of children living in
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Effective Co-Parenting
I’ve worked with several families that bring in their child because he or she is not adjusting well to the parents’ divorce. Most often, the child is doing fine in reality and the parents are the ones who aren’t adjusting well! Just because the parents have divorced doesn’t mean they don’t have to get along. They actually have to get along better now than they ever have before – for the sake of the children! Here is a simple guideline for parents who are having a difficult time talking to each other about their co-parenting relationship. This is a practical
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The Structured Separation Agreement
Occasionally in my practice there is a couple I am working with that are “stuck” and if they continue to stay together they will definitely hurt their chances of perpetual marital bliss. Yet, divorce is not something I encourage though for some it becomes a decision they must make. Sometimes it is helpful for the couple to agree to “trial separation.” In this post you will learn a way to go about a structured or trial separation. Definition: Terminating cohabitation with a moratorium on the final decision to reunite or divorce – basically a postponement of that decision for
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Sharing Custody, Part 2
Sharing custody means that a child’s parents or guardians do not live together and must negotiate caring for the child or children from two different homes. Usually this is due to a marital divorce or separation of cohabiting couples. Shared custody, or co-parenting, presents unique challenges for the parents who are trying to carry out the “best interests of the child.” In the book “Healthy Divorce” by authors Craig Everett and Sandra Volgy Everett, sharing custody is viewed as a stage in the divorce process. Divorcing parents must rise to meet this challenge of learning to be parents and no
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Happiness, Marriage, and Divorce.
Can marriage make you happy? Or, if you are unhappily married, will divorce make you feel better? Probably it will not. I’ve been working with couples long enough now to see patterns, tendencies, and trends in marriage and divorce. One tendency I want to highlight here is the human tendency to pursue happiness in all the wrong places and then get upset when those places in our lives don’t produce happiness. “The pursuit of happiness” was written into the U.S. Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson as a right of all the people, and so we Americans expect happiness to
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