P.O. Box 2377 – Coeur d’Alene, ID – 83816-2377 (208) 762-3177
You are with the love of your life but there is a problem – children, and they aren’t yours. Does this sound familiar? With the number of second marriages on the rise, blended families are no longer a novelty. Second marriages often bring the added complexity of integrating children into your life for the first time, or adding your partner’s to your own. Are you honestly ready to meet that challenge? The Attitude Doc can provide solutions you can use today and in the future to insure your happiness in the relationship and in all areas of your life.
Let’s assume you don’t have children of your own. It is a tremendous lifestyle change to suddenly discover your new life does have kids and that you will have to learn to make room for them in your life and in the relationship. Young children present special challenges, and we all know what having a teenager around can mean! Whether it is dealing with spills on the carpet, or meeting with the principal because your new teenager has just told his math teacher he’s stupid, you ARE going to have to make adjustments in order to maintain joy in the relationship.
Perhaps you are living in the fantasy that a positive solution would only include your partner without the kids. If you think you are second on the totem pole, chances are it’s true. Your partner’s children most likely DO come first. Either you accept the children and honor their presence, or you do not. The latter will bring more stress, eventual distance from your partner, and possibly a separation or loss of the relationship. Have you acknowledged that you are resisting what is? Your partner DOES have children, and all the sorcery of Harry Potter is not going to make them disappear.
Whether or not you believe it is true, it is possible to come to understand and believe that there is no order of love on the family totem pole. There can just be LOVE. If there is deep love, trust, understanding, openness, shared goals, and friendship between you and your partner, there isn’t anything that can’t be accomplished with communication as the key.
Is Coping Stressing You Out?
Here is a clue: If you are coping, you are resisting. You want something to be a way it is not. In other words, you are resisting the reality of the moment. The opposite of resistance is acceptance or allowing things to be exactly as they are. Resistance causes suffering while acceptance brings peace. The way out of resistance is covered extensively in our 21-Day attitude adjustment course, Conscious Choice, Conscious Creation. If you are currently coping with your partner’s children, you may be doing so under stress, which is no doubt being felt by you, your partner, and his or her children. To cope means to suffer, contend with, or to endure. In other words, we’re talking about the “S” word STRESS. In no way does this feeling resemble those tender premarital and blissfully quiet moments you grew to love about your partnership. Your stress will show up eventually, in one way or another. It is like a beach ball being held under water–when released it will pop up someplace else. Signs of stress can show up in almost all areas of your life. For example:
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Physical stress is expressed through illness of any kind, such as a headache, backache, sore throat, torn ligaments, broken bones, etc.
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Mental stress presents itself when we struggle with thoughts like: “I wish the kids would go away so we could just focus on us.”; “I shouldn’t be thinking thoughts like this.” ; or “I am a bad and selfish person for wanting to come first in his or her life.” When we are working out all day with mental self-talk, we are increasing our stress load enormously. Mental stress will wind up having an impact on us physically in due time.