Blended or Multiracial Families
When yours is a blended family, stepfamily,
bonus family, or instafamily.
A New Beginning
At first, it felt exciting to have a different opportunity, a fresh start, a novel season for everyone in this new family.
Meanwhile, you remained cautiously optimistic, knowing that your union added an extra layer of complexities, which meant more patience, communication, and understanding to keep everyone together and help them thrive.
Nevertheless, the trials have come quickly.
You’re still charting new territory – combining your finances, carving out new roles and responsibilities for everything from carpooling to housework, and getting comfortable with new norms for physical affection.
By the end of the day, after you’ve made it through the continual onslaught of activities and tucked all the kids safely in bed, you want to spend quality time together – to recreate and savor that fire you felt when you were dating.
But you’re both so exhausted you spend most of your time catching up on your devices or passing out on the pillow.
You hate feeling this way, but you’re losing the contest for your spouse’s attention to your kids, social media, and Mr. Sandman.
Out with the Old, in with the New? Not exactly.
Compounding the issue, the family you had before hasn’t just melted into the ether. Your new spouse constantly complains about your ex. But your ex is still the parent of your children, and you can’t just ignore them. You both have to think of your kids, so why the complaints?
And holidays? Arranging holiday schedules and making sure all the exes get quality time is a relentless nightmare of competition, hurt feelings, and unsatisfactory compromises.
And perhaps there’s a multiracial component.
You took a lot of time to learn each other’s cultural differences. In fact, those differences attracted you to each other even more strongly, made life richer, more colorful.
Every physical and cultural nuance ignited a further fascination in your hearts and smiles on your faces.
Until lately!
Now, what initially turned you on has started to become more and more annoying. The thrill is gone. Instead, you’re craving more homogeneity.
You’re both beginning to feel as though you no longer truly see, hear, and understand each other as you did before. And you wonder, “How do I continue to shape a relationship that both honors our differences and preserves our intimate connection?”
I get it. I’ve asked those same questions.
My husband and I wondered those exact same things shortly after our marriage – and sought help, too.
Ours is a blended family with kids from both sides. It’s also multiracial. We did some hard work to arrive where we are now.
The work was arduous and multifaceted. It required adjusting to realistic expectations; maintaining ongoing, open communication on big or small issues; and preserving patience – a lot of it– and developing diligence.
It also involved cultivating a ton of respect for our differences – realizing that none of us can change yet holding onto the mindset of perseverance.
And we tackled practical issues with finances, physical affection, roles, and responsibilities for housework, etc. Everything feels like climbing a mountain! It’s exhausting.
Nevertheless, after a few years, we began to harvest the fruits of the hard work we’d put into our relationship, and it’s an ongoing process.
It’s hard work, but it’s worth it.
If my experiences resonate with you and you’d like to explore your blended or multiracial family issues with me, I’d be honored to work with you.
Reach out to me at (720) 468-0424 or fill out the contact form.
You dreamed of how wonderful bringing everyone together could be – let’s turn that dream into reality.