Just curious to know from mums who have successfully started a new journey with new partner and have blended families;
How long had you been dating before you were you & your partner introduced to the respective kids? And when did the kids meet one another?
How long had you been dating before you were you & your partner moved in together?
Have you remarried or are you seriously considering it? (If you were married previously)
12 Replies
Good luck to you finding anyone who has “successfully” done it. It’s certainly not for the faint hearted.
Go slow, there’s nothing wrong with having two houses. We met each other’s kids early. My kids were all good because they lived with me. His kids were very difficult because they didn’t live with him and suddenly had 4 other people around (before some of the experts jump down my throat - back off I was completely new to it and had NO idea). Ten years later this remains the case no matter what remediation we have tried to do. So there’s one mistake to learn from.
At least you can help someone else, take heart in that.
My only advice is, just don’t. Live apart, date, keep the kids out of it as much as possible. I’m yet to meet anybody that has had a happy blended family that has worked or lasted.. kids normally live with mum and visit dad. So when they go to dads and his partner and her children are there shit normally hits the fan. Not something I would ever bother with again
Both me and my current partner were in long term marriages prior. First person either of us have lived with since divorces.
We both met each other’s kids within a few months. My kids are all
Late teens/adults. He has a teen and 7 year old. We dated for 2 years before moving in together ( In a fresh house so it wasn’t “his” or
“My” house.
7 months In now and I can say it’s bloody hard. We have complete different ways of parenting. There’s no discipline at all with his kids and I’m turning into the evil step mother with his 7 year old cause I’m the one enforcing rules. His 7 year old is extremely rude toward me. I get “ stop
Bossing me around, it’s not
Your house, dad lets me” and just generally running to dad whenever I ask him to do something. I’m not even that strict. Simple stuff like not eating on the couch, or time for a shower. He literally won’t even say hello
Or goodbye to me or speak to me at all. I’ve tried so much and feel
Defeated now.
It’s at the point now where me and my
Partner are arguing where we didn’t ever before and if we break up it’ll be because of the kids.
Just make sure you both have each other’s backs
But didn’t you see his parenting style the two years leading up to moving in?
I had a 3 year old daughter and my partner didn’t have kids. I was separated and have since divorced and he had never been married. He met my daughter about 2 months after we started dating and we moved in together 5 months after getting together. That was 3.5 years ago and we are now married and have a 3 month old.
Your family isn’t a blended family. You seperate and got a new boyfriend. It’s completely different when you have two parents trying to bring two sets of children together.
“A blended family is a family where at least one parent has a child/children that are not biologically related to the other spouse or partner” but sorry for trying to help...
In this instance your situation isn’t comparable. Moving a new boyfriend into the home is nowhere near as difficult and complicated as trying to blend two seperate families. Bring two sets of children together with outside influences of other parents is extremely difficult and most of the time doesn’t work out. Each parent wants what’s best for their child. Boyfriends come and go
I have 2 kids full time except every second weekend, he has his kids 50/50.
We were seeing each other for 12 months before we got the kids involved and the next 12 months we would do stuff with the kids as friends and kept the relationship to when we were on our own. After 2 years I stayed the night with the kids home and then within 6 months the kids were asking for sleepovers with the kids so we tried it and all went well and the kids started wanting it more often so we would do it one day every week. Then they started asking for more and his wanting us there all the time and my kids wanted to be there too. We started discussing the idea of us moving in and said maybe mid year the following year. By November my bathroom (rental) was being redone and so we stayed for 2 weeks at his to see how it would go. That turned into 5 weeks coz it took longer than expected as there was more water damage underneath. By the end of the 5 weeks we decided we were in such a good routine that we would stay there (my kids and I would go back to our house occasionally to give them some space and sort our stuff out and in January we moved every thing in 6 months ahead of plan. We'd been together for 3 years at that point. Now 20 months on and all is great. It took a bit if adjusting when I lost "my space" and he had people in "his space" constantly but we worked through it and we got there.
Coming up to 5 years together and I've been married before but he was engaged and when that fell apart he was fairly against marriage. But there is a ring on the horizon but it will be a small wedding. He calls me wifey I call him hubby and he will say we are basically married just don't have the paper but I've convinced him that I would like his name and his ring on my finger to tell everyone else I belong to him so when he's ready it will happen :)
His ex and I get on great now and work together for the kids (even have coffee dates sometimes) and I can take the kids over there to play etc and she even said to me the other day that she has seen me with the kids and knows I love them and have their best interests at heart so she is happy for my input (we are having a tough time with the littlest one atm).
It took a lot of patience and a lot of work and time... we put the kids first and let them lead what they were comfortable with and didn't rush into anything and have successfully managed to make this work for all 6 of us and also for the 2 ex's so It is entirely possible. Theres challenging times with 2 strong headed adults, a teenage girl and 3 boys - 11 yo with aspergers and ADHD, a 9yo and a challenging 7yo but every battle we face we get stronger. They call each other siblings and we say we have 4 kids.
We also respect that the ex's do things differently and all the kids know that when at this house it's these rules. And it's the same rules for all 4 kids.
Take it slow, consider the kids, always prioritise your relationship as well as yours with all kids and communicate. It's not easy but it is possible.
Unsuccessful here 😢.
Kids knew each other previously, it was 2 years before we moved in together. Never considered remarrying. Just couldn't get on the same page with expectations/discipline. I don't think it helped that he hadn't lived with his children for years prior to moving in.
I’d agree with going slow and allowing the relationship to blossom on its own. As long as there is progression it doesn’t matter how fast or slow it moves. My now partner of 3 years are still living apart and will be for some time but we have discussed this and it can’t happen quickly as he needs to extend his house to accomodate my children as they are younger. We were talking to eachother for about 5ish months before we met (not without trying to meet, but kids and location became the issue) I had my kids full time when I met him. It was about a month or so after we met in person that we introduced our kids to eachother. Our relationship has a slow burn but it’s progressing in a positive way. We decided that we wouldn’t move in together until everything was right, kids included. Fingers crossed it’s one more year and it will happen.